New PlayStation 3 Price Hits the 'Sweet Spot' for Consumers

The PlayStation 3 is one of the most important consoles available on the market, largely because it is the most powerful one but also because it had quite a rocky start. Thanks to the newly announced PlayStation 3 Slim edition and a lower price, going down from $399 to just $299, the console is bound to gain sales momentum.

The CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, Jack Tretton, revealed on the company's official blog that these new circumstances for the PS3 would be a deciding factor in its success. He also dubbed the $299 price point the “sweet spot” for consumers and said that you couldn't find anything with the features of the PS3 at that price tag.

“We are extremely pleased that we've been able to meet production efficiencies that have allowed us to pass those savings onto consumers,” Tretton stated. “We're very pleased that short of its third birthday, the PlayStation 3 has achieved tremendous milestones which have allowed us to bring out this new form factor giving consumers the opportunity to buy the state of the art gaming system at half the price it originally debuted at in October 2006.”

But while these new moves will surely help Sony in its console war with Microsoft and Nintendo, he went on to say that everyone was competing in terms of entertainment rather than just gaming. “When we talk about competition, I think we're really competing with any form of entertainment,” he mentioned. “Not only hardware devices within the gaming space, but clearly multimedia devices, portable and console based, and we're competing with entertainment in general. We're just competing for people's free time. We always say our target consumer is anybody with electricity.”

Last but not least, Tretton couldn't forget about highlighting the fact that the PS3 would have a ten-year lifecycle, meaning that it would be an investment for the future. “People have to remember this device is less than three years old. We're still in the infancy stage, especially for a company that consistently delivers 10-year product life-cycles.”

Do you share Tretton's idea? As the PS3 is now slimmer, cheaper and more elegant, will you buy one for this lower price or is it still inferior to the Xbox 360 or Nintendo Wii? Leave us a comment with your thoughts.