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US Xbox 360 pricecuts coming across the board?

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DVDBack23 @ Aug 03, 2008 20:12 | 22 comments

According to a picture first submitted to VGC, the Xbox 360 should be getting a real price cut across the board in the US beginning on September 7th, one that should pressure the PlayStation 3 and possibly even the Wii into similar price drops.

If proven to be accurate, the Arcade model will drop to $199.99 USD, the Pro model will drop to $299.99 and the 120GB Elite model will drop to $399.99, the same price as the 40GB (and now 80GB) PlayStation 3 models that do not include backwards compatibility.

For years Microsoft has said that $200 is the "sweet spot" for console sales and price cuts on their console have proven to boost sales every time. After dropping their price to 199 euro in Europe in February sales doubled year-on-year for the six months following the drop.

The new price drop would make the cheapest 360 console $50 cheaper than the Nintendo Wii which has long had the lowest price point of the new generation of consoles. The move would also push the PS3 back to being the most expensive console relatively, despite its extra features, most notably Blu-ray playback right out of the box.

Also interesting to note is that the price drop should coincide with the launch of the "Jasper" chipset which is said to reduce manufacturing costs greatly for Microsoft. Large price cut and still be profitable? It could be possible.

Original picture from VGC

Xbox 360 Lineup

Microsoft Xbox 360 Arcade

Microsoft Xbox 360 Elite

Microsoft Xbox 360 HDMI

Microsoft Xbox 360 Premium

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Comments

Comment by: lecsiy (Aug 03, 2008 20:49)

Ah this is good news. I think at the arcade going for $199 the 360's will fly of the shelves. This is definatly good news.

I really cant see them dropping this drastically in europe thoughm which sucks. You god americans get everything!

Comment by: DoomLight (Aug 03, 2008 21:14)

199 thats gonna put a hurt on the Wii a little.

Comment by: drach (Aug 03, 2008 21:46)

Quote:
You god americans get everything!

Yes, including illegal wiretapping and a government that is going broke.

Comment by: Pop_Smith (Aug 03, 2008 21:52)

This could be great for Microsoft and, if all of these price cuts occur, could help put pressure on Sony to conduct a similar drop on the PS3s.

My friend was talking about getting a 360 yesterday so I will have to let him know decent price cuts maybe coming with in the next month.

Comment by: Rudeboi (Aug 03, 2008 22:32)

Holy crap!

For that price, I would finally buy a 360 and then just add a HDD in that!

And i'm a PS3 fanboy! haha

Comment by: ZippyDSM (Aug 03, 2008 22:52)

299 is still to much for a fail60 and the arcade model needs to be under 150.....

Comment by: atomicxl (Aug 04, 2008 00:23)

$199 is a great deal for any current gen console. The elite never should have cost more than the cheapest PS3 though.

Comment by: ZippyDSM (Aug 04, 2008 00:25)

Originally posted by atomicxl:
$199 is a great deal for any current gen console. The elite never should have cost more than the cheapest PS3 though.

199 is overpriced for no HDD.

Comment by: lecsiy (Aug 04, 2008 01:22)

@Zippy

I disagree, 199 has always been a sweet spot in the market. If microsoft handle this right the sales are literally going to take off.

Quote:
Sony has announced its financial results for the quarter ending June 30th, 2008, announcing that the game division posted profitability while the company on a whole recorded a 39.5% year-on-year decrease in profitability.

From edge-online

From the way i see it, the ps3 has only recently started to see profitability whilst sony is loosing profit, it doesnt put them in a position to do any major price cuts. MS could deliver a fatal blow to sony if they play they're cards right.

Lecsiy

Comment by: Thoatih12 (Aug 04, 2008 01:48)

Originally posted by ZippyDSM:
299 is still to much for a fail60

dude thats old news

Comment by: ZippyDSM (Aug 04, 2008 02:25)

Quote:
@Zippy

I disagree, 199 has always been a sweet spot in the market. If microsoft handle this right the sales are literally going to take off.

Quote:
Sony has announced its financial results for the quarter ending June 30th, 2008, announcing that the game division posted profitability while the company on a whole recorded a 39.5% year-on-year decrease in profitability.

From edge-online

From the way i see it, the ps3 has only recently started to see profitability whilst sony is loosing profit, it doesnt put them in a position to do any major price cuts. MS could deliver a fatal blow to sony if they play they're cards right.

Lecsiy

Sorry not with most games especially new ones needing the HDD to work right the arcade is just over priced, the premium would be perfect at 199 and drop the needless arcade altogether or drop it 20-50$.

Comment by: lxhotboy (Aug 04, 2008 04:26)

Quote:
Sorry not with most games especially new ones needing the HDD to work right the arcade is just over priced, the premium would be perfect at 199 and drop the needless arcade altogether or drop it 20-50$.

I think the best thing in this case would be for Microsoft to stop tripping with the hardrives. You should be able to use whatever harddrive you want like with the PS3.

