Microsoft to Cut XBox Price to $149?

BjB writes "According to a Dow Jones Newswire article, Microsoft plans on lowering the price of the XBox to $149 (from $179) at the beginning of April. This is to compete with the PlayStation 2, which currently remains at $179."

Comments

Looks like they're following as anticipated

[hambonewilkins]

I believe it was expected earlier that MS would shift the Xbox to $150, then $130 (in the summer) and finally $100 on the eve of Xbox 2 (Nextbox, whatever).

At $150 this is certainly tempting and I'm pretty torn.

Sony will likely drop to $150 as well, but what about gamecube? How low can that go? Likely not much lower. It is more likely that Nintendo will bundle things with the cube at the $99 price, perhaps games or controllers or even the wavebird.

total market penetration

[chrish]

If the XBox gets down to around $100 each, Bill Gates could buy every single man, woman, and child in the US one, and he'd still be worth about $25 billion (assuming he'd pay retail).

XBox would instantly have total market penetration, and then some.

That's great news

[superpulpsicle]

I may not be a Xbox fan, but price slashing helps everybody win. Sony would be stupid to maintain the $179 mark.

Now if only game prices drop.

$50 to go!

[Dark Paladin]

I've already got an Xbox, which actually is a good time: there's actually some games that I enjoy for it now (Ninja Gaiden, finally got my copy of Steel Battalion, and the complete Morrowind).

But I'm still waiting for it to hit $99 until it's cheap enough for me to buy a second one. Why? Modding, folks. I keep eyeing the idea of turning an Xbox into a little media server to store my DVD collection in DivX or Xvid and keep my plastic disks out of the hand of my children's greasy little fingers.

"Daddy - Blue's Clues won't play!"

"Stop touching the DVD after you lick your fingers!"

To be honest, turning it into a little emulator as well doesn't hurt my feelings either to keep my NES/SNES games pretty (especially as I think the Nintendo is about to die).

I've wondered how often people buy the Xbox not for games but for modding the system for these purposes anyway. I have no interesting in pirating, but being able to watch a fansubbed anime on my TV and now through a Mplayer window would be nice.

Re:Xbox is the Mac of the console gaming world.

[sm4kxd]

Uh, I beg to differ. I don't want to start a "this console is better than that console" but we Nintendo fans suffer a much, much worse fate at the hands of the masses than Xbox fans do. We are the ones that have to convince other people that games like Pikmin and Eternal Darkness are truely awesome. We are the ones that had to fight off "Nintendo is going to die" statements. We are the ones that had to listen to the media slander Nintendo in the press, skewing the market reports and make it sound like the Gamecube was never selling very well, when it as ALWAYS been in second place ahead of the Xbox world-wide.

You think you've got it bad, try talking about how much you love your Gamecube in a busy EBGames or Gamestop, and only then you'll truely feel how Mac users do.