Rumor Mill: XBOX 360 to drop $100 in price

[Scott]

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20060726A1001.html


Microsoft rumored to cut Xbox 360 price by US$100
Yen-ting Chen and David Tzeng, Taipei; Adam Hwang, DigiTimes.com [Wednesday 26 July 2006]


Microsoft is planning to cut the retail price of its Xbox 360 Pro System from US$399 currently to US$299 in an attempt to compete with the PlayStation 3 (PS3), which will be launched by Sony in November of this year, according to Taiwan-based OEM component makers.

Microsoft Taiwan denied the report, asserting that it is misinformation.

Microsoft, to prepare for the price cut, has negotiated reduced production costs for the Xbox 360 with Taiwan-based manufacturing partners, stated the sources. The manufacturers estimate that the total production cost can be reduced by 15-20% due to diminishing costs for most components along with increasing production scales and decreasing defect rates, the sources pointed out.

Considering Sony will sell a 20GB HDD (hard disk drive) and 60GB HDD PS3, each with a built-in blue-laser Blu-ray Disc drive, for US$499 and US$599, respectively, Microsoft plans to maximize the price competitiveness of its Xbox 360 Pro System by dropping prices so that the model can be equipped with an external HD-DVD drive in the future for under US$399, the sources indicated.

[Scott]

Difficult to believe honestly. I could maybe see a $50 dollar price cut for Christmas... but $100... in less than a year? Doubtful.

[Shufflefield]

Highly unlikely... ARS just had a little report on the possibility of a PGR3 pack in for the holidays, I just don't see how they could cut the cost right now, or see how they should. At 400 their premium is priced pretty competively with the PS3 already, from my viewpoint, which could, and often is, completely out of whack with reality.

Now, if they did drop to 300 for the premium, I think that would be great, and they would probably sell very well at that price point (getting within 50 bucks of the assumed price of the Wii might even eat some Wii sales.). And for those of us that want a Wii and a 360, it would go from just that for about the price of a PS3 to a Wii/360 and a game for each combo for the price of a PS3. =)

F Sony!!! (Even though I am bound to own the PS3, my Bemani addiction demands it.).

[Timcredible]

sounds maybe plausible in order to compete against the ps3 (plus they have to start selling the hd-dvd add-on which will make the xbox360 more expensive). personally, i hate microsoft, won't use any of their products, so the ps3 is the game console for me.

[Falcon]

I think we'll see a bundle with one of the launch titles (PGR3 seems the likely candidate and has the most rumors around it).

I would imagine that MS is going to release the very kick ass Gears of War right around the time the PS3 launches. Epic is going to make some kind of announcement next week and I imagine it's that the game is either going gold or we're getting a demo.

[Scott]

Thanks Falcon. I was just about to PM you to ask if you could provide any insight to the validity of this story.

[Falcon]

NP. Rumor has been floating around for a while, seems to kick up when there's a slow news week. I do think if Sony had priced the PS3 lower we might have seen one but I think MS is going to hold off for a bit and just ride the current price point (and higher margins) for another six months or so.

Right now I'm just hoping the Octover Wii date turns out to be true. :D

[Timcredible]

Right now I'm just hoping the Octover Wii date turns out to be true. :D

october 2006? i heard the wii wasn't going to be out until next year?

[snodgrass23]

october 2006? i heard the wii wasn't going to be out until next year?

Nope, at least as far as we know. There isn't a set date on it yet. But, most people are speculating it should launch in either October or November. If they get it out in October, they can get a small head start on the PS3.

[Falcon]

While we haven't had anything concrete on the Wii there are three things we know about it right now:
- Manufacturing plants have been cranking out retail units for about the last month or so (PS3 started last week)
- Nintendo sent out a coy press release earlier this week with their upcoming release schedule. They had something for every week through the rest of the year except for the first week of October. Of course the list started on the second week of Oct so a lot of people are speculating that the release will be the first week of October
- Activision accidentally released a release schedule yesterday that showed the Tony Hawk Wii game coming out in October

I would imagine that we'll get the official announcement during the Tokyo Game Show at the end of September with a lot of teasing until then. They could build a lot of steam out of the show by announcing that the system would be for sale a week or so after the show.

Launch list seems to be pretty strong for the system as well. Just got an e-mail from Atlus that Trauma Center: Second opinion will be a launch title for the game. Off the top of my head I don't know all of the launch titles but it looks like Nintendo is going to have one of the stronger launches in a while (Not sure if Zelda is slated as a launch title but if it isn't it will probably be in the nebulous "launch window").

[NormalGuy]

Zelda (first simultaneous launch on two consoles) and Metroid are launch titles for sure.

NG

[snodgrass23]

That's awesome. Does anyone know anyplace in town here that is accepting preorders yet?

[Falcon]

Not sure I would pre-order it given how many people got boned over last year with the 360 pre-orders. I don't think we'll have shortages with the Wii though, or at least not as bad as they were with the 360 (the PS3 on the other hand, let's just say I'm sucking up hard to sony right now :D ).

BTW, more official confirmation from MS on the no price drop

http://gamerscoreblog.com/team/archive/2006/07/28/536453.aspx