14 DAY TRIAL // The console market is a very tough one, with the top three competitors, Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony, desperately struggling for the first place in terms of sales and units shipped. As recent sales charts show, it seems that Nintendo can't be moved from the number one spot, so the battle of the consoles is being waged between Microsoft and Sony.
Although the PlayStation 3 is the most powerful product on the market, users are attracted to the North American Xbox 360 which, despite being weaker in terms of hardware, has the lowest price on the market. This, coupled with the recession that makes people more careful about what they spend their money on, has propelled the Xbox 360 to new heights in terms of sales, especially in territories like Europe, where the PlayStation 3 was more popular.
Although we have reported on the strategy that Sony will employ with the PS3, which is to add value rather than cutting the price, it seems that Microsoft's director of product management for Xbox 360 and Xbox Live, Aaron Greenberg, begs to differ on that point. He recently talked to Edge and offered a very interesting statement, in which he says that we might see a price cut as soon as spring this year.
“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,” said Greenberg, while he showcased the extremely high sales figures the Xbox 360 has been seeing in the last few months.
Although this statement might come as a shock, considering it comes from Sony's Arch rival, Greenberg does have a point. Although some people might be attracted by the new features that the company has been adding to the PS3, like Home, everyone else will still go for the lower-priced product, which has been backed up by quite a lot of analysts who warned Sony that its product wouldn't stand a chance against the Xbox 360.
Sony stated on various occasions that a price cut was out of the question, but it seems that no one else, not even its rivals, believed it and they are all preparing to see one very soon. Only time will tell if the price tag of the PS3 will get slashed, but until then, the standard 80 GB model still costs about 400 dollars.