| Shadow1980 said: I think that if MS was in the position to offer a price cut, they would have issued one by now. Right now I think they may be more concerned with profitability than by winning the holidays. They've failed to outpace the PS4 even at a $50 lower price throughout 2015. The PS4 has sold 19% more units this year than the XBO as of September. That the XBO won last holiday season at a lower price point than the XBO may have been due to a combination of the price cut being initially announced as temporary (thus producing a rush of people scrambling to get it before the cut expires) and less picky holiday shoppers going with the cheaper option (think parents buying a console for their kid, kinda like how my parents got me a Genesis for Christmas '91 because it was $50 cheaper than the SNES at the time, even though I would have preferred the SNES). While the reduction to $350 has narrowed the gap quite a bit, it still has only resulted in a single monthly victory this year, and that's apparently because several retailers were running big deals for the XBO. MS may not be able to get away with the "temporary holiday price cut" thing again, so even if they did reduce the price, it'd have to be a permanent price cut. But even then, after seeing how the XBO has performed this year against the more expensive PS4, such a cut might not be able to guarantee them victory again this holiday like it did last year. It would guarantee them tens of millions in lost revenue, though. I think MS is simply going to ride this out, deal with the XBO being back at parity with the PS4, and settle for a more profitable second place rather than cut into their profits for a potential U.S. victory. |
Yes, that's where we are at for certain. I still think we may see a deal here are there but in my opinion that will only be to clear any left over stock. MS have to ballance this carefully unless they want to risk retailers not wanting to stock as many XB1s for fear of having unsold stock clogging up valuable space in their warehouses. Less ordered stock will lead to less consoles required and that reverberates right back to AMD and future orders, which are likely going to cost MS more because of having to order less (I would assume there's a deal in place for reductions in price for bulk orders?). This is the slippery slope that MS find themselves in and I can't see MS being able to overship in the future to inflate numbers for their shareholders; something I predicted earlier this year given a situation we see now. It's clear they've decided against that with the recent announcement of only reporting LIVE attachment rates and not consoles. I don't think MS are hiding console sales with this latest move but rather consoles shipped because they're no longer in a position to fool anyone. The console race is finished and profit is what shareholders want and love the most.
The PS5 Exists.
