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Xbox Price Drop To $149 Now Official
bpitzer writes "It's official - Microsoft is cutting the price on the Xbox to $149, effective tomorrow, according to CNET News. Now, will Sony follow suit on the PS2? And how long until the next price drop? Maybe at this year's E3, making three in a row?" We previously reported on rumors to this effect, and other readers point to the official Microsoft press release, sporting a quote from noted tech analyst P.Diddy: "[I] believe that the system's cultural
influence as a social entertainment brand has only just begun."
they also dropped the price in canada to $199 CDN
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
Here's some links from an almost-submitted post.
Microsoft Cuts Xbox Price to $150
Microsoft has cut the price of its Xbox game console to about $150 ($149.99), a $30 drop. The price cut was widely expected by analysts in a move to spur slowing console sales for the Xbox as the current generation approaches the end of its cycle, and gamers anticipate the next-generation of consoles in 2005. Microsoft also announced several price cuts on Xbox games and titles including 'Xbox Music Mixer, Project Gotham Racing 2 and Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge.' More coverage at CNet, CNN Money, ZDNet UK, AP via Seattle PI and Bloomberg via Seattle Times. (Microsoft press release)
The article also mentions a PlayStation 2 price drop in mid-April, so don't buy an X-Box based on price just yet.
No. Microsoft pays a fixed amount of money per chip to nVidia, Intel etc. They might have been able to cut something on the DVD-drives and harddrives, but manufacturing 8Gb-drives isn't cheap if you need to sustain a whole factory line just for one customer.
The reason MS is in bed with ATI for the next system is because nVidia didn't agree to suggested price cuts by Microsoft.
You're also wrong on the GPU. It's a Geforce 3 with an extra Vertex Shader, like the Geforce 4.
it's in my head
Got news for you...all console makers sell their product below cost, and have for many years
Congratulations, you've fallen for a myth. The only consoles before the Xbox to have been sold at a loss are the Sega Saturn and the Sega Dreamcast.
Please don't post myths - learn how to use Google.
it's in my head
Check your facts before posting. No xbox mod-chip costs more than $100.
Go here for teh [sic] funny.
Didn't I read somewhere that it was going to $99 by Labor Day? Or was that just an ugly rumor, and this is the only price drop I can really expect?
Nope, I'm not nuts - this was the rumor.
Education is the silver bullet.
Actually it's no so clear this has to do with "price cuts" on the graphics chips per se.
ATI negotiated the deal in a radically different way from Nvidia -- they sold IP, not chips at a specific price.
The gamble in chip manufacturing is usually that you price the chips at a (near) loss at the start, and improvements in manufacturing result in cost reductions and profits later on in the process.
Nvidia used this model for the original X-box deal, but the design wasn't finalized and additional complexity was added, raising manufacturing costs (this is what triggered the arbitration between Nvidia and Microsoft over the last couple years.)
In any case, the X-box chips Nvidia sold weren't terribly profitable to them. I seriously doubt any chip manufacturer would accept a repeat of the arrangement. Obviously ATI didn't -- and had Nvidia negotiated a deal like ATI's on the original X-box the present situation would have probably been different -- the trade off being the potential profits would likely have been lower had the manufacturing cost reductions actually worked out.
Can you add more RAM to it? How about hard-drives? Does it have a free PCI slot?
The memory is soldered onto the mainboard, so unless you are an electrical engineer who has insides with the Xbox team, I doubt you'll be able to add RAM to it, nor or a PCI slot.
The 3 most common ways to allow you to run unsigned code (such as Linux) is to either:
1) Follow the soldering instructions, which require you to solder (IIRC) 2 seperate spots on the bottom of the mainboard. I tried this with a friend, and he fried his mainboard. I would not suggest doing this unless you have some good experience with precise soldering of electronics.
2) Use the James Bond 007 exploit, which requires a specific saved game to be put onto a memory card, and then once you load that saved game from within James Bond, it will allow you to load unsigned code from the Xbox. The only problem, atleast when this exploit first came out, is that you have to redo the exploit everytime you want to reboot your OS (or everytime you want to load some new unsigned code).
3) Buy a modchip. There are plenty of companies out there that sell modchips that don't require any soldering (but the chips can be a pain in the ass to line up correctly at times). There are also the chips that require soldering, sometimes up to 10 or more seperate points.
Unless you have A) The money to burn, or B) The skills to solder, I would suggest buying a no-wire modchip such as the Matrix. I purchased a few of these from easybuy2000.com (no personal affiliation, just a happy customer) and have had no problems.