James Delahunty
19 Aug 2008 22:21
Sony has confirmed that there will not be a price cut for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console at the games fair in Leipzig, Germany, next week. "It's not going to happen. If you're coming for that you'll be disappointed," Sony Computer Entertainment spokesman Nick Caplin said. Past price cuts for the PS3 have brought relief to Sony after a very shaky and poor start for the powerful console.
Sony had sold 9.24 million units of the PS3 in the 12 months ending March 31st, below the company's 11 million target but is currently on track for the current year's target of 10 million sales. After a decade of domination in the game console market with the previous two generations of PlayStation hardware, the PS1 and PS2, Sony is now locked in a battle with Microsoft and Nintendo to retain its title.
In the U.S., the PS3 is closing the gap on the Xbox 360 console, which debuted in the territory in November 2005. Right now both the Xbox 360 and PS3 are competing for second place in monthly sales performances in North America, while Nintendo has continued to push out many more units of its innovative and less expensive Wii console.
Now its up to both to push for better games and services to bring consumers to their products. The importance of producing wide varieties of quality games for target audiences was briefly displayed earlier this month when the Xbox 360 outsold the PS3 in the worst market for the Microsoft console, Japan. The moment of success for Microsoft was due to Namco Bandai's "Tales of Vesperia" title.