Xbox360 $50 price cut August 8 rumors

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Rangers

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http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/sep/EElVFFEuZpnCqqfJga.php

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i75ec4629cfe1313a51e0e767c0ee6860

These are some pretty 2nd tier sources to be sure.

And $50 is an odd price cut, if it's the only one planned (I would hope a second $50 cut would follow later in the year).

I dont know, if $50 is all they have planned, that's pretty underwhelming.

I guess if MS is operating under the assumption that PS3 will be back to 599 soon, it's not bad. However personally I'm assuming the PS3 will be 499 across the board soon enough.

Dammit never mind. I was looking for that 360 price thread but didn't see it. one beat me to it. Move or delete.
 
I was gonna get another X360 this friday since I cant wait another million years for the "falcon" versions to come out, but hey, a $50 pricecut on my birthday is one heck of a gift! :D

But...that means 2 additional weeks of waiting :cry:
 
Fu3lFr3nzy said:
I was gonna get another X360 this friday since I cant wait another million years for the "falcon" versions to come out, but hey, a $50 pricecut on my birthday is one heck of a gift! :D

But...that means 2 additional weeks of waiting :cry:
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Not sure were you are from but get it from best buy or circuit city type store and they have price protection for 30 days. So if the price drops soon you can go back into the store and get the difference.


On topic a 50 dollar cut is just another wasted opertunity by MS. The last 6 months has been just 1 bad decision after another. This fall is MS chance to cement their lead in NA against sony but they will piss that away with a measily 50 dollar price cut. Looks like MS will be letting sony off the hook and next gen 599 dollars+ will be the standard price.
 
$50 is a hell of a lot better then nothing. I agree that $100 would be damning to Sony and would problably put up quite a fight against the Wii as well for the holidays but im not going to complain about it. Thats ridiculous. The way some of you are reacting to is is almost like they may as well of not reduced the price at all. To anyone who can do simple math reducing $50 is essentially a free game or two of the buyers choice for the origonal price.

Amazon.com offers 30 day protection as well, no tax + free shipping too. You just have to email them if a price drop happened. Personally i'd just wait until it actually happens to buy anything.
 
I was planning on getting it at Sears(where my sister's bf works) because he gets a 10% discount, which basically covers the darned 8.25% CA tax ;)
 
SugarCoat said:
$50 is a hell of a lot better then nothing. I agree that $100 would be damning to Sony and would problably put up quite a fight against the Wii as well for the holidays but im not going to complain about it. Thats ridiculous. The way some of you are reacting to is is almost like they may as well of not reduced the price at all. To anyone who can do simple math reducing $50 is essentially a free game or two of the buyers choice for the origonal price.

Amazon.com offers 30 day protection as well, no tax + free shipping too. You just have to email them if a price drop happened. Personally i'd just wait until it actually happens to buy anything.
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IMO 50 dollars does nothing and puts the price way to close to the PS3. MS needs to fight with the price advantage. They are fighting the 10 years un disputed champion and need some sort of advantage. IMO this is it for MS it is put up or shut up time. Fall 2008 will be sony all the way with all of it heavy hitters coming like KZs and FF13. They need to put thier foots on sonys throat and go for the kill right now while they have a chance. A 100 dollar price cut and this fall line up would be monsterous for MS.
 
quest55720 said:
Not sure were you are from but get it from best buy or circuit city type store and they have price protection for 30 days. So if the price drops soon you can go back into the store and get the difference.


On topic a 50 dollar cut is just another wasted opertunity by MS. The last 6 months has been just 1 bad decision after another. This fall is MS chance to cement their lead in NA against sony but they will piss that away with a measily 50 dollar price cut. Looks like MS will be letting sony off the hook and next gen 599 dollars+ will be the standard price.
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You do realize, don't you, that a $50 price drop for the $299 core is the same percentage drop as the $100 drop for the PS3, right?
 
RobertR1 said:
Good point but that percentage should be carried over to the other sku's.
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Why? You end up making the Core look even more of a crappy value when you have a $250 Core and $333 Premium. For $83 dollars more you get a $90 HDD, $35 wireless controller and a few other knick knacks worth about $30-40 dollars.
 
How about this story with a microsoft employee betting N'Gai Croal that PS3 will have a cut down sku with no wifi, no backward compatibility, and 40GB HDD for $399?

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/leve...r-microserf-another-bet-on-sony-hardware.aspx

The old 60 GB SKU is being cleared out for $499 as quickly as possible - as you might recall, this was the supposed "price cut" that Sony announced. In reality, once supplies are gone in the next couple of months it'll be gone forever. However, that doesn't leave Sony in a good place. A single, $599 SKU would be untenable; if they don't move significant hardware this holiday they'll basically be dead for this generation.

My prediction is that you're going to see the creation of a new, low-end SKU this holiday. It'll likely remove integrated WiFi, memory card reader, and most controversially, all backward compatibility. (Remember, there's still some back-compat hardware in even the new "software only" back compat SKUs; removing the remaining CPU is a significant cost savings.) You'll see a new WiFi dongle made available. And finally, this low-end SKU will likely come with a smaller 40 GB hard drive. The low-end price will be set at $399, with the higher-end 80 GB SKU dropping to $499.

So there you go - nothing magic about the current value SKU. It's just a classic retail technique of clearing the channel for new SKUs. Now we just need to wait a few months for the announcement - it'll have to be before Thanksgiving, so I'd expect October
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If that's microsoft's thinking, they should know they'll need a lot more than $50 to combat that.

