Sony Finally Brings Good News

Just when you thought Sony couldn't get some positive press if they opened a dry cleaning business (groan) ... they manage to drop a couple bombs at the Tokyo Game Show.

First up, Ken Kutaragi announced that they're dropping the price of the 20GB PS3 to roughly $430 US. However, this price drop is confirmed to be ONLY for Japan. I don't get that move, and it probably has something to do with how the allocation of units is spread out amongst the territories.

In conjunction with that announcement, they also stated that the 60GB model would be "open price", which means that the retailers can sell it for whatever they want. That's NOT good news for consumers, as you can expect the price gouging to be widespread and rampant, since Japan is only getting 100,000 PS3 units total.

The second piece of good news is that they have relented and put an HDMI port in the 20GB model, meaning that the higher priced model has less to differentiate it. I'm not sure who'd buy a 60GB model now. Still, these changes mean that Sony realizes that they've painted themselves into a corner, and they need to get back in the good graces of the "core gamer".