Sony can deny and deny all they want, but no one is ever going to believe that they won’t be cutting the price of the PS3 some time this year. In fact GameStop is so sure that a price cut is coming on the PS3, and possibly the Wii, that they’re making their 2009 budgets based around the fact. Speaking during a conference call to investors, CEO Daniel DeMatteo revealed the company’s forecast of 33.5 million hardware unit sales was factoring in price cuts on both the Wii and the PS3.
“That assumes that there will be price cuts on the PS3 and potentially one on the Wii,” DeMatteo said, but admitted that “it’s hard to tell if we actually need a price cut on the Wii to get to our numbers. There are some price cuts built into that assumption, but not until the third quarter.”
DeMatteo sites a number of factors that will lead to the price cut, first a foremost being the high price tag of the consoles in an economic depression. On top of this DeMatteo notes that the price point of some systems has stayed the same for far longer than is usual, meaning a drop would be very prudent for reigniting sales. So will we all be rushing out to pick up that console we don’t own yet come this third quarter or will Sony and Nintendo stick to their guns?
