rumoured one wont, but actual announced ones will for obvious reasons.

well it wasn't for a long period of time, i think it was around a week or 10 days before the price cut we got proof that it was going to happen and it didn't have any effect on sales.

@NJ5: Well, that makes Pachter to still predict the pricecut, along with SDF. Of course the fanboys turn the pricecut to have positive effect on Sonys short term financials.

Yeah but really, how many people go on game sites, and how many were planning on buying a ps3, and how many believe the talk?

Thankfully for Sony, most people that closely follow video game news, and are Playstation fans, probably have a PS3. 95% of average consumers won't hear these rumors. If they did hear the rumors, it would definately effect sales. Many people wait knowing the system they want could be dropping $50-$100 in the next few months. Which would especially hurt Sony since there won't be any such price cut in the next few months.

All rumors propagate outward, and are seldom thwarted by physical barriers for long. Eventually this rumor will pass beyond the net as people recount what they read to people in real life. Once that happens in transitions by word of mouth, and from there to everyone. The only real barrier is that of which who you know, and since high definition gamers also are the most plugged in, and communicate with a lot of other plugged in people this rumor should have some staying power.

I think the rumor will have real power. Whether the rumor defers purchases, or simply serves as a convenient excuse is always up for interpretation. However it will not be self contained in a bubble of ignorance. A lot of interested consumers will hear about this rumor. Besides it has a lot of time to root into the consciousness.

It doesn't seem like pricecut rumors really hurt sales of a console if we look at hardware sales history on all platforms this gen and last.
So; no, I don't think it will and any announced pricecut won't announced many months or week beforehand, for obvious reasons.

I started to write a long post about future owners researching the PS3 to justify the price difference over the XB360 which would lead them to read these rumors. Then I realized that I was clutching at straws:)

Anyway, does anyone know when a price cut was leaked? I would like to see effect (or lack of) in the sales charts.

I don't know about leaks, but if you look at the late 2007 Japan charts you will see that Sony's official announcement of a price cut in the next week had no noticeable effect on PS3 sales. I remember that because of a similar thread to this one, however I'm too lazy to fetch the links right now :P

^It surfaced sometime in December as far as I know.