Sony PlayStation: The Price Heard Around the World - "299" - (E3 1995 Keynote)
Why Hacker News recommends it
Cited as shorthand for one of the most effective moments in console marketing and for how a price announcement can sink a rival.
What it is
A one-minute clip of Sony's keynote at E3 1995, where Steve Race takes the stage, announces the PlayStation's $299 price and leaves. It followed Sega's Saturn announcement at a higher price.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2020 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Cites Grazester · 2020-05 · on “Nintendo has reportedly suffered a significant legacy console leak”
SEGA's history with their previous console and console add-on completely burned consumers. There was the 32x addon for the Genesis and the SegaCD which SEGA did not support very well. This burnt consumers. There was also a lot of fighting between SEGA of Japan and SEGA of North America at this point. They then did a surprise launch for the $400 Saturn months earlier than expected. Retailers were not prepare, developers were not prepared and consumer were not prepared. Due to the shortage of available units SEGA only allocated unit to big box retailers. K.B. Toys was so angry that they vowed never to sell the Saturn and really never sold it. Developers did not have their games ready for the s
Cites cutety · 2020-09 · on “Playstation 5 will launch on November 12 for $499.99”
My favorite “console wars” story that I came across a while back, and is relevant to pricing advantage, is when Sony more-or-less immediately killed the Sega Saturn before it’s US release. Right after Sega’s E3 presentation announcing the Saturn, US release date, and it’s $399 price tag, it was Sony’s turn. The guy from Sony walked up to the mic, said “$299”, and walked off stage. [1] [1] [this video]
Cites iforgotpassword · 2020-12 · on “Sega Dreamcast: Windows CE”
This mostly. Although our view on this might be biased, the were reportedly severe tensions between Sega of Japan and the West (mostly America). As the story goes, the Japanese HQ wanted to assert dominance over the imperitent westerners, since after all the American video game market crashed while Japan succeed. When SGI first contacted Sega of America with their 3D hardware they were thrilled and tossed it to HQ, which shot it down since the Saturn was supposed to bring the arcade experience into the living room and didn't need 3D. SGI then showed their stuff to Nintendo... Then when Sega saw that Sony and Nintendo did 3D, they panicked and bolted on some 3D capabilities last minute result
Cites TMWNN · 2024-09 · on “Playstation 5 Pro”
It's just below "$299" < [this video] > among the greatest moments of console marketing. (The single greatest moment isn't one moment, but turning an obscure technical description into "blast processing". < [LINK] >)
Cites kotaKat · 2026-03 · on “First MacBook Neo Benchmarks Are In”
Meanwhile I guarantee sitting on a university campus I’m going to see a sea of these colours sitting on desks and tables by people putting in some serious work. In this age of price hikes on components and hardware, this is Apple’s “price heard around the world” like they were on stage at E3 in 1995.[1] Ironically they pulled it off with Sony’s worst price at an announcement… five hundred and ninety-nine US dollars . [1] [this video]