Yes its relevant.

But its not happening too soon. Natal is gonna probably own E3(based on novelty,if nothing else). THE public/press reaction will pretty much set the bar there. Otherwise.. I'd say a price cut is imminent this year. It will boost sales in EUROPE mainly- where the 360 has taken the biggest hit on lead.

Japan is a lost cause until a slimbox is introduced, IMO.

NA at this point doesnt matter because it would take nothing less than AN ABSOLUTE MIRACLE for PS3 to even level 360.

NATAL will fail but yes, price drops are always relevant..

EVERY single price drop this gen has made a major impact for the console.. yet every price drop the haters say: OMG IT WONT HELP HAHA and the lovers say: OMG HAHA :Enterrivalconsolehere: IS DOOMED!!! HAHAH


Price drops are what matters.. not motion technology.. wii has that.. HD has games

There were rumors in Japan mid-last year about a 360 slim, with several "no comments" from MS Tokyo reps.  I half wonder if we won't see a new shell case to go with the inevitable price cut and Natal launch this fall?

Natal will be big at E3, but I tend to think the big core sequels coming this year (Gears 3, Zelda, Reach, Galaxy 2, GT5, etc) will take most of the oxygen.  If rumors are to be believed, Natal's been scaled back a bit in terms of what the original rollout was planned to be...

$18 per console would only be correct if the $349 SKU didn't exist.  That's PlayStation University's fuzzy math at work, the original source says "six cents loss on the dollar for hardware".

Yea.. I remember those.. I really wonder who works in management/engineering coz It shdnt be hard to construct a microMB and create a slim, replace that aging tray disc with slot loading, throw in massive fan ('ala PS3) and save millions in the process. Best part.. It would sell millions too. Especailly in japan.

It is after all 5 yr old hardware. I have no idea what monkeys MS has hired...

How quickly people forget.

What happened in November 2007?
What happened in September 2008?
What happened in September 2009?

ONE of the HD consoles had a price cut, and it tipped sales in its own favour massively.

So yes, if the 360 gets a price cut and Sony doesn't match the cut, then the 360 will begin to outsell the PS3 again.

actually the quote is

“Sony loses about six cents for every dollar of PlayStation 3 hardware sales.”

I only brought this up because it has a very different nuance from what yours says. People who are saying that the number doesn't include shipping and such could be right or could be wrong. But it's obvious from the quote that those people do not have factual support for their statements. The fuzzy math could be from an average of both SKU sales, on average. But if that is true, then it is likely that the number DOES actually include shipping and other costs. Why skew facts in order to reach another skew? It makes much more sense to find the best fact and spin the reasoning as to why we should use that number.

If the fuzzy math does not exist, I still think their number includes shipping and such because of the quote presented above. It says "for every dollar of ps3 hardware sales", not "for every dollar of ps3 hardware". The original quote is actually quite direct and simplistic. For this reason, I think that the fuzzy math does exist, and includes all extra costs, meaning, 18$ per 299$ and 21$ per 349$ console. This is recouperable with 2 software sales or 1 game + 1 controller.

Sony won't be catching up anytime soon. Sure, they have been outselling xbox lately but not by that much. It would take quite a number of years at the current rate to catch up. And xbox has a lot of big things planned this year..natal, espn360, all the AAA titles that sell millions such as halo reach and so on and you know MS will market the hell out of the those products and have every little kid begging their parents for it at Christmas. Either way, competition is good for all of us in the end. And I don't know why people keep saying natal will fail..it's not even out yet to judge.

Ignoring all other factors (games, Natal, Arc, etc.) a 360 price cut would boost sales of hardware but the people waiting for the price cut to buy a 360 will have very little return on software sales(opting to buy reduced priced games or used games) and a very low percentage would be paying for Live's subscription. The reason for that is obviously that if money was the sole factor in not buying a 360 then that consumer probably doesn't have a lot of money to buy games, accessories, live, etc. Also the 360 has already had an entry price point of $200, so even if it wasn't the most desirable SKU, you would have to assume that the arcade eroded a lot of the impact on a sales boost that cutting the price of other 360 SKU's to $200 would have.

The 360 is already passed the point of acceptance as well so even if the price cut increases the user base it will hardly impact the mainstream/casual appeal of the console. The only place it might work is in Japan but I still doubt that as the country seems to be set in it's ways, at least for this generation.

Another thing to consider if xbox does pricecut will Sony even match it? They are already losing money with each playstation do you think they will want to lose more?