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Rumor (Pretty Much Fact): Xbox 360 Price Drop … Err, Again

Beau Rosser — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 02:16:35 +0000

Hot on the heels of the last Xbox 360 price drop is the rumor of yet another drop in the near future, this time on the Arcade, Elite and 60GB Pro SKUs to coincide with the previously dropped 20GB Pro bundle.

Kmart was the leak-culprit on the previous price drop, only to outdo themselves with the accidental slip of their September 7th ad showcasing the three new 360 prices: $199.99 for the Arcade, $299 for the 60GB Pro, and $399.99 for the Elite.

As a person who has yet to make the plunge on a 360, I like where these price drops are headed. With the Wii still selling like gangbusters and the announcement of the new PS3 SKUs last week, this holiday season is gearing up to be fantastic, not to mention all the exciting games being released. Oh Fall, why must you ruin my bank account?

Source: Joystiq, Crunchgear

Xbox 360 Price Cut and New Sku Official

Patrick Steen — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 10:41:26 +0000

New Sku! New Sku! Another one to add to your collection. This time it’s a 60GB Xbox 360 to mirror Sony’s black monolith. Oh and we hate to say “I told you so,” but the 20GB model will also be receiving a price cut.

It wouldn’t be wrong to postulate the 20GB price drop is meant as incentive to clear the shelves for the 60gb model. In reality, one Sku will be replaced by a new Sku and a price cut will be replaced by a bigger HDD. This concept is all but confirmed by Microsoft’s press release when it states; “an Xbox 360 console with triple the storage space [...] for the same price of $349.” Same price, bigger HDD, stealth clearance.

We suggest that if hard-drive size is of little importance to you, that you grab the Pro Xbox 360 20GB model for $299 “while supplies last” – yes only $299, a mere snip.

Microsoft’s Press Release reads as follows:

Microsoft is giving consumers more gigabytes for their buck. The company today announced an Xbox 360® console with triple the storage space of the original console, but for the same price of $349 (U.S.) estimated retail price.

Available in retail stores in the U.S. and Canada starting in early August, the upgraded Xbox 360 will include a 60GB hard drive for storing the growing wealth of digital entertainment available for the console, including music, movies, television shows, and game content. In addition, Microsoft today dropped the price of its 20GB Xbox 360 console in the U.S. and Canada to just $299 (U.S.) (ERP) while supplies last, a savings of $50.

“We know consumers need more and more space to store the amazing digital content Xbox 360 offers, and we’re giving it to them at no extra charge,” said Albert Penello, Xbox director of product management at Microsoft. “No one device offers the depth and breadth of entertainment that Xbox 360 can deliver, and now you’ll have three times the storage to manage all that great content.”

Xbox 360 is just one of three Xbox 360 gaming and entertainment systems Microsoft offers. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Arcade, which comes with a 256MB memory unit and five Xbox LIVE Arcade games, is a value for the whole family for $279 (U.S.) (ERP), and the premium Xbox 360 Elite console is available with a 120GB hard drive for $449 (U.S.) (ERP).

Xbox 360 Price Drop Almost Confirmed, Maybe?

Beau Rosser — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:15:14 +0000

Anyone within the gaming community knows Microsoft is awful at keeping secrets. With recent rumors spreading like wild fire over the 360’s alleged price drop, I decided to do some further research to prove these rumors factual.

I asked around, and eventually, an anonymous little birdie at Game Crazy’s corporate office informed me that a price drop for Microsoft’s system is indeed coming. My next goal was to now find out when this magnificent event would take place.

With that knowledge in tow, I acquired a copy of the Game Crazy soon-to-be available ad, and in lieu of the Xbox 360 Pro bundle price drop rumor, I decided to see what price Game Crazy had put on the 360.

Next to the 360 console it clearly reads “Ask for pricing”. Interesting. Unlike other retail stores, Game Crazy tends to keep their adds in circulation for longer than a week. This one, in particular, is said to expire on August 5th, 2008.

Could this mean that a price drop on the 360 is going to happen in the next few weeks? This writer happens to think so, and not having a $349.99 or $299.99 price on the 360 is a clever way for Game Crazy to cover its bases without formally announcing the new price.

For gamers that do not yet own a 360: get excited.

Rumor: Xbox 360 Pro to drop $50?

Beau Rosser — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 02:27:21 +0000

With just a few short weeks until E3 ’08, it looks like Microsoft has another trick up its sleeve. Spurred from a few snapped photos of a K-Mart add for July 6th, it would appear that Microsoft is planning on dropping the Xbox 360 Pro Bundle from $349.99 to $299.99.

If this and the Xbox Avatars rumor turn out to be factual, it would seem that Microsoft is serious about grabbing some of the casual market from Nintendo.

