LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Video game publisher and console maker Nintendo Co. Ltd. may cut the price of its new GameCube console later this year, depending on a similar price cut from Sony Corp. for its PlayStation 2, a company executive told Reuters on Monday.

On the sidelines of a Nintendo event coinciding with the start of the season for baseball's Seattle Mariners, in which the company is a lead investor, Vice President of Marketing George Harrison said a GameCube cut was contingent on whether any Sony price cut is to $199 or $249, from the current price of $299.

''We haven't made a decision on (a price cut),'' Harrison said. ''Sony's expected to make the first move and then we'll see where we stand.'' He implied that the deeper price cut, to $199, would make a GameCube cut more likely.

The GameCube currently retails nationally for $199.95.

Despite frequent denials that it has any plans on any price cut, Sony has been widely expected to cut the PS2's price this year, presumably at the industry's Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in May.

Harrison said Nintendo had expected Sony might cut the price at a retailer conference it held last month, and that any GameCube price cut would have to come by August in order to have full effect for the holiday season.

Harrison speculated that if Sony makes a deep enough cut, and if Nintendo makes a cut, then Microsoft Corp. might also have to cut the price on its $299 Xbox, which came out last November.

He also said the company expects to have shipped 2 million GameCubes in North America as of Mar. 31, implying it has shipped 500,000 this year after shipping 1.5 million between its Nov. 18 launch and the end of 2001.

As for software pricing, Harrison said Nintendo saw no need to cut its $49.99 price for its top titles, though it may consider a discount program for best-selling games down the road, as Sony recently announced.