Sony might lower price of newest PlayStation 3

Sony Corp., the biggest maker of video-game players, may lower the U.S. price of the newest PlayStation 3 console once supplies of an older model are sold, an analyst said.

Sony will stop selling PlayStation 3s equipped with a 60- gigabyte hard drive in the United States once the inventory is gone, Kimberly Otzman, a spokeswoman for Tokyo-based Sony's U.S. games business, said in an e-mail today.

That probably will lead to a cut in the price of the $599 model that comes with an 80-gigabyte drive, said Edward Woo, a Los Angeles-based analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities. Sales increased in July after the company introduced the new model and dropped the cost of the older model to $499 from $599.