A different kind of book giant price war: yesterday after Barnes & Noble reduced the price of its 3G Nook to $199 from $259, Amazon.com dropped the price of the Kindle to $189, also from $259. B&N also said it will sell a 
wifi-only version of the Nook for $149 and is upgrading software on existing Nooks.
Amazon has lowered the price of the Kindle several times since it made its debut in 2007 at $399. Amazon's Kindle DX continues to sell for $489.
Competition has become heated since Apple came out with the iPad this spring--it's already has sold more than two million units. In addition, Borders is introducing the Kobo e-reader for $150, and Sony will soon introduce a new Reader.
One analyst called the new Kindle and Nook prices a "sweet spot" for e-readers. Rob Enderle of Enderle Group told AFP: "You drop the price under $200, you open up your market tenfold. It will put more pressure on publishers to get books into that digital market, absolutely."
James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research, noted that Amazon's pricing approach of selling a high-priced e-reader and inexpensive e-books has been turned on its head. He told the Wall Street Journal: "They can go to the old razor-world model of giving away the razor for free and selling the blades. [With these price cuts] they are starting to give away the e-reader."
McQuivey predicted further price reductions and estimated that they will push the total number of e-readers sold in the U.S. to 6.6 million this year for a total of 10.4 million sold in the past three years.