Pachter: 360 Price Cut Expected, DS/Wii Unaffected

Following Sony's price cut announcement, and despite Microsoft Japan's comments to the contrary, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has said he expects $50-70 cuts to soon follow across all models of the Xbox 360. Pachter said in his latest notes to investors on the forthcoming E3 Media Summit that he expects the Xbox 360 core model too fall from $299 to $249, the Xbox 360 premium model to be cut from $399 to $349, and Xbox 360 Elite model to go from $479 to $399. He notes the company's comments last week that it had fallen short of its 12 million units shipped goal as added incentive, saying "we do not believe that the company is prepared to allow Sony to erode its pricing advantage." "We think that the $499 PS3 compares quite favorably with the $399 Pro 360 model, which has only a 20Gb hard drive and no HDMI output," said Pachter. "Because of this favorable comparison, we believe that Microsoft is all but compelled to cut prices, and we think the price cuts will come no later than at Microsoft’s Tuesday night press conference." But that same price pressure won't affect Nintendo, he concludes, "as sales for both are still very strong and are anticipated to remain so through the end of the year."