Posted on Thursday, April 05 2007 @ 0:16 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
Sony is trying to make its PlayStation Portable handheld console
a bit more attractive by giving it a $30 price cut from $199 to $169.
It's the first time Sony has officially lowered suggested retail prices on the PSP since its debut in March 2005. Video game publishers and financial analysts have been urging Sony to slash hardware prices in recent quarters.
The cuts come two months after Sony's gaming unit posted a third-quarter operating loss of $443 million, largely due to hefty costs for the launch of its PlayStation 3 video game console.
Although Sony promised business at the gaming unit would improve by the latter half of the fiscal year, the company said declining sales during the October-December period of Sony's predecessor console, PlayStation 2, as well as the handheld PlayStation Portable and PSP game software, hurt quarterly profits at the gaming unit.
Sony's PSP competes mainly against Nintendo's Game Boy and DS. Despite being launched in 2004, the DS -- which some retailers sell for as little as $130 -- outsold every other console in the United States in February, registering 485,000 units sold, according to market researcher NPD Group.
