But I think your calculation is a bit misleading, if I understood it correctly. You're calculating the loss of revenue on just the units which are sold directly due to the price cut, when in fact the loss of revenue from a price cut happens across all the units sold after the price cut.

If we want to compare a $50 price cut vs a $100 price (both before the holiday season), the lost revenue between those two scenarios is $50 times the number of units sold between then and the end of the fiscal year (or, if you want to, until the point where the same price cut would have happened otherwise; that looks like a good way to do the cost-benefit analysis, but more complicated).

^well, my take is that they are going strategically under-forecast and after they announce the price-cut they will revise their predictions.

And these games are different from MGS 4, Fallout 3, LBP, Res 2, KZ2, etc. (I don't know, did GTA4 fall in last fiscal years sales?).  Basically the PS3 had big releases last fiscal year too, so I can't see what is different this fiscal year besides a current downward YoY trend.

@The: I was under the impression that FF13 was only coming out in Japan this year. And I don't think GOW3 will significantly boost sales, as MGS4 and KZ2 didn't... FF13 and GT5 will definitely boost sales, but it's uncertain when those will come out.

^Yeah, PS3 had big releases, biggest of all being GTA4, and then MGS4. They did meet their expectations didn't they? Those pieces of software did (and continue to do) their part.

@NJ5...So you think the sales would've been the same as if the PS3 never had MGS4 and GTA4...nice thinking. Gee, why do I even bother..

So Final Fantasy 13 boosting an extra 200K units for PS3 in Japan YOY wouldn't mean anything then?

So even with last year having more big releases (GTA, MGS, RE, KZ2 are pretty big), you expect this years big releases to reverse the downward YoY trend (without a price cut).

That's not what I said. Obviously all games count and there's also an effect during the whole lifetime of the consoles, but I was talking about the visible boost after a game launches.

In MGS4's case, if I recall correctly the PS3 had a sales boost for 2-3 weeks after its launch, which amounted to maybe a few hundred thousand units. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

oh? who said this year doesn't have big releases too? and the fiscal year just started dude, however, some late-fiscal year releases will continue to drive sales and appeal for the system for many more months to come.