Although this price cut could simply be a sales promo for K-Mart’s July 4th weekend sale, it is more likely to think we might see other retailers following suit in the near future. Here’s hoping.

Source: Shacknews, High-Def Digest Forums

Lair Price Drops, A Lot

Patrick Steen — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 17:29:23 +0000

We reviewed L.A.I.R (that’s how the name looks on the box, though I don’t think the initials stand for anything) and like many others we weren’t overly impressed. Then again we might be tempted if it wasn’t full price, so hey, perhaps this is good news!

There was some incredible fuss over Lair – it’s like reviewers just loved to hate it, and it was the task of the next reviewer to out do the previous one. We’ve seen some similar behavior in Assassin’s Creed reviews, with it starting out as a 10/10 title, and then flying all the way down to 6/10. It was more extreme with Lair though.

Most of Lair’s problems appeared to be with the compulsory Sixaxis motion controls, and other niggling features that could have apparently been easily fixed. It all looked good with edible graphics and a musical score from the legend that is John Debney, but it fell at the final hurdle.

Perhaps its hype was its downfall. If no-one had heard of Lair before release, then maybe it would have faired better…and to be honest I’m quite a fan of motion controls in my games, with Warhawk giving me a little bit of flight control to my fingers.

Anyway, this is all vaporous, since the game is now on special offer at Amazon.com, priced at only $35. Some of the more pessimistic of you might think “Well that’s not a very special offer, I mean it is Lair.” But that is quite frankly rude! The game obviously needs our help and it can be played via remote play on your PSP without motion controls! Hurrah!

How couldn’t you buy it now? You could buy it for $35 and then either realise that it’s not actually that bad, or you could sell it on for little to no loss. What have you got to lose? Apart from precious hours of your time that is…

40GB Sony Playstation 3 U.S. Release?

Michael Geslani — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 17:09:41 +0000

In an article on the hollywoodreporter.com, an industry source says Sony is set to release the 40-gigabyte Playstation 3 to compete with other consoles for the Christmas season.

“We’re hearing Nov. 2 (for the U.S.),” said one industry source.

It looks like this is the same 40-gigabyte model that will be released in Europe this week.

The 40-gigabyte Playstation 3 model will not have backwards compatibility with Playstation 2 games, only two USB 2.0 ports and no multi memory card port.

According to the Hollywoodreport.com article, the 40-gigabyte Playstation 3 will be priced at $399.

Sony Still Optimistic Despite Sluggish Sales Of Their PS3 Next Gen Console

Paul Hamilton — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 16:49:28 +0000

A little over a week ago Sony reported sales numbers for its slow-out-of-the-gate PlayStation 3, pegging units sold in the three months to June at 710,000. This is compared to the unexpected success of the Wii–still tough to find on store shelves–which sold 3.43 million units in the same period.

Sony tried to look at the glass as half full, noting that they sell each PS3 at a loss so the low sales numbers actually worked out to mean less money lost than they had expected. Price cuts in both Japan and more recently in the US have yet to make a discernible difference in the disappointing adoption rate of the PS3, although those cuts are recent their full impact has yet to be determined. What will remain constant is that Sony’s losses will continue for some time as they struggle to keep pace with the Wii and XBox 360 while selling at an estimated $200 loss per unit.

But Sony’s plan to deal with that is to lower the manufacturing costs of each system, first by removing the Emotion Engine from the system but also by reducing costs for manufacturing the pricey Cell processors, RSX graphics chips and Blu-ray components. Sony would like to achieve this by the end of the year and get back to the break-even point so they can focus once again on getting more PS3s into homes. It should be noted that rivals Microsoft also sell their consoles at a loss, although that margin is suspected to be lower and Nintendo’s bargain priced unit is actually a profit stream for the company.

And in spite of all the doom and gloom, there is actually some silver lining on the cloud that’s hung over Sony since their lackluster launch a little over a year ago. Many have pinpointed the inclusion of a full-featured DVD player in the enormously popular PS2 as one of the catalysts for that system’s success last gen, which came at a time when DVD players were still expensive and mostly still firmly stuck in early adopter land. Some of the slow pickup rate on the PS3 may have to do with the uncertainty of the comparable technology this time around due to the format wars of high definition DVDs. But lately Sony’s Blu-ray technology has made some promising inroads, scoring exclusivity as the HD format in Blockbuster rental stores and getting the nod from the US’ second-largest retailer, Target as their featured high definition DVD hardware platform. Target insists they’ll continue to carry the competing HD-DVD discs but will sell only Bu-ray players for the time being. East Coast warehouse chain BJ’s Wholesale Club announced a similar decision.

