With the PS3 price drop now officially confirmed, I thought I'd do a quick update on what I said in a thread a while back, Thoughts on the Canadian PS3 Price.

As I hoped, Sony reassessed the Canadian MSRP based on the current exchange rate when they did the price drop, and it's $549 (a $150 drop). We're still overpaying by about $25, but it's a lot better than it was.

The important part is this: factoring in inflation, the PS3 now only costs 7% more here than the PS2 did at this point in its life--$511. If they'd been more precise with the exchange rate, it would cost almost exactly the same amount.

I don't know if that's enough to convince anyone to buy (it isn't for me, or at least not yet), but I just thought it was an interesting thing to add to the usual thinking about PS3's price point.

It doesn't sound like there's word yet on a drop in Europe/Australia, but it would be awfully lame of them not to do it.

I've already bought one, so it dosen't matter much to me.

But most major retailors such as Futureshop, Best Buy, Zellers and Wal-Mart have reduced the price back down to the $659 price point. So even if we didn't get a price cut yet, things won't suck as hard as a few weeks ago when PS3's were the full $699 price point.

Also many retailers are offering a free game with purchase, to reduce overstocks. So as long as it's a game you want, it works out pretty well.

I never realized the Canadian dollar was so rapidly approaching the U.S. dollar in value.  Could someone fill me in on what's causing it?

Bush?

canadian dollar: energy exports to US, robust economy, rising interest rate.

all of which are correlated.

the latest news is better than expected job creation, pushing the loonie above the 0.95 cent level.

I just realized too that the PS3 is now the same price as the 360 Elite here, which is only $50 more than the Pro model. I don't imagine it'll last long, but prices are weird in this country right now.

$499 US = $522.03 Canadian.. But I have a feeling they'll round it up to $550 Canadian to cover themselves from currency fluctuations.

*Edit: Oops ignore this post, I just reread the first post in the thread, lol... (for some reason I thought I had read the post earlier and no price was stated).