Nobuyuki Oneda, Sony Corp’s CEO and Executive Vice President, recently announced during a conference call that the actual manufacturing costs of the Playstation 3 system have dropped 70%. This is probably the best news Sony’s investors could hope for, considering the original manufacturing costs of the system itself was costing Sony far more than they were making in sales. As a result, Sony had been reporting a loss in previous quarters. However, now that the cost of the consoles themselves have dropped considerably, there might be light at the end of that tunnel for Sony after all.

“The cost reduction since we introduced the PS3 is very substantial and this is on schedule,” Oneda-san replied when asked about manufacturing costs. “We don’t disclose how much of the PS3, specifically the cost deduction was achieved during the past two years. But that is on schedule.”

These statements leave a lot to the imagination, and while it doesn’t exactly confirm the potential for PS2 emulation, anyone could speculate that the cost cuts were achieved through a number of changes to the hardware of the PS3 itself, including the previous removal of PS2 emulation, as well as the rumored changes to the architecture of the cell processor. Either way, I look forward to what Sony has in store for us moving forward into the next financial year.