The upcoming holiday season is not likely to be as critical to Sony as one may have initially perceived, says Sony Computer Entertainment Europe president and CEO, David Reeves, who suggested that Christmas 2008 would be of far more importance to the company’s PlayStation brand.

“I think each peak is crucial to maximise what you can do, but I don't think this Christmas is necessarily the most critical one - I think that's going to be Christmas 08”, Reeves told Sony’s semi-official blog, Three Speech. "I see this more as kind of like a tsunami – it starts small and gathers speed, and eventually, after four or five years, it will start to take you over”.

Elsewhere, Reeves addressed criticism over the company’s decision not to lower the price of PlayStation 3 in Europe, despite doing so in North America. "July is not really a gamers’ month unless you get a big, big title," he observed. "So we thought if we reduced the price, we'd annoy a lot of people”.

"We did think about it, but we also felt that it wasn't doing that badly," he added. "In the US, they've been going for more than six months, so they took the decision that going down in price was a better thing to do than a value pack."

In relation to this, Reeves also dismissed speculation that the firm are planning to announce a price cut at the upcoming Leipzig Games Convention, stating, "We know exactly what we’re going to do and when we're going to do [it],” adding, "We are confident but not arrogant about reaching a very, very good installed base on PS3, and having the same momentum that we had with the PS2. We're not putting our heads in the sand - we know it's not selling that well, but we know that it's selling according to the targets."

The PlayStation 3 Starter Pack is currently on sale across the UK, and becomes available in Europe on August 1st; the bundle contains the 60GB PS3 console, two Sixaxis controllers and two first-party software titles, priced GBP 425/EUR 599.