For one without a next generation console, it's great news to hear of price cuts. The Sony Playstation 3 will drop to $499, that's a $100 price cut. Now you might think there would be complaints here, but you would be wrong.

Once you look closely the price drop is not as great as at first site. Basically Sony is returning the $499 model to the market, alongside a $599 model. Both sets of hardware are improved, but in reality nothing much has changed. The Playstation 3 still carries a high price tag. In even better news the $499 model will only be sold as stocks last, so Sony will be leaving us -- once again -- with just a $599 model. Whilst over here in Europe, we do not get any price drop; a Playstation 3 will cost you £399.99 at amazon prices, that's around $800 with the strong pound. A whole lot more than simply adding Value Added Tax (17.5%) to the American price tag.

Meanwhile, there is news of some changes to the Xbox 360. Initial price drop rumours were squashed by Microsoft, such a shame as I might have considered picking one up if there were a price drop. Whilst on a positive note, Microsoft will be releasing a special Halo edition of the Xbox 360. This will basically be a Premium model; however, it will feature a HDMI port. This could signal a move to a more unified production line for the console. This would mean that hard drive size and bundled accessories the only differences between the models.

Continuing with the 360, it seems Microsoft will be implementing a die shrink later this year. So we might see the end of the Red Ring of Death (RRoD) on new Xboxes! Woo, common sense prevails! It has been reported on Dailytech that this means a 50% drop in the production cost of the processor and graphics card used in the Xbox. So, we might just see that price drop after all.

Finally, no news of a drop in the price of the Wii. This is hardly surprising, since the console is selling so well.