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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.
I've been planning on buying a GameCube for quite a while now, infact I pre-ordered (May 17th launch in Australia, I don't want one enough to spend $AU1000 importing, blah blah etc) several months ago.
As far as I recall, the launch price for the GameCube in Australia is going to be $399. Whenever I've told people that price, then compared to the $799 Xbox, people would be shocked. Then they'd realise they could get a GameCube and a couple of games for the same price as a gameless Xbox. I know first-hand of a couple of people that have held back and waited for a GameCube because of this.
All well, there'll be two interesting things to observe from this: Nintendo's reaction, and early Xbox adopters' reactions.
I wonder if Nintendo will drop their GCN launch price now? To be honest, I don't think they have much of a choice if they want to remain competitive. As for the Xbox owners: They get what they deserve! Err, seriously though, I bought a Nintendo 64 on March 7th 1997 (a week after the launch in Australia) for $399. 3 months later, the price dropped to $299. Nintendo had a very quiet promotion of "free game for early adopters". It's where my copy of Mario Kart 64 is from.
I wonder if Microsoft will do the same now?
If I were Michael Dell or Ted Waitte (Gateway), I would be on 'red alert', so to speak. Microsoft are literally giving hardware away and establishing themselves with a box in every living room. An XBox upgrade kit in the future (with a USB keyboard and mouse, maybe throw in WindowsXBox and a lite version of XBox Office) and suddenly you have proprietry hardware running a proprietry OS. Future versions of desktop Windows will have terrible driver support or hardware crippling commands for Dells and Gateway, making them seem slower, while uncrippled Xbox drivers will run at normal speed (which will seem very fast for normal users).
Microsoft are positioning themselves to be a hardware company, muscling Dell and Gateway out the PC business. The next M$ monopoly will be on PC hardware. A one stop solution, so to speak - Microsoft will supply the OS, hardware and software.
Revolution = Evolution
The price drops in the UK and Europe are the most important... there's like 300 million people here and like what, 5 in Australia?
This announcement comes only a few days after news reports came out saying it was obvious that Microsoft wasn't going to make their sales targets. I don't know WHAT the hell they were thinking at first putting the price up so high in Europe, the economies here are much, much weaker than in the U.S. Almost no one can afford 450 for freakin' game machine.
There was no real reason for the prices to be that high, especially since they're making the XBox's in Hungary, not a place known for its high labor costs, hey?
I read that Microsoft wasn't probably going to lower prices in the U.S. until Sony does, but it seems that Microsoft is looking at the numbers and not the competition (at least in the rest of the world) so maybe they'll get a clue.
Has anyone hacked this bad boy with Linux yet? Then to me it would be worth the price of letting a Microsoft product into my home.
-Russ
Me
Prices have dropped to lower levels in AU - in the UK, they've gone from UKP300 to UKP200. So that's still somewhere near $US300.
Anyway, M.A.M.E. is in the progress of being ported.
(In desperate search for a cool
I've had two spam faxes in the office today (we never get spam faxes here, so thats significant in itself)
The gist of them is that if I sign up for an MSCE course I'll get a free X-Box
It shows every sign of a truly desperate company trying to shift stock, and certainly makes it look like the X-Box is a tacky trinket.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
1.) The idea that the Microsft would turn the Xbox into a PC? Do you know how hard they have worked to make sure people _DONT_ perceive the Xbox as a PC? Not only would this piss off hardware vendors but it would land them in legal trouble instantly. I don't care what arguement you may have - you will _never_ see the XBox performing as a PC.
2.) XBox as a DVR (or TiVo type device). Well, considering there currently isn't a TV input for the XBox I dont think this will happen. I suppose they could feed video via ethernet over broadband but this would be insane. Again, the changes of MS doing something like this is next to nothing.
3.) Chances are if the XBox does fail - its dead. Yes Microsoft has put tons of money behind the Xbox but that doesn't mean they have to keep supporting it if its a loser. Look at UltimateTV - Microsoft put a lot behind that and while they are still providing support for their existing customer base they certainly aren't pushing the product anymore.
