Sony drops PS3 price!

[A Black Falcon]

Willing to shell out $85 for a PLAYSTATION 3 game?

IGN reports that Japanese PS3 game prices will likely be between 8,800-9,800 yen range ($75-85 USD). Japanese site Impress Watch has also reported that the reason behind the projected prices, which are high compared to the cost of the average PS2 game in Japan (6,800 yen), is due to slower-than-expected third party development for the upcoming platform.

In addition, the article projects that Sony will try to de-emphasize the 60 GB model of its newest console and shift focus onto the 20 GB SKU, which may explain a recently-announced price decrease for that model in Japan.

So far, this has no impact on the American pricing for the system or software, at least not at the present time. Exact shipping numbers for either region have yet to be released.

They're making up for it with microtransaction games (GT HD...) and $75-$85 games. :) (though they won't be that much in the US -- last-gen games cost more there than here, so I'd expect that the X360's $60 is more realistic for the US prices...)