Core Xbox 360 loses ten pounds

haha, great headline. at first i thought MS tossed the powerbrick.

bet by the end of Nov this year.

Xbox 360 core be $199, or dropped all together in US
Xbox 360 premium be $299

For the european-currency-impaired (like myself):

GBP = Great Britain Pounds
USD = United States Dollars

001.00 GBP = ~001.89 USD
019.99 GBP = ~037.81 USD
069.99 GBP = ~132.39 USD
199.99 GBP = ~378.28 USD
279.99 GBP = ~529.60 USD

Waitis the premium component cable not good or something? Things already look pretty good at 1080i, should I buy like a monster cable or something?

I wonder if this is going to follow suite here in the US, and hwo that will effect the Wii price.

It's because the USD is going down the toilet, so this adjusts it back to roughly the same ground.

All i want is a premium price drop.

Rob Templin:
No, they're referring to the composite cable, not the component cable. Composite is all you get in the core pack. Composite also sucks very badly. The signal quality is terrible.

"haha, great headline. at first i thought MS tossed the powerbrick."

Yea, I seriously thought they were talking about the brick also.

was about to say "Did you mean ten pounds plus gravity?" :P

"I wonder if this is going to follow suite here in the US, and hwo that will effect the Wii price."

As much as I dislike the idea that Nintedo is pursuing an oxymoronically "reactionary" policy in the midst of their blue-ocean strategy, I fear it may be the case.

I don't think it would help sales of the console to withhold the price from consumers, so the purpose would seem to be to withhold the price from Competitors.

Nintendo knows that no matter how much they trumpet that they are not competing with the 360/PS3 (and they may well be trying not to), they will indeed be "sharing" shelf space this holiday season and for the foreseeable future.

That being said, there are likely to be 3 pricetags for 3 consoles simultaneously in view to customers shopping for a christmas present for little Hayden. (everyone uses the name johnny for these examples, but I was trying to be more in tune with the real world. New parents don't choose nice classic names like Johnny anymore)

That being the case, Nintendo doesn't want to get caught in a pinch with a price too close to the 360 core system when they know the differentiating factors are:

1. HD
2. Controller
3. Price

Not necessarily in that order.

If the price gap gets too close....say $50 or less, then you basically have HD vs. the controller. While that may be a no-brainer for an intellectual like myself, Nintendo probably has enough sense to realize not everones knuckles are as far from the ground as my own.

SO, its important they keep their price a secret in order to FORCE microsoft to make the first move (and in this case. NO MOVE is still a move with regard to Nintendos strategy). This works because MS realizes that $50 is the magic number too. They would LOVE to be within $50 of the Wii so they would feel they have the value advantage. This thinking might drive them to lower their price if they KNEW for a fact that the Wii would come out at....say....$229.
Then they would lower their price to $279 and be the value victor. However, they can't risk doing that in the current environment. Here's why. Lets say MS DOES lower their price to $279. Then what happens if Nintendo releases at $189. Well? They lose the $50 comparison and the value victory is lost. All that and they are now making less $$$ per console.

So Nintendo can't reveal their price until its too late for MS to drop the price for christmas advertising, which is going to go out in October (everyone knows they start putting up the damn xmas ads the day after halloween) and thus begin production of printed materials in late September/early October.

If nintendo waits to reveal the price until Late September (a la TGS) it will be VERY expensive for MS to drop the price of their system in reponse. Perhaps expensive enough to absorb the benefits of doing so.

Ok, or maybe not, I could be wrong. :)

Xbox 360 Premium package won't have a price drop in the U.S. till at least the 2nd year. And the core package is useless. You still have to buy a Hard Drive.

Here in Finland a store has been selling Core + Perfect Dark Zero for 279€ for ages. No one wants the Core. Premium still costs ~399 with a game.

I don't understand, if you're going to purchase the core and then buy all the accessories that make up the premium, why not buy the premium package instead? Which duh, of course it's a better deal (hence the package). The core is aimed at those not necessarily wanting those extra items.