I wouldn't be surprised in a way though. David Reeves comments that Sony will be winning by March 08 make me wonder if they have something big up their sleeves.
 
I think the $50 price cut is fine.

Except they should include a memory card with the core.

If they did that, they could ride the price structure through the holiday season and not suffer with another price drop until late Jan or Feb, IMO.

I also think the most interesting piece of information out of this price drop news is that the core makes up 20% of sales.

That number is 1) Probably about what MS wants and expected up to this point and 2) Is probably the number that MS now wants to drastically increase.

So the big question is what price point does the $50 price drop influence the most? I would say it has its greatest impact on the Core, but the lack of the memory card is still a major sticking point. The memory card essentially wipes out the $50 savings.

Include the memory card with the core, and you have essentially given a $100 discount on the low end of the spectrum, while maintaining profits at the higher end by absorbing only a $50 reduction.
 
Rangers said:
If that's microsoft's thinking, they should know they'll need a lot more than $50 to combat that.
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Why? All that rumor says is that Sony has admitted their mistake and is now taking up MS's approach to unit pricing and peripherals.

You seem to be positioning that as something that MS needs to react to. In actuality, it's Sony admitting defeat and reacting to MS' initial (and current) strategy of 'core + accessories' rather than forcing overpriced 'Everything or nothing' units down the consumer's throats.
 
Numbers I recall put Core at less than 10% of sales these days. More like 8%.

But I guess it's a question if you believe me or Hollywood reporter. However, I'd question the reliability of their figure.
 
Rangers said:
Numbers I recall put Core at less than 10% of sales these days. More like 8%.

But I guess it's a question if you believe me or Hollywood reporter. However, I'd question the reliability of their figure.
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If you could expand on how you got your figure, I'd be glad to use yours instead.

I mentioned the number because it was the first time I've seen it appear in any news report. So I'm as curious as you are as to their source and the reliability. I'm actually wondering why it is they reported that number when other industry sources don't seem to grasp or discuss the importance of Core sales.

However, as I stated, MS wants that number to be historically low to this point. 10% of sales might be a bit too low, but I don't really know where that threshold would be.

I think its a number that MS is just now trying to raise, because the entire purpose of the sku is to accumulate market share at a rate that is disporportionate to the amount price cuts.

So 10% or 20% doesn't matter yet, but it will become important as MS attempts to measure the success of the Core strategy after successive price drops.
 
RancidLunchmeat said:
Why? All that rumor says is that Sony has admitted their mistake and is now taking up MS's approach to unit pricing and peripherals.
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:rolleyes:

Sony had a 20GB wi-fi less SKU at launch, the rumored 40GB is a evolution of the original SKU. Selling a PS3 branded ad-on is new, hopefully it won't be $100 like my 360 one. But this is only a partially gimped SKU (if real) with the removal of the EE chip, but it still has a HD, Blu-ray playback and wireless controller.
 
People said $30 drop for the PSP was not enough, but it sure did spark some sales. It'll do the same for the 360; however, a $100 drop would be fantastic.
 
bkilian said:
You do realize, don't you, that a $50 price drop for the $299 core is the same percentage drop as the $100 drop for the PS3, right?
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Hmmm, is that an unofficial confirmation? ;)


With Halo3 and GTA4 blockbusters coming, is a price cut that necessary?

Isn't there a Halo edition of the X360 coming too?
 
RancidLunchmeat said:
If you could expand on how you got your figure, I'd be glad to use yours instead.

I mentioned the number because it was the first time I've seen it appear in any news report. So I'm as curious as you are as to their source and the reliability. I'm actually wondering why it is they reported that number when other industry sources don't seem to grasp or discuss the importance of Core sales.

However, as I stated, MS wants that number to be historically low to this point. 10% of sales might be a bit too low, but I don't really know where that threshold would be.

I think its a number that MS is just now trying to raise, because the entire purpose of the sku is to accumulate market share at a rate that is disporportionate to the amount price cuts.

So 10% or 20% doesn't matter yet, but it will become important as MS attempts to measure the success of the Core strategy after successive price drops.
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I have a few sources mostly from memory. One month NPD published the hardware revenue figures. From that I was able to tease out the percent of Premium's and Core's (this was before Elite) it was 8% Core.

SonyCowboy at GAF has remarked on Core sales a few times. I believe when shortages were in effect they were as much as 25% of sales. This because with the machine sold out people were basically forced to buy it. But the first month it was off shortage I believe he commented Core sales fell to 10%.

Another source is VGChartz, I remember them saying a couple months back they had Core at about 600,000, versus about 6 million total 360 sales (in North America). So that is also right around ten percent.

BTW, a little further confirmation from gamedaily

http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=16920

Microsoft has yet to officially confirm a price drop, so take this with a sizable grain of salt. A report in The Hollywood Reporter claims that a $50 price cut is coming early next month. Independently, though, GameDaily BIZ has been hearing the same thing from industry sources...
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Weirdly though, gamedaily further confuses things by implying the cut may only be to the core, which would be even more bizzare. I can see the reasoning though, Core sales are poor, so perhaps it needs to made more attractive next to ther skus. I cant imagine this being true though, as it then upsets their whole value proposition, aka it would make more sense to buy a Core and a HDD than a premium.
 
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