As we reported Friday, Sony is dropping the price of gaming. Sony Computer Entertainment officially announced Tuesday that it will lower the price of the Dual Shock PlayStation system to US$129.99, effective August 30. This comes after Sony gave retailers the choice to reduce the price of the original (non-Dual Shock) hardware to $129 earlier this summer. That helped Sony to sell out of the older PlayStation model.
Nintendo, rising to the challenge, fired off an announcement just hours after Sony's stating that the price of the N64 console would also drop to $129. And Nintendo is throwing in an instant coupon worth $10 off a lineup of 23 first-party N64 games (including the upcoming Legend of Zelda) and the N64 controller and its Rumble Pak accessory.
According to Sony, PlayStation hardware sales have exceeded 11.5 million units, with software sales over 85 million units. It adds that PlayStation enjoys a 56.5 percent share in the current video game hardware market, and 64.2 percent in software.