PRE-3

The new, smaller (and, some would say, crapper) E3 is due to start next week, and aside from all the rumours and speculation, there are a couple of concrete announcements and stronger suggestions that are particularly interesting to me.

Firstly is Microsoft's annoucement that they're extending the XBox 360 warranty to three years for customers who experience the Red Ring of Death, which also applies to anybody who bought one before the announcement. Microsoft have even promised to refund anybody who had to pay to get their machine fixed.

For a company that was getting more and more bad press over their poor customer service record on this particular fault, this is a significant step in the right direction.

Secondly is the rumour that Sony will be dropping the price of the PS3 by $100 immediately following E3. This one's got to be taken with a pinch of salt, however - while it's true that at its current price, the PS3 is prohibitively expensive, Sony are already taking a big loss on each machine sold. Still, they've got to shift consoles in order to sell games (which are the real profit-maker), so from that standpoint it seems like a reasonable suggestion.

The reports vary on this one, though; some suggesting that it's only going to be in Circuit City stores, and others saying it'll be a nationwide drop. No word whether the European console will see a similar fall in price, but time will tell.

Even if we get a similar drop in price though, £375 is far too much for one console.

Edit:Sony president Ryoji Chubachi has denied that the company has any plans for a price drop.