Xbox 360 sees huge sales rise after price cut – Pressure on PS3?
The Xbox 360 may not be dead in Europe after all, as last weekend saw a 40% rise in hardware sales for the Microsoft machine. Which begs the question, how long until Sony follow suit, and cut the price of the Playstation 3?
Last week saw Microsoft drop the prices of the Xbox across the range through the whole of Europe. The Arcade model fell £50 to £159.99, the 20GB Pro model fell £50 to £199.99, while the 120GB Elite fell £40 to £259.99. This made the Xbox cheaper than a Wii in Europe, but only if you’re happy with a crappy Arcade model.
At the time, fellow BLORGE writer Triston McIntyre, the one with the baby face and a way with the ladies, argued that despite a price cut, the Xbox is still a worthless machine, mainly due to the high incidence of faulty machines. But it seems British consumers looking for a bargain disagreed.
According to ChartTrack, sales rose by a huge margin over the first weekend of the price cut. Indeed, I have seen it in action, as I witnessed my neighbour taking delivery of an Xbox 360 on Monday morning.
Chart-Track director Dorian Bloch revealed to Games Industry.biz:
“Xbox 360 is up 35-40 percent – that’s from Friday, when the price cut came into effect, up to midnight Saturday.”
“Now it’s a question of Easter. The real litmus test will be over the next three to four weeks – it’s too early to read too much into it at this stage.”
So with Easter coming, will Sony try and gain the upper hand back, and launch similar price cuts across their range? With sales up recently, as witnessed by the hardware sales statistics, maybe there isn’t the urgency for Sony to reply in kind, but surely they will want to keep the momentum going.
Price cuts can definitely help shift units, and a cost cutting battle is certainly on the cards. It’s more a matter of when, not if. I think Sony will wait and see how the Easter holiday pans out to decide when to launch it’s counter attack against Microsoft, but it’ll definitely happen before Christmas.
Nintendo meanwhile are sitting pretty. The Wii is already cheap enough not to need any price cuts to be affordable, and with sales continuing to be high, don’t expect price cuts any time soon.
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30 Responses to “Xbox 360 sees huge sales rise after price cut – Pressure on PS3?”
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March 19th, 2008
up 35-40% in a week? Does that mean they’ve sold about 100 of them?
Who cares about a jump in 6 days? This has no impact at all.
March 19th, 2008
Well if Sony don’t cut the price before GTA 4 hits then they will lose a shit load of consumers to the “crappy Arcade model” which can play all the 360 games anyway its just not really for going online, which is fine and I suspect many others will feel the same way.
March 19th, 2008
those who think the xbox 360 is dead are a bunch of ignorants…
March 19th, 2008
Consoles are toys, toys are price sensitive. Small wonder sales increase as price decreases.
Xbox360 is by far the best value system in the console market at the moment with or without the price cut.
Microsoft have struck upon a good balance between hardware performance – and software library.
Something both competitors can only envy.
March 20th, 2008
no one except the ps3 fanboys said that 360 is dead…. the 360 is a great machine… but with the hardware failure rate and the death of hd dvds… its going through a rough time…
for now the ps3 is a better investment… the problem is most of the exclusive 360 games come out on the PC… so even if I have a ps3 and a decent PC… I dont have to buy a 360… (although I looove bioshock and mass effect but I could just play em on my pc)
It would be better if M$ bought the hd patent rights and released games in hd formats… (just think of the pissed off elite owners)
March 20th, 2008
“ignorants”… wow, I didn’t realize the was “ignorants” is a word let a lone a noun… those who make up words, in an attempt to cajole people into thinking they’re well lettered are actually persons who lack a broad vocabulary, are ignoramuses… j/k
Interesting…. 40% increase… that’s not much… I’d be more interested in seeing what the affect on the quarterly EU sales will be. The PS3 price drop saw the same initial spike then normalized.
