Analyst: PS3 price cut days away

$100 reduction necessary in order to 'restart unit velocity at retail'.

Edge reports that Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey has revealed he expects Sony to announce a PS3 price cut imminently.

"Recent channel checks indicate increased speculation for a PS3 price cut announcement from Sony in the next couple of days," Hickey stated in a Tuesday research note.

He added: "We think the company needs to reduce the current price by $100 to effectively restart unit velocity at retail. ... We believe the market is expecting a PS3 price cut in April or by June (E3) at the latest...

"If Sony does not cut the price of their console, we expect the continuation of languishing PS3 hardware sales and the potential for publishers to accelerate their reallocation of resources away from the PS3 console."

We wouldn't be surprised to see a post-Killzone 2 price cut, but Hickey's second prediction doesn't seem so plausible.

"We are also hearing continued speculation that Sony is working on a non-Blu-ray PS3 console, which could enable them to make the aforementioned hardware price reduction," he noted.

While dropping Blu-ray would allow for further price cuts to the console, the fragmentation of the PS3 user base and the fact all current disc-based PS3 software would be incompatible makes the move unlikely.