Wedbush (Why do I feel like Elmer Fudd every time I say that?) Morgan’s gaming-industry soothsayer Michael Pachter has consulted his crystal ball and is anticipating an April price cut to Sony’s gaming behemoth. He expects Sony to reduce the price of the PlayStation 3 to $299, in an effort to spike console sales.
Similarly, he predicts Microsoft to slash the price of the Xbox 360 Pro SKU to $249. There are no expected price cuts for the Nintendo Wii, but why should there be? That sucker sells like donuts at an overeater’s anonymous convention.
More from Yoda Pachter after the jump.
Pachter paints a fairly rosy picture for the gaming industry in general;
"We think that concerns about weakening consumer demand for videogames are overblown," he told investors. "In our view, the best indicator of future demand is hardware unit sell-through, and we expect a robust 9.15 million hardware units sold in December, up 13 per cent year-over-year. For the year, we expect total U.S. console and handheld hardware sales of 35.15 million units, up 17.4 per cent year-over-year.â€
Pachter’s predicitions may have come too soon though; Sony have just announced that they expect to post operational losses of roughly 100 billion yen ($1.1 billion) for the 2007-2008 period. This would be first loss in 14 years, and only the second since the company was founded. It’ll be interesting to see what effect the economic downturn (fancy new term for recession) has on “the console wars†and first party game development in particular. While a price reduction may seem like a difficult decision in this economic climate, it may be just what the PS3 needs to bring it back up out of third place.
Last Updated: January 13, 2009
