PS3 price cut coming soon??

[albionus]

Sony will have a very hard time cutting the price of the PS3 regardless of what Microsoft and Nintendo do. They've been losing over $200 on each PS3 thus far and even with a higher price, 1 SKU, and no EE they still lose over $100 on the newer Euro version. Microsoft with its one year head start has already cut its per unit loss from $100 to 0. Nintendo already makes a profit and once the Wii is in steady supply they could easily manage to drop its price to $150 (especially if they remove Wii Sports). Even if they did that at launch they would have loss less per unit than MS or Sony but given the Wii's sales no reason to throw money away now. The fact that Microsoft hasn't cut the Xbox 360 price yet shows two things, 1) they know Sony is hamstrung by the still stratospheric per unit cost of the PS3 and won't cut prices soon, and 2) even deep pocketed Microsoft is running out of shareholder patience over its large game division losses. Nintendo has no need for a price cut since the Wii is still selling out without difficulty and at current prices the Wii is the only mass market priced system. At the moment Sony and Microsoft are each betting that the other's shareholder patience runs out first while Nintendo is laughing all the way to the bank selling to the mass market. Should Microsoft cut its main system price to $300 and Nintendo drop to $175-200 Sony would basically be finished. The losses they would incur matching such a drop is something Sony's finances couldn't take and not matching it would essentially leave them out of the non-Sony uber fanboy market limiting their total sales and ability to gain scales of economy. However, Microsoft knows that it probably won't survive such an attritional strategy either so it's not likely. Since Nintendo already has a mass market price it has no reason to instigate such a fight either since it doesn't stand to benefit any from it.