What is Digg?280 Comments
- seavers, on 09/05/2008, -8/+214100$ price cut after almost three years in the market is not desperation.
- SgtQuackers, on 09/04/2008, -6/+72I think its a good move because it places the Xbox 360 in a better place to compete with the Wii. It also helps it out against surging PS3 sales. In the long run this is the price point that the Xbox 360 needs to get to to reach a much wider market.
- Chasey, on 09/04/2008, -4/+67well a price drop is always good for those who haven't got one yet, good bargain
- PWoT, on 09/05/2008, -1/+43Uh, how about business as usual? This is pretty much the normal price-drop schedule every single console manufacturer has used for the past 20 years.
- gluecode, on 09/05/2008, -2/+39The price-cut of this scale should be expected at this point in the life-cycle of a gaming console. The console hardware does not make much money for Microsoft or Sony. It is the games. Microsoft has and is making a lot of money with the games.
- danielrh9, on 09/05/2008, -6/+37I'll likely be buried and ridiculed for saying this. But it's my honest opinion, so whatever.
I'm going out and buying the Arcade this afternoon. I'd been considering it for some time, and the $199 price tag makes it irresistible. Yes, I know that some of you may say that I "need" a hard drive. But I simply disagree. All I want it for is to play games. I already have a media center connected to my HDTV, and I feel that it does what I want for that specific purpose. And yes, I realize that there are some great Arcade titles and DLC to be had. But I honestly am not interested. I just want a cheap way to play the great 360 titles that I've been missing out on, that's all.
$199 (plus around five or ten bucks for an HDMI cable) is an absolute steal for me in this regard. - inactive, on 09/05/2008, -3/+34I like my 360, and I have zero desire to get a PS3, but "buy American" is rubbish. Nationalism is a morally bankrupt ideology. I'll buy something because it's good, not because it comes from a particular country.
- SupaDawg, on 09/05/2008, -3/+33Microsoft has done extensive research on price points and the correlation of hardware sales. In nearly every hardware cycle for every single console, the $199 price point is the point where sales hit their peak. You can bet you ass MS wanted to be at that point a year or two ago, but the reality of component pricing just won't allow it.
Good move by Microsoft. Puts them in a very solid position to compete with the PS3 and the Wii. - jggube, on 09/04/2008, -3/+31???? ok...
- jagermeistr, on 09/05/2008, -1/+26I don't really understand how this could be desperation- the 360 has been a pretty successful system. If anything this is going to put a lot of pressure on Sony and Nintendo. In any case, the consumer wins.
- SupaDawg, on 09/05/2008, -4/+27Need i point out that the top selling unit currently on the market doesn't even play DVDs (without a hack anyways), let alone Blu-Ray? The Wii appears to be doing just fine.
- ProfChaosOmega, on 09/05/2008, -5/+24Thats not the 360's fault, it's because everyone finally realized how big of a joke the Wii is.
- inajeep, on 09/05/2008, -3/+18Guess you don't read gaming mags often. tons of great games coming out this fall/winter.
- inajeep, on 09/05/2008, -8/+22The war will never be over because it's a lousy analogy. You can't lose when you have millions of console. As seavers already mentions, a price cut at this time is more than due. Sony already said that prices aren't dropping so for all those people still waiting guess which option looks better now?
- OhFrak, on 09/05/2008, -5/+19My god are you a total ***** moron.
- fuzzynyanko, on 09/05/2008, -3/+16I'd say it's pretty natural. A chip shrinkage just completed (Jasper) and Microsoft wanted a price drop almost every year. This is probably planned since January.
- SSCrow, on 09/05/2008, -3/+15No, because then children could just constantly make new accounts and be complete douchebags online.
Go around and team kill with no consequence. - kelmaster1, on 09/05/2008, -3/+15They should have cut it over a year ago with all the problems they've had with the 360. My original xbox (which is almost 7 years old) works great and I've never sent it in. I've sent my 360 in twice, in the period of a year and it just broke again (the piece that holds the cd broke inside the player... what a cheap pos). I know I'm not the only one with problems.
At least now they're including wireless controllers with the systems. - jagermeistr, on 09/05/2008, -1/+13to each his own- I have a pro and absolutely love the system, Im sure for your needs a arcade will do.
- Quicksilver4648, on 09/05/2008, -2/+13Well they did extend the warranty by 3x the normal length.
- Quicksilver4648, on 09/05/2008, -2/+13How about this radical idea. The cost to manufacture the Xbox 360 goes down overtime so they bring the lowered prices to the consumer, which astonishingly helps sales.
- Whirly5, on 09/05/2008, -3/+14No its not Desperation, its called Economics..
- bemenaker, on 09/05/2008, -7/+17What they really need to do, is make XBoxLive FREE
- NJank, on 09/05/2008, -1/+11the?
- HappyScrappy, on 09/05/2008, -5/+14No it hasn't. PS3 has had only one price cut so far. $500/600 to $400/500. The rest has been just reconfiguring the bundles and/or clearances (which 360 has had also at times).
With this price cut, 360 has had two price cuts now. Which still isn't a large number. - Tostito, on 09/05/2008, -3/+11***** agreed..
- cheaptricks, on 09/05/2008, -1/+9I like how this is just in time for Banjo-Kazooie 3
- theaceoffire, on 09/05/2008, -0/+8Lets be honest here, a price drop is always good for us, the consumer. Hopefully the PS3 and Wii will feel pressured to follow suit...
^_^ And maybe the 360 will lower the cost of the 20GB hard drive addon too. That would rock. - MWeather, on 09/05/2008, -0/+8Ok, the Xbox was just as successful as the Sega Master System.
- inactive, on 09/05/2008, -4/+11MS should employ Seinfeld to do a Xbox commercial.
