No PS3 Price Cut "In The Near Term"

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Last year, all anyone could talk about was a potential price cut for the PlayStation 3. This made sense, though, as the pricey console started out at a whopping $600 and has since made its way down to a far more respectable - and competitive - $400. Now, some may be looking for yet another price drop, but thanks to excellent 2007 fiscal year results for Sony, this probably won't happen any time soon.

According to Lazard Capital analyst Colin Sebastian, those results have indicated that Sony "now appears less focused on console market share and less likely to introduce a PS3 price cut during 2008." (source- Next-Gen.biz) Instead, the company will probably move on and turn their focus to "online services and segment profitability." Basically, he's saying that Sony isn't so keen on chasing its competitors for market share; they'd much rather turn a profit with the PlayStation brand in 2008. If they do that, they probably figure the rest will fall into place, and the market share will come almost by default. This also means that Sebastian doesn't expect a PS3 price cut "in the near term."

During their financial report this week, Sony revealed that they hope to sell 10 million PS3s during this upcoming fiscal year, which would represent an 8% year-over-year increase. They knocked down the losses by a huge amount (232.2 billion yen to 124.5 billion yen), and Sony expects its games segment to finally report an operating profit for the year ending March 2009. Like they always said, "this is a marathon; not a sprint."

5/15/2008 Ben Dutka

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