Sony Pushed Toward Early PS3 Price Cut

Many of Nintendo's new hits are novel concepts. Sony has been flogging the PS3 on aging series like "Virtua Fighter," and consumers are clearly growing restless.

We're getting close to the pivotal Golden Week game-selling frenzy in Japan. The week straddling the end of April and the beginning of May rivals the December-January period as the most hectic game sales season in Japan. If PS3 sales remain stuck around 100,000 in March in the U.S. and if Golden Week is a bust in Japan, Sony may be forced to cut the high-end PS3 price by $100 or more.

Crucial Summer

Sony needs strong support from Japanese developers, and they have already started ramping up their support for both Nintendo DS and Microsoft's (MSFT Quote) Xbox 360. The most wanted game among Japanese consumers recently polled by Famitsu is "Dragon Quest IX," a supposed anchor title for PS3 that was abruptly moved to Nintendo DS as developer Square Enix began hedging its bets.

Electronic Arts (ERTS Quote) is at the vanguard of Western powerhouse game developers increasing their research and development for portable devices. Sony needs to turn the tide of shifting software allegiances soon, or it will lose its status as the leading franchise platform. Upcoming blockbusters, ranging from "Final Fantasy" to "Devil May Cry," may turn the tide and make PS3 the clear global volume leader like its predecessor.

But those games won't arrive anytime soon, and Nintendo is lining up killer U.S. content like "Pokemon" and "Paper Mario" for this spring. In the meanwhile, Sony's much-vaunted "MotorStorm" has just started selling in America, and it is being badly overshadowed by "God of War 2," made for the PS2. The latter is becoming perhaps the biggest early spring blockbuster of 2007. As a PS2 title, it is diverting consumer attention from PS3 even more effectively than current games for Wii or Xbox360.