Six months ago, while gaming-console manufacturers Nintendo and Microsoft were busy trying to lure consumers with holiday discounts for their systems, Sony stubbornly refused to drop its prices. Kazuo Hirai, chairman and group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, told reporters at the time that he thought the company’s equipment was “a very good value proposition.”
Six months of economic downturn — and increasingly cautious consumers — appears to have changed Sony’s outlook. “A major UK retailer” told the industry journal CVG (ComputerAndVideoGames.com) that retailers were told by Sony that a price drop was planned for both the PS3 and the PSP.
Details Pending
As is commonly the case, the precise timing and amount of the price cuts are still unknown, although the mystery retailer told CVG that Sony had been contemplating the reductions for some time. A logical time for announcing the price change would be the end of next week, when the Game Developers Conference is scheduled to open in San Francisco.
Numerous outlets suggested that Sony would drop the price of an 80GB PS3 from its current $399 price point to around $300. The price drop for the PSP would be less, but proportional to its lower cost.
CVG also published a photo of a new product that will go on sale March 29 at Target: a Sony PS3 with two bundled games, MotorStorm and Resistance: Fall of Man. That package, however, will not be discounted, and will sell for the current price of $399.
Sony Under Pressure
The possibility, even the necessity, of a price drop by Sony has been widely discussed in the trade press recently, with a number of analysts suggesting that such a move is inevitable.
Sony has been trailing badly in the console wars for some time, and the fourth quarter of 2008 was no exception. According to figures provided by…
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