It’s not the first time we’ve had occasion to write such a headline and doubtless it won’t be the last. Meantime the pressure is mounting on Sony to start shifting the Playstation 3 in larger numbers and at least one hardware rival thinks that the long-discussed price-cut is the way forward - and soon.
That competitor is Microsoft whose Xbox 360 product manager Aaron Greenberg has plainly been considering the competitive environment with some puzzlement, telling Edge Online: “We absolutely expect the PS3 price drop to happen in the next couple of months, We’re frankly surprised it’s taken this long… I would expect they’d have to move on price, sooner than later, for sure.”
Of course Greenberg’s words are informed by his employer’s own success since dropping the price of the Xbox 360 - and Sony must surely want a slice of the same sort of action. Nevertheless Sony Europe prez David Reeves is still touting the line about profit being the “short-term goal” and resolutely refuses to be drawn on the subject of discounts. Although, tantalisingly, he does allow that “Once we have alleviated that specific pressure, we can move forward at a rate of knots.”
Read into that what you will. However, if, as Reeves also suggests, Sony is well on target to achieve that goal - and with competitors continuing to pilfer large portions of what used to be their market - we reckon the PS3 price cut is both inevitable and imminent. If not in the next couple of months then surely by Summer ‘09. Fingers crossed anyway…
