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NEW YORK (AP) — Sony Corp. is cutting the price of its PlayStation
3 gaming console by $50 in an attempt to drum up demand for the
5-year-old machine.
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It is now $249, down 17 percent from $299. The last time Sony
lowered the price of the PlayStation 3 was in 2009, when it
launched a lighter, slimmer model of the video game
system.
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The worldwide price cut announced Tuesday comes less than a month
after rival Nintendo Co. cut the price of its handheld Nintendo 3DS
player.
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The 3DS lets players view 3-D games and videos without special
glasses. It launched with much fanfare but lost sales momentum. The
value of 3-D hasn’t been apparent to everyone. Handheld gaming
devices are also facing competition from the iPhone and other
smartphones with games such as the wildly popular “Angry
Birds.”
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The latest price cut should give the PlayStation 3 a boost, just as
the previous one did in 2009.
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“It is no secret that the PlayStation 3 has been struggling for
some time against the Microsoft Xbox 360 in North America,” though
it did slightly better in Europe, said Jesse Divnich, an analyst at
Electronic Entertainment Design and Research.
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Divnich does not believe Microsoft Corp. will follow with its own
price cut immediately. Rather, the maker of the Xbox 360 “will
likely wait to see the commercial impact of the price disparity”
between the Xbox and the PlayStation. The Xbox 360’s popular 250
gigabyte version costs $300. A version with a smaller hard drive, 4
gigabytes, is $200.
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Microsoft said it does not talk about pricing plans in advance and
so far it has made no announcements about price cuts.
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In all, Microsoft has sold 55 million Xbox 360s worldwide, and Sony
has sold 52 million units of the PS3. Nintendo is still No. 1 with
86 million, though sales of the console have slowed down
considerably.
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Sony is also launching its handheld PlayStation Vita in the U.S.
early next year. It will cost $249 for a Wi-Fi only version and
$299 for a version that will also have cellphone
service.
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Jack Tretton, the CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America, said
Sony is cutting the price in August instead of closer to the
holidays to get it to people during the back-to-school shopping
season. While the holidays are the busiest time for video games,
August and September are also lucrative as college students stock
up on games for their dorm rooms.
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