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."

Comments

They're already selling short...

[Seoulstriker]

They're already selling their units at a loss. Now it's $50 cheaper! They must be pretty desperate to increase the user base for selling those games.

Still, $150 for a 700mhz linux box is pretty nice. :)

holding out till august/september

[enrico_suave]

When it's reportedly going to be $99 dollars, that's my console sweet spot...

Till then.. hey buddy, can you spare a dreamcast?

e.

Obligatory...

[Frohan]

In Soviet Russia, prices slash Microsoft....

*cowers*

Loss = R&D costs +promotion + manufacturing?

[johnpaul191]

i think a lot of the loss is also for the Xbox project as a whole..... so the R&D, promotion and whatever else. i don't think it's purely the physical bits in the Xbox carton cost more than $150 or $199 or whatever. So in that sense they will be reducing their costs over time.

As for the components themselves, i would think for a time the costs would go down, but at some point they would be somewhat outdated and not worth sustaining, i dont know where that curve crosses the "time to upgrade to keep up with Sony!" curve.

obviously with games costing $30 - $50 (right?) anyone with a system will spend much more on games, and M$ or Sony or whomever gets a cut of that, as well as M$ making their own games.

I wonder what other companies have to pay to Sony or M$ per game sold? THAT seems to be what sustains the console makers. when you read that the average consumer only buys a few new games a year, it makes you wonder what the licensing stuff works out to be. It also explains why theyw ould be going after anyone that is bootlegging games, or trying to use the consoles to run linux and not buy their software. The console is purely a vehicle for selling more games..... kinda like the opposite of the iTunes Music store? weird........

Re:Still too much

[danielsfca2]

I don't think you're giving the Xbox enough credit. First off, I think the OP was referring to a "back in the day" time when PC's cost more money. *rereads your post* oh yeah, you noticed that too. I'll bet the Xbox does outperform the PC he bought for $2000+$500 back in those days.

Second, it was widely rumored at the Xbox's introduction that it was being sold at a loss. So it's probably not a $149 or even $200 machine. I'm sure the loss margin is smaller now, of course, than it was at its introduction.

Now I'm off to buy me an Xbox!

Not the same...

[thatguywhoiam]

For a long time I wanted to play GTA3. I pondered buying a $199 PS2 and then said "Naah, I'll wait for the price to go down". That was a year and a half ago, and they are still $179. Last year I bought GTA3 for my PC and a game controller very similar to the PS2 controller. Together the pair cost me maybe $65 and the graphics blow away the PS2.

That's because you 'just had' a PC around, and you're not adding the cost to that.

Do the calculation for the lifetime of a console (about 4 years), figure in video card upgrades and Windows licenses, etc., add any downtime and screwing around due to drivers, viruses, etc. and then come talk to me about which is cheaper. Hell man, your video card alone costs the same as a console.