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

This guy needs to lay off the marketing pills...

[AssProphet]

"[I] believe that the system's cultural influence as a social entertainment brand has only just begun."

This just in: rampant usage of the xbox has increased usage of the word owned!
...thanks guys.

This is our chance to strike back!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

They were already selling them at a loss! Let's all go out and buy one of these, that will be striking a great blow for open source!!

Silly M$, this is an exploit for their business, not just Windoze.

Re:This is our chance to strike back!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

And so it begins...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if Nintendo will/can drop their price below $99. Personally... I'm a big Nintendo fan. I can't believe, in the 2+ years I've owned the console, that it took me so long to try Metroid Prime.... what a delight!

Xbox price cut coverage everywhere

[securitas]

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)

Re:Slashdot has officially jumped the shark when..

[jared_hanson]

Saying "jumped the shark" has sooo jumped the shark.

DUMPING

[Anonymous Coward]

So we have an established monopoly with $50b in cash in the bank now selling their product way below cost to steal market share.

how is this NOT dumping? if Sony or Hitachi did this with TV's they would be prosecuted.

Is this ethical, really?

[Saven Marek]

I must say I don't mind a price drop of this nature. As a consumer it's a good thing, at least short term where I lay out few clams and come up with a good product for the lower price.

However I'm sure nobody believes MS is anywhere near making a profit, indeed they're taking gigantic losses (not relative to their income of course, but in real numbers) to do so. Obviously Sony will be doing the same with the PS2 and whatever it's next box is, and Nintendo too if they release another.

Doesn't this just end up as a war of attrition, where the company who is most able to sustain gigantic losses comes out on top? Not only coming out on top but coming out as the ONLY contender. While it's not a monopoly situation now it seems clear to me it's heading that way.

I know nobody can prosecute a company on something they have not yet done, and there's perhaps no indication of who will win in the end out of the gigantic gaming manufacturers. Indeed, far be it for me to tell someone they CAN'T throw away their profits, but looking ahead it seems impossible to end up in any other way than someone with a massive monopoly. No new players, no competition between existing ones, and it won't end cleanly... because (forgive the cliche) in the end "there can be only one"

Adult mac desktops & wallpapers

Re:Is this ethical, really?

[southpolesammy]

Hmm...sounds like the end of the Cold War to me, when Reagan continually up-ed the ante in that great poker game of defense spending, knowing that either the Soviet Union is going All-In, or is going to fold.

And the rationale behind why the US did this? America could match the Soviets' defense spending dollar for dollar (ruble for ruble?) and still have enough budget left for other goverment programs to keep the conutry sustainable, while the Soviets cut everything in order to keep up with American defense spending. So while we had like 30% of the budget going to defense, the Soviets had like 80-90%. Ultimately, the US knew they could "outbid" the Soviet Union and that the outcome would destroy the Soviet Union's ability to govern, and therefore they would defeat themselves and crumble.

Sounds like history repeating itself again.

Wake me..

[MImeKillEr]

..when they're giving the Xbox away in a box of Lucky Charms.

Re:Still too much

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember going out and spending $500 on a video card for a $2000 PC, then spending another $49 on the newest game. Basically, a $2,549 XBOX.

So I like the new price. :)

Re:Loss

[Troed]

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.

PS2 Already 150... sort of

[samsmithnz]

I thought that Sony dropped the price about 6 months ago, but then added in a subsidized modem and slightly increased the price to 170, so that the price effectively stayed the same, but the value of your purchase increased.

Bunch of marketing crap really.

P. Diddy understands Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

When you have no design skills yourself, you simply sample from someone who does.

Cheap Entertainment PC?

[Anonymous Coward]

With this new price point and the hacks for the XBox out there, is this worth purchasing as a MPEG, MP3 and PVR entertainment PC? I'm not really interested in the games for the thing, but if I can get a decent computer out of the thing for $150, I'd be game.

Thoughts?

Re:Loss

[ooPo]

There was an article a few weeks ago about how Microsoft can't find 8GB harddrives anymore and has to pack in larger drives. This is why they can't get the cost of the Xbox down over time and is also why they're looking at not including a harddrive for the Xbox 2.

This is because the harddrive industry increases size instead of lowering prices. Quite workable for the pc industry but not very good for the console industry, especially since the Xbox is designed around 'only' having 8GB available. Larger drives are just formatted to have 8GB available.

Re:DUMPING (Not)

[Troed]

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.

Re:This guy needs to lay off the marketing pills..

[Repugnant_Shit]

I hate to be a spelling nazi, but you misspelled pwned.

Re:Slashdot has officially jumped the shark when..

[JohnTheFisherman]

Well, if you listened to the original single version, you'd note that all that P. Diddy did was take a tape recording of "I, Cringely" complaining about MS and say, "uh huh, unh HUNNNHH" over the top of it.

Re:Loss

[smackjer]

Wow. Stop the presses.

You JUST figured this out?

Re:2005 last I heard

[pi radians]

Rumor has it you'll still be able to use your Xbox even after the Xbox2 is released, so worrying about backwards compatibility is a non-issue....

Re:Still too much

[tssm0n0]

you can push an assload of polygons

Exactly how many plygons can be stored up one's ass?