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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."
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 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?
Bundled games or accessories don't really increase percieved value. Before the Gamecube dropped to $100 last year, it was selling for $150 with a free game or GB player. Price drops, free stuff deal ends, sales quadruple. There was really NO DROP at all. Interesting situation there.
Indeed, but one has to wonder : Will that translate true with the PS3?
IMO, the PS2 outdid the Dreamcast with backward by shipping with backward compability and shipping with a DVD system. However, a shipping with a DVD system isn't going to help anymore since the market is saturated with them, and backward compability won't help since they've saturated the market with PS2 units (when PS3 hits, I wouldn't be surprised to find pre-owned PS2s going for $50.) So what does Sony have going for them with the PS3? Maybe some linkage between the PSP and PS3, and its huge third-party developer support.
But even thats weak. SquareEnix, unarguably Sony's biggest help with FFVII and FFX, isn't staying 100% dedicated with them to buddy up with Nintendo. Capcom and Konami are also beginning to cross-develop on other systems as well, not to mention Sony failing to buddy up with Sega after defeating their Dreamcast. The PSP also doesn't have much going for it other than technological overpowerment over Nintendo's Gameboy Advance, considered to be an unenterable market. Unless Sony reveals some serious, serious backage at this year's E3, I'm gonna have to say Sony is in trouble. Between Nintendo's tried-and-true franchises and Gameboy Advance, as well as Microsoft's power-leading Xbox and a treasury larger than some third-world countries, Sony is in a tight spot. Yesterday's success is today's overconfidence and tomorrow's defeat.