Sony acknowledge the need to lower the PlayStation 3's price by Christmas, and comment on the Wii...

Sony boss Sir Howard Stringer has spoken to the Financial Times about the PlayStation 3's currently underwhelming worldwide sales, and indicated the console's price would be dropped by Christmas.

"I think that the public would like the cost to be lower, there's no question about that," he said. But how much lower, for Sony not to lose even more money per unit? "That's what we're studying at the moment; that's what we're trying to refine."

Saying that the PS3's troubles would be solved by time, and that Sony would come up with an answer by Christmas. While in the meantime, the PS2 still sold like "gangbusters".

"It takes a long time for producers, and more time because of the cost factor, to embrace the full bandwidth of PlayStation 3. It's only using 20 per cent of it right now. And their games will get better," he added.

And what of Nintendo, and its Wii? "I would be the first to say to you that Nintendo Wii has been a successful enterprise and a very good business model compared to ours... Because it's cheaper." Not just because it is more fun? "No, no. Fun is in the eye of the experiencer... I think PlayStation 3 is following a particular trend of 1 and 2, and if you looked at the history of it, it's a very similar history."