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Xbox 360 Price Drop Official
GameDaily is reporting that the $50 price drop on the Xbox 360 is now official. That's for the premium SKU, different boxes have different drops: "The Elite SKU (120GB) has been slashed by $30, bringing it down to $449.99, and the Core SKU now has an MSRP that is $20 lower at $279.99. All prices are effective August 8th. In addition, the special Halo 3 themed Xbox 360 that was casually mentioned by Peter Moore at this year's E3 Microsoft press conference has been assigned an estimated retail price of $399.99. The Xbox 360 Halo 3 Special Edition Console will arrive in stores this September and will feature "an authentic Spartan green-and-gold finish," a matching Xbox 360 Wireless Controller, Xbox 360 20GB hard drive, Xbox 360 Headset, an Xbox 360 Play and Charge Kit, and more."
I like how a price drop of 6.25%, or $30 on the elite version, counts as "slashed" prices.
That's for the premium SKU
NO! It's for the premium XBOX. People don't buy a SKU, they buy the XBOX! Come ON, what is with all the SKU nonsense? I used to work at an EB Games and I nor any of the other employees EVER talked like that. Don't any of you realize how lame you sound?
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The $50 price drop is nice and all, but I'd be more interested in getting a unit that didn't run a significant risk of dying on me, extended warranty or no. What I want to know is when can I get my hands on the long-rumored 65nm chip version.
Why didnt they drop the price uniformly across the board? With a price drop of $50 the Core version would have been priced directly against the Wii, which I think would have made sense for Microsoft at least from a psychological and marketing standpoint.
And why did the Elite get a price drop that soon? AFAIK it is still pretty new so the people who bought one already could be pretty annoyed (although $30 on formerly $480 is not too deep of a cut).
Oh and one laughable bit from the article:
Yeah right and it has nothing to do with the fact that the Xbox 360 was the only next-gen console available for about a year, which makes the leadership thing sorta automatic...
Honestly, they could do better then this. The amount is negligible, bump it up to to at least $100 then come talk to me.
"Now you know, and knowing is half the battle!"
I'll admit there are a few upcoming 360 games that entice me and at $350 the premium system seems like it's in my range. But the lack of an integrated wifi adapter really still kills it for me. At $100 (!!!) to get the console online, it seems especially ridiculous in light of the offerings of its competitors.
Actually, $100US = $105.60Cdn Or rather, $100Cdn = $94.71US So if it's $100 more for the premium in Canada, that actually works out to $94.71 more (in US currency). The $50 price drop should equal to be about $52.78 in Canada. This doesn't mean anything though of course, because prices in Canada are always way higher - it's not a direct exchange rate problem.
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The price drop has been confirmed in Canada, it's CDN$100 for the Premium, CDN$100 for the core, and CDN$50 for the Elite. So, it's now CDN$399 for Premium, CDN$299 for Core, and CDN$499 for Elite. Pretty comparable to the US pricing, but as mentioned, we're always a bit higher (not "WAY" higher in most cases). http://www.xbox.com/en-ca/community/news/2007/0806 -consoleprice.htm
So does the Halo 3 Special Edition console actually come with Halo 3? It doesn't say so, but that just seems stupid to me. If you're into Halo so much you need to totally gay out with a Master Chief console, you're most definitely going to buy the game itself. But then they'd have to increase the price of the console to include the game. They're just trying to make the thing seem $60 cheaper, but really, who's going to buy the themed console and not buy the game as well? They're essentially bundling their schtick for Halo mindshare with your console and using it to market the idea further to your friends. And this is just more of Microsoft splitting up essential pieces of it's system and scattering the price tags to hide real cost. Like their DVD dongle for the original XBox (the damn console had the feature built in, you had to pay to unlock it). This is where those convoluted PS3 vs. 360 comparisons come up around here, where they have to include accessories to align the two feature sets. Sony and Nintendo sell accessories to their console as well, buy they don't dick around like this. Microsoft might as well be selling PCs.
"Unit" doesn't work as a synonym for SKU, though. You could say "two units," but that may mean two SKUs, or two instances of a single SKU.
As I said above, I don't like businessese anymore than anyone else here, but SKU has a very specific, very useful meaning that isn't easily conveyed by other words.
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If you are okay with only 1/2 the features, then yes it is. I suggest waiting till x-mas and picking up one of the premium or elite bundle packages which are bound to pop up. Should be able to get a decent deal.
"Now you know, and knowing is half the battle!"
Eh... I have a Wii and also my PC needs upgrading in about a year or so. Anything I've wanted for XBox (360) has come out on PC. I'm the patient type with enough of a backlog to keep me entertained for a good while.
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Ok first things first.
We have
Core, previous price 300, new price 270
10% price drop on the cheapest item
Premium, previous price 400, new price 350
12.5% price drop on the mid-range item
Elite, previous price 480, new price 450
6.25% price drop on the highest cost item?
(Is it any surprise apparently the Elite is selling well at the moment, cough cough? mm)
On another nother, we've been informed today that Canada's prices are dropping and they are much closer inline with the US price (after conversion).
The real question on everyones lips (besides you American fellows) is what about the rest of us?
Europe, Australia and New Zealand (and others) are more than aware of the typical 'rape'* tax applied to electronic items from the states, we've grown used to it but the consoles have been especially nasty of late
(Example hard disks and CPU's - around 15% more expensive than the states AFTER conversion)
Consoles however... up to 30% more expensive than the states after currency conversion! (ouch!)
Right now the Premium is RRP of 649$ AUD here which is 555$ US a far cry from 400$ US, let alone 350$ US
What I and many others hope for is a price drop in our regions which not only includes the standard reduction in manufacturing costs but also includes the currency changes (obviously they should keep a buffer incase)
I'd personally like to see the US $350 ($409 AUD) 360 Premium become 459 or 499$ AUD at most.
The core is mostly discontinued in Aus (and should never have been damn well created in the first place!)
The Elite is _STILL_ not available in Australia! but the rumours have been strongly looking at 749$ AUD
I'd like to see the new $450 360 Elite ($525 AUD) at $600 AUD or 650$ at most.
If this happens or not, that's another story, many of us have been holding out for a 'reliable edition' console with 65nm parts and better cooling, I know I won't be purchasing one until it's under 600$ and actually reliable.
They were doing a decent job of it before the PS3 came out. The PS3 is now outselling the 360 in all regions.
Since they offer qualifying notebooks for as low as $699, and desktops for $599, (which includes system, monitor, OS, and a software bundle including Corel and MS-Works, etc.), it seems to me that the X-box is being given to MDG pretty darn cheap.
This looks like Barbie-doll marketing to me - give away the doll, and make all the money on the outfits. I don't know what cut MS gets from Xbox game sales, but I'd be expecting them to increase it..
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