Sony's U.K. chief Ray Maguire has dashed the rumour that the Playstation 2 would get its price slashed in time for Christmas.In an interview with BBC, Maguire pointed out that 70% of the U.K. does not own a Playstation 2 and that the company plan to draw those non-gamers to the console not with a drop in price, but with different game varieties such as the music quiz game Buzz and the EyeToy-enhanced exercise title Kinetic.
Rumour had surfaced on the Internet that Sony planned on dropping the price of the PS2 dramatically in order to put a spanner in the works of the Xbox 360, which is set to launch in November.
It had been anticipated that Sony would make the announcement during the recent German Games Conference, but in the end nothing materialized. The company are still pushing to lower the cost of manufacturing the console, but Maguire said it won't be before Christmas:
He said Sony was aiming to lower the cost of making the PS2. But he explained that with a retail price of £100, there was little room for manoeuvre.
"We want to re-engineer the console and drive costs down," said Mr Maguire, but he added there was little room for efficiencies in the components of the console.
When pressed on when the price might fall, he insisted it would not happen before Christmas.
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