It wasn't long ago when Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter predicted we'd see a price drop for the PlayStation 3 in April. But as it turns out, that was kinda like his "April Fool's joke," even though he does still expect a price cut later this year.

According to EndSights, Pachter believes the $299 price point is the "sweet spot" for Sony's machine, even though Sony may not be able to afford to drop the price by April. Instead, he sees the drop coming some time between June and September, which most consumers will interpret as "better late than never." Said Pachter:

"They probably won’t really cut in April (that was my early April Fool’s joke), but they should seriously consider making a move as soon as they can afford it. My guess is that they’ll be able to afford a cut by October, and will cut earlier than that in anticipation of their cost of production coming down. I picked April as the beginning of the fiscal year, but it could be June (E3), September (TGS), holiday, or not at all. If they don’t cut, they had better prepare themselves to run a distant third in sales once again."

At this point, it seems like the last piece of the puzzle could be this price drop. The software lineup for 2009 is great, Blu-Ray is coming into its own, more and more people are going online via the PSN, and now, it's just a matter of the price of admission.  Consumers have been clamoring for a cut for quite a while now, and although PS3 sales were up 40% in 2008, the numbers could really skyrocket if Sony made the system more accessible.  At least, that's how we see it.