Xbox 360 for $299.99?

[Everlost_MI]

Gamesindustry.biz (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/) has the scoop (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=9204) on the pending Xbox 360 price point from J Allard himself.

Microsoft corporate vice president J Allard has confirmed that the Xbox 360 will be priced "in the neighbourhood" of $300, which was the initial launch price of the Xbox, with a final decision on price to be made in about two months.

Speaking to TheStreet.com, Allard said that he was "not sure" about the final price point, with a decision on pricing still "probably about two months away" - but confirmed that the price would "be in the neighbourhood" of the $300 price tag of Xbox at launch.

Ok, let the comments rip!

[Mondopest]

If it is 299, I think that is pretty reasonable for a console. 350 would make me wait until it was 299.

[rein]

It's kind of funny without them being able to compare a price to a Sony product they seem to be having a hard time finding a price point. In the neighbourhood of $300 could mean a lot of things. Friggin give us a price Microsoft!

[vornskr]

I haven't had a console since the genesis. I think I might actually bother spending $$ on this gen if its within $300. Depends on which are in that price range tho ;p

[bapenguin]

$360

It's corny...it's gonna happen.

[shpanky]

I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts it's $399 ;-)

[Goronmon]

Well, at least we know "in the neighborhood" doesn't mean less than $300 ;)

[lowlevel]

$360

It's corny...it's gonna happen.

Ugh. Bad price, bad product tie-in.

Now if BMW (http://www.bmwusa.com/vehicles/6/645CiCoupe) were to sell the 645i for $645 ... then that would be a promotion! :p

[carneconcarne]

I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts it's $399 ;-)

I'm buying a dozen donuts, do you have a dozen dollars?

[Metal Jesus]

Considering how powerful the new Xbox is... I wouldn't mind paying between $300~$400. As much as I play games on a console, it's not that hard to justify. Hell, I just paid $1000 for a cheap laptop that I will probably use as much as a gaming console.

[*Legion*]

It's kind of funny without them being able to compare a price to a Sony product they seem to be having a hard time finding a price point. In the neighbourhood of $300 could mean a lot of things. Friggin give us a price Microsoft!

That's called "competition". A company that sets prices without paying any attention to the pricing of their competitors is a BAD thing.

What's very obviously happening here is MS wants to be damn sure that there's no way Sony can come along and price their console more cheaply. They don't want to commit to a price, then have Sony announce in the fall that the PS3 will release at a cheaper one (even though the PS3 won't be out to compete head-to-head with the Xbox 360, it would be embarrassing for Microsoft to have to either lower their launch price in response to that, or launch at their original, higher-than-the-PS3-will-be price).

[Atorak]

$300-$400 sounds good to me, I was just worried it would be $500! Heh, so much for my "insider tip", although I wouldn't be surprised if the XBox 360 had a $499 bundle at launch with a few games, two wireless controllers, possible subscription to the new XBox Live, etc.

[Rafer]

$300 sounds nice, heck with the exchange rate in Canada that works out to $376 CDN, about $70 less than the original XBOX cost, thank you falling U.S. dollar.

[kickmybum]

If games are going to be 60 bucks a pop, I doubt the average gamer can afford over $300 for the console and expect to have more than a handful of games.

[automaton]

It is going to be a long 6 months if we have to put up with this much bullshit "news." Every fucking day some source says some thing about some console and we have to hear it.

Sponge.com interviews J. Allard's gardner who says he overheard that the 360 hard drive will come pre-loaded with Halo 2.5.

Gamespy rummages through Reggie Fils-Aime's garbage and finds a used tissue where the snot spells out an August 2006 release date for Revolution.

Blue's news quotes some random homeless person who claims to have specifications on the PS3's GPU. It is to be 6 times better than the development kits for the Revolution which run at 1/3 the power of the the 360 which is at least 12 times more powerful than the PS2.

Gamasutra is hosting a post mortem of Perfect Dark Zero 2 by a Rare employee who discovers the secret of time travel while working on Kameo: Elements of Power which still hasn't been released in 2009 (currently scheduled to be a launch title of Xbox 720).

[Hieremias]

Yep, Xbox launch might be the cheapest time to buy it here in Canada, if indeed its price is based off the US exchange rate--which it may not be.

