shikamaru317 said:
You guys are forgetting, if they sprung this announcement at E3 those who bought the Xbox One in May and the first week of June will get pissed off because they just paid an extra $100. This whole move is about being consumer friendly, from offering free games with Gold, to removing the paywall on aps, to offering a kInect-less option to those who don't like Kinect, to giving consumers forewarning of a price drop. There would have been hate articles spreading bad publicity ofr Microsoft just like their were for the Titanfall bundle at $450. By getting the Kinectless bundle announcement out of the way early they've given forewarning to potential purchasers to preorder the Kinect-less bundle instead and avoided that hate storm. They also now have the perception on their side that their E3 conference must be amazing if they decided to announce this move before E3. Besides, if they announced it at E3 Sony's conference is still several hours after Microsoft's, Sony's Board of Directors would still have time to have a meeting and decide on a price drop before Sony's conference. Regardless, I don't see Sony doing anything price/bundle wise to counter this move, the PS4 is one of the few profitable products Sony has, manufacturing costs drops since launch would only allow maybe a $30 price cut without selling the console at a loss. Sony doesn't really need to do anythign to counter this, they will still hold the global lead even with Xbox One at $400. Sony likely will bring nearly every game they have to E3 this year and hold very few games back, but Microsoft is bringing the games this year too according to Phil. |
That's why you 'leak' that a price cut might be coming and then announce it with a Bang. This way the more hardcore fans will be on the loop feeling like having previleged sources, but the unsuspecting people would buy it anyway and not give 2 shits or even be aware that the price fell after they bought the system.
But hey, that's just my take :)
Like I said before, I don't expect anything to change for the better in MS's point of view on the console race, much to the contrary.