Sony has dramatically cut the price of its Playstation 3 console around the world, with New Zealand consumers to benefit from drops of $150 for both the 160GB and 320GB models.

The price of the standard 160GB hard disk drive model has been cut from $629.95 to $479.95, a drop of just under 24%. The 320GB model has dropped from $729.95 to $579.95, or 20.5%.

The new pricing is effective from August 22, and reflects international drops as Sony tries to extend the life of the five-year-old console.

Worldwide sales of the PS3 exceeded 50 million units in March this year.

The company has also released more information about its new handheld, the Playstation Vita, revealing that it will run bespoke versions of social networking applications Facebook, Twitter, Skype and Foursquare.

Although a New Zealand release date is yet to be confirmed, Sony has said the Vita will launch in Japan before the end of 2011, and in Europe and the US in early 2012.

In the meantime, Sony is releasing a new PSP, the PSP-E1000. At just $179.95 the device is slightly cheaper than the PSP 3000, but although it can play all the same games it is unable to access wi-fi.