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   Any moderately-sane gamer can tell you that if you're willing to pay over $75 for a single game, you got issues. Which only goes to show (was there ever any doubt?) that the Japanese are something of a special breed, as they're already used to paying that kind of money for a PlayStation 2 game. Not just any kind of PS2 game, true, but if the title reads Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, they'll usually go for it. No expense spared!

   Unfortunately for them - and hopefully only for them, the $75 mark may well become a rather common price for a PlayStation 3 game. At least according to a feature published by the Japanese website Impress Watch, quoted by IGN:
"Citing "multiple information sources," the article states that the price of PS3 games will be concentrated in the 8,800 to 9,800 yen range. The primary reason given is the rising cost of development."    In other words, most PS3 games might cost between $75 and $84. A ludicrous price for the western world, but only slightly expensive for Japan. But that's not even the real issue here.

   The main underlying problem is a disturbing shift in Sony's strategy for the PS3 over the past months. As of E3, Sony was still hoping to turn the PlayStation 3 into an open platform, allowing users to create their own games and share them through the console's online service, free of charge. In their utopian hopes and dreams, third-party companies would also benefit from a similar pricing environment, so the games would be cheaper, and eveyone would be happy.

   Well guess what: it's not gonna happen. At least not from day one, because Sony hasn't made much progress with turning the PS3 into an open platform (development environment, manuals, security management, community features and such are still missing for the most part).

   So, with its utopian plans currently on hold (or lagging way behind), Sony is reportedly shifting its strategy towards a more traditional business model: selling cheap(er) PS3s, and making up for the loss through software sales. This would also explain the price cut for the 20 GB PlayStation 3 model in Japan, and may eventually lead to a similar announcement for western territories. Guess we have a few more weeks to find out.