- godinster, on 09/05/2008, -11/+18Yeah! Buy a ***** Ford that'll break down in a couple years. It's the AMERICAN THING TO DO!
- chris4404, on 09/05/2008, -1/+8Yeah! Don't you have $35 burning a hole in your pocket for "Dude Where's My Car?" in 1080p?
- stealthc, on 09/05/2008, -5/+12People buy Blu-Ray movies?
- hexydes, on 09/05/2008, -1/+7This is the only thing that matters. In the broad scheme of things, the console makers would give the consoles away for free if they could, because it would just mean more games. Eventually, you hit a point where it costs them money to sell a console for $X, so they have to minimize the bleeding there, but for the most part, they want to price them as low as possible, so as to maximize the sale of consoles, and thus maximize the sale of games (the real money maker). Where X is depends on your console. For Nintendo, the Wii was not a lot of new hardware, so their initial X value was a lot lower than Microsoft, and especially Sony, who both had completely new hardware throughout the consoles. Microsoft came out with the 360 first, and it has less unique hardware, so it stands to reason that they're due for a price cut. In fact, Nintendo would probably have already cut the price of the Wii to $199 by now, except that they are still flying off the shelves. The right time to cut price is when console sales start to taper off, so you lower the price so that it makes it more attractive to a new, price-minded demographic.
This is just business as usual. The fact that this is on the front page of Digg as something important is embarrassing. - voyage34, on 09/05/2008, -3/+9It's not desperation.
- kfriel, on 09/05/2008, -2/+8Those are the (optional) downloadable map packs. The actual game saves aren't nearly that big.
- grimfandango, on 09/05/2008, -3/+9Nah, just keeping the brand alive longer. Still some way to go before the Xbox 3...
- FredFredrickson, on 09/05/2008, -0/+6I like that Banjo Kazooie 3 is going to be $40 too!
- bdawg123, on 09/05/2008, -4/+10Well, if you buy based on cost alone, then I guess you could argue the 360 looks better. However, if you take things beyond cost into consideration such as build quality, included hard drive, built-in wireless, Blu-ray, Bluetooth, free online (which works just fine BTW), and arguably the better 2008/2009 games lineup, then I would argue in favor of the PS3.
But that's just my opinion. Bury away! - nobelief, on 09/05/2008, -2/+8dj, he wants to play games. not watch bluray
- Diggnabbit, on 09/05/2008, -2/+8I don't think it's particularly desperate or bold. It seems like a reasonable price cut at a reasonable time.
- lcmatt, on 09/05/2008, -2/+8Hardly any games? Are you serious.. Left 4 dead, GoW2, Fable 2 are all exclusive then you've got the likes of Fallout 3.
- EtherGnat, on 09/05/2008, -1/+7"Selling at the same rate as the first Xbox fiasco."
Actually the 360 has outsold the original Xbox by about 30%.
"Closing in three years and Microsoft recently admitted they were still losing money on the ***** 360 hardware."
Microsoft has said since 2001 they didn't expect to turn a profit until 2007 or 2008. They have recently had at least one profitable quarter, and expect to be profitable in fiscal 2008.
"Closing in on three years on the market and the only 'graphical showpiece' the 360 has is a game running on the outdated Unreal Engine 3."
I haven't seen anything on PS3 that really blows me away compared to what's available on the PS3. Considering the PS3 launched a year later and at $100 more it damn well should have advantages.
For the record I own both a PS3 and a PS2, but have never owned a Microsoft console. All these stupid fanboy attacks are ridiculous, though. You might as well claim you're better than me because your dad can beat up my dad.
Competition is a good thing. All three consoles are great, in fact I think this might be the greatest generation of systems ever. - fuzzynyanko, on 09/05/2008, -1/+7The Arcade also comes with a memory card that saves a lot of games. You should be able to hold at least 25 different saved games, but in reality, you should get anywhere from 40-100 if you don't download a lot of games from Live.
I started out with a 360 Arcade and it was just fine. I just couldn't get a lot of XBLA games, but most disc-based games played and I didn't worry too much about saved game space. Games did load faster once I got a hard drive from ebay. - munkyxtc, on 09/05/2008, -1/+7I'd say MS is just trying to get the system into the hands of the last 360 hold outs who were waiting for a certain price point...and at this point it seems to be working. (According to Amazon) The arcade versions sales have increased 1200%+ so far today; the 60GB is up 200% & Elite is over a 60% increase.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/movers-and-shakers/videog ... - djholybolt, on 09/05/2008, -0/+5Sorry, gotta disagree with you there.
I'll say PS3 is an epic failure when they can't produce anymore, but from the looks of it.. over the past year the PS3 has risen in sales against the 360 and is even now out-selling them. The 360 has a tainted image of being an incomplete project that will follow it forever. They should have done what PS3 did; hold on to releasing and manufacture their units out of a good warehouse with circuitry that won't fail at any given time. - nace33, on 09/05/2008, -6/+11Lowering the price point of the 360 puts the price in competition with the Wii's price, but it doesn't the put the 360 in competition with the Wii. They are two totally distinct organisms. Each serve their purpose (and do it well), but I think the person shopping for the Wii is not going to change their mind and buy a 360.
However, I do think that the gamer that wants everything is now much more likely to buy both the 360 and the Wii. But again, I don't see how this puts the Wii in competition with the 360, I think the 360 is just upping the anti on the PS3. - GodsTwin, on 09/05/2008, -2/+7FFS why is it so outrageous to buy a game console purely for gaming...
- Ocelot13, on 09/05/2008, -2/+7yeah.. because they price drop became effective what, today?
- NJank, on 09/05/2008, -3/+8"Sony - because Caucasians are just too damn tall"
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