But I really hope the offer a good package like Atorak described WITHOUT a Live subscription. I'll be damned if I pay for that.

[rein]

That's called "competition". A company that sets prices without paying any attention to the pricing of their competitors is a BAD thing.

Wow, thanks for the lesson in marketing strategy.. ..I mean.. ..I had no idea.

What's very obviously happening here is MS wants to be damn sure that there's no way Sony can come along and price their console more cheaply. They don't want to commit to a price, then have Sony announce in the fall that the PS3 will release at a cheaper one (even though the PS3 won't be out to compete head-to-head with the Xbox 360, it would be embarrassing for Microsoft to have to either lower their launch price in response to that, or launch at their original, higher-than-the-PS3-will-be price).

Problem is, Microsoft is on a much closer dead line than Sony when it comes to committing to a price. Sony can always come along and do exactly what they are afraid of. I don't think Microsoft stands a chance in hell in getting a price out of Sony before they commit to one.

I am more afraid there could be some behind the scene discussions going on about non hard drive vs hard drive bundles and that sort of stuff. They also have to consider where they want to drop the price from and to when the PS3 does launch. Either way, they are going to have to commit long before Sony or Nintendo.

[XxSATANxX]

Allard's an asshat I'm voting $499

[Atorak]

But I really hope the offer a good package like Atorak described WITHOUT a Live subscription. I'll be damned if I pay for that.

Heh, unfortunately, I could see them releasing the two packages: one like I stated for $499.99 (without XBox Live, of course *grins*), and the other for $350-399.99, but with limited availability. The expensive bundle would be the only one you could find in the stores, which would kinda um......suck?

[Zanzibar]

There's no way in hell that Sony can sell their system for $300 without taking a MAJOR hit in profits. I mean REALLY major. MS ate a lot of money for the Xbox which was built on existing PC technology. And they may have to again for the 360.

But can you imagine mass-producing two high-end features (the Cell processor and the HD-DVD drive) which have never been mass-produced before?

[Imelman]

i think it will be hard for Sony to come up with a cheaper price than $300-400 with all the technology that the system has

[shpanky]

I'm buying a dozen donuts, do you have a dozen dollars?


mmmmm....donuts....

[Maskatron]

I waited for the first Xbox to come down to $200, and I'll probably do the same here. I still need to buy a HDTV anyway.

[Atorak]

I guarantee Sony will REALLY push the Blu-Ray drive right before the system comes out in order to justify the price.

EX: "Hey! We're Sony! Why buy a Blu-Ray Drive alone, when you can buy a Sony PS3 with one included for only [insert large number here]! And you can play games too!"


Hell, it makes sense, unless you're a videophile. The PS2/XBox drives are absolute shit compared to a stand-alone drive, but most people don't care enough to notice.

[Tetsuo]

I am more afraid there could be some behind the scene discussions going on about non hard drive vs hard drive bundles and that sort of stuff.
According to information given to us retailers directly from Microsoft, the 20 gig hard drive is standard.

[netcraazzy]

$360

It's corny...it's gonna happen.

Damn, if only they had named it the xbox 180

[Lagrius]

It's better then comparing it to how many paychecks it will take to buy one, like companies do with diamonds. :-p

[Zanzibar]

I'm gonna risk a major flame job here, but does anyone think that it's time for the $300 standard console launch-price to start reflecting inflation? It's been 10 years since the original PlayStation's launch...I wouldn't mind paying $400 at this point.

[*Legion*]

Problem is, Microsoft is on a much closer dead line than Sony when it comes to committing to a price. Sony can always come along and do exactly what they are afraid of. I don't think Microsoft stands a chance in hell in getting a price out of Sony before they commit to one.

You're not getting the point. The point is that it is tricky to forecast how much certain components will cost in the future. The longer you wait, the better idea you have. Not to mention, as we've seen recently, the damn PS3's GPU isn't even done yet. It's not hard to imagine nVidia not living up to their promised specs (*ahem* TNT) and ending up with a chip that perhaps doesn't deliver on the same transistor count as previously expected.

MS will wait as long as they can, not to try and "[get] a price out of Sony", but to more accurately forecast how much it will cost to manufacture (not to mention more accurately forecast how much their own will cost, perhaps projecting savings that might not be realized in the first batch of manufactured systems, but later ones).