This is definitely a reactionary move. MS dropped the price of the 360 in response to anticipated price pressure from PS3. The PS3 is going to get a big price cut this year, the cell has moved to 45nm and the gpu is moving to 65nm, that’s going to reduce costs, and blu-ray diodes have been shrunk, reducing cost by almost 200USD for the BD drives alone. These manufacturing cost reductions are significant. So, Sony can keep prices the way they are and pull a profit toward the end of fiscal Q1 or drop the price by 100USD (or equivalent)
MS is well aware of the price pressure that’s going to come Q3 this year and is willing to drastically reduce profit in the hope of stopping Sony’s momentum or forcing Sony to drop their price prematurely and in turn hurt Sony’s fiscal year end results. Sony’s too smart to fall for this tactic. They’ll reduce their price when they’re ready. Despite the “lack of games” and “higher Price”… the PS3 in Europe, aka EU territories, has consistently been outselling the 360 and MS is worried as the EU is a huge market comparable in size to the US, if not larger in terms of real income.
Companies drop prices when they’re in competition… which is good for everyone… drive the prices down and allow more people access to the market… it’s a win win for the gamer.
March 20th, 2008
And yes I’m an ignoramus
March 20th, 2008
Microsoft needed to cut the price of their crappy wannabe next gen gaming console because it was getting kill which is still is. No Blu-ray Bad hardware no game worth buying on 2008 just Epic Games Gears of War 2 hype. That percentage might just be a lie from them to get more attention before they are kill. Xbox 360 2005-2008 RIP
March 20th, 2008
@ Ivan_psp xbox 360 has no games? “just epic games gears of war 2 hype” you know it’s ok not to post a comment when there is nothing to say? just us all a favor stay away from these article, especially when you don’t know nothing at all about video game.
March 20th, 2008
The game selection on PS3 is hopelessly weak – I’m very disappointed considering how much money I paid. I can’t even play my PS2 games because Sony are so stupid and messed the machine up. As for the Wii, the pricing for Wii games is way over priced for what you get. The controls at first looked like a good idea but the Gamecube-like games with high prices mean Wii games are not a priority on my shopping list these days.
I’ve owned both PS3 & Wii machines from launch and each time I go to the game store I jealously eye the good selection and better deals on Xbox 360 released titles. If the pricing on the console is any more tempting in Australia I might flick what I’ve got and buy an Xbox 360 myself.
March 20th, 2008
Who cares which console sells the most units?
Do you have shares in Sony or MS?
The only winner here is the consumer, with lower prices.
I have a 360 and I think its been great. Yes it failed and that annoyed me but it was fixed for free.
It comes down to games and pricing. In my opinion when Killzone comes out it will be the first must have game for the PS3. If that is coupled with a price drop I will want one!
March 20th, 2008
More M$ clutching at straws looking for a quick fix when they need to think long term.
March 20th, 2008
Dear Ivan – ms is reporting they are approaching their 1,000th game for the 360, including xbla. How many does the ps3 have? hint: nowhere NEAR that amount. now, siddown and shuddup. now, back OT; it’s smart for ms to wait. jan and feb are the slowest times of the year and make no difference in console sale survivability. the pressure surely is on sony, but they have very little room to price competively at this point. sucks to be sony right now.
March 20th, 2008
Erm…. didn’t the ps3 go up 120% after the drop in price, 40% is nothing that is what u would expect after a price drop
March 20th, 2008
@ Michael, that’s what I was thinking, the PS3 sales rose over 100 per cent in the months following the price cut.
Xbox sales go up 40 per cent for one weekend and suddenly the PS3 should be worried? hmm,…. not too sure about that one,
O and to everyone who thinks the box has a lot of games, well it does, but most and I mean MOST are on last gen systems aswell, and the good exclusives they have are on PC aswell, aside from Halo 3 I had no other reason to buy my xbox, and with the lackluster line up for 2008 in comparison to the competition, I have little reason to keep this RROD in waiting machine.
March 20th, 2008
Sony were making a loss per console sold when they had the high cost price. The only way they were able to cut the price was to reduce the HD and scrap backwards compatiblity. If they do make another price cut what else is there left to scrap?
