I wouldn't think this topic is just for owners, but on the business decisions of the respective companies. It's interesting to analyze what kind of an impact a price cut has on the larger demographic because that in itself gives us more factors to include into any analysis on potential future sales, market share, success or failure etc.
I agree too that it's a fail if you don't, fail if you do kind of scenario. Cutting price soon after the launch of a new product doesn't exactly give off the best impression, especially if the nearest competitor is selling out at a large rate. On the other hand, if the high price is one of the big factors why it isn't selling, then perhaps it's better to do it early than late. But I am not really convinced it's the price that is the prime problem that's hurting the Xbox One's sales and I am not really convinced it will boost sales all that much....
Speaking strictly from my point-of-view; if I as a customer prefer one product over another, I most likely wouldn't touch the product that I prefer less with a stick even if it was thrown after me at a ridiculous price - especially if both products are too similar, but the one of my choice being slightly better than the other. I think the Xbox One and the PS4 are too similar. They are both consoles, but the experience on one seems to be better and there are too few games (exclusives) that distinguish the experience. The trump card for Xbox One is either the TV integration (in NA), the VC and set-top features (if you dig it) and Kinect for games (again, if you dig it). These are the areas where it distinguishes itself from the competition. IMO, Kinect would be the only point that would have me remotely interested in the Xbox One as purely an alternative to a PS4, offering a very different experience. At this point though, the games seem to be missing that would make the experience too different.
It's actually one of the reason why, back in the day, as a PS3 owner, I had considered buying a Wii, but never a X360. The X360 and PS3 were too similar. On the other hand, a Wii was for a long time too expensive for a mere "party toy" - and once it came down in price, the PS3 (for my liking) offered enough of the party type experience I would have otherwise fullfilled with a Wii. Still - with enough cash at my disposal to buy silly products that I probably won't end up using a whole lot, I could have just as well ended up with one. If I had, I guess I would be among the millions that bought into the Wii as a cool toy to have for guests, but ultimately not use it, not play it and certainly not consider buying a Wii-U - as people after some point either got bored of it, saw the gimmick behind it, or realized that the fancy waving hands gets tiresome after the novelty wears off and pretty much move on to Angry Birds and other silly games for micro-amounts of dollars on tablets and smartphones. Been there, done that... on the PS2 with EyeToy.
Back to present day and here we have the Xbox One that, apart from the fancy VC and set-top-box and TV integration features, seems to be going in precisely that direction. At least, that's the impression I got, when I heard that Microsoft was bundling their console with Kinect. I would have felt the same, if Sony, for similar reasons, decided to bundle their console with their Eye/Move. Even if in the end, the focus are still on hardcore game focused Kinect-less games, the fact still remains that at some point, Microsoft subsituted computing power for Kinect. They wanted that TV integration stuff, the VC and Kinect all bundled in that machine, for a pre-determined heat/power/cost budget and that's what we ended up with. The result being that in a lot of multi-platform games, which the majority of games will be this generation, it seems the One will be at a clear disadvantage.
People might be asking why this wasn't a factor back when the PS3 launched and offered exactly this inferiority in multiplatform games compared to the X360 - which wasn't just out a year in earlier, but cheaper as well. Well, I guess for some reason, coming from the PS2, the logic of the PS3 launching later gave us reason to believe into the hype that the PS3 on many levels would offer a performance advantage. Then, to a large degree, the games we loved and bought a PS2 for, come to a large degree from strong 1st and 2nd party developers that kind of have become synominous with the PlayStation brand. Then there was Bluray, HDMI, new HD capable TV screens coming at affordable prices all at the same time which just kind of made sense to wait for it, pay more and put up with inferior ports. For the large part, the difference wasn't all THAT big either - at least, if you pretended there wasn't a X360 version outthere, it didn't really exist. And for all the inferiour ports we got, we at least got some very good 1st party games that kind of made for it.
The situation is a bit different now though. Microsoft changed their approach and made that pretty clear from the first moment they revealed their new console. Their box isn't just a gaming console, it's more than that. If you don't like that direction or are not interested in it, tough luck. For those that are not interested in these features - which I suspect a lot of X360 owners are not - the box that remains is, as a game console, technically inferior product to its closest competitor. And I do believe the X360 userbase and the PS2/3 userbase are a bit different: A lot of the PlayStation market has lived on the premise of the brandname by the games and developers that have become synonymous with the brand - on the Xbox, I find, there seem to be a lot of gamers that have a close tie to the PC - many ex PC gamers which I would guess are considered more "hardcore gamers" - gamers that care about graphics, framerate etc. To this specific demographic, is must be quite a blow to see that the PS4 now not only combines the better specced machine (for focused games), but Sony also seems to have made it clear that they are completely focused on it as a gaming machine.
Then there's also the point that in the first time in history, both Sony and Microsoft are going head-to-head, both launching for the first time within months. Both consoles are not backwards-compatible to any relevant degree, so it's only logical to assume that gamers and potential buyers are critical of which investment they make - and I would assume for a lot of early adopters which are mostly hardcore gamers, judging by the ridiculous demand, that seems to be the PS4. And this trend, will continue as more average buyers will flock to the brand that seems to be "the more successfull one".
Is Microsoft doomed? Of course not. Is the Xbox One doomed? No. But at this point, I am really struggling to see how they can change around the negative trend (compared to the success they enjoyed with the X360). I think the problem isn't the price - it's more to do with the games. Microsoft needs to push the console with exclusives - games, we want to play and that are only available on their system. They aren't going to sway any gamers with inferior multiplatform titles. Titanfall is a step in the right direction, but one game isn't enough...
Anyway, this is just talking purely from my perspective and my take on the situation.
