Console price cutting war between PS3 and Xbox 360 soon?
By Dave Parrack
Are next gen (or this generation consoles by now) about to become part of a price cutting war? With Microsoft already dropping the price of the Xbox 360 in Europe to try and reverse falling sales, if Sony follows suit, hi def gaming could be about to come a whole lot more affordable.
This week has seen the Xbox 360 get a price drop in Europe making it cheaper than the Wii, and now Sony could be forced to follow suit by dropping the price of the PS3.
According to Strategy Analytics principal analyst, David Mercer, Sony could bring forward any proposed price drop for this year in an effort to steal the limelight from Microsoft. Next Gen.biz report him saying:
“Sony will be nervous that the PS3’s recent sales surge may fizzle out now that the premium Xbox 360 undercuts the PS3 by £40 ($80), and the cheapest Xbox model is almost half the price of a PS3.”
If this does happen, and Sony panic in to cutting the price of the PS3 sooner than expected, we could get a price cutting war bringing the cost of next gen gaming down to more affordable rates for more consumers.
It’s unlikely Nintendo will see the need to cut the price of the Wii at all, seeing as it’s still selling faster than the proverbial hotcakes, but if sales start dropping due to more people buying PS3s and 360s, it could happen towards the end of the year.
All of this bodes well for gamers everywhere as price cuts usually equate to more hardware sales, which in turn lead to developers knowing they will sell more games on all of the major systems and therefore spending more time and money on their releases.
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Tips N4G
March 12th, 2008
GTA 4!!!!!!
$339 for the 360 Arcade Pack Vrs $650 for the PS3, Sony will lose sales to the 360 if they do not drop the price, that is pretty obvious and because just to play GTA 4 I will get that Arcade Pack, it has everything I need to play GTA 4 and I don’t care about going online so it’s perfect. I really want a PS3 but its still to expensive so I’m willing to put up with a 360 just to play GTA 4.
w00t
March 12th, 2008
i dont get why people keep pressuring sony to drop the ps3, its already competitively priced and given the fact that the ps3 has statistically sold faster than the ps1 and the ps2 in the same time frame i don’t think there is that much of a pressure for sony to drop the price of the ps3. all those 100million plus ps2 owners are bound to get ps3’s eventually since hdtv is kicking off now, and by 2009 hd is a requirement standard in the united states, which is already set by the government, and everyone i know and also their mama’s mama’s will be upgrading to hi def, they’re all eyeing the ps3 once they do
March 12th, 2008
poppop your and idiot to think the ps3 failed considering that the ps3 sold faster and more units than the ps1 and ps3 in the same time frame. get your facts straight, oh yeah and to bad those hd movies from the xbox live doesnt support 1080, they are in VC-1 (aka WMVHD) at 720p, 6.8Mbps video with 5.1 surround. as for downloads you think 20gb for the pro is enough space? An average 1 hour (44 min) HDTV download should be about 2.2GB, and an average 1/2 hour (22 min) HDTV download should be about 1GB. A 1 hour SDTV download should be about 600MB, and a 1/2 hour SDTV download should be about 300MB, the 360 doesnt have enough space and $180 for a 120gb hard drive is expensive and the elite only has a 1.2hdmi output compared to the ps3’s 1.3 i don’t even feel like typing out the technical aspects of that you can look that up yourself, and you can get a 250gb 2.5″ hdd for around $100-150 for a ps3 (ebay), and for the average consumer downloading is not an option at the moment due to connection speeds, and only years down the line will it be viable, its that much easier to put in a disc inside your movie player than downloading and organizing your files to the average consumer.
with all this info, i am not the average consumer but the average consumer is only a little competent when it comes to matters like this so the downloading of media is not an option at the moment, maybe 5yrs down the line
the wii is fun but only for a little bit with friends cause it loses its novelty, the xbox has great games (remind you that its been out in advance compared to the ps3 and the wii) but that doesnt mean the ps3 wont have great games that will come out for it, oh you can also see that microsoft plans on finally bringing the hdd of the 20gb 360 up to 60gb and possibly including bluray internally or externally. hmmmmmmmm people complain about the ps3 and all the different units they come out with but microsoft seems to be doing the same playing catch up so that there systems will be future proof, and the 150mb capacity for the xbox360 arcade, well thats not gonna cut it to cater to the future needs of developers when developing games to the lowest common denominator for a system……anyways back to smash brothers and mass effect and uncharted oh yeah rock band….i gotta pop that in also….all in all GAMERS WIN
quit being DOUCHEBAG FANBOYS
March 12th, 2008
OMG people just need to STF^ about Sony making another price just get a job cheap dumb fuckers. Xbox 360 just did this cuzz in 2008 they nothing to show off. Why you think after Microsoft trying to control Xbox Live they had to announce XNA program for gamers to make xbox games is Sony putting pressure on crapbox yes they got Blu-ray a reliable console a miilions A+ exclusive everything Xbox wants but can’t ever get.
March 12th, 2008
“all those 100million plus ps2 owners are bound to get ps3’s eventually”
I’m sure they said that about the SNES and it didn’t stop the PS1 with its inferior graphics beating the N64. Most of those 100 million plus PS2 owners got them in the bargain bin and have no loyalty to Sony.
There’ll be some tough lessons but I’m sure the PS4 will be a much improved console and we’ll see it much sooner than you think.
March 13th, 2008
LMAO @ hmm…
yeah Goldeneye or Zelda on N64 looked better than Resident Evil or tekken 3 on PS1…. LOL N64 better graphically than PS1… that was funny… ROFL I needed that. thanx
The only thing I liked better about solid state on my Nintendo 64 was the load time. RAM will always load faster then Optical ROM… stopped laughing. 
March 13th, 2008
lol….you are all a bunch of fanboys; I love reading blogs…better than a comedy show!
March 13th, 2008
Please the PS1 had a 32 bit CPU vs N64 64 bit.
The PS2 had crap graphics compared to Gamecube and XBox too but it didn’t stop it doing well. Sonys big mistake was to try to beat everybody on the specs this time and it ain’t working.
And tekken 3???? blockiest 2.5 D game I’ve even seen.
March 14th, 2008
Ivan_PSP –> Why you think after Microsoft trying to control Xbox Live they had to announce XNA program for gamers to make xbox games is Sony putting pressure on crapbox yes they got Blu-ray a reliable console a miilions A+ exclusive everything Xbox wants but can’t ever get.
‘
Bad grammar aside, Microsoft doesn’t have to try to control Xbox Live. They own it.
Anyway, if Sony cut their price, then the consumer wins. I can’t see why you people are so concerned about price drops. You already own your system of choice, so it shouldn’t really bother you.