Sony will cut PS3 price but not to combat Wii

Stan Beer
Friday, 06 July 2007 20:25

Opinion and Analysis

Sony President Ryoji Chubachi may well have broadcast to the media that Sony will not cut the price of the PS3 but let's face facts - it's bluster. Sony will cut the price of PS3 by at least US$100 in time for the Christmas shopping season - but not to compete with Nintendo's Wii. On price, Wii will be a winner every time.

The fact is that Sony, bereft of PS3 games at present, has flushed out most of the hard core gamers who would buy Sony's latest latest console at any price. The Wii is in a different class and the real competition for the high end of gaming is Xbox 360.

Sony will cut the price of PS3 for two reasons. One is to bridge the gap with Xbox 360 and the other is to drive the nail deeper into the coffin of the HD DVD high definition format.

At present, early to market Xbox 360, has a huge advantage over PS3 in terms of consoles sold and games on shelves. However, PS3 is just starting to crack the whip so to speak. A plethora of games have been promised to hit the market within months and Blu-ray movies are starting to hit rental and retail shelves in increasing numbers.

Yes, there is constant chatter from sceptics that the future of high definition video is downloads. Maybe so, but it's still a distant future. It's bad enough downloading a 2GB standard definition movie, Has anyone among the download advocates actually considered the implications in terms of storage and bandwidth of downloading 20GB HD movies?

Given the fact that there are hardly any PS3 games worth buying yet, Sony's nextgen console has done remarkably well to have sold nearly 4 million units worldwide so far. Despite the naysayers, I believe much of this has to do with the PS3's capability as a Blu-ray player. After all, until PS3 games hit the market en masse why would you buy the most expensive console on the planet?

Sony has promised 380 PS3 games will hit the market by next March. If that promise is kept, it will provide a huge filip to PS3 sales. Meanwhile, Blu-ray movie titles continue to grow, HD flat panel TVs continue to sell and PS3 continues to be the best selling HD video player on the planet.

It's interesting that despite all the negative press, all the bluster from Nintendo, Microsoft and HD DVD advocates, Sony has refused to buckle under the pressure and drop prices prematurely. The reason is that Sony knows that it holds all the aces in its pack.