Sony under pressure to slash PS3 price

Following Microsoft’s

official confirmation

of a price drop across its entire Xbox 360 range,

Strategy Analytics

has stated that the move will put pressure on Sony to follow suit with its PS3.

Sony will be nervous that the PS3’s recent sales surge may fizzle out now that the premium Xbox 360 undercuts the PS3 by 40, and the cheapest Xbox model is almost half the price of a PS3,” said Strategy Analytics principal analyst David Mercer.

Sony will be scrutinising the daily sales reports, but will probably try to hold out until later in the year before making its next price move.

Microsoft must continue to drive cost out of console manufacturing in order to sustain these improvements in financial performance.”

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Arcade bundle, which does not include a hard drive but does come with a 256MB memory card, wireless controller and HDMI port, now retails for 159.99.

Its other SKUs, the Xbox 360 Pro and Xbox 360 Elite, now retail for 199.99 and 249.99 respectively – both well below the 299.99 RRP of Sony’s 40GB machine.