PS3 price drop finally coming?

"Recent channel checks indicate increased speculation for a PS3 price cut announcement from Sony," an analyst says.

PC WORLD -- Remember that $100 PlayStation 3 price drop you've been hearing about for a year or more? The one that keeps not happening? Well it's about to, according to Mike Hickey with investment firm Janco Partners, with Sony set to announce something "in the next couple days."

"Recent channel checks indicate increased speculation for a PS3 price cut announcement from Sony," said Hickey, adding that he believes the cut needs to be $100 to catalyze PS3 sales at retail and that the market's expecting a cut "in April or by June at the latest."

Assuming Hickey's right, would anyone be surprised? Sony knows the PS3's priced out of the market, and has been for awhile. The company's long since realized brand loyalty's worthless beyond a certain sticker threshold  especially in a stagnating economy. And the heady days of king-making exclusives via franchises like Grand Theft Auto are over as spiraling production costs drive publishers to agnostically view remunerative potential. For majors like Fallout 3 and Final Fantasy XIII and Resident Evil 5, there's no such thing as the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, just a monolithic hypothetical purchase base, like selling the same DVDs to customers with Samsung or Panasonic players. Exceptions made for DLC exclusives  and props to Microsoft for getting out ahead of that one  but the underlying publisher bean counting that's led to a preponderantly "multi-platform generation" is incontestable.

Hickey mentions "talk" of a PS3 without Blu-ray. While that's intriguing, given the number of instantly incompatible Blu-ray game titles, I'd call it noise. I can't see how splintering the market by spawning a brand new one this late in the game is going to make the PS3 any more salable. Maybe if Sony dropped the price to $200 and offered an external Blu-ray upgrade option for $100, but you wouldn't catch me betting on that approach by tenths.

In any event, the writing's on the wall, and was well before Janco weighed in. The PS3's getting a price cut, and it'll be here before 2009's midpoint.

Question is, if you had $300 to burn and intent to buy a game system, would a $100 cut tip your hand in Sony's direction?

Comments [44]

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Timetoshine

If this is true, it will definitely help convince me to buy a PS3, especially after I get a darned job again!

Toneman

They'll do it like last time... drop the price on these old 40 and 80 Gig models while supplies last... and they'll release 2 more SKUs with bigger HDDs for the current price.

Jasman23

If this price cut does happen,
then i believe that the PS3 will begin to dominate just like the PS2 did in the last generation of videogames.

JPThunder01

Pretty much if you don't have a 360 yet, and you're in the market for a Blu Ray player as well as a gaming console you can't go wrong with the PS3. It more or less has all the best games the 360 has with a few great exclusives, and online is free. It's a no brainer.

Dicegod

Damn and I just bought one last weekend :( oh well I am still enjoying the hell out of it.

denveraic

I have a PS3 and 360 already. If I didn't have either, and had the 300, I would still buy the cheaper of the 3 systems. Then you would still have money for an extra game or controller, that is just how I would look at it. I'm sure this price cut will help them a lot, there are some awesome games coming out this year for Sony. Starting with KZ2 in a couple days. I can't wait.

war02orc

If I didn't already own a PS3 and the price dropped that low, I would buy it.

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