One of the advantages Sony has been touting for SxS is a lower cost per bit than you’d get with Panasonic’s P2 cards. At B&H, as of 11 December 2007, a Sony 16GB SxS card is $899.95, while a Panasonic 16GB P2 card is only $899.00. You’ll save a whopping $0.95 by going with P2 over SxS. So much for SxS’s commodity pricing compared to P2’s premium pricing, eh?
OK, it’s a totally unfair comparison: P2 cards have been out for a couple of years; NRE (non-recoverable engineering) costs have been amortized and production efficiencies have been incorporated. SxS cards are brand-new and have yet to slide down the price curve.
Will we see SxS cards decrease in cost per Gigabyte faster than P2 as time goes by? Possibly, though Panasonic may decide to match any price cuts Sony makes, to maintain cost-per-bit parity. It’ll be interesting to see what happens…