We hope none of you have been sitting on your hands, waiting for the mythical Xbox 360 holiday price drop to arrive next month smiting all competitors with its low, low MSRP; cost conscious Wii waiters would be wooed while PlayStation purists would ponder the price points. All for naught! Microsoft has insisted it won't be lowering the price of its next-gen offering.The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Todd Bishop reports that, despite Microsoft's disclosure last week that the 360's manufacturing costs have been falling "faster than expected," the ensuing price drop is "still a ways off." He cites various analysts, and Microsoft themselves, to support this assertion ... but this isn't a new company line. In response to this same question, Peter Moore told us at E3, "[The Xbox 360] had a price drop on Monday when Sony announced their price. We obviously don't talk about price drops, and I can't think of any good reason right now that we would drop the price even further from the delta between what we're offering and what our competitor's are currently offering."
With PlayStation 3s looking to be in limited supply this holiday season, the Xbox 360 will be the only high-def next-gen box sitting pretty on retailer's shelves. With plans to sell an additional 4 million units before the end of '06, a price drop would severely affect Microsoft's ability to capitalize on the impending PS3 shortages. Our best guess at a 360 price drop: 2007, when the processor gets reduced to a cooler, smaller, and cheaper 65nm. We know, a really bold prediction.
