WW UP-20th August

[Michael-5]

Reasonable said:

Michael-5 said:

Reasonable said:

As I said I think MS will use bundles, deals, promotions, etc. to effectively cut the price of a 360 without having to officially lower the RRP.  They seem to be bullish about their numbers which I suspect means they have backup "buy the market" deals ready to execute if they need to.  Of course Sony know as well as MS how to operate "buy the market" deals and may mix some big deals in with the price cut during the holiday ramp up period.

As for the PS3 price cut is it seems to me to clearly be a preparatory price cut - made in advance of when it's expected to have its major effects.  Therefore I wouldn't read too much into how it mimics the Wii at the moment.  I'm not anyway.  I don't think we'll really see its effects until later in the year when the big releases start hitting then into the holiday period.

I agree, but for the next month PS3's sales spike may mimic the Wii's. That's all I'm saying.

For fall I don't think mega game bundles will be enough for MS. All these bundles have digital games and a 4GB 360 can't hold that many games (if any, never downloaded one). I mean I expect some Forza/Kinect or Dance Central/Kinect Bundles, but MS needs to lower their price.

Honestly I'm expecting MS to bring out a $179 4GB (or maybe more memory) 360 Kinect bundle, as well as a $279 320GB 360 Kinect Bundle, and bring down the price of a stand alone Kinect to $119 at least.

Let's see what happens though, right now I just can't amagine MS making 15 million without something drastic. Even the price cut on PS3 won't be enough to make 15m for PS3. I also wonder howbig Wii will be this fall.

I think Wii might have one last surprise in terms of holiday spike left in it, but we'll see.  As for MS I think it depends on how aggresive they get with deals.  If they don't put together crazy cheap bundles or cut Kinect price (which I see as a peripheral seperate to 360 price) then a 360 price cut might indeed be needed.

I get you on short term comparison of PS3 to Wii, I'm just noting that in the bigger picture their trends and software patterns look to be different right now so I think they'll diverge again in profile petty soon when new titles start to release for PS3 (big ones obviously).

I love debating with you, I just generally always agree. I agree Wii might have one last spike because Wii's sales pattern has mimicked PS2's since launch and this was PS2's last strong year. It was also a year for a small spike in sales, then annual sales dropped to 13 million, and it very slowly began to die after that. Wii will probably die quicker then PS2 due to a lack of software (sorry, but it's true), and with Kinect taking over some of the casual audience, but I think Wii will still have 1 last good year.

For MS, a Kinect Price cut is a must. It's hard to justify paying $300 for a Kinect console when Wii is $150.

As for PS3, yes in a month's time sales will rebound. Maybe not to 2009 or 2010 levels (Move boosted PS3 sales a lot last year), but sales will go up. November sales for PS3 may be stronger then 2010 November sales too. I agree, it's just not fair comparing boosts in sales for price cuts affecting two different consoles at two different times of the year. Of course Wii will drop off more quickly, a month after the price cut and it's the very dry summer, where PS3 has the fall boost.

My only point is that the price cut for PS3 will help about as well as the one for Wii did. Same short term affect, and both will help in November /December holiday sales too.