According to GameDaily, Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter, while predicting growing sales rates in the gaming industry, also forecasts price cuts from Sony and Microsoft. He said that even with Sony insisting that a price drop is not on cards, the move appears pretty imminent.

EEDAR's Jesse Divinch, who earlier forecast NPD Group's game sales in December, now has Pachter agreeing with him - both predicting that more than 750,000 PlayStation 3s, 1.35 million Xbox 360s, and 3.25 million Wiis were sold nationally during the month.

Nailing down the likely time for the price cut, Pachter expects that in April, the cost of 80GB PS3 base model would drop from $399 to $299; with yet another Xbox 360 price cut close on heels - going down to $249 - some time around E3 in June.

Patcher also believes Sony's move will trigger some kind of a price war! He said that Microsoft, wishing to maintain momentum, will follow suit, and cut $50 off of its 60GB
360 Pro model around June. However, he does not expect a price cut for the Wii, at least till the holiday season, due to its current record-high demand for the console.

As regards the sales of PlayStation 2 games, Pachter is of the opinion that its sales, after having slid 51 percent in November and nearly 54 percent in December, in a year-on-year comparison, will continue to fall by approximately half each month.