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Xbox Price Cuts Confirmed
Kotaku notes that the suspected price cuts to the various Xbox 360 systems have been confirmed. Xbox Live's Major Nelson posted the new prices ($199 for the Arcade, $299 for the Pro, and $399 for the Elite) and pointed out a BusinessWeek story discussing the changes. The price cuts will take effect on September 5th.
"Here's to hoping that helps Microsoft's recent hardware sales woes." - Kotaku
Hardware sales woes? Its the summer season, a time that has historically shown a decline in sales due to the fact not many publishers release at this time. September through December are the hot months for releasing a game and a perfect time to lower a console price to make the system more appealing.
It's called super smash bros!
I'm still not buying a 360, anyway. I do hope this moves sony to panic and lower the price on anything able to run anything with "metal gear" slapped on it, though.
I love this argument. I have both a Wii and a 360, and the 360's been played during exactly three weeks in the last six months. Once for Viva Pinata, once for GTA4, and again for GTA a few months later. Compared to that, the Wii is in constant use. I'm still playing through Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3, I've recently beat Lost Winds, and Smash Bros is a constant obsession, especially when anyone comes over. Boom Blox gets played every time there's anyone over as well. My wife uses My Pokemon Ranch to store excess Pokemon from the DS games every single day.
So there's my anecdotal evidence. My 360 has a thick layer of dust on it; my Wii is played regularly and even comes with me when I visit my friends. It's possible that the reason I still have so many games left to play is that I have maybe 2 hours or so per week left over for single-player gaming, but this whole "Wiis just sit around gathering dust" bullshit is really baffling to me.
In my opinion, the only thing the Wii is lacking is a good splitscreen shooter. Red Steel is crap, and Metal of Honor: Heroes 2 dashed my hopes by being online-only. I hate this stupid online-only trend this generation.
You can mod your friends, you can mod your nose, but you can't mod your friend's nose.
In the case of Sony, I don't think that price is Microsoft's problem. Sony is finally starting to see some of the titles that they've been developing (or waiting on developing) come to fruition. Since a few of those are still PS3 exclusive (e.g. MGS4), consumers are looking at the two consoles and deciding based on whether they want Little Big Planet, MGS4, and Resistance 2 or Viva Pinata, Halo 3, and Gears of War 2.
Sony's hype train is pushing the PS3 as the perfect HD entertainment center for your home. It not only plays highly-anticipated games in 1080p, but it also can play Bluray movies. Those features manage to convince a lot of customers that the PS3 is the quality console, and not the XBox 360.
Of course, they both are fighting over table scraps. The consoles to beat are still the Wii and the PS2 (believe it or not). Quite frankly, it must be horrendously embarrassing for Sony to be unable to compete against their own last-gen console. None the less, it pays the bills, so the PS2 is still the platform to beat.
Which isn't going to happen until both competitors can afford to lower their console prices into the $199 range. (And I DON'T mean the stripped down versions.)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I get that /. is home to those who might be considered (or even consider themselves) "hardcore," but I'm still perplexed by the characterization of the Xbox 360 Arcade as "stripped down." That version includes everything needed to start playing 360 games including a memory card (256MB), and they've even been packing in a wireless controller; the original no-hard-drive unit had no memory card and a wired controller. And this price cut isn't insignificant - the drop from $280 to $200 is 28.6%, which is huge and makes the 360 - even if one goes out and buys new video cables for high-definition - cheaper than the Wii. So, Microsoft is including more stuff than they used to and charging significantly less money. That seems more like "a good deal" than "stripped down."
:)
Disclaimer: I love the Wii, respect the value of the PS3 for those who want Blu-ray and sold my 360 last year.
That's some shoddy logic there. Extreme oversimplification. The 360 has lost a lot of money due to the technical problems. The logical conclusion there is to fix those problems and not make the same mistakes, yet you seem willing to declare a microsoft console as fundamentally a bad idea that can never work. Tell me it's not just because you're upset about the state of PC gaming.
PC gaming is dying out because people like to play games rather than wasting time on computer maintenece. I know what your opinion of us must be, but I get no joy out of installing new software or hardware so I can play the latest game. I could definitely learn how to do that, but I much prefer plugging my console into the TV, putting the disc in, and playing immediately. I play games to relax, not to do work. MS spending money on the PC market would be a waste.
I also have to point out that the PS3 is not doing great either. You'd have me believe that the next console is going to be just nintendo out there alone?
I admit I don't have much proof that the PS3 is doing poorly, but the wiki pages say the PS3 has sold numbers that are lower than the 360. Hard to account for the gap in releases, but the point is that it's not a blowaway sucess compared to the 360. It's also not very scientific, but I don't personally know anyone with a PS3, I know of many with 360s. That could be due to the Japan thing. And with games, the tide certainly seems to be going in the favor of the 360.
Reguardless, the 360 is not the worst console, that's absurd.
Fair enough, and that probably goes for a lot of post-release content. Still, the games are playable without the hard drive, requiring only a place to save one's game(s). It's worth noting, too, that many of the Xbox Live games are also compatible with memory cards and don't require the hard drive.
When the 360 first came out with its two versions, I was like many who considered the non-HD version to be "lame." Since then, considering the price reduction and the improvement of the package (wireless controller instead of wired, and memory card included), and considering the hard drive doesn't impart a significant gaming speed increase (unless one installs to hard drive; is that feature out yet?), I've come to the conclusion that the 360 Arcade version can make good economic sense to someone who wants to play the "big" games on a budget. Heck, even going to high definition with the Arcade version through purchase of component or HDMI cables leaves the 360 Arcade cheaper than the Wii.
Imagine a console that could be developed for easily (DirectX), that had BluRay, and featured both Halo and Metal Gear Solid?
You mean the PC?
I think this is more important than you are giving it credit for...
Most of us still have not moved on into HD. For those of us looking into it (like me), we know it's more than simply buying an HD TV; without a useful HD source (over the air is nice, but I doubt it's compelling enough to invest in the television). In other words, what's the point unless you get a blu-ray player?
Sure, you can upscan your old DVDs, which we'll do a lot of, I'm sure, but when I'm adding up the total to buy a complete HD system, I'm including the blu-ray player as well as the TV and a I know I'll need a new entertainment center to fit it all.
The reason I'm going on about it is because every review of blu-ray players seems to come to the same conclusion: the PS3 is a better blu-ray player than the standalone units, and it's cheaper, and on top of that... it's a PS3, so you get a gaming system, too!
I wasn't even considering it; I'd have gone right ahead and sunk $300 or $400 on a standalone player when I can get an 80GB PS3 for that amount (plus $20 for a remote) and people are saying it's actually a better player than the standalone units (starts up faster, for one thing).
So it's not just gaming; people who might not otherwise have gotten one (me) might end up getting it just for bluray; and since I do play games, I'll use it for gaming, too.
Win-win.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
I hear from an anonymous coward claiming to be a walmart higher-up
I'm not sure who I trust less - an anonymous coward or a Walmart higher-up.