Sony Cuts Memory Stick Prices

Posted By: Ed Wednesday, August 1, 2001 5:13:26 PM

A price war in expansion memory appears to be in full swing. Sony announced today that it is dropping prices on its full line of Memory Sticks. The price on a 128MB MemStick is dropping from $240 to $150, while an 8MB one drops $5 to just $25. These prices have not yet taken effect on the SonyStyle webstore.

Earlier this month, Panasonic dropped the prices for its MemStick rival, the Secure Digital card. However, with this latest round of cuts from Sony, all sizes of MemSticks are now less expensive than their SD equivalents.

Sony also dropped prices for its Magic Gate Memory Sticks, which have an extra embedded chip to enable the transfer and playback of secure content and to protect copyrighted material. A 128 MB Magic Gate stick will drop from $260 to $170.

Lexar Media, a U.S. company, also makes MemSticks but they haven't yet decided whether to match these price cuts.

"Memory Stick media continues to gain popularity very quickly as evidenced by its jump in U.S. market share and widespread installed user base," said Mark Viken, Sony Electronics’ senior vice president and Memory Stick project leader. "Consumers are recognizing the benefits of connecting their digital devices, and this price reduction will enable even more consumers to take advantage of the interoperability that the Memory Stick format offers across a broad range of products and applications."

Medium 8 MB 16 MB 32 MB 64 MB 128 MB
SD $50 $40 $60 $100 N/A
MemStick $25 $35 $50 $80 $150
MG MemStick N/A N/A $70 $100 $170

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8 Meg SD

I.M. Anonymous @ 8/1/2001 6:23:30 PM #
Anyone got an idea why an 8 Meg SD card is actually MORE expensive than a 16 Meg one? I checked the Panasonic site and it isn't a mistake by Ed.

RE: 8 Meg SD
EGarrido @ 8/2/2001 #
Rather interesting. Trying to get people to buy the larger 16MB card to get rid of inventory, maybe? That's my guess and it's a bad one.

Eric Garrido

MMC

I.M. Anonymous @ 8/1/2001 6:34:24 PM #
Considering the function of each, it seems to me that the prices of standard Memory Sticks should be compared to the prices of Multimedia Cards and the prices of MSGate Memory Sticks compared to SD cards. As then you are comparing the "non-secure" version of each memory medium to each other and the "secure" version of each as well. Thus comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges.

Agian???
I.M. Anonymous @ 8/1/2001 7:46:19 PM #
Apples and oranges again?

Just can't understand why you are referring to one as an apple and another as an orange? They are used for different units (MMC/SD for the m50x, MS/MG for the Clie). The usual reason why m50x users use SD is because they say it's 4x faster. For Clie users, they use MS since most don't need the MG's ATRAC3 format. Besides, what is the percentage of m50x and Clie users using SD/MG for "copyright protection" -- what is there to secure?

RE: MMC
@ 8/1/2001 8:07:47 PM #
I agree. I prefer to get a cheap memory module to store books, docs, dictionary, thesaurus, maps, etc. I don't have any use for the 'secure' feature...

RE: MMC
I.M. Anonymous @ 8/1/2001 9:10:54 PM #
I agree to the "Apples to Apples and Oranges to Oranges comparison". The regular Memory Stick is the Sony equivelant to MMC for the Palm m50x (Apples to Apples), and the MSGate Memory Stick is the Sony equivelant to SD for the Palm m50x (Oranges to Oranges). This makes the latest prices about the same for Sony and Palm memory expansion cards, rather than saying that the Memory Sticks are cheaper (Comparing Apples to Oranges).

I agree with the copyright protection statement: "Besides, what is the percentage of m50x and Clie users using SD/MG for "copyright protection" -- what is there to secure?" I didn't know that the SD was that much faster that the MMC, I only have an SD for my Palm, is the MSGate faster than the Memory Stick?

RE: MMC
I.M. Anonymous @ 8/1/2001 10:40:41 PM #
Magic Gate is exactly the same speed as Memory Stick, it just offers the copyright protection. Only reason I'm using that over the regular purple ones is to hold more songs using ATRAC3 format instead of mp3s. That's about it.

In terms of SD/MMC, SD is a little faster and offers that copyright protection.

RE: MMC
I.M. Anonymous @ 8/2/2001 12:03:49 AM #
The only reason I would buy a SD card, since they cost more and I (as a consumer) have no use for the copy protection built-in, is if it was faster than the MMC but I have been completely unable to find anything that states that the current SDs are actually faster than the current MMC.