I, too, dig the headline.

If the 360 was only $200, I'd buy one right now. However, it's just out of reach for me... due to also buying a Wii this Fall. But if they did slash the price, Microsoft would completely own the console wars and kill Sony dead this time around.

i hope this makes MS drop the core pack all together lower the price of the hard drive ($50) and the premium ($350) and make the hard drive a requirement

core=peice of shit

premium=awesome

no but seriously, microsoft already announced THERE WILL BE NO PRICE DROP ANYTIME SOON.

im thinking 6 months is considered soon...

now, some believe they said this because there were rumors going around that they would drop the price, and that would cause 360 sales to come to a near complete halt.

so they had to disband the rumor to keep people buying even though they WILL be lowering the price.

or maybe they were telling the truth, and they WONT lower the price.

im betting on the second one.

if it werent for this, i would agree completely with number 10.

What they should do is get rid of the core and throw a wireless adapter into the premium. The other consoles have wireless built in and you shouldnt have to pay more for it on a 360. A $50 decrease in premium price would be nice too but i doubt they would do both.

Subnet, that was the stupidest rant I have ever heard. My IQ is low for having read it. MS can set their price at any time. I did like the Hayden part though. We will see how cool that controller is in a year.

So is that loss with or without gravity?

If the price gap gets too close....say $50 or less, then you basically have HD vs. the controller. While that may be a no-brainer for an intellectual like myself, Microsoft probably has enough sense to realize not everones knuckles are as far from the ground as my own.

SO, its important they keep their price a secret in order to FORCE Nintendo to make the first move (and in this case. NO MOVE is still a move with regard to Microsofts strategy). This works because Nintendo realizes that $50 is the magic number too. They would LOVE to be within $50 of the 360 so they would feel they have the value advantage. This thinking might drive them to lower their price if they KNEW for a fact that the 360 would come out at....say....$279.
Then they would lower their price to $229 and be the value victor. However, they can't risk doing that in the current environment. Here's why. Lets say Nintendo DOES lower their price to $229. Then what happens if Microsoft releases at $259. Well? They lose the $50 comparison and the value victory is lost. All that and they are now making less $$$ per console.

So Microsoft can't reveal their price cut until its too late for Nintendo to drop the price for christmas advertising, which is going to go out in October (everyone knows they start putting up the damn xmas ads the day after halloween) and thus begin production of printed materials in late September/early October.

If Microsoft waits to reveal the price until Late September it will be VERY expensive for Nintendo to drop the price of their system in reponse. Perhaps expensive enough to absorb the benefits of doing so.

Ok, or maybe not, I could be wrong. :)

I was stung heavily with the core pack (I had no choice other than buy it or wait 3 months for the premium pack), I wish MS never released the damn thing and concentrate on pushing the "Premium" as the standard. I hate the PS3 2 SKU deal too. At least the "Core" PS3 has a little more and is good to go out the box, but still, Owning the "core" systems seems wrong. I feel like the poor man here with my Xbox 360.

I hate MS for inventing this SKU option. I hate Sony even more for bloody copying! We are going to see the same shortage issue with PS3 I recon, and again I feel Im going to be in a situation where I can have a core PS3 or nothing for three months.. and im not going to be able to resist and feel all wrong again. GAH!!

Why can't MS and Sony realise we dont want these watered down versions!

I think its safe to say Nintendo wont do the same. Thank god!

I think it's a scam that consoles don't come with S-Video standard, no matter how much they cost. Can't they just keep the price the same and bundle in a few accessories that cost virtually nothing to manufacture?

There won't be any big news until the new 65nm CPUs go into production. I am really looking forward to that.

Norcal,

In most places, your replacements made no sense. In others it simply supported what I was saying. I enjoyed the humor of the attempt though, it was a nice effort, even if missing the mark somewhat.

"HD gaming" here having the definition of "a sequence of fuzzy images conveyed by the included and technically inept composite cable." - lol