This is a great move for Microsoft with their decline in sales as of recent. I dont think Sony will follow with another price drop b/c of their production cost of the PS3 but i do see Nintendo responding soon with a price drop of their own.

Comment by: susieqbbb (Aug 04, 2008 08:13)

Well i find several issues with this.

1. Microsoft and sony are having trouble trying to compete with the nintendo wii

2. look at how much money it cost's to make a xbox 360 around 236,00 per console this means that microsoft won't be making any profeit back on the arcade model at all.

Kinda sucks

Comment by: ZippyDSM (Aug 04, 2008 11:12)

Originally posted by susieqbbb:
Well i find several issues with this.

1. Microsoft and sony are having trouble trying to compete with the nintendo wii

2. look at how much money it cost's to make a xbox 360 around 236,00 per console this means that microsoft won't be making any profeit back on the arcade model at all.

Kinda sucks

ummm only nintendto ever made a profit off console sales, the rest supplemented and deverisifed to get the consoles into market to make money off software sales..

Comment by: ZeusAV (Aug 04, 2008 12:50)

I don't think this price drop is going to be quite as effective as some believe. If it were the Pro model with a harddrive that was dropping to $199 then Sony and maybe even Nintendo would be in trouble. The demand for the Arcade model is horribly low and it's by far the worst selling model of the system. Since you're forced to buy Microsoft's own harddrives for it, the price ends up being the same as the Pro version anyway once you get a harddrive.

So despite all of this, I still don't see Nintendo dropping in price with Wii demand still so high. You can find them in stores now but demand is still huge.

Comment by: lecsiy (Aug 04, 2008 14:55)

Quote:
The demand for the Arcade model is horribly low and it's by far the worst selling model of the system

Have you a link or any proof of this?

Comment by: o0cynix0o (Aug 04, 2008 16:07)

Originally posted by ZippyDSM:
299 is still to much for a fail60 and the arcade model needs to be under 150.....

Just goes to show you can't please everybody.

Comment by: emugamer (Aug 04, 2008 16:12)

Yeah, the sweet spot for consoles may be $200, but that was in the day when there was only one version of a console to choose fromat a time. SKU's may have changed over the years for different consoles, but no 2 or 3 versions were sold simultaneously where you had to choose. It seems like a good idea for some. You get what you pay for, and you can see exactly what is being stripped out. What was the price of the SNES, N64 and PS2 respectively at launch? Just curoius. Was it $200, or less? I'm pretty sure at least the PS2 was $200. There probably is a market for the extremely casual gamer who doesn't care about a HDD and misses the days of memory cards. It's all about what a gamer is willing to pay for.

Well, since Nintendo has been coasting on profit on the Wii for a long time, they may be in a position to drop the price $20-$30 by the Holiday season. I wouldn't rule it out or be totally surprised if they did that. But I honestly don't see Sony reducing the PS3 anymore (I hope they prove me wrong :P). Especailly since they market it as a bluray player and they already doubled up the HDD size of the lowest model.

Comment by: mspurloc (Aug 04, 2008 17:33)

Ridiculously overdue.
And not a big enough cut, but at least it's progress.

Comment by: DoomLight (Aug 04, 2008 20:36)

Originally posted by emugamer:
Yeah, the sweet spot for consoles may be $200, but that was in the day when there was only one version of a console to choose fromat a time. SKU's may have changed over the years for different consoles, but no 2 or 3 versions were sold simultaneously where you had to choose. It seems like a good idea for some. You get what you pay for, and you can see exactly what is being stripped out. What was the price of the SNES, N64 and PS2 respectively at launch? Just curoius. Was it $200, or less? I'm pretty sure at least the PS2 was $200. quote]the PS2 was a whopping $299 when it first came out. it wasn't easy to swallow for a lot of people. the black Xbox was $299 as well.
NES and Sega Master System were $99 and N64 i think was close to $199 or $149. and finally SNES and Genesis im am 80% sure were $199 when they debuted in 1990/1991.

the 360 premium is set at a good price to me, when it goes down to $299. besides it will have a 60gb drive in it to boot! If u can get the 20gig HD for the arcade360 for 50 dollars new. then getting the Arcade 360 isnt a raw deal. thats my extra 2cents.

Comment by: ripxrush (Aug 05, 2008 00:23)

199 is not a bad price for no hdd< just look @ the wii" it is 249 with no hdd! but the pro @ 299 is a bit much!, they should all be within $50 of each other, 199 to get the initially look & then 249 for 20gb hdd cause i know if i m gonna spend 199 that another $50 isn't bad to get a hdd! & if i really gotta have it 299 for pro, no more than 329 for elite!

Comment by: wetsparks (Aug 07, 2008 03:57)

Sony is going to be getting smaller cell and graphics chips this fall, so if they wanted to they might be able to drop price say $50 to counter this a little bit but they will only do it if they are able to sell the ps3 near production costs or a small loss that would be made up with the sale of 1 or 2 games. They need to start getting back some of the 3 billion dollars they lost when they were selling the system at a substantial loss (rumored at pushing $300 at launch).