Sony has played some very strong cards from their hand this week,
announcing new titles yesterday and and a price cut for their flagship console on Monday, but as Sony shaves off $100 from the PlayStation 3's price, Microsoft shrugs its shoulders and calmly goes about their business ... or so they say.
Sony's price drop was met with a
"Spartan Green" special edition Xbox 360, but no mention of any kind of price reduction.
The Independent says that Microsoft's decision to maintain its current pricing has something to do with the company missing the target of 12 million consoles shipped by the end of last month, racking up 11.6 million so far. Some analysts think that the refusal to come down in price could reflect the company's desire to turn a profit on their games division, but they're playing it cool now.
Shane Kim, the head of Microsoft Games Studios, said: "We have no desire, no need, to react to anything the competition has done ... We feel really great about the Xbox 360 right now."
They must be banking on upcoming blockbusters like
Halo 3 and
Grand Theft Auto, as these would definitely fall under the classification of "system sellers." Microsoft really has nothing to gain with a price cut at this time, and they know that they still hold some really good cards in their hand. We're just surprised that no one has played the "we're still cheaper" card yet.
[via
The Independent ]
Contest:
2:02 PM on 07.12.2007
| 
I remember during their E3 conference said something about wanting 10 million XboxLive users...I laughed cause they forgot they would need to at LEAST sell 7 million more units and that is only hoping everyone who buys one actually GOES online.
I wouldn't however bank on GTA IV to sell the 360 at a 400 price range. That provides people with me a decent chunk of hardware. More than I'll need to run GTA IV on max @ 60fps.
If there was still a 20gb version of the PS3 and it got the $100 cut as well, I'm sure Microsoft would be a lot more worried about it. But as the situation stands, the PS3 at base level is still too expensive.
"Oh, yes! Let's drop the price of our console right BEFORE we release our BIG hit game that made our console possible, the game that if it didn't exist, the 360 wouldn't!"
That is REAL smart, fo cereal!
Currently the PS3 with the price drop is more interesting that the 360. Elite at 480$ US has no wifi and no hd dvd. Buying Wifi is around 100$ and HD DVD is 200$ (in canada anyways).PS3 is 500$ and has both of these features (and a slightly better system).
..but not 360 covered with halo 3 vomit
The Nextgenwars site has been designated by Google as a Malware site. I wouldn't go there If I were you.
Google Warning about nextgenwars
and if u really want another good reason why M$ cant afford (actually they can) a price cut, read: http://digg.com/gaming_news/Microsoft_Admits_ALL_Xbox360_s_Are_Defective
Sorry for the double post
I applaud your witty and insightful posts, good sir.
But seriously, at this point, I don't see why people are so irritated that MS hasn't released a price drop. I mean, sure, it would be nice, but it's still cheaper than the PS3 and has about a billion more games.
As for WiFi and HD, well, I guess there's a point there, but I'm okay with ethernet (it's more reliable than wireless, anyway, from my experience) and I'm not going to worry about HD until I can afford a 2000 dollar TV. I think for this round of consoles, MS really knows what it's doing: catering to actual gamers, not Audi0/Video philes and technogeeks.
While your adding up the costs of the 360, you might what to throw in the costs for xbox live in there ($50 per year)... sure it doesn't sound like much, but by the time the next xbox comes out you'll have spent a few hundred dollars in total ($250 in 5 years), where as it would have been free with the PS3...
Grant it, that's and iffy point in that the services are not equal... xboxlive is still better than PS3 from what i hear... but some wound still rather have free service over costly service, even if the costly one is better...
really, the difference between the two is that Xbox gave you a choice in the matter, where as PS3 had everything bundled together... the upside to 360 is if you don't want any of the add ons (wi fii, HD-dvd/blu-ray, online service); but the downside is that if you do want those add ons then it will overall cost you more than the PS3, especially now with the PS3 price cut... And as far as i've seen, most gamers want atleast one of those things... and just one is enough to put the 360's overall price equal to or above the PS3's price
If they had refused to fix my 360, I would have saved up and purchased another one before considering buying the PS3.
Yeah, it's beat, but I don't play movies from a disc, and I like playing a variety of awesome games on a well implemented and reliable online service. Right now. Not next year. (Except I can't because the DVD drive is broke)
Good for Sony though. Competition is society's friend.
- If they annouce a date for the newly chipped consoles.. people would wait to pay full price for that instead of what they have now (Problematic machines).
- Microsoft will wait on a price cut because they know patience wears out quick with potential consumers (like me) but they also want to cover the cost as much as possible when it is returned.
Personally I want nothing more than for them to announce when the newly chipped consoles are coming out. I want a 360 bad, but luckily have a wife who knows I should wait for the better product to come out, and if it doesn't anytime soon, it will be worth the wait when they do have price cuts.