PS3 to be $499....or more?

According to an article on CNN, some industry analysts believe that Sony will release the Playstation 3 at around $500. While this is all conjecture at this point, Sony for its part has not made a single comment on the price point, other than stating that they had indeed not decided yet on a price point for the new system. You may remember a few months ago now, that Ken Kutaragi said that the PS3 would be "expensive".

"[Sony] could now consider launching its PlayStation 3 at a price range of $399 to $499, with the $499 price point more likely,"

said American Technology Research's P.J. McNealy in a note to clients Monday. Sony has now confirmed that the PS3 will be released with a Blu-Ray drive, which is the main reason many analysts believe a $499 price point is unavoidable now. Some even believe a $650 or astonishing $700 price may be reached, though the former is very unlikely. A few in the industry believe Sony may just take the loss and release the PS3 at $399, which is the same price as the X-Box 360.

As I said, this is all conjecture right now. E3 is coming up pretty quickly now, and I'm sure by the time E3 is over we should know the price one way or the other. Could Sony be thinking a dual-pricing structure similar to Microsoft's strategy with the X-Box 360 release? Only Sony knows at this point.