Microsoft knows console 'sweet spot' is $199

I don't know how realistic a price cut is, though, since reports still conflict about how much MS is making on a per-console basis

It all depends on what MS wants more, mindshare or $$$

As Sony is paying up to 200$ for every console produced they could as well sell the premium system for 200$. Not that this will happen.

I wonder however if they will go as low as 199$. I think 250$ for the Core system look imaginable. However i think it will do more damage to the already heavenly damaged PS3 sales then it will do to the Wii sales.

But i think they will lower the price just a bit and throw in a free game. M-maybe mgs ;).

To:fawazr

"This is analogous to the appeal of 'shounen' manga and anime in Japan: fantasy of power and virility for young males who are comparatively immature and socially inept."
LOL...You have no ideia what´you´re talking about...so you´re saying the whole Japan is immature and socially inept??
I also love the DS, but over Japan, the same people you´re calling immature and socially inept love it too...Does that make you one of them?...Hmmm

Comment #3, "Hardcore gamers are your target. That is why they bought your system. I'd like to hear if any 360 owner that only bought the system for the arcades on XBL."

Hey Matt B, I just gotta say that yes it's possible. Billy Mitchell bought a 360 just for the Pac-Man tournament, haha.

If Microsoft drops the price of their system to $299 (possibly $399 for the Elite), don't expect sales to jump too much if Sony delivers on its software. Microsoft has gone through a lot of trouble to convince people that the power difference between PS3 and Xbox 360 "is a wash" and "negligible", and if they're portrayed by the media as desperate liars then consumers are going to catch on.

The PS3 will always be more expensive, but with titles that are basically 'Dreamcasting' the 360 there's a lot of justification for that price.

i want too get a 360 but teh absurd console death r8 = holding me back if it hits teh sweet spot il cave

$199 is the sweet spot, I just bought a sidekick 3 today and i was happy with the price.

@8, 20: FUD. I've had my 360 since before Christmas, I play it frequently and it has yet to give me a red ring of death. As for Windows, well, I routinely run unstable development software and I have yet to have a blue screen of death on my current and previous install (only reinstalled because of a new HDD).

@48: See here: http://www.isuppli.com/news/default.asp?id=6919
Profits from console sales and profits from software sales means overall profit, and that's from over six months ago. I concede that the original Xbox likely produced a net loss because they were trying to break into the market, but, I would be very surprised if Microsoft hasn't recouped that yet. They're businessmen first and console developers second. The shareholders would have had something to say about the console games division if they had continued having a net loss.

@55: Why don't you put Yellow Dog Linux on your PS3 and continue to tell me Cell isn't a pain in the rear to program for. I have. It is. I'm taking a graduate-level class on it at school and while it isn't prohibitively difficult, it also isn't a blissful walk in the park and I can completely understand why many game developers would be more willing to work with the 360's wholly symmetric central processor. Cell being difficult to work with isn't a statement made by Microsoft, it's a statement made by any programmer who has tried to utilize it efficiently.
To give you an idea about Cell and *why* it's difficult, each of the six SPEs that a game programmer has access to only has a tiny amount of memory to work with. For comparison, it's *less* than what the Gameboy Advance had direct access to (256KB per SPE versus 256KB+32KB for the GBA). Further, SPEs only have block access to the main memory in the PS3. That is, you can only move stuff in and out of each SPE in bulk rather than "a little of this and a little of that", and is thus only suited for either simple tasks or large tasks that can be broken up into many smaller tasks. This means that the more complex a game's main program is, the more difficult it is to cut it up into little pieces easily swallowed by Cell. Working with Cell requires you to pay attention to all of the many little details specific to it, or your code will either out-right not work or will be horribly inefficient and won't take advantage of what Cell does well. It's a completely new way of working, it's completely specific to Cell, and it has a very very steep learning curve.