Why doesn't Microsoft drop the price of the Xbox?

[Iraziel]

mrstickball said: 2 main reasons: In NA, the 360 isn't selling bad to require a price drop. MS is making around $70 per premium 360, and is recouping alot of their launch costs. In Europe, its selling well enough to not "need" it, but did drop to 199 euros for the prem in Germany (a poor selling market). The 360 core in Japan as well as premium are also cheaper than any comparible market. So MS has dropped the price, just not majorly in the US.

The price of 199€ isn't set by Microsoft. Their official stance is still 299€ for the core and 399€ for the premium version. Retailers dropped the price on their own because Xbox 360s sell pretty bad in Germany. Several shops don't order core packages anymore because they have troubles selling them. They're collecting dust on the shelves, even at a discount of 100€. The regular price for premium 360s among retailers seems to be 359€ to 379€ now. For 399€ most of them include 1 to 2 games (the best offer I found at my local retailer was a 379€ package including NfS: Most Wanted, PGR 3 and Kameo). The lack of interest is not surprising at all since best selling games like Gears of War and Dead Rising aren't officially published in Germany. And I doubt that an official price drop would help to get better sales.