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The 360's Towering Pricetag Explored
Last week Gamasutra had up a call for commentary on the revelations about the Xbox 360's pricing structure. This week, comments are available on the groaning pricetags gamers will have to endure if they want to jump on the next-gen bandwagon. This commentary is especially well seen, given that Gamestop has just come out with a 360 Bundle that clocks in at a whopping $1,199.83. From the article: "I don't think the prices for the $300 or the $400 bundles are unreasonable, but anyone who buys the $300 bundle is going to end up paying more on expensive accessories. $99 for a 20 gig hard disk? You can get a 250 gig hard disk for less than that! If you don't want to get the hard disk, you have to pay $39.99 to save your game."
I don't get why people are upset about these bundles... price point be damned.
Back when the Playstation2 came out, many who were actually able to get one turned around and sold it on eBay for 2x-3x as much as Sony's $300 MSRP. So this time around, the retailers are trying to cash in on the people with wads of money to spend and a burning desire to be the first one on the block to get the new XBox.
Can you blame 'em?
Again, people were buying new PS2s on eBay for $900... without extra accessories! At least the retailers are driving up prices by bundling a bunch of extras and not just inflating the price "base" system.
Supply and demand, here, people.
Too few units at launch coupled with people willing to pay for expensive bundles... hell, I'll be shocked if the retailers complain "nobody's buying!" I strongly doubt that'll be the case.