Price-cut predicted for PS3, but not Wii

2009 price-cut predicted for the PlayStation 3, but not the Nintendo Wii.

However much Sony might deny a PS3 price-cut, it's the natural tactic to surprise the public at the last minute. The company might have made a loss in 2008, but the console is cheaper to manufacture and any losses made on hardware can be made up in software sales.

The PS3 will have a price-cut this year, even despite the generous bundle offers out at the moment. Analyst Patcher says similar and IGN agrees in their 2009 preview:

"PlayStation 3 Price Drops to $299: This one may be equal parts soothsaying and raw, blind hope, but one thing is for certain: the PlayStation 3 needs to come down in price. Now. In an economy that's floundering as badly as ours -- and a worldwide economy that's doing just as badly (if not far worse in many places) -- a $400-$500 game system just isn't going to cut it.

"Factors like Blu-ray playback don't hold nearly as much weight when stand-alone players with the same functionality are available for half the price, and then, of course, there's the issue of all the competing systems being as much as half the price."

"We can argue the semantics of what you get for that price, but it's honestly moot when it's still well beyond the introductory prices of the last few generations. Something clearly needs to change."

Despite this prediction, IGN argue convincingly that Nintendo won't cut the price of their Wii console this year. It hasn't needed one yet and that's even when Microsoft's Arcade Xbox 360 is the cheapest current generation console on the market:

"Sorry guys, when you've got a system so popular that it's a rarity when you see one in the wild, even in its third year of release, it doesn't do a good job convincing the company that they should make it cheaper for consumers. $249.99 seems to be the "just right" price for the Wii, and unless Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 start undercutting Nintendo and outselling the company doing so, don't expect a lower price tag on the Nintendo system."

IGN go onto predict the first-eight-week-sales of the top selling games of 2009: Resident Evil 5 is predicted to sell 1.35 million copies; Street Fighter IV, 900,000; BioShock 2, 850,000; Killzone 2, 800,000; God of War III, 800,000; Halo 3 ODST, 700,000. Is that worldwide or just in the US? We're unsure...