The longer you wait, the more things become clear (even if 100% clarity is impossible), and the less opportunity you leave yourself for getting blindsided by something out of the blue. They don't NEED to commit to a price until it's closer to time to sell the things, and they gain absolutely nothing by doing it earlier.

[Tetsuo]

I'm gonna risk a major flame job here, but does anyone think that it's time for the $300 standard console launch-price to start reflecting inflation? It's been 10 years since the original PlayStation's launch...I wouldn't mind paying $400 at this point.
Problem is that, adjusted for infaltion, the average American makes less than they did 10 years ago. This has been a continuing trend since the 1970s.

[*Legion*]

I'm gonna risk a major flame job here, but does anyone think that it's time for the $300 standard console launch-price to start reflecting inflation? It's been 10 years since the original PlayStation's launch...I wouldn't mind paying $400 at this point.

I get what you're saying, but the business model has changed since then. Because more software for the consoles is being sold than ever before, one can afford to take a hit on the hardware. Although there's a bit of chicken-and-egg going on there, in that the lowered (in relative terms) hardware prices has helped the software sales.

The one thing that will kill you is not getting your system in enough homes.

[zorper]

I get what you're saying, but the business model has changed since then. Because more software for the consoles is being sold than ever before, one can afford to take a hit on the hardware. Although there's a bit of chicken-and-egg going on there, in that the lowered (in relative terms) hardware prices has helped the software sales.

The one thing that will kill you is not getting your system in enough homes.


So the attachment rate is higher now than it was for the PS1? That makes keeping the $300 price point make sense. Does anyone out there have any information on how many games are bought per console owner for the PS2 as compared to the PS1?

[Zanzibar]

You're not getting the point. The point is that it is tricky to forecast how much certain components will cost in the future. The longer you wait, the better idea you have. Not to mention, as we've seen recently, the damn PS3's GPU isn't even done yet. It's not hard to imagine nVidia not living up to their promised specs (*ahem* TNT) and ending up with a chip that perhaps doesn't deliver on the same transistor count as previously expected.

That's VERY true. I remember going to the Xfest in 2001 right before the Xbox came out. The Xbox guys at Microsoft were REALLY pissed at nVidia because the final chip didn't deliver the 'nearly-free' hardware antialiasing that they promised.

I hate to keep harping on this, but I'm gonna. The Cell processor has barely made it past prototyping. HD-DVD players are, what, $1000+ right now? How the fuck can Sony make low-cost manufacturing lines for those two AND a firebreathing GPU WITHIN A YEAR and still expect to hit $300-$400?

[Achilles]

It’ll be $299, possibly more if they bundle it like the PSP (not that it worked out well for the PSP), and the games will be $49. I say this because the argument of price comes up every time a new console launches and the above is always true with the exception of the prices being lower to try and undercut the competition. Go back to the news sites before the PS2 launched, all of them have stories about how the console’s price is going to be $500 and the games are going to be $60.

[bobbler]

That's VERY true. I remember going to the Xfest in 2001 right before the Xbox came out. The Xbox guys at Microsoft were REALLY pissed at nVidia because the final chip didn't deliver the 'nearly-free' hardware antialiasing that they promised.

I hate to keep harping on this, but I'm gonna. The Cell processor has barely made it past prototyping. HD-DVD players are, what, $1000+ right now? How the fuck can Sony make low-cost manufacturing lines for those two AND a firebreathing GPU WITHIN A YEAR and still expect to hit $300-$400?


Sony doesn't need to outsource all of its manufacturing like MS does. That, believe it or not, saves quite a bit on making the consoles.

MS doesn't have any fabs, so IBM and ATI need to make the chips (sony will be fabbing the GPU, and maybe help with the cell also -- not sure if Sony's fabs can handle it, I think its 300mm wafers). They can't really make anything for themselves, being a software company. Thats part of why Xbox was such a huge hit for them. It's not cheap to have to get TSMC to fab your stuff for you, you save a lot by having your own fabs (after the several billion dollar cost of producing a fab, of course).

It wouldn't surprise me if it cost MS and Sony about the same to make Xbox2 and PS3 (MS having to pay companies to fab for them might make up extra stuff going into PS3, which Sony only has to pay itself for, for the most part -- BR drives sony can make).

