We started hearing whispers today that the expected price cut by Sony on the PlayStation 3 might be more imminent than first thought. With sales lagging behind the Xbox 360 and Wii, analysts are calling for Sony to take action.

A variety of industry sources as well as analysts suggest that in order for Sony to get PlayStation 3 sales back on track the company will need to slash the price of the PlayStation 3 by at least $100, most likely in April, as Sony has denied that it will happen in March. Their ability to slash the price of the PlayStation 3 by $100 is unlikely, unless Sony is willing to incur losses in order to move consoles. Sony is still struggling with the cost of the PS3 due to expensive parts as well as the pricey Blu-ray drive in the console.

Our sources suggest that a $50 price cut is more likely, but we are now hearing whispers that Sony is looking at the possibility of releasing a lower cost unit that would use a DVD-ROM drive, rather than a Blu-ray drive; this would help the company reduce the cost of this low-end unit by the $100 necessary to get sales moving, yet at the same time it would create a major issue, as all of the released titles are in the Blu-ray format and would not be compatible with a DVD-ROM unit. Still, we hear word from the shadows that this plan is under serious consideration.

The decision to bring out a lower-end console with a DVD-ROM drive would create all kinds of problems for retailers who would be forced to stock titles in multiple formats and some titles that take advantage of the vast storage capacity of the Blu-ray format would not even likely be possible to convert to a playable format on DVD.

The decision to splinter the software format we believe would lead to more confusion on the PlayStation 3 platform, and while it might help sales in the short term, it is not really a long-term solution. Despite what we hear, we think Sony might like to do this, but will likely abandon the idea and focus on cost reduction of the platform. No matter, we suspect that in order to really get back in the game they will have to slash prices and incur losses on the PlayStation 3, as a low-cost PS3 with DVD just is really not an option.