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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."
As the article mentions, Sony is going to have their hand forced by Microsoft's move and the PS2 will drop to the same price point by E3.
Which means in a few months anyone will be able to stroll into their local store and buy all three major consoles for the same price ($400 give or take a few dollars) as the Current Hotness Video Card (ATI 9800XT).
Supposedly the specs for the Nextbox come out next week. I'm very, very interested in seeing what they will be doing with that. I hope that they don't get onto a 'low-price' kick, and skimp on the specs to come in with a $199 console at release. I really don't mind paying the extra $100.
Are we now in the 'golden age' of software for the current crop of consoles? Is this the time where the number of users has reached critical mass, allowing developers to pour more dollars into games, knowing that there is a huge base of customers? But- just before they start holding back on development of new games for the current generation, waiting for the next one?
I'd like to think that we'll at least have a good bunch of games up to this next Christmas. After that we can sit around and wait for the next generation.
No reason to lie.
that should make it 80 quid, which would compete with the Gamecube here (normally ~75). fat chance though, things never seem to even come close to what the exchange rate says they "should" be. Anyway I'd still take the 'Cube, even if they were the same price.. i thought the x-box might make me a nice media-player but by the time it does reach that price it'll probably be underpowered for mpeg4 :/ oh well.
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
The Cube has been $99 for a while now, not $150.
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0 00 06IJJI/qid=1079712384/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/104-03879 69-5067127?v=glance&s=electronics&n=507846
http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?product%5Fi
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B
roche
Bah Humbug!
Like here, for example
Playstation 3 this Christmas? Hardly. 4Q 2005 at the earliest according to Sony.
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.
God Bless America. Why? Did it sneeze?
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.
- chrish
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.
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.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Over at vgtalk.com, the rumour had been circulating around since March 15. There is a scanned Walmart ad showing the price.
You're edging pretty close to flamebait there yourself, buddy. :)
If you consider yourself a gamer or an enthusiast and you completely ignore console games, you're missing out on a lot of really, really good shit. If I were to make a list of great console games worth playing that came out in the last three years and then made an equivalent list of PC titles, the console list would be about four times as long. Not to mention the awful stagnation in PC games recently--I can't remember the last original, innovative PC game I played. (I think it was Black and White, which is pushing three years old.) If you don't like twitch shooters or mindless real-time "strategy" games, there's really not much there for you in the PC market. And I can't really think of any other genres (other than MMOG's, perhaps) that are significantly enhanced by the presence of a keyboard and mouse.
Consoles have clear advantages in the number of titles available, the ability to accommodate more than one player on a single piece of hardware, and the price point. I also find console games to be far more interesting and innovative than the typical "let's-be-original-and-make-a-World-War-II-themed- shooter" attitude that so many PC developers seem to have.
And as for user-created content, I only have a limited amount of time to play games. Until I see an abundance of mods and maps that don't completely suck, I'll consider playing more community-generated content. Until then, I'll stick with professional quality.
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.
Why are we to believe a scanned Wal-Mart ad for the Xbox price drop when the one for Target and the $99 PS2 one never came true?
I just on Yahoo! that one deal may be X-box and Halo for $170. I just bought a X-box and Halo YESTERDAY for $215 after tax. I'm pretty freakin' pissed right now.
MS should bring it down to $99.
At Xmas (and maybe now?) one could buy the Xbox for $179 at it came with 3 games...
You can now buy an Xbox for $150 with 0 games?
Nintendo had the Cube at $150 with a free game and it didn't really sell great. Get rid of the free $50 game, and drop the price $50 and violia, sales out the wazoo...
I just don't get it...