Sony announces PS3 and PSP price cuts

PlayStation 3: now available for less than £ 200. Photo: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

Sony has announced that it cut the price of its Playstation 3 console from £ 250 to £ 199, effective immediately. Consumer electronics Giant also is set to launch a new cheaper version of its handheld console, PSP, with a price of € 99. An official pound sterling figure is yet to be confirmed.

PS3 was launched in 2006 and is now delivered more than 50 m units, with sales rising significantly since the launch of a cheaper slimline machine in 2009. It is believed that major retailers will cut the price even more and with supermarkets will probably go as low as £ 180.

The new price was revealed during Sony's press conference on the event GamesCom in Cologne, where the company also made several game messages — including resistance: Burning Skies, a new version of the hit PS3 shooter games developed specifically for the PlayStation Vita and Dance Star Party, a dance version of its hit karaoke series, Singstar.

The new, cheaper PSP, which removes the Wi-Fi functionality from the six-year-old handheld, surprised many in the audience. After the announcement of the console Playstation Vita at E3 this year, it was assumed that Sony would retiring the older technology. Instead the company repackaging PSP as an entry level machine, test out its software catalog with a number of reduced price classic titles.

Talk about price cuts, Andrew House, President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe said: "our strategy is to provide the highest quality entertainment experience at affordable prices. With the PSP at € 99 feel Vita starts at € 249 and the PlayStation 3 at € 249, we trust the gamers can enjoy the games incredible available on Playstation, regardless of the level of investment suits their budget. "

However, some industry insiders question the logic of publishes two specialist gaming handheld devices in a market which is being pressured by the rise of smartphones and tablet pc games. It is possible, two will cannibalise each other's markets, or to the less expensive handheld will draw complaints about the price point of more expensive machine.

' The problem is, while the new PSP price point-makes the console very attractive, as a side effect, it puts an unflattering light on the price point of Vita, ' said Rob Crossley of industry news source develop., "I think the price of the PSP now puts pressure on Sony to also reduce the price of Vita from £ 229 to ensure that it is attractive."

The timing of the reduction in price of the PlayStation 3 have also fueled debate. "Sony release the price point at a time when there has been no significant pressure from retailers do," said Crossley. "It is a big change from the PS3 's past price falls."

Of course, away from the retailer pressures, is another reason why a console manufacturer can cut the price on its current generation technology: an imminent hardware announcement. Sony has assured gamers that the PS3 will have a 10-year life span, and it is likely the PlayStation 4 even a few years away. But with the Tokyo Game Show will take place next month, and industry in the game in an accelerated period of development, thanks to increasing social and mobile gaming, everything is possible.

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SXSW Announces guardian Hacks

Today we announce Guardian Hacks SXSW, which will kick with a two-day hack event at the guardian of the base in London on Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 February. We invite 100 developers from all over the UK and Europe to join us and build a collaborative Toolbox of hacks to help explore SXSW.

Music Hack Day's newspaper. Photo by thomasbonte on Flickr. Some rights reserved

How do you create a space for innovation? News organisations recognise that should be a priority, but it is near impossible to make time for something amorphous and elusive as innovation in pressurised, hard-pumping environment of a company, which is almost by definition, are living in the here and now. Time to play, to explore and experiment is a rare luxury.

It is also absolutely crucial if these organisations require any chance to plot a course informed through an unpredictable and risky landscape. Extending the analogy further, is it a try to imagine the course we wish to pursue-exploring ideas and opportunities that will allow that to happen. The future is not predetermined.

With that in mind will guardian Hacks SXSW project gives us a window of time and the opportunity for experimentation and play. Our hackers will help define the challenges, they want to solve, but these are some starting points:

• What would a collaborative publishing platform appearance?
• Is there a visual way to navigate related content?
• What is the best way to aggregate video and audio? Is a video kind of Wordle possible?
• What is the best way to aggregate and curate the best coverage of the event from across the Internet?
• How can the tone and mood of an article represented visually?
• How can comments and backchannels for discussion be represented visually?
• You can press the new nostalgia for Print? Can you hack printed? How can the personalised, location-aware and breaking-news Web be represented in Print, and how can it be combined with the best items in long form, exquisite tangible printed newspapers?

Developers, designers and journalists, to join us in February will have their own separate ideas about how online editorial could be deconstructed, redesigned and rebuilt. This is where the fun begins.

Hacking with cardboard by last years Science Hack Day. Or you could even hack with the Internet! Photo by adactio on Flickr. Some rights reserved

This is not about creating hacks to the custodian; We could have held an internal hack, if we had wanted to do. But we've invited developers from all over the United Kingdom and some of the best news organisations in Europe to come and work together on these ideas, and the results are for any and all to use and enjoy.

Before you reach for the parameter ' filter out SXSW '-is this not an obsession with SXSW. The intensity of the Conference, delegates and subject-as well as the unusual mixture of art, culture, tech and lite-business-safe make for fruitful playing fields. But what we really want to leave Austin with a Starter Kit for some tools that work for certain types of coverage, perhaps some seeds of ideas will inform how to cover major events in different ways and a better understanding of what is possible and practical when developers and journalists work together.

If you want to join us, sign up here.

Hack event is sponsored by Google, which means that we can offer the award-winning dev flights, hotel and a platinum pass for the entire SXSW festival from 11 to 20 March.

Science Hack night. Photo by WordRidden on Flickr. Some rights reserved

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