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Squilliam on 07 April 2010
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Rickz0r said:
Squilliam said:

1. Nope, but it is pretty likely.

2. Its extremely possible, even if they bundle Natal as the Primesense article indicates its not as expensive as previously thought. It all depends on how they approach the relaunch and if they consider taking losses on hardware in the short-term to be a worthwhile position to take.

3. Of course not, however the Xbox 360 had a noticeable spike in console sales the week after E3 last year.

4. Sony will like to be profitable at some point. Cutting the price again will likely keep the SCE division closer to the red than they would like. Shareholders can only take so much and at some point Sony would like a payback for their investment.

Those are still assumptions.. @Last bolded. So it's not likely for Sony to price cut, since they want to stay profitable. But it's extremely possible for Microsoft to: 

- Launch a Slim

-Bundle Natal with every Console

- Cut the price of the consoles

That's going to cost Microsoft an awfull lot of money, and then they're likely to make a loss per console sold. Since Microsoft is just a company like Sony, they'll be willing to stay profitable aswell.

There are some very good reasons for this.

1. Microsoft is talking about Natal as a product 'relaunch'

2. Microsoft is talking about Natals long term prospects so the initial launch is very important.

3. Microsofts market position is very different to Sony's. They make more money per year per console than Sony does. If this doesn't justify taking a small loss on the console hardware im not sure what would. This is especially true as Natal is also relevant to their OS business and they certainly will want to drive the cost of the interface downwards in order to make it a relevant interface for both the console and the PC.

4. If Windows Mobile 7 is able to break even then the overall profitability of the EDD will be significantly improved. Its not the Xbox, its Windows Mobile 6 which is dragging the division down, so if that at least breaks even then Microsoft will have the freedom to cut the price without tanking the overall divisions numbers.



Tease.