The bad news is that the price cut announced by Microsoft is not a real price cut. In fact, the company will sell the 20 GB version of Xbox 360 until it will run out of stocks. Then only the 60 GB Xbox 360 will be available, but for $349.

In Sony’s case the bad news is that the company didn’t cut the price of its 80 GB PS3, which is backward compatible with PS2 games, but instead it added a bigger drive to the current 40 GB PS3.

It will be interesting to see if these price cuts will have any effect on the sales of the two gaming consoles. Judging on the recent history, the answer will be No!

Last year Microsoft has cut the price of its Xbox 360 right before the release of Halo 3. According to the figure released by the NPD Group, the price cut combined with the successful launch of Halo 3 has doubled the sales of Xbox 360.

The game was released on September 25 and, during October, Microsoft sold 528,000 Xbox 350 and  surpassed Nintendo’s Wii for the first time since the 2006 holiday season.

Sony has cut the price of its PS3 in October last year, right before the start of the holiday season. The effect was similar to the one reported for Xbox 360 and the sales have doubled in the following month.

On the other hand, let’s take a look at more recent event. Surprisingly, the release of GTA IV has failed to boost the sales of the Xbox 360 and PS3, despite the marketing campaigns. However, in Europe where Sony offered a special PS3 GTA IV bundle, PS3 had registered good sales. But the offer was not available in the United States.

Therefore, it seems like just cutting the prices of a gaming console without any other factor involved it won’t help the sales.

For September, Microsoft will receive some very important reinforcements, such as some exclusive content for GTA IV and Fable 2. Sony is also trying to build an impressive games line-up for this holiday season.

It’s not  to hard to guess that despite officials statements, both Microsoft and Sony will came up with new price cuts and offers later this year. Maybe some special bundles or another upgraded versions.

So stay tuned cause we will have a very interesting holiday season.