March 20th, 2008
1000 90 FPS that suck and not made by Microsoft wow how pathetic my Xbox is collecting dust
Gamertag: Ivan PSP
PSN ID: Ivan-
March 20th, 2008
1000 Games according to them using %100 of the Xbox 360 power maybe %2 made by Microsoft how pathetic most FPS like %99.99 My Xbox is collecting dust since 2006. I like my orinal 3 Xbox better than the new one why cuzz it was made great and decent games that sometime could it compete with my PS2 8000 games. Xbox 360 denial owners i know what i have but i don’t know if you know what you got. I got my Xbox 360 one reason cuzz is modded to play ISO free and to cheat online i got 4 accounts Ivan PSP was banned like ten times i can unbanned myself lol
Gamertag: Ivan PSP
PSN ID: Ivan-
March 20th, 2008
I thought the 360’s DL content on GTA4 was going to crush PS3. Now consumers are going to buy the “crappy arcade model” to play it? Which is it? DL content rules or price rules? I’m actually a Nintendo fanboy I guess as I’ve always gone with Nintendo hardware but objectively I see no value in the 360 anymore. No HD (HD movie downloads are years away), no harddrive on all units, no built-in wifi, no built-in bluetooth. And as far as having more games all I see on the shelf is FPS after FPS.
March 20th, 2008
Ivan that’s some good english you fucking moron.
March 20th, 2008
@pfreak
“HD movie downloads are years away” ????? get your facts straight!
Xbox already does HD movie downloads as we speak. New films are added everyweek to LIVE Marketplace which you download to your hard drive. TV shows like Lost are on there way too.
“no built in bluetooth”?? xbox uses wireless technology which travels far further distances.
March 20th, 2008
PS3 fanboys all seem to cry and cry about 360’s massive fps library yet your biggest releases this year are haze, mgs4 and killzone??????
Do me a favour….stop talking shit and dry your eyes!
March 20th, 2008
@mike mgs4 is not fps
March 20th, 2008
Its surprising that Microsoft has to cut prices of XBOX 360 to beat PS3 because XBOX is better than Sony Play Station.
March 21st, 2008
No one cares about the library of crap Xbox 360 has to offer compare to PLAYSTATION 3 it looks like shit. PS3 is the only console that has RPG FPS RACING FIGHTING RTS ADVENTURE PLATFORM HORROR STEALTH all together not just one type. All PS3 needs to kill the Xbox 360 is Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots God of War III Final Fantasy XII and if you want more Killzone 2 Resistance 2: Rise of Man just a few of the great games coming to PLAYSTATION 3 proven to once and for all obsolete the Xbox 360 for ever like they did to the Sega Dreamcast with PlayStation 2.
Microsoft only savior is themselves if they create more game variety themselves like Sony and Nintendo do. With out Blu-ray or even the dead HD-DVD this year games for the Xbox will have to be cut short due to the lack of space unless they compress it real hard or do it in STANDARD DEFINITION.
March 21st, 2008
Biggest releases this year are FPS’s? Well for a start MGS4 isn’t a FPS… Littlebigplanet, well that obviously falls into the standard FPS catagory, just like every other game out there ^o) ???
FF? God of War?
GTA 4 will sell well on both consoles, it’ll sell more on the 360 because of the larger install base, but whooo 2 extra dlc’s… omg… oh wait, if they bring 10 dlc’s out for gta 4, i don’t think i’m going to miss the 2 exclusive one’s on the 360.
Wireless technology goes further?? Erm… well i’ve tested my ps3 at the opposite end of my house (about 20ft directly down, ps was upstairs i was downstairs) and it worked, had to put music on and see if i could pause it from there… soo who would need to play any games console from further away than that, hello 200″ television. oh, bluetooth doesn’t get affected by as much interferance.
March 21st, 2008
Madjoe you could hardily call that store HD, it only just meets standards to be classed as HD, all the videos are 720 and lower they tend to fluctuate around that resolution. for now Blu-rays are the format of choice produecing the best picture possible. until download speeds reach at least 20/30MBP/S digital downloads of blu-ray quality will remain dormant. To boot M$ downloads are hevily compressed, so as well as picture sound won’t be too great. I never judge video quality on a download, even when it has 1080P on the download because it aint, its been compressed. People who want blu-ray the ps3 is the better option for now.
March 22nd, 2008
360 worthless? Since when?
March 22nd, 2008
The 360 dominates the games sales charts every week so if it’s got such a shit library how do you expain this?
Gears, Halo and Bioshock are the only real fps exclusives that I can think of so what is all this shit about nothing but fps??? All the rest are multiplatorm so that’s ps3’s problem to fix.
xbox has far more exclusive triple A racing and RPG games than ps3 also, I don’t know where all this comes from that they don’t????
April 10th, 2008
you get what you pay for, rrod, cheap hardware, pay for anything other than a box and a large typical rip off sony controller.