Following the iPad's big splash into the tablet market this spring, today Amazon cut the price of its e-reader, the Kindle, while Barnes & Noble reduced the price of its Nook.

Both e-readers previously sold for US$259. Now, the Nook's pricetag is $199 and the Kindle is $189; Barnes & Noble has also launched a Wi-Fi-only Nook for $149. Comparatively, the iPad's lowest-priced version is $499.

Both devices are less sleek than the iPad, lacking a colour screen, apps, or capability to play video, for example. However, the price cuts could be what the e-reader platform needs in order to become more mainstream, the Wall Street Journal reports.

At the same time, a "price war for low-end e-readers could force Barnes & Noble and Amazon to rely more heavily on their profit from selling e-books. Under so-called agency sales agreements with many top publishers, e-bookstores keep about 30% of the sale price of e-books," the WSJ's Geoffrey A. Fowler writes.

The Kindle and Nook are both meant to make money from the e-books that are sold for the devices, not from the hardware, ZDNet's Adrian Kingsley-Hughes explains. But the problem the e-readers are facing is that even though they were in the market first, and although the iPad is pricier, it can do much, much more.

"The problem with the Kindle (and Nook) is that it's a one-trick pony. One-trick ponies are cool in an ecosystem where there are no other ponies doing tricks. Add more ponies doing more tricks, and the one-trick pony gets long in the tooth real fast. This is the problem Amazon is now facing up to. eInk screen aside, the iPad does more than the Kindle can dream of doing, and in a world where people want to carry with them fewer gadgets, the Kindle will lose out," he writes.