Evidently, reviews were lukewarm for many new games like Call of Duty Ghosts on these ageing consoles. According to Michael Pachter who spoke on the Bonus Round videocast by Gametrailers, “Publishers are going to threaten the manufacturers, and they’re going to say cut the price of the PS3 and the Xbox 360, now”. Although much cannot be read in to this, there are multiple other factors pointing in the direction of a price-cut. PS4 and Xbox One had been released in all major markets a few months ago which dropped the sales of the old consoles a little. A price cut would boost sales of the older consoles and also the games for those consoles would sell better. This was witnessed by the Wii-U price drop in August 2013 which boosted sales 200% for Nintendo. This would create a win-win situation for the console manufactures, game publishers and gamers. Tough competition has been coming in to the console market since the release of smartphones and tablet computers as casual gamers shifted away to android gaming. The android-based Ouya console has been picking up steam in the North American markets while Valve’s own consoles, the Linux-based Steam Machines running on SteamOS and touted to release within the 3rd quarter of 2014 is also expected to make a dent on the market. Finally, publishers will have to produce games for both the consoles and will have to find it worthwhile to do so. A price drop will hopefully occur quite soon, sometime in 2014, if not in February.
