Price Drop for Japanese PS3From
IGN.com September 22, 2006 - You might have already seen this burried in our live report from the Ken Kutaragi keynote address earlier today, but Sony kicked off TGS with a major bang, announcing a price drop and a major spec change for the PlayStation 3.
Ken Kutaragi's first bombshell was that the 20 gigabyte PS3 model will now included an HDMI port. Until now, only the 60 Gig model was set to include the next generation port, which is currently available on only a small fraction of televisions.
"HDMI compatible televisions are spreading faster than we expected," cited Kutaragi as reason for the change.
But this upgrade in specifications is nothing compared to what Kutaragi had in store next. The 20 gigabyte PS3 model is going to break new ground by seeing a price drop before it's even been released! Kutaragi announced that the 20 Gig model, HDMI port and all, will now cost 49,980 yen. This is a drastic drop from the previous 62,790 yen.
The 60 gigabyte model is still set at open pricing, meaning retailers are free to price it as they please. However, given that the price drop for the 20 Gig model, the actual retail pricing of the 60 gig model will likely change accordingly.
Today's announcements concern Japan only. Sony has yet to issue a statement on the HDMI port and pricing in other territories. For what it's worth, the Japanese system now costs over fifty dollars less than the US system, which is a bit strange for a Sony platform. We wouldn't be too surprised if the US were to see similar pricing changes. I'm gonna be pissed if Sony decided not to apply the price drop to the American PS3 as well.
I also read that PS3 games will most likely be in the $50-60 price range. Here's a
link to that story.
