Sega plans extra cuts to spike Sony
Sega is believed to be planning a further 20 per cent price cut on its Sega Saturn computer games machine, in response to discounting by rival Sony PlayStation.
Industry sources say Sega will join a pre-Christmas price war, slashing the price of Saturn from 249 to 199. It has already reduced the price of the machine from 299.
The price will be the same as Sony’s PlayStation, which was slashed by 100 last week.
Durlacher & Co analyst Nick Gibson says Sega has rationalised its technology to make the consoles easier to produce.
Sony leads Sega by 60 per cent to 40 per cent in the UK 32-bit machine market. The worldwide market is worth 10bn.
Sony’s UK head of marketing, Geoff Glendenning, explains its cut by saying: “We want to sustain our lead over Sega and Nintendo, and this will make it hard for them.”
Both cuts are an attempt to steal the thunder from last week’s launch of Nintendo 64, which has twice the power of other consoles on the market.
The system was launched at the industry trade show – the Electronics Entertainment Expo – in Los Angeles last week. Industry observers say the quality of the system is remarkable. Nintendo says it plans to spend 35m promoting the $249 (187) consoles in the US.