This discussion is held every time a new console comes out. It isn't much different this year, both MS and Sony are going to take huge losses on their consoles the first few years. Its just the way it goes, they make up for it by selling software (and online services now). In sony's case BR licensing will make them money too, so having a BR drive far outweighs the cost if it will help them get people to use it.

There is pretty much a price limit that isn't going to be passed ($400 mark, name a $400+ dollar system that actually succeeded in the US -- maybe I'm mistaken but I can't remember any). Both systems will be below it. $300-350 is a good guess for both systems. They both have studies that tell them the effect of price on adoption rates, adoption rates are the most important factor in consoles -- they aren't going to try to sacrifice adoption rates when they know their money comes from having consoles in homes and selling software/services.

Just wait, it's not magic at work here. There is a lot of stuff behind the scenes that may not be obvious (especially in Sony's case because it has production lines of its own and BR licensing to reduce the impact of the sold-at-loss consoles). Everyone will be pleasantly surprised when both come out and are around $300-350.

[riposte101]

I'm gonna risk a major flame job here, but does anyone think that it's time for the $300 standard console launch-price to start reflecting inflation? It's been 10 years since the original PlayStation's launch...I wouldn't mind paying $400 at this point.

I realistically expected to pay $400 for my x360. I wouldn't have liked it but I would go up to $500. I mean just look at the specs on that monster. That thing kills my $2000 PC.

[Zanzibar]

Excellent points that I had not considered. Having a hardware-manufacturing system well in-place would indeed cut down on internal Sony costs. Thanks bobbler.

[DiBiddilyBop]

Pricing is going to be interesting this generation, but if Xbox 360 comes out with a $300 system, Sony is going to have to follow suit. You don't have to look at too many message boards to see a lot of people excited about both systems, so in order to keep market share, Sony is going to have to release at the same price. If they release over, Microsoft is going to gobble up the market share. If they release under, Microsoft will follow suit and both of them will be screwed out of some money. Fabrication costs aren't going to figure into pricing nearly as much as what they think the market will hold. No one is going to buy a $500 system, so there's no way anyone is going to put the price there, even if it costs them $700 to make each system. They'll be making it up in game sales.

[player_2]

I'm gonna risk a major flame job here, but does anyone think that it's time for the $300 standard console launch-price to start reflecting inflation? It's been 10 years since the original PlayStation's launch...I wouldn't mind paying $400 at this point.

if you say so moneybags

[EGO]

Maybe they'll say... XBox 360 - $360...

Eitherway, they better show something GREAT to get my money, because once it's above $300, I'll just buy a better graphics card for my PC.

[Draft]

Damn, if only they had named it the xbox 180Or Xbox 2 ;)

[rein]

You're not getting the point. The point is that it is tricky to forecast how much certain components will cost in the future. The longer you wait, the better idea you have.


No, I get the point. You did not reference this in your post. I was only responding to the point that you brought up about them not wanting to over-price or under price compared to Sony.

Beleive it or not, I do not need market strategy lessons from someone over the internet.

As far as how much time they have, they still have some time before they announce it. However, the longer they wait the more I get the feeling it is bad news for consumers.

[mister_slim]

bobbler hit most of the Sony hardware and manufacturing points, so thanks. A couple of points:

But can you imagine mass-producing two high-end features (the Cell processor and the HD-DVD drive) which have never been mass-produced before?
One thing to keep in mind is that the PS3 specs only expect 7 of 8 coprocessors to work. That's going to bring yields up a lot. Think of dead pixel returns: A very small manufacturing error, one bad pixel, and it may be returned. Anything goes wrong with a 360 CPU and they need to toss it, but a Cell has a much better margin of error. A performance advantage for Sony is that Blu-Ray has almost twice the bandwidth of 16x DVD, which compensates for its cost a bit.

The simultaneous launch may hurt MS as well. Sony currently has capacity for 1 million PSPs a month, a little under demand before European launch. But if you look at the PS2s in the wild, Sony sold about 1 to 2 million a month over the lifespan, so bumping up PSP capacity too much is just going to hurt Sony. Hardware demand tends to peak at launch, and I don't see MS being able to meet initial demand.

[d0g_p00p]

hrmmm. $300 bucks. I might get one anyway for the media features