TOKYO: Sony Corp. may cut the price of the PlayStation 3 which is facing fierce competition from Nintendo's Wii, the president of the electronics giant indicated in an interview published Wednesday.

Sony "does not rule out the possibility of lowering the price" of the PS3, Sony president Ryoji Chubachi told the daily Yomiuri Shimbun.

He said the company would make a full assessment of the competitive situation in the home video game market.

Sony slashed the price of the PS3 by 20 percent in Japan ahead of its launch there last November as it prepared for a fierce fight against cheaper games consoles from rivals Microsoft and Nintendo.

Even after the price reduction, however, the PS3 is still the most expensive of the three main next-generation video games consoles on the market by far and many analysts say Sony will need to lower the price further.

Rival Nintendo is enjoying strong sales of the Wii, known for its motion-sensitive controller, outselling the PS3 by more than five to one in Japan in May, according to research from publisher Enterbrain.

Speculation about a possible price cut for the PS3 has grown since Sony announced this week it would lower the price of its new Blu-ray high-definition DVD player for the North American market by 100 hundred dollars to 499 dollars.

Sony chose to put the Blu-ray player inside all PS3s, pushing up the cost of the console and leading to delays to its launch due to production problems with the laser diode.

The Japanese giant's video game division suffered a huge operating loss in the last fiscal year and is expected to remain in the red this year.

The success of the PS3 is considered vital to a revival at Sony, which under its first foreign boss Howard Stringer is in the midst of major restructuring.

- AFP/ir