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Fuzzy Logic No price drop for Xbox 360 after all – yet
Fuzzy Logic No price drop for Xbox 360 after all – yet | No price drop for Xbox 360 after all – yet |
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| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Tuesday, 12 June 2007 | |
  
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So, when Bloomberg published a report with quotes from Microsoft executives, one of which was from the Xbox division’s David Hufford, saying that US $199 was the sweet spot, the Internet went wild with speculation that an Xbox 360 price cut was due soon, like for the cheapest version of the Xbox 360, the ‘Core’ model without hard drive. But given that Microsoft is soon to unleash Halo 3 onto the world, likely to sell millions of copies and become another mega-hit for the Xbox 360, helping to sell millions more Xbox 360’s as Microsoft fights off the Wii and the PS3, why would Microsoft want to make less money? Now comes news from the official Microsoft Gamerscore blog from none other than David Hufford himself trying to hose down the speculation that any price cuts are coming anytime soon. In an email to Gamerscore, Hufford said that: "Some are getting really spun up about the Bloomberg story and inaccurately reading tea leaves that don’t exist. I spoke to Bloomberg nearly two months ago and we were talking about NPD data that had just been released, and chatting generally about price points of consoles in the market. The comment, which is accurately reported, unfortunately has now been taken way out of context and being reported as if I am signaling a price drop. I was not, I am not”. Hufford then continued that: “With Xbox 360s selling well at their current price point, Elites selling out at $479, and an insanely great portfolio of games in the market, there’s no reason to announce any kind of price drop anytime soon”. Well, except for the fact that, NPD data being discussed two months ago or not, any talk of US $199 being a ‘sweet spot’ without you actually selling consoles at that level would naturally make people think that you had a price if US $199 in mind. Hufford should definitely not have mentioned this price point, because it simply makes people expect that this is Microsoft’s thinking, especially when topics like ‘family friendly games’ and ‘we don’t want to be pigeon holed as a hardcore machine’ are throw into the mix. Let’s face it: Microsoft is No.1 in ‘next gen’ console sales, but the Wii is perilously close in 2nd position, and could easily end 2007 as the no.1 ‘next gen’ games console out there. Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo will take this Christmas/holiday season, and will do absolutely EVERYTHING in their power to shift as many consoles as possible, not only to grow the user base as much as possible, but to show third party developers that their console has solid user support, thereby making their console more than worth developing new games for. Although Microsoft is now denying that any price cuts are on the way for the Xbox 360, this surely isn’t true, and is just a line to damped speculation of a price cut in the next few weeks. But in the last couple of months before Christmas, we should fully expect to see a massive retail war absolutely erupt at the retail level, with bundles, discounts, new features through firmware updates and more to appear, to ensure that sales are shinier than they’ve ever been, even if it might mean taking an extra hit on the profits (or otherwise) earned on each console. So, there is officially no Xbox 360 price cut, or at least, not yet. But come the end of the year, things will likely change – for the cheaper! {moscomment} |
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