With Blu-ray starting to pull ahead and the PS3’s recent price dip putting it squarely into the position that worked so well for the PlayStation 2 as a competitively priced Blu-ray player that also happens to play next gen games, PS3 may finally be ready to compete this gen. Add to that a fairly strong showing at E3 which showcased several AAA-level titles coming in time for the holidays such as Heavenly Sword and Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction and perhaps the reports of Sony’s early demise have been greatly exaggerated.

Sony To Offer Playstation 3 Console Along With 5 Blu-ray Movies For $499?

Drake Hess — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 17:14:25 +0000

When I was a kid I used to want to go places that my mom did not want to take me like Toys”R”Us, Disney World, and Sega’s corporate headquarters, so in order to shut me up she would say “ok tomorrow”. Did she really mean tomorrow? Nope. Well it appears that mothers are not exclusive to this group of master word manipulators.

According to Reuters, Sony’s President Ryoji Chubachi stated that the company has no plans for a price cut at the “present time”, yet reports are now pointing to retailer Circuit City offering the Playstation 3 along with 5 Blu-ray movies for $499 between July 15th and the 21st. It seems that Sony’s commander and chief may have been referring to the specific time of day on his watch when he made the statement, and hey … that doesn’t make him a liar now does it?

Another report by Gamedaily cites that a “merchandising manager (who wished to remain anonymous) at one of the world’s biggest retailers” confirmed to them that the price drop will be “retail-wide” and begin on July 12th with advertisements regarding the new price hitting consumers on the 15th.

If all this is true, consumers will not be waiting for the circular on the 15th, they will be waiting outside the store for the doors to open on the 12th. At this point in time however, Sony Computer Entertainment of America has declined comment. How much stock are you willing to put into an anonymous merchandising manager? Guess we will all know the truth soon enough.

Source(s): Gamedaily, Cheapassgamer

Gaming Website Reports Visual Proof Of $200 Playstation 3 Price Drop

Chad Lakkis — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 05:22:26 +0000

Price drop? Typo? Or complete BS? Another story about a PS3 price drop (please note this is completely unconfirmed) and none of us here are buying it.

Now while we do not believe the information to be true, we do feel compelled to report it to you as a rumor and hope that you form your own conclusions based on the information at hand.

A website called “gamers-creed.com” has posted an article and screen shot that they claim is a Gamestop.com online newsletter which highlights a “$399.99″ price tag on the Playstation 3. At this point in time, do we believe this image is the real deal, no. We will be looking into it further but as for now are money is on complete fake or typo. Check back for updates.

For those interested in seeing the piece on the site click here.

Update: 7/2/07 – 4:00PM EST
As expected Gamestop is reports the price as a misprint.

Like Sugar, Sony Says PS3 Price May Get “Refined”

Chad Lakkis — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 04:38:18 +0000

Not willing to dish out $600 dollars for a Sony Playstation 3? Well you aren’t the minority on this one. Apparently the insanity that is the PS3 price point is about to calm down a bit.

Sony Corp., was quoted in the Financial Times saying that they are looking to “refine” the PS3’s price.

Sony is already well on their way to losing $488 million this fiscal year according to the Financial Times. They believe it is a combination of factor, one of which is a less than attractive price point, another is a passable list of titles. The software issue will eventually correct itself, but the price point is something that Sony may not be able to delay any longer.

Many analysts believe that the drop in price will be in the ballpark of $100 bringing it down to the price of the now obsolete 20 Gigabyte version of the system. However, it would not surprise us one bit to see the PS3 match prices with Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console. What is a few million when you are already losing a half a billion already?

PlayStation 3 Feeling Left Out – Sony Ready To Slash Price On PS3?

Chad Lakkis — Tue, 29 May 2007 18:10:05 +0000

In terms of the next-gen console race, the PlayStation 3 finished last month in last place. Rumors are circulating that Sony will drop the price of the Blu-ray capable PS3 by $100, however Bank of America analyst Mike Savner has been quoted saying that he believes it may not be enough.

A drop in price by $100 still has the PS3 on top as the most expensive console of this generation, and one can not rule out a drop in the price by Microsoft on the Xbox 360 which first hit store shelves back in November of 2005. So how much will it take to get Sony back in the conversation … $100 … $200? Already losing an estimated $200 per unit as it stands, can Sony afford to drop the price any further? Maybe the better question is can they afford NOT to?

“An important driver of Sony hardware last cycle was exclusive games, such as Grand Theft Auto” says Mike, and we couldn’t agree more. Now don’t get us wrong, the PS3 has superior specs and the Blu-ray player is very nice, but if a consumer isn’t in the market for one, Sony may find its race for next-gen console supremacy over before it even began.

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