14 DAY TRIAL // You'd think that if someone told you they heard something about a PS3 price cut, you'd probably have in mind anyone in the whole wide world making such predictions, instead of a Microsoft executive. As it turns out, Newsweek has an interesting piece up on their blog by N'Gai Croal, quoting "Xbox director of technical strategy and attack blogger Andre 'Ozymandias' Vrignaud," as saying the following:
"The old 60 GB SKU is being cleared out for $499 as quickly as possible - as you might recall, this was the supposed "price cut" that Sony announced. In reality, once supplies are gone in the next couple of months it'll be gone forever. However, that doesn't leave Sony in a good place. A single, $599 SKU would be untenable; if they don't move significant hardware this holiday they'll basically be dead for this generation.
My prediction is that you're going to see the creation of a new, low-end SKU this holiday. It'll likely remove integrated WiFi, memory card reader, and most controversially, all backward compatibility. (Remember, there's still some back-compat hardware in even the new "software only" back compat SKUs; removing the remaining CPU is a significant cost savings.) You'll see a new WiFi dongle made available. And finally, this low-end SKU will likely come with a smaller 40 GB hard drive. The low-end price will be set at $399, with the higher-end 80 GB SKU dropping to $499.
So there you go - nothing magic about the current value SKU. It's just a classic retail technique of clearing the channel for new SKUs. Now we just need to wait a few months for the announcement - it'll have to be before Thanksgiving, so I'd expect October."
He's not passing any hints is he? And if he is, so what? It's a good thing for everyone (except for Sony) if these predictions do turn out to be true. You have to admit, a couple of months ago, you couldn't even dream of picking up a low-end PS3 for $399. The thing is, no Wi-Fi card reader and "most controversially," no backwards compatibility will strip the PS3 of some of its finest features. You decide whether it's a good deal or not, when and if these prognostics come true.