I own an XBox, a PS2 and a Dreamcast. In every market some products win, some fail - not everyone can win. The Xbox hasn't even been out a year yet and everyone is expecting its demise - I would have to give the product at least a year from now to more properly speculate what its life will be like. Only time will tell. The best we can hope for if the Xbox fails is that by some grace of god M$ gives regular users what they need to 'hack' the box. Fat chance.
As for the MS Hate talk:
While Slashdot is website built for a community -the boring, redundant "M$ Sucks, M$ is Evil" rhetoric gets really boring, redundant and repetitive. Yes everyone has an opinon but the "Me too!" posts suck - Everyone knows you hate them so shut up already.
-
aphex
I Steal Music!
Many of the console games in development at the moment are planned for release on all three consoles. The launch titles for the X-Box are pretty uninspiring, but it's early days yet.
Microsoft are in a much better position than they'd have been in if Sony had used their extra year of time with the PS2 on the market effectively.
Personally I'm leaning toward buying a Gamecube. This change in price brings the X-Box down to the same price, but I just prefer Nintendo's style (and franchise characters).
Having 3 consoles on the market is doing great things as far as I'm concerned, as a gamer. When you can develop a game for one of two systems, often you'll only do one. But if sticking to one system cuts you out of a large portion of the market, you're more likely to develop for them all.
..and I'll form the head!!
According to this news report, Microsoft expects to sell 3.5 to 4 million units of Xbox, instead of previously planned 4.5 to 6, by end of June this year:
Microsoft said on Thursday it expected to ship a total of 3.5 million to 4 million Xbox video consoles by the end of June, a drastic scaling back of previous expectations of 4.5 million to 6 million units, due to weak sales in Japan and Europe.
Sigged!
If the also brought the price of the games down to A$29.95 then I'd cave in and buy one. It's easy to resist a cheap console when the games are so damn expensive. I think I'll drop by a pawnbroker on the way home from work and see what the average price for a secondhand Xbox game is at the moment...
Everything is integrated on the motherboard (CPU, GPU, RAM...).
The harddrive and DVD drive are more or less standard components with slightly altered firmware.
I am quite certain that you are not allowed to sell for less than manufacturing costs in the EU.
A few weeks ago, I read an article about MS wanting to cut the prices on xbox, but that EU threatened to take them to court if they did. Now, just a few weeks later, they do it anyway and not a single word about that law is heard. I smell some heavy lobbying.
Opinions stated are mine and do not reflect those of the Illuminati
Well for every xbox sold MS loose money -it 's the games they make money at - so buy one for all means! Just don't buy the games. ;-)
Making it run linux would be a nice littel project and quite a funny thing to do to MS
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
"That is, they can't sell it for less than the manufacturing costs"
What, you mean like mobile telephones?
GNU/Linux to run on this thing?
I'm not super programmer, but I'd be quite happy if some kid (or adult) somewhere figured out how to make one of these a nice little computer system.
After all, a $200 computer for the parents and a happy smile (for taking the cost out of Gate's pocket) would make a happy, happy man. (Is there something wrong when you feel joy at another man's loss?)
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
As far as I am aware, the anti-dumping legislation in the US is far more significant than elsewhere. I believe in the US though, anti-dumping laws only affected foreign companies. Yet another interesting US law that seeks to protect US business through block out clauses. Seems like the free market americans can't cope with their foreign counterparts...
jh
jh
It's still the best gaming experience money can buy, and the graphics hold up quite well in the face of PS2 & xbox (with the only regret that Sega never released a proper soccer game). Shame that these wretches who call themselves game distributors don't get it and stop taking kids for complete morons with lame games (yes, that's you, Oddcrap) when for a fraction of the price of that 1970's VCR with a green X on it, you can play 4 player Power Stone 2 or Rez or Bangai-O. Ah, but you have to like games more than ripping people off... tough choice!
Microsoft is looking at long term goals with the XBox, I don't think anyone thought the XBox would overtake teh PS2 for more reasons then I care to name here but if Microsoft were to release a backwards compatible XBox 2 and 3 with revamped hardware and additional network features they may have a chance to gain market share.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.