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Xbox Price Drops For Australia And Europe
wallitron writes: "Due to slow sales in Australia, Microsoft is looking to drop the price of it's XBox to $399 (around $200US). With a fast CPU, wizzy graphics card, ethernet, DVD and TV out, it would be a handy thing in the living room if it ran a real OS. At that price it seems good value. Check out the article on the price drop." There are price drops in Europe, too.
Actually, J Allard the head of MS' digital entertainment division (in charge of xBox) stated in a wired interview prior to the unit's release that he wanted to move prices down fairly rapidly, "to get the retail price to $100 as quickly as possible."
This may be a little faster than they had hoped to lower the price, but MS knows it's gonna take heavy losses to get the market penetration required to start making serious money on the software.
The users that were overkeen and bought one before the price cut (I think there were eight of them) wil be compensated:
"Those who have already bought the console at the higher price will, luckily, be compensated. Anyone who already has an Xbox, or buys one before April 25th, will receive two free games and a free controller"
The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made. (Marx)
You need to buy a DVD accessory (about US $30) to have DVD playback functions. It does not work straight out of the box, like Playstation 2.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
No it's Aussie dollars. The price in Europe is going to be 299 Euros around 260 US Euros.
This guy should know that if he has his receipt Microsoft will give him 2 XBox games and an extra controller for free. They're doing this for all early adopters who bought an XBox beore the price break in Austrailia and Europe.
A big Thank You to all Xbox gamers!
As a big "THANK YOU" to everyone who bought an Xbox before 26th April we are offering, until 1st July 2002, the chance for you to get 2 games and an Xbox Controller for FREE! That means you could be playing games like Halo, Rallisport Challenge, Project Gotham Racing, Amped, Oddworld or Dead or Alive 3 amongst other great games for free!
M$ was already selling at a hefty loss (for some reason $100-$200 dollars comes to mind, but I'm not certain). This is standard practice in the console industry, though: sell the console as a loss-leader to make up profits in software royalties. Sony does it. Nintendo does it (though to a lesser extent). They were already basically dumping the XBoxes, and now they're trying to avalanche them.
Hopefully they get sued, and are forced to sell at cost >:).
BlackGriffen
This price drop has brought up something that always made me curious as an aussie gamer. The hypothetical "what if" is about to be answered..
The problem for the average aussie gamer, is that titles/consoles that are sold here are basically sold in USD prices, converted to local currency.. i.e. That $40US game will be released here at ~$80AUD. However, the average aussie wage is the same (or less) in AUD than an equivalent job in USD..
So the aussie gamer is effectively paying "twice" as much for games with his hard earnt cash..
i.e. Two kids working at mcdonalds say, are bringing home their $8/hr local currency for 20 hour week.
The US kid, $160 USD buys them 4 games. The Aussie kid, $160 AUD buys them 2 games.
Of course the best solution for the aussie gamer would be if they sold the title for an equivalent local amount.. But if that was the case, then wouldnt everyone overseas just turn around and import/mail order stuff from these countries where the local dollar was weak. You'll already see people pondering about doing this exact thing in the comments.
Will this establish a driver for more "affordable" gaming prices in Australia, or will it just provoke a massive mail order business by US folks looking to score their gaming at cheap rates..
I'll be looking on with interest
Week 4/8-4/14, Japan Hardware Sales
* PS2: 55,000 units (total this year: 1,323,000)
* GBA: 31,000 units (total this year: 969,000)
* GameCube: 10,000 units (total this year: 510,000)
* PS1: 3,000 units (total this year: 74,000)
* WonderSwan: 2,000 units (total this year: 11,330)
* Xbox: 1,800 units (total this year: 169,000)
* Dreamcast: 1,500 units (total this year: 12,000)
(from IGN)
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
No, Sony does not sell at a loss. Nintendo, Sega, and Microsoft, however, do sell at a loss. Read the prophetic words of the Almighty Gord. http://www.actsofgord.com/Proclamations/chapter02. html
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
What it takes to develop on an XBox? Mwah ha ha,
You need
MS Visual C++,
XBox Full Development Kit (Includes cusom XBox that can play burnt CD's)
Signing your life away to a Micorosft Developmnet License.
Microsoft are doing the same thing as Nintendo do, they are only allowing self published games, no game can be published by someone who hasn't signed up to the development agreements.
Incidently you can get a Software developmnet kit, which allows you to run a XBox emulator on your PC basically, and test your games without having to burn them onto CD and crash the nice XBox.
People who have already bought an X-Box (or won one in my case - I'm not that stupid) can get two free games plus an extra controller (see http://www.xbox.com/uk/news/0025.htm)
Trouble is, of the games on offer, you're certain to already have at least one and the others might not really appeal (speaking as someone who took Amped back to the shop and got his money back).
The games are:
Halo
Rallisport Challenge
Project Gotham Racing
Amped
Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee
Dead or Alive 3
Bloodwake
Fuzion Frenzy
Still, it's probably worth getting them just to use as coffee mats - it costs M$oft money and that can only be a good thing...
