hmm I don't think Sony is going to budge. It'll be interesting to see if PS3 sales keep up regardless.
That's a Kmart ad for July 6th. And it only had the Pro, no Arcade or Elite. Since it's a $50 price drop on the Pro, I'm not expecting that big of drop on the Arcade. Last price cut the Pro got a $50 drop, Arcade got a $20 drop and the Elite got a $30 drop. Also the ad mentions 20gb for the $299 price. I think that pretty much blows the 60gb rumor out of the water. Unless they're only doing this to clear inventory so they can release a replacement SKUs in time for the holidays. Tommy McClain
I'd like to see a $25 wi-fi adapter, the ala cart price, even at $300 is still pretty high. My friend is still convinced a blu-ray 360 is in the pipeline, I wonder what the price would be in theory.
It's my personal belief that 60GB pro is a done deal to be announced at E3. As such, unless they want to run the channel dry (which Sony did a couple times in the PS2 era and is a terrible idea) they will have to have both on the shelves at the same time (clearing out 20 stock). As such, people will need an incentive to chose the 20 until it's gone, meaning a lower price. I am sure they are prepping a permanent price drop, but I'm not sure where all this is going to fall when all is said and done.. The rumors I have seen say "less than the current Elite".
Somebody made a comment on CAG that it was cool that the price finally got to the price he paid 2 years ago. LOL That reminded me of my purchase too. Got it December 2006 for $400 with a free $100 gift card. Microsoft wasn't kidding when they said they were going for profitability. They've been really stingy with the price cuts. Hehe Anyway, I suspect $250 for the Arcade to coincide with the Wii price, but it should really be $230. The Elite is a tougher one considering the 60gb rumor. Most likely it's just a rumor and they will just drop the Elite to $380. If the 60gb rumor is true, then they might just make it a $350 SKU and leave the Elite at $400. The rumored Bluray SKU is a harder one to guess. But I'm thinking the latest rumor about 3rd parties manufacturing their own is where we would only see it. Toshiba(for example) could be making a 360 with Bluray and it wouldn't be competing directly with the 3 main SKUs Microsoft is selling. Probably see it configured and priced similarly to the 80gb PS3($500). Tommy McClain
I think everyone expected the 60gb to just replace the 20gb AND drop the price. As I stated a sec ago, if the 60gb SKU is true then a $300 20gb sounds about right, especially if the 60gb SKU comes in at $350. But I think it's a bad idea to get rid of the $300 20gb just so they can keep a 60gb Pro at $350. It's almost as if they want to go with 4 SKUs and that's just way too many. The best option is to at least a have hard drive SKU for $300 by Christmas. Whether that is 20gb or 60gb. Their high end SKU(Elite or whatever) needs to be less than a $400 PS3 before Christmas too. It will be interesting to see what they come up with. Tommy McClain
I am sure they will drop the price of the 60, if it exists, too, before Christmas. My scenario would be like drop 20 now, 60 comes in at the old 349, wait a couple months so as not to piss all the first 60GB buyers off, then 60 drops to 299 after all the 20 is gone. I'm certain they're not going to leave the pro at 349 for this holiday. It's just a lot of questions of how it shakes out if you assume the 60 GB exists. They could also do 60 at 299 right away, and just drop the 20 to 280 or something like that. Hopefully much will be cleared up at E3. 60GB might not even exist, in which case it's a simple price drop. BTW, Elite is currently 449, some people in this thread have got the price wrong..
Exactly.. July: 250$ Arcade 300$ 20 gig Pro (phase out) 350$ 60 gig Pro 400$ 120 gig Elite (phase out) Around October: 250$ Arcade 300$ 60 gig Pro 400$ Bluray 360? I think they will also add wifi to 60 gig models to make it a little more attractive. With those price, Sony does not even have to cut PS3 price. 40 gig Ps3 will still be at a good price compared to a 60 Gig 360 with this setting.
One day we'll get past the BluRay 360....I'm sure that day will be when MS stops production on the 360.
HA! No kidding. If the component costs of BD are as expensive as Carl says in the PS3 loss thread, there's no way it would ever be included, and I'm not sure it would be included even if it were only a relatively minor increase in cost. BD might have killed off HD-DVD, but you have to remember that MS didn't promote HD-DVD because they wanted the format to become standard instead of BD, they just wanted to cause confusion and a delay because they don't really believe either of these standards will be relevant in the near future and encouraging adoption of either one is contrary to their vision of content distribution in the future. I don't see any way that BD is included in the 360, and I'm doubtful that they'd even offer an add-on BD player because they'd only do so at a profit. The % of people that are buying the PS3 over the 360 because of BD is so small, that it simply isn't a segment worth targeting. I'd like to see ads from more than one vendor showing price cuts on the Premium before I jump in and say this has any real meaning. If EVERYBODY starts lowering the price of the premium in the next two weeks, then we can infer that E3 will bring with it an announcement of a larger HDD. As it is, Kmart has been so poorly run for the past decade, this could very well just be their idea of a loss-leader, and Kmart, not MS is eating the discount. If it comes from MS, we'll soon see ads from Walmart, Circuit City, Best Buy, etc.. advertising the same thing.
Well, note that BD drives cost much less now than two years ago. There will come a time when a BD drive won't cost too much more than a DVD drive; as we approach that time I could see MS including a BD drive rather than DVD. But then again... why bother maybe. Anyway to the thread in general, whatever else is going on, I would definitely believe a 60GB 360 on the horizon. I almost can't imagine that any major OEMs are even producing 20GB drives anymore, to say nothing of the extremely marginal cost differentials that would exist between 20GB and 60GB even if they were. Plus at a lower price, it would give the 360 an easy spec-up on the 40GB PS3 that's visible right on the box for those folk that shop at the store and compare number to number.
My guess is that this isn't the case either. Online content distribution is orthogonal to this war. Whether HD optical takes over DVD or not is irrelevent because MS will have to compete against one or the other anyway. IMO MS just wanted a piece of the codec pie, and their partnership with Toshiba had the perfect timing to get their tools into the movie studios. Now lots of BR titles use VC-1. If MS didn't have the partnership with HD-DVD, I don't think itwould have had nearly as much marketshare, particularly with the way Sony was pushing MPEG2 and AVC.
I'm not strictly talking about online content distribution, I'm talking about technology gains in general. The transfer of information from analog to digital has resulted in a paradigm that is completely different than the environment that existed during the time of VHS vs DVD for example. That was a paradigm shift. We are working under a completely different set of rules now that all media is digital. I simply don't see BD or HD-DVD (had they been the dominate format) existing for the same period of time as VHS or DVD. I don't necessarily think that digital distribution is the next step. But, I think that BD is only one step towards that ultimate goal of digital distribution. I'm fairly confident that in two years there will be better means of distribution than BD. Ultimately, I see BD like I saw VCDs. Just a little stepping stone towards the next best thing. The technology to antiquate BD already exists, it's only a matter of price point.