It seems like the rumors about the imminent price cut of
Xbox 360 were true. In a press statement released on Sunday, Microsoft has confirmed
that it has lowered the price of its Xbox 360 Pro with $50.
The model, which includes a 20 GB hard drive, will sell
starting today for $299 instead of $349.
Also, Microsoft unveiled an upgraded version of Xbox 360,
which features a 60 GB hard drive and will go on sale in early August for $349.
Besides the new 60 GB version, Microsoft will continue to
sell the Xbox 360 Arcade version, which comes with a 256MB memory unit and five
Xbox LIVE Arcade games for $279
and the premium Xbox 360 Elite console that includes a 120GB hard drive for $449.
Albert Penello, Xbox director of product management at Microsoft,
explained that the new version was introduced to meet the demand of the
customers for more storage space.
“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,” he said.
Last time when Microsoft slashed the price of its console
was last year in August before the release of its iconic game, Halo 3.
In the past few months, there were various rumors about an
upgraded version of Xbox 360, including some reports about an external Blu-ray
unit, but it seems like Microsoft is decided to concentrate on its Xbox Live
service as a distribution channel for HD content.
However, despite Microsoft’s announcement, Sony is decided
to keep the “most expensive gaming console” label for its PlayStation 3. While
Microsoft will sell its Xbox 360 for $299, Sony executives are determined to
keep the $400 price tag for PS3, which includes a 40 GB hard drive.
Since the beginning of the year, Microsoft’s Xbox 360
registered poor sales in the United
States, being almost constantly outsold its
rivals, PS3 and Nintendo Wii.
That’s maybe the reason why Sony officials said won’t
consider a price cut for PS3, at least for this year. PlayStation 3 was
released in November 2006 in Japan
and US and the gaming console is being currently sold for $400 in US.
Instead, as Sony CFO Nobuyuki Oneda said the company wishes
to make its console more profitable. In a report released last month, Forbes
said that Play Station 3 has cost Sony an incredible $3 billion, mainly because
of the company’s pricing strategy for the product.
As PS3 hit the market, Sony wanted to recover some of the
market share that Microsoft’s Xbox 360 had gained, mainly due to its launch a
year before PS3’s. Sony thought that by selling its consoles at a price that
would be a little less that their actual cost, it might gain more market share
and it would be able to use it to make profit for the company from exclusive
gaming titles and sales of its patented Blu-Ray. However, Sony has managed to
win the Blu-ray versus HD DVD battle due to its PS3.
What is more, after enough units would have been sold,
production cost would have dropped, and Sony would have ceased to sell PS3s at
a loss. Even though the PS3 console seems to have gotten a few very good
exclusive titles recently, and has shown signs of recovery during the past
months, it is still a long way to go until Sony will be making a decent profit
out of it.
With Microsoft’s Xbox 360 going for $299, (or $349 for 60 GB
version), Sony’s PS3 is the most expensive console on the market.
Bloomberg News reports that speaking about this issue, Sir
Howard Stringer said in an interview that Sony won’t lower the price of its PS3
and he added that a price reduction by Microsoft would be evidence that the
Xbox 360 was falling behind in the contest for sales.
Instead, it seems like Sony will also focus on releasing new
game titles for PS3 in order to boost the sales.
Few weeks ago, Nintendo officials made a similar statement,
saying that no price cut for their successful Wii are considered for this year.
