Why is PS3 still ridiculously priced?

A) Sony is currently bleeding money compared to Ninty and MS
B) PS3 games are printed on blu-ray media, so the laser is a must
C) Xbox may have a better software library, but the hardware is relatively shoddy (RROD, disc errors, etc)
D) Often times, Sony likes to make stuff expensive just to piss people off

You really don't seem that informed about gaming consoles.

Because if they lowered the price, more kids would be playing GTA4.

well you get more with the ps3, wii and 360 are for playing games and not so much else, ps3 i feel is more like a media box and games machine in one.

not that have or want any of them

I hear they are hoping Killzone 2 will put PS3 sales up again.

oh also the ps3 looks good, the 360 is just plain fugly

The xbox360 is actually a pretty good streaming media box, although I believe you have to pony up for access. My only qualm with it is that the hardware sucks, even the recent jaspers are apparently still suicidal.

Its about £300 GBP here, double what the 360's go for.
But the thing is people will buy the PS3 :P

Personally I don't think the PS3 looks that good. I don't much care for the white Xbox 360 (although it's what I've got) but I think the best looking of the bunch is the black 360. I prefer the look of the Xboxes because they're not glossy.

Hardware performance wise it's a wash, the Xbox is definitely easier to develop for and is less expensive to build too. Reliability has been a problem although I think that most of the issues have been taken care of in the past year. I've had mine since Sept of 07 with no issues so far. Hopefully MS doesn't make that mistake again.

The PS3 definitely offers more of a media center feeling with the BD playback capability although the dashboard, media center capabilities and Netflix tie ins on the Xbox offer a lot of flexibility as well. Can't go wrong either way really. Since I don't own a PS3 (but have used them) I can't make much comparison of which I would prefer to game on (graphically they're similar from what I have played or the Xbox is slightly better IMO on a lot of cross platform games). Of the people that I know own both, most prefer to game on the 360 rather than the PS3.

I think if you were strictly buying it for gaming I'd suggest 360 still unless there are PS3 exclusives you must have (360 has a lot of good ones as well though). If you want media capabilities you'd have to decide which offers more of those that you want. I have my old desktop computer (a Shuttle case) as my HTPC and I prefer it to the 360 and the PS3 for media playback, not to mention it has a useful web browser vs the PS3s or the no-web-browser-at-all 360. Eventually I'll build a new HTPC, possibly even with a BD drive to allow Blu Ray playback and hopefully by then those are going to be a lot cheaper. I really don't think much of using gaming consoles as media centers personally.

Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan, pretty much the most respected video game financial analyst out there, said that he is expecting that the PS3 will be dropping to $299 in April.

Pachter predicts PS3 price drop to $299 in April - Joystiq [PlayStation]

It's not ridiculously priced at all considering it is also a BluRay player. I have had a 360 and it was noisy and was only good for games really. PS3 offers more bang for the buck IMO.

Two words: Blew Ray, DVD version of the PS3 is comming in at a reduced price.

PS3 price cut announcement "in the next couple of days" - Janco // News

The PS3 costs more, but comes with more stuff built in. Wireless controller with usb connector for pc use and charging, wifi, and a bd drive. Adding all this stuff to a xbox 360 costs far more than the $100 price difference between the two, and the PS3 hardware itself has been quite solid from day 1. It's Sony, they like making expensive, over-engineered products.

Microsoft says they want people to be able to buy exactly what they want, so they sell everything separately, which is a smart business decision, but horrible for people like me who need wifi and wireless controllers. And the PS3 works as an excellent streaming divx/xvid player, it's been used just as much for that as for playing games.

Each console has its die hard fans, but for me at least, the xbox would simply have cost more, not even including xbox live each year.

Forgot to mention this, but yeah this too. MS has annoyingly left a number of things out.

I can blame both companies for doing a lot of stupid things with these consoles so I think it depends mostly on what features you're actually looking for.

My PS3 can play games? Dang, I just use it for movies... best blu-ray player on the market when I was shopping last year. Better upgradability, faster load times and equivalent on all other fronts.

With comparable blu-ray only players still in the $300-$400 range I don't imagine they're going to drop the price too far too soon... but now you can pick up budget blu-ray players for $200-$250, so maybe I'm wrong.