Xbox 360 to win Christmas sales war? - PS3 badly needs a price cut
By Dave Parrack
The Xbox 360 is now available for less than the price of a Nintendo Wii for the first time. But will this latest round of price cuts have any real effect on the sales of the Microsoft console?
Yesterday saw the long-expected price cuts for the Xbox 360 hit America. The importance of these cuts has been argued over, with some seeing them as key to Microsoft lifting the Xbox 360 out of its current sales slump, while others regard them as not very consequential, especially as the biggest price cut affects the Arcade model, which serious gamers wouldn’t touch with a bargepole.
While reporting the official announcement of the cuts yesterday, I applauded Microsoft for this strategy, with it effectively positioning the Xbox 360 somewhere between the Wii and PS3, but affordable enough to appeal to gamers stuck in the last generation. And industry analyst Jesse Divnich agrees.
In fact, he goes further and predicts these latest price cuts will see the Xbox 360 win the sales war over the holiday period. He told Edge Online:
Between Sony and Nintendo, Sony should be the most concerned about the 360’s price cut.
Going into this holiday season, the PS3 will not only have the highest price point, but also the smallest software library, weaker line-up of exclusive titles (compared to Xbox 360’s Gears of War 2 and Fable 2), and a less popular online network.
I suspect that the reason why Sony has been so adamant about maintaining its current price point is because it has not reached a more efficient scale in its manufacturing of the PS3.
Long-term, I don’t think anyone doubts the success of the PS3, however it is currently looking like the Xbox 360 will win another holiday season against the PS3 in North America.
Nintendo need not worry about Microsoft, or anyone else for that matter. If they ever felt threatened, they could drop the Wii down to $149 and destroy a competitors momentum. But in this particular case, Nintendo won’t feel too threatened by an Xbox 360 price drop.
I personally don’t think Nintendo will bother dropping the price of the Wii any time soon. With demand still matching supply, the only purpose it would serve would be to allow Nintendo to brag about having the cheapest console. Which just isn’t worth it.
Sony is another proposition altogether though. Just last week, Sony CEO Howard Stringer seemingly killed off any hopes of a PS3 price cut coming this side of 2009 due to the hardware still costing more to make than it retails for. But unless Sony wants a bloodbath on its hands this Christmas, particularly in North America, it’s going to have to consider some sort of price cut very soon.
By announcing this latest set of price cuts across the whole Xbox 360 range, Microsoft has forced its competitors to at least consider the possibility of bringing the price of current-gen hardware down to a more mainstream-friendly figure. Watching how Nintendo and Sony choose to respond should be very interesting.
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September 5th, 2008
If I see ONE MORE headline with the words “price cuts”, I swear…. *shakes fist at DAVE PARRACK*
-Arvis
September 5th, 2008
ps3 has bad library and line up?….MY ASS…..360 came out first….ps3 has a way better library….360 games are 2 seconds long and not worth shit……and the ps3 line up looks the best….360 only has Gays of War Shoe and FAGle……ps3 has way better games then those
September 5th, 2008
i agree, PS3 needs a price cut to make it competitive, even with better games people are cheap, the credit crunch etc. With a large price tag people are still going to get the cheap ass 360, makes me want to hurl.
September 5th, 2008
Why are you guys so angry all the time?
September 5th, 2008
Anger is fun!!!!
That’s why we yell DAVE PARRACK!!!!!!
September 5th, 2008
Gays of War and Fagle? You’re a douchebag.
September 6th, 2008
sony can’t take another holiday beating from MS. they need to do something, but are not positioned to do anything.
ms isn’t going after the “serious gamer” with the Arcade model, douche…. they have been very vocal about their target of casual gamers. please read your own site from time to time you raging fanboy…
casual gamers don’t care about online gaming, d/l content, nor blooooray, making the Arcade a very attractive offer…. if they did care, psn membership would have outstripped xbox live last gen with the ps2, but they didn’t….
btw; HELLO losers… just blowing a saturday morning…
September 6th, 2008
hey look kev is back
I like your comment about how psn membership didn’t outpace xbl membership last generation. it’s a good point especially since psn didn’t exsist until ps3 launched. It really underlines the fact that you’re the biggest fanboy here.
Here’s a fact for ya kev. online on the ps2 was not a unified service like xbl was for the xbox, so that means,(say it with me) there is no way of knowing how many ps2 owners were online. But, with the ps2 selling over 110 million units and the xbox selling only 64 million it might be a safe bet to say you’re wrong.
Nice to have you back kev.
September 6th, 2008
Sk8man actually has a point. There was/is no PSN for ps2…
But gotta agree with Kev on the casual gamer stuffs. Most aren’t going to care about extra content etc etc.
September 6th, 2008
@SW, oh yeah, kev does have a point there, I’ll give him that
September 6th, 2008
forget the price cuts, the MGS4 bundle is ballin’ as sh*t!
September 7th, 2008
Yeah if Sony decides to unleash the power of the MGS4 Bundle it will wipe out the so called competition. My little cousin (12) just got a 80GB and he loves it. Microsoft just got 1 game while Sony has a 100. Xbox 360 is just making Microsoft run dry losing billions year by year.
September 10th, 2008
Ivan_PSP, you seriously are a dipshit. So much so in fact , that I’d wager you’re a fan of the new Metallica album.
September 14th, 2008
uh, fanboys.. tell it to sony who called their adapter their PLAYSTATION NETWORK adapter.
that’s the point i’m making.
even with a bazillion ps2’s on the market, sony never outpaced xbox live’s userbase.
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art4716.asp
September 19th, 2008
ps3 is fine for xmas. the line up for holiday games is way better then the others systems . by xmas most will want a lot of those games.
btw just was looking at so called updated sale charts… some ones been makeing fake reports. one said xbox is out sell the wii and ps3 in japan thanks to infinite undiscovery… but it the sales was dated august and said they sold 870 somthing consoles a week ahead.
… notice somthing? that was from august 2007 last year! so dont believe every thing you read