A new report on Japanese games site Impress Watch, translated by those cunning linguists at IGN.com, purports to reveal some of Sony's plans for the PlayStation 3, ahead of official confirmation. Writer Munechika Nishida points to several dependable sources as revealing that Japanese releases will be priced in the 8,800 to 9,800 Yen range (approximately 60 to 65 Euros).

This would make almost all PS3 titles instantly more expensive than the vast majority of other Japanese releases, which usually come in at 6,800 Yen, accept in exceptional cases, such as a new title (which would probably cost 8,800 Yen). The article continues, suggesting that as recently as May this year were plotting to lower royalty costs in order to encourage third-party developers and consumers. The idea had been that the PS3 would be an open-platform, allowing amateur developers to also create titles to distribute for free on the console - hence the need to offer third-parties incentives to compete on the console.

This, according to Nishida's report, failed to materialise - Sony failing to create a platform sufficiently open to allow anyone and everyone to craft titles for it. Unlike the amateur-encouraging XNA platform for the 360, Sony have so far failed to put together a package to bring the legions of small-time developers out there into the PlayStation fold. This failure forced Sony to return to their traditional royalty-based business model, according to the IGN translation, hence the higher prices. Whether these high prices will reach other regions is yet unknown - but experts have been predicting higher than normal prices for PS3 games for some time. More soon.

By Luke Guttridge