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If you read the first installment in the latest installment of "Pachter Predixx," you already know that the analyst's new report praises the PS3 for its resilience during these troubled times. According to the report, the PS3 saw an 85-percent year-over-year sales increase in November, while the Wii and Xbox 360 suffered sales declines. This reversal in fortune leads Pachter and his Wedbush associates to a surprising conclusion: "We think that the PS3 will again outsell the Xbox 360 in November and December, prompting a price cut some time early next year."

Pachter adds that while Microsoft "has the ability to lower price yet again," it probably won't do so until "it begins to lose significant market share to Sony." As with all conjecture -- even when delivered by professional conjecture conjurers -- we suggest considering Pachter's educated guess as just that: a guess.

Update: Nintendo has told us that the price in Canada has dropped accordingly to $219.95 and will go into effect the same day as the US. The representative also said more details on the European price drop will arrive next Monday.

Though online portals to major European retailers have yet to reflect the claim, the price for a Wii is reported to drop by €50 across Europe, bringing the total cost to €199, according to GamesIndustry.biz. Unfortunately, it appears that the price cut won't bridge the gap of the English Channel, as the discount is reportedly confirmed for all of Europe except for the UK.

Nintendo officially dropped the price of its console in the US late Wednesday night (during Sony's TGS press conference, those scoundrels!), leaving us wondering why Europe, a key market, was left out of the equation -- until now. With no price cut yet announced for the UK though, that rumored bundle seems all the more likely.

Sony may have been busy talking up the PSP Go (and its ridiculous accessories) during TGS, but it looks like the company hasn't forgotten the Go's older brother. Beginning October 1, the original PSP will receive a fifteen percent price drop in Japan, lowering the price to ¥16,800 (~$185). While it might seem a little strange for Sony to lower the price of the PSP just prior to the launch of the already overpriced PSP Go, Bloomberg rightly points out that the cut will place the PSP at a lower price than Nintendo's monstrously successful DSi.

For now, the price cut remains exclusive to Japan. Joystiq has contacted Sony to find out whether it plans to share the love with the rest of the world.

[Via Engadget]

Just like we saw earlier this year with the PlayStation 3 Slim, the rumor mill is churning at breakneck pace -- though this time around a possible Nintendo Wii price cut rather than a slimmer console. Aside from multiple retailer listings and today's alleged internal Best Buy memo, MCV reports that a "retail source" told it the UK won't be receiving the same price cut that North America and Japan are expected to receive. Instead, the current model will be given the bundle treatment.

GamesIndustry.biz spotted the new bundle on ShopTo.net -- it has since been removed, though an image and a shell of the page still exist -- which includes both Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort as well as a MotionPlus attachment, for the same £199.99 ($326.76) the system is priced at now. If it is true, at least UK Wii buyers will be getting a bit more for their pounds. It's not quite the Duck Hunt/Super Mario Bros. with a Zapper combo of yore, but it'll have to do.

Source -- No Wii price cut for UK [GamesIndustry.biz]
Source -- New UK Wii bundle leaked [MCV]

We've seen ads promoting the Wii's heretofore unconfirmed new $199 price point from Target and Toys R Us -- however, Engadget recently got its hands on the crown jewel of retailer news leakage: A purported internal Best Buy memo which confirms the discount will go into effect this coming Sunday, September 27. The memo requests that blue-shirted employees keep the cut under wraps until Nintendo formally announces the new price this coming Friday. You guys are doing a great job of that so far.

We'll keep an ear to the ground this Friday for an announcement from the Big N.

Update: Kotaku is reporting that SCEA has directly referenced the new $199 price point for Wii during a presentation to Best Buy employees in Kansas City, Missouri. Can we please put a fork in this one?

We hope at this point we don't have to sell you on the validity of Ars Technica's mole. Whoever the guy/girl is, their track record is fantastic, after correctly predicting everything from the Resident Evil 5 360 bundle to the price cuts the 360 and PS3 just enjoyed. Now, the mole says that Microsoft will be sweetening the deal this holiday season, packing Pure and Lego Batman in with the Xbox 360 Elite.

The mole went on to claim that the 802.11n adapter Microsoft has confirmed will debut for $100, while the 802.11g will drop to $79.99. ... Yikes, $20 off a device that should cost $20 in the first place? If true, it's pretty darn cold.

Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg told GI.biz that he doesn't expect the recent price drops on Xbox 360 and PS3 hardware to change sales trends permanently. "I don't believe the price cuts that both companies have made will impact the market dynamics too dramatically in the long term," he said. "We typically see a month or two of lifts and share adjustments, but then things tend to settle back to roughly the established market ranking. We do, however, expect that these new lower prices will bring in more consumers that were potentially a bit resistant to the previous pricing in place."

And, of course, these statements come before the rumored Wii price drop, which may reduce even the temporary lifts experienced by the other consoles. Luckily, we suppose, that period will run right into the holidays, when everything sees dramatic sales increases.

What you see above is the third circular image we've spotted in just five days advertising a Nintendo Wii price cut to $199.99. At this point, though the image that a Kotaku tipster sent in could very well be made of fancy pixel work by someone with too few extracurriculars on their schedule, we're fairly confident in a forthcoming price cut reveal.

