What a great July we’ve been having in the video game console world! Microsoft commits $1 billion to fix its ailing Xbox 360 (see my article on this here) and now: confirmed reports this morning that the Playstation 3 is finally getting a $100.00 USD price cut this Thursday, July 12 2007. That date also coincides (I’m guessing not coincidentally) with the E3 Media & Business Summit, which runs July 11-13 in Santa Monica.

This price drop will put the price at $499 rather than the $599 the 60GB version sells for currently. Hoping to mitigate its losses, Sony will introduce another unit for the less price-conscious. That PS3, which will start selling for $599 in August, increases the hard-drive size from 60GB to 80GB and includes the game MotorStorm released earlier this year.

Meantime, the company is showing it is willing to stomach further losses in its gaming business and, in particular, the PS3, which includes a high-end Blu-ray DVD player, wireless Internet access, and a powerful custom processor, to keep wavering developers from jumping to those rival systems. “This is good for everybody — but, potentially, our competitors,” Jack Tretton, president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America, says of the cut.

While widely expected to happen sometime before the important holiday shopping season, the announcement was nonetheless surprising after a top company official in Japan on July 6 denied a price cut was in the offing. Sony has been reluctant to reduce the price too quickly in part to avoid appearing desperate this early after the introduction of a console.

I purchased my PS3 on June 14th for full price from Walmart. I wonder if they will do a price adjustment for me as I come in under the 30 days?! Lets keep the fingers crossed…$100 is a $100!

So after much debate and research on what console to get…Xbox 360 vs. PS3, I wound up picking up a PS3 last week. My cousin has had one for a few months now, and was able to convince me to pick one up as well. The process began with me walking into my local EB store and asking the guy to grab me a PS3, an extra controller, and 2 games: Motorstorm and Pirates of the Caribbean – Dead Man’s Chest. $816.00 later, I arrive home and anxiously start setting up my PS3. I had an extra HDMI cable, so saved some money there. But in order to hook the PS3 up to my surround sound system, I needed to purchase an optical audio cable ($30.00 more dollars). So with $850.00 being spent on this “next-gen” gaming machine, I finally turned the thing on, spent 15-20 mins going through the setup and finally got the 1st glimpse at Motorstorm. I was floored! The graphics looked amazing and the sound was crisp and clear. Yea it also has some flaws (lack of good games currently, no force feedback in the controller) but all in all, a good investment in my opinion. Did I tell you that Blu-ray looks amazing! I watched Blood Diamond and Black Hawk Down in Blu-ray and they looked kick ass!

So all in all, I’m very pleased with PS3 so far. I am able to wirelessly stream audio and video from PC onto my PS3, as well as view photos and slideshows. The online game play is fun as well. Now just looking forward to some good PS3 game releases to come out!