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Sony Slashes PS3 Price

Finally, after months where 3rd party developers were hinting at jumping ship from Sony's PS3 as well as demanding a price cut, it looks to be happening. According to Variety, Sony confirmed that the PS3 will be getting a 100 dollar slash in pricing...for only North America. A new console will now cost $499 retail price here in the states.

Sony is also introducing a new, higher-end version with a bigger hard drive and a free game included for $599. In other words, the new $499 tag will be a new base system. A higher end model will still be $599.

They made this announcement today two days before the E3 is set to begin.

According to the July 6th edition of Daily Variety, it's become a contest of setting the tone of the market between Microsoft and Sony:

Though Tretton said the move was enabled by more efficient production, it will not help Sony’s bottom line. In the first quarter of the year, conglom’s vidgame division had an operating loss of $1.9 billion due to costs around the launch of the PS3 and slow sales.

By making the announcement two days before the E3 videogame confab opens, Sony aims to steal some of its competitors’ thunder and focus on its upcoming slate of games, instead of price concerns, during its Wednesday press conference.

Many gamers have noted that beyond reducing the price, Sony needs to roll out a more compelling lineup of exclusive titles in order to make the PS3 a “must buy."

Some industryites believe Microsoft may cut the price of the Xbox 360 during its Tuesday evening press conference in a bid to remain less expensive than the PS3.

Microsoft is already under pressure after it admitted last week that so many 360s are defective that will take a write boff of over $1 billion to pay for repairs and an extended warranty. (Daily Variety, July 6)

By introducing a higher end PS3 with an 80 gigabyte hard drive ( which costs $599)...Sony is also signaling that it intends to expand its slate of downloadable content. That includes games and, insiders confirm, video content such as movies and TV shows.

Microsoft in April made a similar move by launching the Xbox 360 Elite, which costs $479 and has a 120 gigabyte hard drive.

More E3 News will be hitting throughout the week. It should be mentioned that E3 has also been scaled down quite a bit from previous years. Rumor has it that this was enacted because the big 3 (Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft) threatened action ater the past few years had so much of a focus on more indie styled 3rd party developers. Too much attention was divided. Now, the big 3 can have this E3 more about them and less about the smaller companies in the gaming market.

Thanks to scooper Daforce for the headsup!