I don't know if anyone has noticed but the Wii, Xbox 360, and the PS3, just received well deserved price cut to boost sales in this tough economy. This really worked for all of the systems. But yet, there is no price cut for the DS or the PSP, why?

C'mon a DS is $179 dollars just $30 difference from the wii and a $20 difference from the xbox 360, while the PSP Go is the most overpiced gaming system I have seen in a long time, yes even the ipod. The PSP Go has a $50 difference from the slim.

The DS isn't suffering from sales, it is far from it, so it would be more difficult to see a price cut for the DS, but who knows maybe with the XXL DS they will drop the price although it is doubtful. It may be worth mentioning that analysts predict that a new DS will come in late 2010. This seems something plausible, Nintendo has been milking the DS for a long time, and I think a new system is needed with Hard Drive, but that is for another blog, this means a price cut could come in 2010 or before.

Now the PSP on the other hand is.....suffering. Sony hoped that the Go would boost sales but it hasn't. Theres even retailers sellng the Go under the MSRP. The DS has all the casual gamers market, and the PSP is trying, and I mean trying to take over that market with the Mini games on the PSN store. But the only way to get new customers into the PSP seems to be a price cut, at least for the Go. The PSP isn't that bad the $199 price tag for the 3000 with a game & movie included is pretty good, and it seems people are buying that more than the Go, but wasn't the Go supposed to outsell the 3000?

The Go is the "premium" psp, but it is so "premium" that not many people are buying it, and the digital-only media is not what is driving people away, the Ipod made peope buy music online, and have it on their hard drive. What is driving people away is the Price, as I already said. People don't really care if they or their childs have to buy the games online or at gamestop, so they will buy the cheapest option, specially if the PSP 3000 is not going to be discountinued.

If Sony does a price cut on the Go, that would probablly mean that the 3000 should also get a price cut, or, be discountinued. I like the second option best because if there is only digital media for $200 and 16gb hard drive it would make a huge competition against the Ipod, the next step could be lowering price tags for online games, they haven't done that yet because people would stop buying UMD and just keep online games on their hard drive and put one or two in a Memory Card and just switch them around.

In conclusion I'm suggesting what many have suggested for a long time, Digital Media only, with the "new DS", with the Go and drop the 3000. Making systems more inexpensive, especially the Go. Attract more customers and with online media making games cheaper, just like the Iphone games. If this doesen't happen I think that we won't have good portable consoles for a long time, the new DS will be for casual gamers, so will the Iphone, and Sony won't make a new PSP after all this failures, and us hardcore gamers will be again screwed by nintendo, we won't have good portable games like GOW Chains of Olympus, Star Wars Battlefront, and AC Bloodlines.