Home theatre providers are divided over whether Sony's decision to cut the U.S. price of its PlayStation 3 model by $100 will have an impact on the video-game maker's -- and their own -- businesses.
On Thursday, Sony cut the price of a PS3 with an 80-gigabyte hard drive to $499 from $599, effective immediately, and announced plans to introduce a $399 model with 40 gigabytes on Nov. 2.
Scott Yoder, manager of Wee-Bee Audio, a Lancaster, Pa.-based solution provider, said the $100 discount may tip the scales toward end users upgrading from a previous video-game platform and buying a bigger, flat-screen display or home theatre system to go along with it.
"I see that as an opportunity to generate more business. More people having it, means more people getting plugged into [high-definitioin] games, Blu-Ray movies," Yoder said.
But Jon Layish, president of Red Barn Computers, a Binghamton, N.Y.-based solution provider, said he can't give PS3s away.
"I've heard nothing about them. Everybody wants a damn [Nintendo] Wii," Layish said. "I can't see [a price cut] making a big difference. We bought some PS3s and had them for so long, we ended up taking a take a loss on them on eBay. Nobody wants them. The technology is good, but the games are not there."
While on the phone, Layish looked up PS3 and Wii availability on a distributor's Web site and found 14,000 PS3s available while Wiis were sold out, he said. "I don't know if they have so many [PS3s] because they anticipate huge demand now or they can't get rid of them," he said.
For that reason, he doesn't expect Sony's price cut to lead to increased home-theatre product sales. "Typically, it's more about the games," he said.
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