PS3 Profitable, Price Cut Unlikely

In an interview with IGN, Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony's Worldwide Studios, said the company is finally making money on every PS3 sold and there's no rush to bring the price down again.

"This year is the first time that we are able to cover the cost of the PlayStation 3," Yoshida said. "We aren't making huge money from hardware, but we aren't bleeding like we used to".

In May, Sony began shipping new PlayStation 3 consoles with smaller and more cost effective graphics chips. Now, Yoshida said, Sony is looking at replenishing retail stock that has been running on empty since January rather than cutting the price.

"When we bring the cost of hardware down, we are looking at opportunities to adjust prices if we believe that will increase demand," he explained. "At the moment, we are trying to catch up our production".

"We have lots of great games coming out and innovations with Move and 3DTV, so we don't believe this is the time for us to think about a price drop," he added.

Rather than cutting the price of the base model, Yoshida said the company may look at doing additional console bundles, like the one recently announced that will include Sports Champion, a PlayStation Move controller, and a PlayStation Eye for $399.

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