PS3 Price Drop Confirmed; 80GB Version on Tap

Rumors have been swirling for months now about a possible price drop for the wildly overpriced 60GB PlayStation 3—in fact, the buzz reached such a fever pitch that Sony saw fit (as Chris Null reported on Friday) to issue a denial. Now here we are Monday morning, and Sony has done an abrupt about-face, announcing that the 60GB PS3 sticker price is indeed dropping to $499 (from $599). Also: an 80GB version of the console is set for U.S. release in August.

Looking back, the move makes perfect sense; Sony dropped the $499 20GB PlayStation 3 back in April after poor sales in the U.S.; then, in May, the tech giant announced an 80GB version of the console for South Korea (priced at 510,000 won, or $581 in U.S. dollars). The thinking was that if Sony were to release the 80GB model in the U.S. (which it now has), the company would either price it at a breathtaking $699 or so, or turn the 60GB console into the "budget" PS3 and give the 80GB version the 60GB's original $599 price tag.

As Chris pointed out in his post on Friday, the now-$499, Blu-ray drive-equipped 60GB PS3 is looking pretty good right now, considering that most standalone Blu-ray players go for at least $500. And why was Sony so cagey about the price drop in the first place? Something tells me that Sony's PS3 pricing scheme could easily have gone the other way. Luckily, it appears that cooler heads prevailed.

Related:
Sony Drops PS3 Price To $500, Adds 80 GB Version [Wired Blogs]