They will never know the simple pleasure of a monkey knife fight
L O S E
The anti-dumping regulations are there to protect nascent european industry from foreighn competitors segregating markets and dumping excess capacity. Consequently your comment makes no sense at all. Europe doesn't have a console industry to protect, and the cost of Xboxes is now comparable with other geographical regions, so it is not possible to argue that the practise is dumping.
"The new wave is not value-added; it's garbage-subtracted" - Esther Dyson, Dec 1994
The relevent bit of RU law, regulation 384/96 states that "an anti-dumping duty may be applied to any dumped product whose release for free circulation in the Community causes injury." (article 1(1))
And injury is defined as meaning "material injury to the Community industry, threat of material injury to the Community industry or material retardation of the establishment of such an industry." (article 3(1))
And dumping is "A product is to be considered as being dumped if its export price to the Community is less than a comparable price for the like product, in the ordinary course of trade, as established for the exporting country." (article 1(2))
So, one way or another, the price drop is probably OK. Now, 299 is not much below the US price of $299 (according to this it's $266.17 as I write this) so whether dumping is happening is questionable. And also, given that selling below cost price is standard practice in the console industry, I would be doubtful as to whether the price drop causes injury, as defined above. And of course, there would need to be some EU console manufacturers (or at least, a fledgling industry) to hurt before anything could be done.
The law concerning dumping is that you cannot sell at lose AND sell below market price. With the X-Box at 299 (same as PS2), it's not under the market price, therefore it can be sold at loss.
The DVD is probably all proprietary stuff - since it supposedly can spin both ways.
This urban legend has been applied to several video game systems. It's probably not true. It originated from the fact that some of the systems start from the outside of the disc and go in, as opposed to regular CDs and DVDs that start from the inside and go out. The PS2 and Xbox both have their boot sectors on the second layer of the DVD, which is typically written starting at the outside.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I can tell you exactly why MS has dropped the price of the XBox here in OZ.
They are shit-scared of the Nintendo GameCube. Nintendo has been running a HUGE marketing campaign here in OZ. There about about 4 or 5 commercials for the GameCube every night on all three major TV stations. Not to mention Print and Radio. I have seen a total of ONE TV commercial for the XBox. The GC isn't even due til May 17th!.
Guess how much the GC is going to be when it is released. Yep... AUS$399. Funny that.
(This is also completely ignoring the fact that the XBox is so damn big, and the controller is just wrong.)
To be perfectly honest, I would love to see Sony and Nintendo drop their prices to AUS$199. This would basically wipe the XBox off the face of the planet.
Ummmm ... okay.
The XBox is getting its ass kicked in worldwide sales. Even in North America it is being outsold by the GameCube (although the GC is still behind in terms of total NA sales).
If you like playing little kiddie games thats great. I'll stick with my Halo, Wreckless, Max payne for now. Also sorry to burst your bubble.
Well, I'm glad you enjoy those games. Good for you. I happen to enjoy Mario and Zelda, and I'm a married adult -- I don't think that makes me "kiddie". For the record, I'm also getting Resident Evil and Eternal Darkness, both of which are very bloody and horrific.
Xbox E3 lineup will be awesome.
Glad you think so -- you've made quite an investment in the XBox, and I hope you get games you enjoy for it.
However, names like "Mario", "Zelda" and "Metroid" are important to a lot of people. Nintendo is showing all of their best franchises at E3 this year, and I very much doubt that any journalists will see Microsoft or Sony as having a better showing this year. We'll see in a little over a month, though -- feel free to scream "I TOLD YOU SO!" if a significant number of journalists (as supposedly objective parties) think MS trounced the competition at E3. I'm not going to hold my breath, though.
However I dont think you understand that XBOX does have very good 3rd party support.
And I don't think you were listening to me. I didn't say the XBox has lousy third-party support now -- I was referring to a hypothetical situation in which the XBox has failed. Obviously, at that point, all third parties are out the window, and the XBox 2 would have to start rebuilding support.
Picture, if you will, how Sega would have fared had they tried to introduce the Dreamcast 2. The situation facing the XBox 2 will be the same, if the XBox flops.
The xbox price cut is a good thing.
I don't recall saying otherwise.
Before you make you doom and gloom predictions and start talking about xbox 2 please do a little
research. Just pulling out of your ass all these prediction about the xbox 2 is pretty weak
I was speaking hypothetically. IF the XBox fails, there will be no XBox 2 -- at least not a successful one. Yes, I also predicted that this situation is likely, but the main point of my post was the logical conclusion that an XBox failure all but forces an XBox 2 failure.
Go back to your GC fanboy message boards. I think thats where you belong.
Ooookay. I think we have an insecure college kid on our hands, folks.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
Nintendo responded by dropping the GameCube's launch price to $AU329.
Hurrah, etc.