Despite one analyst calling for an immediate PlayStation price cut, Sony is refusing to lower its price of the PS3 any further this year.

Even though Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is enjoying a surge in sales following price cuts last month and fears of global economic meltdown are already tightening purse strings ahead of this festive season, Sony is pinning its hopes on the strength of its software line-up  to see it through.

“We aren’t making any price moves this holiday season,” SCEA’s director of corporate communications, Patrick Seybold, stated today. “We have the best line up of any PlayStation generation going into this holiday and consumers will be very receptive to it,” he added

With a bewildering array of exclusive titles on the immediate horizon, including LittleBigPlanet, Resistance 2, SOCOM, MotorStorm: Pacific Rift and the long-awaited public beta of PlayStation Home, Sony should have every reason to be confident.

Unfortunately there’s this pesky thing called competition. The Wii continues to sell like, well, the Wii. And Xbox 360’s own exclusives line-up is nothing to be sniffed at either. Gears of War 2 and Fable 2 have been enormously hyped ahead of their showdown with Sony’s rival titles. And with Sainsbury’s flogging the Xbox 360 Arcade for a measly £99, perhaps customers will be happier to save a couple of hundred quid than stick religiously to the PlayStation brand image.

Last year though, Sony made similar assertions right up until the cut price 40GB PS3 was announced at TGS. This year, TGS is pretty much upon us and it could still do something similar. If not, we have to assume that there’s a good reason for it (as opposed to corporate arrogance), but the end result is almost guaranteed to be a fresh beating in the Xmas charts.

Out now| £299| PlayStation 3 (via CVG)