Xbox 360 price cut confirmed

Mike Bantick
Wednesday, 02 July 2008 03:57

Your IT - Entertainment

Now officially coming third in the games console sales race, what can Microsoft do to reinvigorate the Xbox 360 consumer profile?  Obvious really, slash the price.

It has been in the news recently , and as of July 2 has become reality with the price drops across the range of Xbox 360 machines available in Australia.

The Xbox 360 Arcade now costs AU$349, the Pro coming in at AU$499 and the 120GB equipped Elite at AU$649

Over at Jason Hill’s ScreenPlay blog , we can catch a glimpse of the thinking behind the cuts.  Hill has spoken to local head of Xbox Group Product Marketing Jeremy Hinton.

Hill asked Hinton what may have prompted the price drop;” We've got a track record showing that whenever possible we want to pass on savings to the consumer. We thought this was a great time to do that. The July retail period is an important one, there are a lot of consumers out there looking for Christmas gifts for lay-by and for hot deals on products so we thought this was a great time in light of recent currency fluctuations and cost savings to pass that onto the consumer. So from July 2nd, you'll have the Elite down to $649, the Pro down to $499, and the Arcade down to $349”

When prompted whether this was part of a worldwide strategy, Hinton responded:” No, we're announcing the price drop today for Australia and New Zealand. The interesting thing that you'll see covering gaming as you do is that traditionally it's been Microsoft set the price and it pretty much rolls out around the world within a week or two. But as you've already seen this year with the price drop in Europe in March, and we had another one in Asia in April, it really is now about the regions being given more autonomy to run the businesses locally in the best way for their consumers. That's a good thing for Australian consumers.”

The HDD’less Arcade Xbox 360 is now cheaper than the Nintendo Wii, which continues to outsell the Xbox two to one.  Conversely the 120GB Elite Xbox 360 is now around AU$50 cheaper than the Sony PlayStation 3

Microsoft has always been stuck in no-mans land in this console war, and now the battle will intensify on both fronts leading up to what ever the entertainment companies have in store for us at E3 July 15th.