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PS2 Price May Fall, Gamecube Staying Put
mrquackers writes: "Looks like the price war in the console gaming world is starting a bit early. With Microsoft expected to announce a drop in the price of the Xbox to $199 next Monday at E3, Sony's rumored to be cutting PlayStation 2 prices as early as tomorrow. Meanwhile, Nintendo says it won't be making ANY price cuts before or during the show -- though it's not ruling one out for later in the year." Update: 05/14 18:01 GMT by T : An anonymous reader points out this CNN story indicating that the PS2 cut is official.
Especially since there's 2-3 modchips out now for the Xbox - and a lot of people (including myself) will buy it as a cheap PC that can play DivX, SVCD, mp3, old emulators, browse the web etc in front of my TV.
it's in my head
Or not. Just speaking from personal experience, the XBox controller (the large, original US one -- I haven't had a chance to try the new, smaller S/Japanese version yet) is the most comfortable console controller I've used. The PS2 controller is exactly the same as the PSOne controller, styling-wise, and those controllers always cramped my hands (I don't have especially large or small hands, btw). Just to round out the bunch, the GameCube controller feels like it took the worst of the PS2 (tiny size, flimsy design) and the N64 (oddly-placed buttons) and combined them into the single worst controller I've ever used.
The only people I know who have actually tried the XBox controller and had a problem with it were using it on one of the store displays, where the controller is locked into an uncomfortable position. These controllers were designed to fit well into your hand while reclining comfortably on your couch (thus the extra-long cords). If you've not tried an XBox controller in such a scenario, I suggest you try it. Play for a couple hours, and then see how you like it. Unless you have extremely small hands, I'll bet you'll end up preferring the XBox controller. It fits well in your hand, gives you easy access to the main controls, feels like a good sturdy power tool rather than a flimsy piece of plastic, and doesn't leave you all cramped up after an extended playing session.
I'm still holding out for one, since at $149 to $129 (or dare I think it: $99) I would be incredibly happy to finally get one. Besides, just because Nintendo says they won't be cutting prices, doesn't mean that it won't happen. Hell, just 6 days ago Sony was saying they wouldn't be making any price cuts at E3:
source
I like this scenario:
Microsoft sells Xbox underpriced - making a loss per each sold product. Meanwhile as the modchips have already been released, Microsoft is digging another hole for themselves: they have created the perfect platform for cheap Linux based homecomputer, again, project(s) already going. Once this evolvs into a easy-to-setup Linux home computer: voila!
Summasummarum, Microsoft's bully tactics may well prove as the ultimate bullet to their own head. They will end up loosing both because of hardware and because of lost Windows license fees. Eventually, loosing around $200 because of every sold Xbox. Thanks.
Microsoft makes $9 from each third-party title, not $15.
I find the whole "people buying more games for the Xbox when it first came out than the PS2" argument to be silly.
Most of the initial "Xbox purchases" were forced bundles. If you wanted an Xbox on launch date here in the US, most places would not sell you one without buying their bundle of 3 games and an extra controller.
Compare to the PS2, which shipped as was (with a DVD player, backwards compatible to the PSOne). They didn't have to force bundle, because Sony knew they would just have to bide their time.
What's happened since then? 10 million PS2's sold in the US, 30 million worldwide, and Sony still ruling the roost by having more games out there, and more sales of games than the Xbox.
I'm not saying the Xbox is a bad system, but I will say it's a poorly managed one. Their decision not to allow simple USB connections for the keyboard/mouse I think is a bad idea (I want to use a keyboard to enter my ripped CD titles, and online play without a keyboard? Forgetaboutit.), thier "pay for broadband" is going to bite them in the ass with Nintendo stating their Ethernet/Modem controllers will work with your own ISP (aka - no fee), and their (admitted - arguable) lack of more than 3 or 4 good, exclusive titles compared to the big N and the PS2 is going to keep hurting them.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
You're fooling yourself if you thik you can reasonably salvage anything from an XBox at this point in time. Sure, if you have the proper test equipment, you can watch the XBox unlock the HD, but that's more work than it's worth for an 8 GB HD for most of us. If any of you has a broken XBox or knows of a good place to pick up one for free, I'm sure I could find some MIT students willng to play with the BIOS encryption this Summer. Luckily as the price falls, more people are willing to risk breaking their XBoxes in order to reverse-engineer the BIOS encryption.
If somoeone finally breaks the BIOS encryption on the XBox (or figures out a safe way to bypass the decryption while loading the BIOS) and we get Linux BIOS or Open BIOS on the XBox, I'd be mighty tempted to pick up an XBox or four. After all, I'm only running a 266 MHz with 288 MB of RAM really is fine for almost everything.).
Copyright Violation:"theft, piracy"::Anti-Trust Violation:"thermonuclear price terrorism"<-Overly dramatic language.
A good point, except for the fact that PS2 has probably gone longer without a price cut than any console in the last three generations. The E3 price cut was expected and probably wasn't driven by Microsoft - the exact timing, however, almost certainly was.
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
Knowing something about the parts market (I DO work for a set-top box company that's working on...alternate solutions...) those boxes cost something in the ballpark of $600-800 to make. Volumes do NOT make it dramatically cheaper to make- the harddrive, Celeron, etc. don't come THAT cheap. Why do you think the set-top box market went belly-up? It's because the stupid companies went with Geodes, etc. because they were CHEAP. Bill of materials costing you only $200 or so.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Isn't there something missing from the MSN report? Something along the lines of "MSN Money is a Microsoft service"? Or perhaps "this article is a paid advertisement"? Something, at least, to mention that Microsoft have their own news site as well.
Of course, here in Australia, we haven't seen the half of it yet. Xbox sales were slow, Microsoft announced a 40% price drop, Xbox has outsold Playstation 2 fairly easily for two weeks. The Beeb was reporting a similar phenomenon in Europe. Then again, Nintendo are reporting "record-breaking" pre-orders for Gamecube - the machine gets released this Friday - and promised a price drop of nearly 25%. We'll have to wait and see how that pans out.
None of this is helping Xbox in Japan, where there is no price decrease in effect - and where Xbox is being outsold by just about everything, including Dreamcast, and where things would have been disastrous without Dead Or Alive 3. Also, Xbox is (apparently) starting to fall behind Gamecube in the States, in terms of sales figures and thus installed base. Expect announcements sooner rather than later.
Attack its weak point for massive damage!