Two days ago, Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey proved that he knows very little about the gaming industry, when he predicted that Sony would release a PS3 without Blu-Ray functionality in order to cut costs.<\/p>\n
His prediction is routed in another of his predictions, this one not so idiotic, that Sony will look to reduce the PS3’s retail price by $100 in 2009. Obviously if Sony were to replace the Blu-Ray drive with a conventional DVD drive, it would be fairly easy for the manufacturer to drop its price.<\/p>\n
However, if Sony were to release a PS3 without a Blu-Ray drive, the console in question would not be able to play a single currently available PS3 game.<\/p>\n
In order for the strategy to be viable, developers would have to re-release at least a significant proportion, if not all currently available PS3 titles on DVD format. This would mean that titles such as Metal Gear Solid 4 which make use of Blu-Ray’s extra storage space, would have to be released using multiple DVDs.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, Hickey obviously does not pay much attention to the media, or he would know that Blu-Ray won the High-Definition war, and for Sony to remove one of its key value propositions over the Xbox 360 would most definitely be a step backwards.<\/p>\n
Finally, the PS3 really is not selling as badly as many would have us believe. In 2008, Sony shipped 10.77 million PS3s. The cheaper Xbox 360 managed a sales figure of 10.8 million. In fact, the PS3 outsold the Xbox 360 in 2008 right up until October, when Microsoft started seeing massive holiday sales, eventually selling 6 million consoles in the forth quarter alone to snatch the top sales crown for 2008.<\/p>\n