Sep 21, 2006

Sony's PS3, for rich people only?

It seems that to truly enjoy Sony's upcoming Playstation 3, gamers are going to have to re-mortgage their houses.

Well, those who have houses. I'm going to end up at the bank, trying to convince them that this is a legitimate business expense to justify a loan.

Back in May, we learned that the PS3 will be launched in November with a $600 price tag. But now the Japanese video game magazine Famitsu reports that a new Gran Turismo game is coming out for the system with a new business model that could get pricey.

Gran Turismo HD: Classic will be released as, well, a shell of game. There will be no cars or tracks. The player must pay to download them.

It's an interesting concept, the price quoted in the magazine is 50-100 yen per car and 200-500 yen per track.

Roughly translated, those figures are about $0.42-$0.85 U.S. per car and $1.70-$4.26 U.S. per track.

Now with 1000 cars and 50 tracks available, you're looking at $420 for all the cars and $85 for all the tracks at the low end.

At the high end though (and with the way prices on the PS3 are going...) you're looking at $850 for all the cars and $213 for all the tracks.

While it's obviously not necessary to download everything, the whole fun in playing racing games is being able to try out all those cars, particularly the ones most us could never afford.

Frankly, this parody of the Metal Gear Solid 4 trailor says it all.