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"The cost of a PS2 memory card is extortionate."

Nowadays the gamesplaying public need memory cards, as games like GTA3 are not going to be finished in 1 sitting. However, just the other day I shelled out 27.99 for a PS2 memory card, and was told it was 'quite cheap' by the un-trustworthy looking bloke in the shop. Is it just me or is 27.99 a bit steep? Thankfully I can now turn my PS2 off, insead of leaving it on overnight.

Oops - meant to add to that...

I agree that the price of memory cards is high, but I don't think its extortionate. And it will fall - pretty soon, I'd imagine.

£19.99 would be a much better price.

muggs375 wrote:
> Sony obviously do need to reclain their invested money, but they have probably
> already done that

Unlikely, considering what they put into it. Not only did they invest heavily in the design of the system, they also enlisted the help of other major companies in designing custom chips. They also completely refurbished an existing chip manufacturing plant, AND built another plant - costing billions of Yen.

> Also Sony will have made back the money invested through
> sale of licences to third party manufacturers of games,
> and periferals not to mention the PS2 units themselves.

Games, yes - Sony get paid a license fee for every title. Third-party peripherals, as far as I know, are not licensed, so Sony will make no money from them. And it has long been known that Sony made a loss on every PS2 sold, even at the £299 price tag. Now that the price is £199, their loss is bigger.

It's a fact that profit in the console manufacturing industry doesn't come from the sales of the console hardware itself, but from the sale of games. Anyone wishing to produce a title for a platform pays a license fee to the console manufacturer - that's why a console game is always more expensive than its PC counterpart.

It will be interesting to see the price of Xbox games, as last I heard, this license fee was not going to be a factor for Xbox software. If anyone knows the latest info on this, please let us know!

And now they are £10 for the offical cards.

Sony obviously do need to reclain their invested money, but they have probably already done that, all I am saying is not that memory cards should be sold for £5, but for £15, and £20 at the most, the fact that they are selling them at such high prices seems a bit extortionate. Also Sony will have made back the money invested through sale of licences to third party manufacturers of games, and periferals,. not to mention the PS2 units themselves.

Remember that PS1 memory cards were £20 when they were first available, and they were only 128k!

So Sony aren't entitled to claim back some of the millions they invested in developing the system then?

even so with magic gate and NV RAM, the memory card electronics will only cost about 10-20p to make (assuming the manufaturing plant is in its first year of life, if not the price is less than 0.5p per chip). Add to this the cost of the plastic for the casing, and you reach a total of about 40p for each memory card. Say that these cards are made in Japan, then the cost of airmail from japan to UK is 50p at the most, then thats £1 to get the card from the factory to UK depot. Then it is boxed and sent to the shop, costing at most another pound. Therefore the cost to get a memory card from raw materials to the shop (without profits) is at most £2, this means that there must be a huge mark up in price, which in turn means that we should get memory cards for less!

Just to add to Reaper's comments...

The memory used in memory cards is a form of NVRAM - Non-Volatile RAM - i.e. it doesn't lose its contents when you remove power from it. That in itself makes it more expensive.

Add to that the fact that it incorporates Sony's MagicGate technology (on-board secure encryption) and you'll see that this is no ordinary memory!

See http://www9.station.sony.com/sca/press/feb_25_99.html

...and...

http://www.sel.sony.com/SEL/corpcomm/news/bandp/685.html

...for more info about MagicGate.

Yes, PC memory prices have fallen rapidly (and are now rising again). So? It's made by different companies, using different technologies and being aimed at a completely different market..

Sony know people want memory cards, they need them for their games, and they'll pay whatever Sony ask for them. The market is also much less competitive - different manufacters engage in a price war and the retail price plummets, but there's no-one to do this against Sony. Yes, there are third party manufacturers, but many people will only buy Sony cards as they are deemed the most reliable. Conversely, people seem to want the cheapest RAM they can find for their PC, it doesn't occur that there may be a difference - or at least, not one as obvious as losing all your saves.

The price of the latest generation of graphics cards has gone down. Does that mean that the PS2 should now be cheaper because the chipsets cost less? No. It's a different technology aimed at a different market, you can't compare like-for-like.

WòókieeMøn§†€® wrote:
> Different type of memory!

ok, the ps2 memory card isn't pc133 or ddr or intels latest variation, but every type of memory I come across has fallen rapidly in price. Check out how much a 64 or 128meg compactflash or smart media card costs today compared with a year ago.

Do Sony make/use the only type of memory chips which don't decrease in price, or perhaps its the circuit board and plastic case which costs 20 quid and the memory chips are free ?