Sony Corp, the world's biggest maker of video-game consoles, cut the US price of a PlayStation 3 model by 17 percent and introduced a less expensive version to spur holiday sales.
The PlayStation 3 with an 80-gigabyte hard drive was cut to US$499 from US$599, Jack Tretton, head of Tokyo-based Sony's US video-game unit, said in an interview. The reduced price is effective immediately, Sony said in a statement today. The company also introduced a US$399 model with 40 gigabytes of storage that goes on sale Nov. 2.
Sony is taking the steps to narrow the price gap with Nintendo Co's Wii and Microsoft Corp's Xbox 360.
PlayStation 3, which includes a high-definition Blu-ray movie player, is the most expensive game console. Wii sales in the US have more than doubled those of Play-Station 3 since the two machines were introduced last November. Sales also trail Xbox 360, which got a boost this month from the release of the Halo 3 video game.
"Without this, it wasn't looking like there would be much action for PlayStation 3 this holiday," Billy Pidgeon, an analyst at research firm IDC in Framingham, Massachusetts, said in an interview. "This is going to make retailers very happy."
Lower prices may lift holiday PlayStation 3 sales as much as 50 percent by attracting avid game players and consumers shopping for a high-definition DVD player, said Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities in Los Angeles.
The US$399 model comes with a Blu-ray DVD of Spider-Man, highlighting the console's movie-playing abilities.
"Putting a movie inside the box is very smart," Pachter said.
Sony may sell as many as 450,000 PlayStation 3 consoles next month and almost 1 million in December, Pachter said.
Consumers have purchased 6.3 million Xbox 360s, introduced a year earlier, according to NPD Group Inc, a Port Washington, New York-based researcher.
Tretton said Sony's holiday marketing will stress the Blu-ray player in addition to game play. He declined to say how much the company will spend.
Sony may need to cut prices again to catch up with the more than 120 million PlayStation 2s (PS2) sold worldwide, Pachter said.
About 90 percent of PS2 consoles were sold after prices fell to US$199 or less, Pachter said. The PlayStation 2, priced at about US$129, still outsells PlayStation 3. In August, consumers purchased 202,000 of the consoles, compared with 130,600 PlayStation 3s, according to NPD.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique