Awesome. Now It Will Cost $100 Less Not to Buy One.

Turns out when Sony president Ryoji Chubachi said Friday that the electronics giant had “no immediate plans as of now” to cut the price of its PlayStation 3, he was speaking literally (as in “at this very second”). Because three days after denying rumors of an impending “refinement” of the PS3′s price, Sony announced one. Come Thursday, the price of the console will drop by $100, to $500.

The 17% cut comes just seven months after the PS3 arrived in the North American market and is essentially an acknowledgement that the device–as technologically advanced as it is–is just too damn expensive to woo gamers from Nintendo’s Wii. “From a pocketbook standpoint, we know we’ve presented a challenge for consumers,” said Jack Tretton, president of Sony Computer Entertainment of America. “Our initial expectation is that sales should double at a minimum. We’ve gotten our production issues behind us on the PlayStation 3, reaching a position to pass on the savings to consumers, and our attitude is the sooner the better.”

Of course, even after cutting the price, Sony will still have the most expensive game console on the market. Nintendo’s wildly popular Wii is just $250. Given that, it’s hard to see the massive spike in sales that Tretton predicts. “It’s still expensive,” said Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities. “With a 17% price cut, you may get a 50% increase in sales. It’s unrealistic to assume that demand will double.”