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Why is there a price difference between the official hardware and the un-official hardware? The un-official items of hardware always seem to be significantly cheaper than the original official hardware. Why is this? Does the cheaper price mean that quality is jeopardised? Do we pay more becasue the quality is better? Or is it the fact that we pay more for official hardware becasue the brand name of the console implies quality and we are so gullible that we are conned out of money by multi-national co-orperations? These are the questions that have to be asked but do we have the answers?
I certainly do not have the answers but i've got my own opinions. I think that it is always best to buy the official accessories. The price may be higher but i believe your paying for the quality, the looks and for the creation and design of the product. For example, Sony had to pay someone to design the controller for the Playstation. Other companies came along afterwards and 'copied' the new controller, to an extent. It didnt cost them much because the original design was already there. This is one way that rival companies can sell un-official accessories at reduced prices. I also belive that the quality of the materials used for the making of the official products are a lot higher than the ones used for un-official products. You can tell that the official accessories are going to last a lot longer just by looking at them, and when you come to use them you can notice the difference in quality straight away. To a lesser extent official products match each other perfectly. They are made out of the same materials and are all colour matched so they look good, for example, all official PS2 accessories are black to match the console.
All the things i have mentioned all have effects on the final descision that the consumer makes. Its a hard descision to make 'official or un-official'.
Why is there a price difference between the official hardware and the un-official hardware? The un-official items of hardware always seem to be significantly cheaper than the original official hardware. Why is this? Does the cheaper price mean that quality is jeopardised? Do we pay more becasue the quality is better? Or is it the fact that we pay more for official hardware becasue the brand name of the console implies quality and we are so gullible that we are conned out of money by multi-national co-orperations? These are the questions that have to be asked but do we have the answers?
I certainly do not have the answers but i've got my own opinions. I think that it is always best to buy the official accessories. The price may be higher but i believe your paying for the quality, the looks and for the creation and design of the product. For example, Sony had to pay someone to design the controller for the Playstation. Other companies came along afterwards and 'copied' the new controller, to an extent. It didnt cost them much because the original design was already there. This is one way that rival companies can sell un-official accessories at reduced prices. I also belive that the quality of the materials used for the making of the official products are a lot higher than the ones used for un-official products. You can tell that the official accessories are going to last a lot longer just by looking at them, and when you come to use them you can notice the difference in quality straight away. To a lesser extent official products match each other perfectly. They are made out of the same materials and are all colour matched so they look good, for example, all official PS2 accessories are black to match the console.
All the things i have mentioned all have effects on the final descision that the consumer makes. Its a hard descision to make 'official or un-official'.
MM