Sony made a very surprising announcement at the Gamescom show by stating that the company will be slashing the price of the 160GB PlayStation 3 to $249. The price cut is effective immediately and several retailers that we spoke with were surprised by this cut. As one retailer told us, “Our distributor told us about two weeks ago that it was a possibility, but nothing had been decided.” Still, the move is surprising and does put pressure on Microsoft going into this holiday season.
In addition to the news of the PlayStation 3 dropping to $249, Sony dropped another bombshell, which was the news that the company would be offering a new revised PSP that would be sold for $99 ahead of the release of the Vita. In addition, a number of PSP Essentials titles for the PSP will drop to $9.99.
With Microsoft topping the sales charts in North America with the Xbox 360, the move by Sony to slash the PS3 price to $249 should help strengthen its position in the European and Japanese markets; but in North America it will be very interesting to see what effect it actually has on the sale of the Xbox 360. One thing is for sure: both Sony and Microsoft want to move as many consoles as they can ahead of the release of the Wii U, as no one really knows what kind of impact it will have when it finally arrives.
New $99 PSP also coming
David Stellmack
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