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Sony may slash PS3 prices

By Bandile Sikwane, ITWeb journalist
Johannesburg, 01 Feb 2007

Sony may slash PS3 prices

Although Sony is blaming its faltering profits partly on PlayStation 3 price cuts in Japan, a senior executive said yesterday further price slashing may be in store for the just-launched video game machine, says The Hollywood Reporter.

Pricing is among the factors Sony is studying as it expects to break even in its money-losing gaming business next fiscal year, said senior VP Takao Yuhara, stressing that no additional price cut has been decided.

"We may look at the price as part of our strategy to expand the market when the timing is right," Yuhara told reporters at Sony's Tokyo headquarters.

Wireless hard drive for mobile phones

Seagate has unveiled a wireless hard drive for mobile phones, which goes by the name "Dave". The shortcut stands for "Digital Audio Video Experience" and, according to Seagate, describes an "enabling technology" that will offer a compact alternative to expand the storage capacity of mobile devices that support Bluetooth or WiFi connectivity, TG Daily reports.

The Dave drive, scheduled to debut in the second quarter of this year, has the footprint of a credit card. It is about 0.47-inch thick, which compares to about nine credit cards stacked on top of each other.

The wireless range of the Bluetooth version of the drive is about 30 feet.

Nintedo out-sells PS3

Nintendo's Wii game console has been a runaway success and has outsold Sony's PlayStation 3, but Sony says the two do not belong in the same category, China View reports.

"Wii could be considered an impulse buy, more that anything else," said Dave Karraker, a spokesman for Sony Computer entertainment of America, "but we believe the PS3 will be the console to attract hardcore, committed gamers, while Wii will do little beyond satisfying new and casual players."

However, Perrin Kaplan of Nintendo claims the Wii has turned the video game market "upside down", and dismissed Sony's suggestion that Wii only appears to be in high demand because of fewer shipments.

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