Retail Ads Hint At $50 360 Price Cut

Following closely on the heels of Sony's $100 cut in price for the PlayStation 3, retail ads seem to indicate an upcoming $50 price drop for the Xbox 360. Gamespot investigates the rumour: "It's clear that a number of retailers are expecting an Xbox 360 price cut next week, so much so that they're willing to buy print advertising for it. If that's the case, Microsoft almost certainly told them to expect a price cut, and when it would be fine to start promoting it. When Microsoft actually decides to announce it remains to be seen, although sources close to the software giant are grousing through back channels that the discounting's cover has already been blown." This comes right on time for the annual release of Madden, Bioshock, and Blue Dragon.

Comments

How about you fix the problems instead?

[Dr Kool, PhD]

I'd pay $50 more if it meant I didn't have to send my console back for repair every four months. The RRoD rate for 360s is ridiculous.

Re:How about you fix the problems instead?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd pay $50 more if it meant I didn't have to send my console back for repair every four months. The RRoD rate for 360s is ridiculous.

They've had eyes on a subscription model for software for some time, perhaps this is their entry into doing it for hardware

Re:How about you fix the problems instead?

[Kazzahdrane]

I work in games retail. Xbox 360s have some hardware problems which result in the RRoD. This used to be a daily occurrence where I work (people returning faulty units) but now it's much less regular (still a few a week, less than 4 usually). Obviously, this is still a bit crap. However, the clip-on nature of the 360 harddrive means we can give customers a new console and have them playing again without losing any data in less time than it takes to serve a grandmother who wants to know about that "double-u aye aye thing". The thing about the RRoD is that while it's a (diminishing, IMO) problem, it's pretty much the only real thing MS haters can complain about with the Xbox 360. It's not a piece of garbage - it's a powerful console with a shit load of games, and a bunch of pretty spectacular-looking ones out between now and Xmas. The PS3 seems to be a very robust machine, I guess MS rushed a bit too much to be first out of the gate.

Re:How about you fix the problems instead?

[Kazzahdrane]

35% failure rate is total bull. Where that number originally came from I have no idea but I've seen it thrown around online over the last couple of months. If I had to guess, I'd say it's closer to 7 or 8% (still dreadful for a consumer electronics product). I suggest you do some research into the history of the console market, you clearly don't remember anything before the Xbox. Not on the same scale but the early PS2s were pretty rickety, my flatmate had 5 in the first 2 years of the console. Dodgy disc lasers were the main offender. And I shouldn't have to mention the many, many disasters that companies tried to pass off as consoles. Lynx ring a bell? N-Gage? Virtual Boy? 32X? The.....Gizmondo? I play my 360 most days and have great fun online with my many friends who also have one. You don't think highly of Microsoft's build quality, that's fine - I've seen enough faulty units to know they made a big mistake with whatever it is inside the unit that causes so many problems. Out of the 3 current gen consoles I still think it provides the best gaming experience, even factoring in the possibility that your console might break down and you'll be console-less for a short time while you wait for a replacement (unless you live in Europe and can just return it to the store for a replacement there and then). You probably don't agree with my logic, that's fine too. As long as you're playing games we have something in common.

Re:How about you fix the problems instead?

[grumbel]

### 35% failure rate is total bull.

That number comes right from Microsoft. They never said that number directly, but they did say that they are going to spend one billion to handle the defects, given that 10 million XBox360 are released into the wild, just do the math and you will see that the failure rate is between 25%-70%, the lowest end is when a repair cost as much as a brand new XBox360, $400, the high end assume that it cost them $140 to repair one, the price they charged for out-of-warranty repairs. The ~30% failure rate was also independently confirmed by a few retailers.

Re:How about you fix the problems instead?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the 10 billion is supposed to be the total cost of the warranty extension, so they're also counting the expected cost of replacements for 360s yet to be sold plus things like customer service and shipping. Anecdotal data about 30% failure rates could be attributable to things like bad batches or statistical fluctuations (i.e. if the real failure rate were 10% the chance of a store experiencing a 30% failure rate would be non-negligible).

I'm a Wii fanboy and I want to see the 360 and PS3 fail, but let's try to be reasonable about things. The failure rate on the 360 is clearly unacceptable, but I have a hard time imagining that it's in the 30s.

Was I the only one...

[Brian Gordon]

Who thought "$50,360 price cut? I didn't think it was that expensive"?

Re:The part the summary misses....

[I'll Provide The War]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17603 0

The Core gets a $20 cut and the Elite is reduced by $30.

I can't believe...

[suv4x4]

So it'll drop from $400 to 350? I can't believe they aren't taking the opportunity to sell it for $360.

"XBox 360 - for $360"

niiiiiiceee....

RRoD is sporatic at worst

[Pojut]

I know I know I know, "The 360 self destructs! The numbers don't lie!"

True, but I think people exaggerate them a bit...I myself own 4 different 360's, and know of no less than 30 people that own at least one...out of everyone I know that has had one, only two people have gotten the ring (one of which is me)

My one RRoD came after I cracked the case open on one of them to clean out the dust...unbeknown to me at the time, I had accidently loosened two of the CPU heatsink screws a half-turn, and within 2 hours I had the rings...the other 3 that I own have never had an issue. THe only friend I know that has had an RRoD had one on a launch unit.

I'm not saying it's not a real problem. I'm saying people have exaggerated it a bit. (yes, I am aware that my 30 friends hardly constitute the entirety of the market, but those friends know people and those people know people and so on)

Basically, what I am getting at is don't balk at buying a 360 simply because of all the red ring talk...I own all three next gen systems and my 360 by FAR gets the most play time out of the three (not to mention IMO the 360 has the largest lineup of exciting games on the horizon)

Re:RRoD is sporatic at worst

[SuiteSisterMary]

Back before the spring update that allowed the unit to download in a low power state, there were two separate instances where I'd queue up a big demo, turn off the TV and receiver, and leave; only to find when I got home, that my wife, while cleaning up, had closed the doors to the entertainment center, leaving the 360 running, on full tilt, in a fully enclosed space about, oh, maybe two to three times the size of the 360 itself, with naught but a three-inch-diameter cable hole in the back for ventilation.

Diggity damn, could you hear those fans just a-roaring away, but the 360 itself doesn't seem to have been adversely affected by either of it's own personal trips to Hell....

Re:ps3 did not have a $100 price drop

[ivan256]

Nobody with more than half a brain thinks the price of the PS3 is going to go back up to $599. Pretty much everybody accepts that they will start selling it for $499 but without the freebies after the 60GB models are sold out. (Which is almost everywhere now, though I personally have yet to see an 80GB model for sale in the US)

Re:Coincidentally..

[Applekid]

$50 represents a 2nd game for you. Return that console and pick up a reduced one in a week: they don't announce price drops until very close to when it happens. Unless your time in waiting in line to return it is worth more than $50, of course.

Re:65nm anyone?

[hudsonhawk]

You can be 100% positive about whether or not they will have it, seeing as they haven't made a single 360 with that process yet.

For when they do, you can view the manufacturing date of the console by flipping up the little cardboard flap on the side of the box.