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Xbox Price Drop Doubles Sales, Sony To Follow?
Thanks to GamesIndustry.biz for its story mentioning Microsoft's indication that dropping Xbox's price to $149 has caused sales to double for the week immediately following the announcement. However, the piece muses: "The question, however, is just how long the sales boost will last - with some analysts suggesting that the 'bounce' isn't sustainable. Certainly, there are many factors which suggest that Microsoft will cut the Xbox price again before Christmas 2004." In addition to this, there's speculation about competition: "All eyes are now on rival Sony, with sources close to the Japanese giant suggesting that it plans to drop the US PS2 price point to $149 later this month - and will add two games (as yet unnamed) to the bundle as well, bringing the effective price of the hardware below the Xbox."
I find it odd how the first and least powerful next-gen system is now at the highest price point. I guess it just goes to show how big Sony has become in the gaming industry. Even though I still view them as an outsider in an industry where Sega and Nintendo were once kings.
Does this mean that they have sold 20 last week as opposed to 10 the week before?
Well - I bought one, a friend bought one and I saw 3 others sold while we were there, that was Monday.
Fairly impressed - Hopefully it won't be replaced too quickly, but it beats having to keep a windows partition around to play games on.
Unfortunately, I broke one of my rules on things not to do during exam week.
If I could get a PS2, second controller, and 8MB memory card for $149, I'd buy one immediately. As it stands, the combination costs about $249, and you STILL haven't bought a game, which is another $50.
Maybe the rest of you have cash reserves the likes of which I can't imagine, but I don't have $300 to blow on sedentary entertainment. Do you know what I could get for $300 across the river in Windsor?
El riesgo vive siempre!
I knew this was going to start soon. Both Sony and Microsoft own the rights to a good number of games. When they've lowered the price so much that it hurts, they'll just include games...hey, it's no extra cost right? Just the cost of another pressed CD?
It would be interesting to see what the internal financial impact analysis of including games is, compared to public statements of loss due to piracy.
This might be bad news for the Xbox modders out there. If Microsoft takes the cue and no longer lowers the price, but instead includes more games, then they will increase the perceived value of their system while not making it any more attractive to people who want to take advantage of their loss leader.
...
Someone, somewhere, is putting together a Beowulf Cluster.
No sig for you!!
I love Xbox, love it, love it, love it. But even in my fanboy state I still have to question how many of these reduced price Xboxes are being purchased to replace broken First Generation Xboxes that shipped with the faulty Thompson DVD drive?
Sell the console cheap. Lose a little money while doing it.
Charge extortionate license fees from the producers for every gamecopy produced or sold.
Why else can you get consoles for the same price as three games?
The point of lowering prices to bleed even more is to get consumers locked onto _their_ machine, so that they will buy _their_ games. It's the games that pay their bills, not the machines. A machine can hold for years (I'm pretty sure my NES still works), but new games keep coming _all the time_.
We are all consumer whores.
I don't intend buying an XBox, but I would buy a reduced-price Playstation 2 due to the awesome RPGs. The XBox doesn't have the games I want, the PS2 does.