Sony halved the fees it charges for a software development kit for the PlayStation 3 video game machine Monday to encourage outside designers to make more games for the struggling console.

Sony Corp.'s gaming unit, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., said prices for the development package for the PS3 will be reduced to ¥950,000 in Japan, $10,250 in North America and 7,500 euro in Europe.

The move follows the price cuts on the PS3 around the world that the company announced last month in an attempt to woo buyers.

Although its predecessor, the PlayStation 2, dominated the gaming market, the PS3 has struggled against Nintendo's hit Wii console,the rival offering from Nintendo Co.

Boosting PS3 sales is crucial for Sony's overall business strategy because it also supports the Blu-ray disc next-generation video, which is vying with the rival HD-DVD format.

The Wii has succeeded in drawing people not usually accustomed to playing electronic games, including the elderly, by offering easier to play games that use a wandlike hand held device for the remote controller.

Sony has said that sales have improved since the price cuts on the machine in Japan, the United States and Europe. It is generally more difficult and expensive to create games for sophisticated machines like the PS3, which is packed with cutting-edge technology and is driven by the powerful Cell chip. But machines won't sell unless there is a variety of games that can be played on them.

Game developers that had previously designed products for the PS2 are now increasingly making Wii versions of the games.

By October, Nintendo had shipped 13.2 million units worldwide of the Wii, which went on sale late last year. Nintendo is expecting to sell 17.5 million Wiis by the end of this business year, or March 31, 2008.

Sony had sold 5.6 million PS3s worldwide as of the end of September, company spokesman Daisuke Nakata said. The console went on sale late last year in Japan and the U.S. and in March in Europe.

Sony's price cuts have helped PS3 sales in recent weeks, raising hopes the machine may be catching up ahead of the critical holiday shopping season.

Japan sales of the PS3 beat the Wii for the first time in the week from Nov. 5 through Nov. 11, with 55,924 PS3 machines sold versus 34,546 Wiis, according to Media Create Co., a Tokyo think tank that tracks such numbers.