According to super analyst Michael Pachter, the PS3′s lagging sales could very well lead to yet another price cut announcement at E3. With Nintendo’s Wii U launching later this year, and sure to have a strong showing during Nintendo’s E3 keynote, Sony would be best to capitalize on this event by making the PS3 even more attractive to consumers who still haven’t jumped on board.

He says there’s a good chance Microsoft might consider a cut as well.

“We expect hardware sales to rebound once price cuts are implemented, but expect a recurrence of the dip next holiday, partially buffered by some modest contribution from the introduction of the PS Vita in February and the Wii U later this year. Recent slowing of Xbox 360 hardware sales could cause Microsoft to consider a price cut by E3. We do not expect an announcement of a next- generation console from Microsoft until the Xbox 360 core model is priced below $200, likely around this time next year. PS3 hardware sales should continue to lag those of the Xbox 360, and we expect sales to trend downward by 10 – 20% monthly, until Sony cuts prices once again, likely at E3,” he wrote.

While I think a sub $200 price point might never happen, Sony would really make some headway in the sales department by cutting their losses and going all-in by getting the 120gb PS3 model down to the $199 or even $149 price range.

Hear me out on this: If Sony made the most basic PS3 model low enough to almost hit that impulse buy range, there’s a very good chance that more users would pick it up as their ‘netflix machine that can play games’. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft at least shows a prototype for their next console as well, so Sony really needs to do something to steal the show this year if they plan on catching up to the 360′s sales dominance.