Everything that I have read indicates that current SD cards have the same transfer rate (speed) as the current MMC. However, I will concede that manufacturers have been very vague about the specs. It is my understanding that future SD cards will be faster than MMC (up to 4x) but are not currently. Thus the current SD cards, as far as I can tell have to drawbacks, (1) they are more expensive than the MMC cards without any performance benefit (or a very small one) and (2) some of the memory you pay for is taken up by the built-in measures to protect copyrighted material. Just like the MSGate Memory Sticks.

Consequently, until the SDs on the market are much faster than the MMCs, I am sticking to the MMC.

YMMV.

BTW, if anyone can actually point to a source that provides a definitive answer to the transfer rate of current SD cards as compared to MMC please post it. I would love to have this question answered once and for all (or at least until the technology changes).

RE: MMC
I.M. Anonymous @ 8/2/2001 8:26:39 AM #
I agree with you YMMV, that's why as of now, I can't see the point of comparing apples to oranges. It seems like the SD is not better than the MMC, and the MG is not better than the MG. If that's the case, i'll buy the cheapest ones.

Where is the 128 MB MS cheapest online??

I.M. Anonymous @ 8/1/2001 6:45:54 PM #
On www.palmblvd.com/boards/SonyClie someone posted that they have seen the 128 MB MS for under $125 somewhere... anyone seen this and if so where was it?

RE: Where is the 128 MB MS cheapest online??
I.M. Anonymous @ 8/1/2001 8:11:21 PM #
$139 here

www.etronics.com

RE: Where is the 128 MB MS cheapest online??
bobgrim @ 8/1/2001 10:39:57 PM #
$125.99 here, but buyer beware; they're hot and cold. Be sure to check the shipping, too. Some of these companies are notorious for cleaning you out with S&H.

www.dealcat.com/son12memstic.html

RE: Where is the 128 MB MS cheapest online??
I.M. Anonymous @ 8/2/2001 12:35:28 PM #
I just ordered a 128 MS (regular) for $119.95 ($7.95 s/h) from AVSmarts.com. I heard about them from pricescanner.com

RE: Where is the 128 MB MS cheapest online??
I.M. Anonymous @ 8/17/2001 9:21:33 PM #
That cat one dropped to 110 with 5-15$ shipping

Good Competion, Good for Consumers.

I.M. Anonymous @ 8/1/2001 8:04:43 PM #
Don't you like it when competing products keep on lowering prices? :)

RE: Good Competion, Good for Consumers.
I.M. Anonymous @ 8/1/2001 8:14:51 PM #
No! Then you don't know when to buy!

RE: Good Competion, Good for Consumers.
I.M. Anonymous @ 8/1/2001 10:41:55 PM #
That's why you need to stop pinching pennies and buy when it feels right to buy. Prices are always going to drop. Does that mean you're just going to wait forever?

..Yahoo

Kyle Stedman @ 8/2/2001 7:38:04 AM #
Go to Yahoo shopping and do a search for 128 MB Memory Stick. This is the best way to find the cheapest price.

MS Price

Lewis Yu @ 8/2/2001 11:34:27 AM #
I'm from Hong Kong. The MS price in here is in fact started to free-fall last month. The 128M "blue" MS costs only $120USD. It should be even cheap in Japan...

CF is the price measure.

I.M. Anonymous @ 8/2/2001 8:33:33 PM #
128Mb CF is only $60 bucks right now, by mid fall it will be around $50. I think this should be a measure of price, tho' having huge digicam market share sure help. SD won't lift off till about next year.

Prices will fall again

mikecane @ 8/3/2001 10:09:28 AM #
According to the SanDisk rep at PC Expo, they will have a 128MB SD out this Fall (Sept?) -- at just $99. If this comes to pass, we can look forward to even more price cuts. Plenty of people will get storage cards in their Xmas stockings this year!

Yankee Logic

Alex @ 8/3/2001 6:15:42 PM #
Why would anyone buy the 8mb when the 16mb one is cheaper? I mean, I know you Yanks are crazy but this is ridiculus.

(also... anyone know prices in CAD?)

Don't forget pal, we rule the world and can invade any time
I.M. Anonymous @ 8/3/2001 9:38:37 PM #
we feel like it.

Sandisk to make Memory Sticks!

EvanCG @ 9/6/2001 12:49:16 AM #
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010905/tc/tech_sandisk_dc_1.html

Evan

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