Howard Stringer, the chief executive of Sony Corp., said that he feels need to make the company’s latest Sony PlayStation 3 game console more affordable and that the machine may get cheaper already by Christmas.

“I think that the public would like the cost [of PlayStation 3] to be lower, there’s no question about that, but meanwhile PlayStation 2 gets lost on the radar. We’re always compared with Wii and we’re compared with Xbox, but PlayStation 2 is selling gangbusters. And we cut the price of PSPs and that went back into an upward spiral. So I think PlayStation 3’s travails are usually solved by time. And it will have an instant gratification environment, not only in life but in the press as well as everything else, and so it’s a good story right now, will PlayStation 3 get to Christmas? And the answer is, of course it will get to Christmas,” said Mr. Stringer in an interview with Financial Times.

Even though Sony losses several hundreds of dollars on every PlayStarion 3 game console, the company has to lower its price from $599 in the USA, as at that price-point the game console’s popularity has been decreasing and if the price remains on the current level Sony will lose mind share to Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii during pre-Christmas sales.

Still, despite of decreasing PS3 sales, this is the first time when Sony’s executives admit that the price of the console is too high. Previously Sony insisted that the price is normal for the feature-set and capabilities of the machine.

Sony PlayStation 3 console is based on the Cell processor developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba, the RSX graphics chip by Nvidia Corp., wireless network and Bluetooth connectivity and is equipped with Blu-ray optical disk drive. There are two versions of the PlayStation console available in the USA and Japan: one is equipped with 20GB hard disk drive and priced at $499, another features 60GB hard drive, card reader and some other improvements and is offered for $599.