Sony supremo Sir Howard Stringer said today that his company was refining a plan to reduce the cost, and therefore the price, of its loss-making PlayStation 3 console. Conceding that there was "no question" consumers wanted the price to drop, he told the Financial Times that with the Wii, Nintendo had struck a "good business model."
“Nintendo Wii has been a successful enterprise, and a very good business model, compared with ours . . . because it’s cheaper,” Mr Stringer said in a video interview. “That [price cuts] is what we are studying at the moment. That’s what we are trying to refine.”
When we blink disbelievingly at the massive losses incurred by console hardware sales, we usually assume that there's little chance of a price drop. It's worth remembering, however, that computer components get cheaper all the time, meaning that as time goes by, manufacturers can elect to cut prices without making the bottom line any worse. A $100 chop in PS3 prices for the holiday season now sounds very likely.
I GUESS this is good news. Now all we need is another $100 price drop and a steady stream of good games and we're rolling.
