As holiday shopping season gets started (yes, folks, now that "back to school" is over, it's really all about Christmas), Sony is already celebrating. Its $100 price cut on the PlayStation 3 (and the flood of advertising that was launched along with it) has sent sales soaring, with unit sales up 300 percent in the three weeks prior to September 1. Revenue over that time is up 140 percent, not as much as unit sales due to the lower prices, but still an impressive leap.

Sony's move has of course sent other console makers scrambling to react. The Xbox 360 Elite received a $100 price cut just days after Sony made its move, and now Nintendo is about to follow suit, cutting the price of the Wii for the first time by $50 to $199, beginning September 27.

Game console makers are also looking to other countries with the same pricing tactics in mind: Sony will trim 15 percent off the price of the PSP in Japan beginning today.

As Bloomberg notes, the sum total of these price cuts finally put all the game consoles -- especially the once exorbitantly-expensive PS3 -- in range of a Christmas gift, $300 typically being seen as the magic number at which a parent will finally cave in to the demands of a screaming child who wants something over the onus of financial responsibility. Retailers are also ecstatic, and you can expect big promotional pushes for all three consoles when Black Friday finally arrives. I wonder if we'll see console shortages once again this year as demand skyrockets.

So, would-be gamers, have these price cuts pushed you off the fence and onto the couch? What's the next console you're planning to buy with your hard-earned cash?