US Console Price Drops Widely Rumored

After being rumored on newsgroups and messageboards for a while, larger news sources like IGN.com are reporting the likely imminent price drop for all 3 major consoles in the US. This would make the Playstation 2 $149, the Xbox $149, and the Gamecube just $99. If true, will this spur you into buying one or all of these consoles?

Comments

console vs. PC, torn between 2 worlds

[tankdilla]

Console games were cool in high school and college, mainly for the multiplayer games. But unfortunately I've grown up now and discovered the joy of PC games, which has taken the place of console games for me. Consoles do offer one thing that the PC doesn't, and that is the ability to have 4 (or more) players playing on the same machine at the same time.

While PC games allow many more players to connect to a server and play against each other, each player is on their own PC and the comradre isn't the same as with the console. Lan parties remedy this to a certain extent, but they don't reach the level of multiplayer console games. Tension can get higher, the thrill of victory and agony defeat is stronger, and the excitement level is higher. If you don't know what I mean, go door-to-door or to a college campus and find a group of guys having a Madden 2003 tournament, or get 4 people on Super Smash Bros. It's a different dynamic than say Quake. Don't get me wrong, Quake is fun too. But PC multiplayer games are enjoyable in a more distant fashion than console multiplayers.

I've had my fun with the Dreamcast and Nintendo 64 in the multiplayer realm, but now that it's the real world and it's not possible to get 4 friends in the room for a good session of Goldeneye, Turok, or Quake, a good session of UT2003, Battlefield 1942, or Wolfenstein are just as good right now. Who knows, if I find 3 or more grown-ass kids like me, an X-box or PS2 might be in order for Madden or Soul Calibur 2 (this might be the only reason I get an Xbox or PS2).

Buy one, yeah, but not for games...

[Joel Rowbottom]

...I'd probably buy an Xbox just to mess around with, and see if I could make a cheap server out of it!

This ignores..

[Inoshiro]

the console tie-in rate, which is the average number of games purchase for a console. Since Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony all get a percentage of every GCN, Xbox, and PS2 title sold, they want the tie-in rate to be high.

The tie rate for each system so far this year is 9.8:1 for GameCube and 8.5:1 for Xbox. The overall tie ratios since launch are 12.1 for GameCube and 10.0 for Xbox. This means that GameCube owners are buying more games for their system. Since most of the "good" GCN titles are made by Nintendo, they get double the money back (since they get the part that'd normally go to the 3rd party, as well as their cut). I don't have any PS2 numbers :(

Wether or not the systems are sold at a loss is not important: the system with the highest tie-in rate will win, at least for the company behind it :)