Microsoft announced yesterday that it will be slashing the price of its Xbox 360 video game unit in the United States. The reduced prices will take effect tomorrow, August 8th.
The price cut will bring the Xbox 360 down by close to 13 percent, with the Premium model selling for $350, a $50 difference. The core unit, which doesn’t include a hard drive, will sell for $280, a $20 difference, and the Elite model will sell for $450, a difference of $30. The Elite is the most loaded of the units, featuring a 120-gigabyte hard drive.
No doubt the price reduction is in anticipation of the upcoming holiday season, as the rival video game manufactures all jockey into position. You may remember that last month, Sony decided to slash its price of the Playstation 3 machine by 17 percent to a final retail price of $500.
The Nintendo Wii console is offering stiff competition to both the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3. Retailers are having a hard time keeping enough Wii units stocked to meet customer demands. The Xbox 360 was launched back in November of 2005, and has never seen a price cut until now.
It is hard to say if the price cut will boost sales, although obviously Microsoft thinks so. The popularity of the Wii may be hard to beat. One thing that the Xbox 360 does have in its favor is its large library of quality games. And since games generally drive the decision of which unit to purchase, the Xbox 360 may be in a good position for the upcoming buying season. But, after two years of losses, Microsoft’s entertainment and devices division has got to be hoping that it will turn a profit this year.
The Xbox 360’s price reduction has been scheduled to coincide with the release of the latest installment of a very popular video game series by electronic arts, “Madden NFL 08.”
Mary Ann Romans also writes for the Frugal Living Blog here at Families.com, where she shares money saving tips for today’s families.
Related Articles:
Serious Glitches in Xbox 360 Will Cost A Billion