Sony slashes price of PS3 SDK to fix game problem

While some may view it as a sign of desperation, Sony on Monday said that it will cut licensing fees for the PS3 SDK in half to spur additional game development.

The package now costs $10,250 in the US, 950,000 yen in Japan, and 7,500 euros in Europe. With lower prices now both for the consumer in the form of a system price cut, and for the developer in the SDK, it hopefully will mean higher sales and profits for the PS3.

This is not the last of the price drops either. "As more and more new titles are developed for the PS3 format, SCEI will significantly reduce the price of the Reference Tool in order to contribute to the cost saving measures of the development community," Sony said in a statement.

Cheaper consoles seemed to have worked somewhat for the PS3, although it still suffers from a lack of games. Only about 70 games will have been released for the console by the holidays, versus the hundreds for the Xbox 360.

The Wii is also slightly ahead of the PS3 as far as the number of games, however its cheap price and innovative gameplay have helped it to sell far more consoles than many had expected even with a comparatively low number of titles.

Much of the problem with developing games could be the difficulty and expense of producing them for the PS3. Some developers have claimed that the console is particularly hard to code for due to its sophisticated cell processor and the like.

This could explain why a sizable chunk of the PS2 developers are switching to other consoles, some industry analysts say.