Considering the impending holiday season and those other consoles getting recent price drops, it seems likely something will occur with the big N in the upcoming months. If Miss Cleo's Michael Pachter's predictions based on slowing sales are any indication though, we'll know soon enough.

The image above, posted by Kotaku, appears to be a Target ad for the week of September 27, featuring a $50 price drop on Wii hardware. This ad would further corroborate the Toys R Us ad we saw that also showed the same price cut -- if we knew either ad was real. Us? We're hoping for a drastic price cut on cameras so tipsters can get better pictures of these advance ads.

The DVD at the right side of the Target ad is Monsters vs. Aliens, which comes out on September 29. That at least shows that if this ad is a fake, it's a somewhat clever one. As always, we're not going to take this as confirmation of a price drop, but we will take it as confirmation that it would be smart to wait a couple of weeks before going to buy a Wii.

No, not to $50, though that would be an awesome way to tie up this holiday season for Nintendo. Kotaku shared this possible excerpt from a future Toys R Us ad, showing Wiis for sale for just $199, with Wii Sports, effective September 27. Now, we're not going to call this true or confirmed or anything that implies we have any confidence in this image. In fact, there are a few possibilities:

1. It's real (yay!)
2. The art of faking retail ads has advanced significantly since the run-up to the PS3 Slim release, and it's a convincing fake
3. It's real, but the "price cut" term is actually referring to a Toys R Us sale (still yay, but not universally so).

In any case, just don't buy a Wii until late September. You've waited almost three years anyway!

-DS: 553K14K (+2%)
-Wii: 277K24K (+9%)
-360: 215K12K (+6%)
-PS3: 210K88K (+72%)
-PSP: 140K17K (+13%)
-PS2: 106K2K (-2%

Check out the software sales chart after the break.

Sony Computer Entertainment America has some good news and some bad news to share. The good: Sales of PS3 hardware at its "top retailers" jumped 300% for the first week of September versus the week before the system's price was cut to $299 for the 120GB "slim" unit. The bad: Um, well ... okay, we lied. Everything's pretty good for a change at SCEA HQ, considering people are actually buying its console. (Although 300% pales in comparison to Europe's totally legit 999% increase ... or Japan's 7,350% increase).

The hardware maker also noted that, as of August, five of consumers' top 10 most-wanted games (as surveyed by OTX's GamePlan Insights) -- Gran Turismo 5, Final Fantasy XIII, God of War III, Assassin's Creed 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 -- are on PS3, in case you somehow didn't know this. We would like to note (mainly for Sony's information) that Modern Warfare 2 is also on Xbox 360, and that version was No. 2 in OTX's survey results, whereas the PS3 version placed 10th. (Assassin's Creed 2 for 360 is No. 3 and No. 8 for PS3.) In fact, if you calculate the "purchase intent index" for the top three (all Xbox 360 games) and the lower five (all PS3 games) they're nearly identical. But still, we'll give it to them.

Maybe it's more worthwhile, though, to point out that Uncharted 2 didn't even make the top 25. What's up with that?

Source -- GamePlan Insights Survey Data [PDF file]

Yes, the 999% week-to-week sales increase that the PS3 reportedly enjoyed in the UK, after the release of the PS3 Slim, may seem a little ... astonishing, but we'd like to help you make sense of the sequence of events.

1. First, NOBODY bought a PS3.
2. Then, EVERYONE did.

It's great news for Sony, but terrible for the PS3 executive who promised to come up with a way to increase PS3 sales by 1000 percent. Better luck next time, Mr. Former Director of Cross-Budgetary Marketing Promotional Strategy.

The Xbox 360 price drop has propagated to Japan, with Microsoft announcing new price points roughly commensurate with those of American Xboxes, effective September 10. The Pro is being phased out, with the retail cost of remaining stock now up to retailers, with no "suggested" price from MS. The Elite is dropping from ¥39,800 to ¥29,800 ($322) -- in a new HDMI-free package, of course -- and the Arcade will remain at ¥19,800 ($214). We expect to see deep cuts on the Pro, as retailers seize an opportunity to get Xboxes out of their stores.

Last night, just hours before the price cut announcement went out, we had a chance to talk with Aaron Greenberg – the often outspoken Director of Product Management at Xbox – about the new $300 Elite console, the company's Fall lineup in the absence of Splinter Cell Conviction, Netflix "exclusivity" (whatever that means), the (still!) outrageous price of the WiFi adapter, and whether we're ever going to see Hulu or Groups/Clan support in Xbox Live (those are two of our favorite questions for Aaron). Read on for the complete interview:

Joystiq: Hey Aaron – so what do you have for us today?

Aaron Greenberg: So this may shock you, but effective on Friday we are dropping the price of our Xbox 360 Elite console by $100, dropping that down to $299. At the same time, we are also reducing the price of the Xbox 360 Pro or Premium 60 gig SKU down to $249 -- that will be effective while supplies last. And this will essentially set us up as we head into holiday with a two SKU setup: the $199 white Arcade SKU and then the $299 120 gig Elite black console.

The Elite price is effective Friday?

Yes. The price drop goes into effect at retail on Friday.

So of course we're totally surprised and had no idea this was coming, so any questions that might indicate I was prepared you should just take as good guessing on our part I think.

Right, exactly. So you don't read your own site or anything I guess?