Touche'.

A lot of people are saying Microsoft will drop price as soon as Sony does; but, Microsoft just recently redesigned and added features to the 360 (wifi, bigger HD, etc.). I would think this would make it more difficult for M$ to drop price whenever they so please, bc the system is seemingly more expensive now.

I remember Pachter and others said the same thing back in 2009 when the ps3 pricedrop was rumored. But M$ never did, did they? Didn't they just phase out their mid-level $299 SKU and bring down the $399 SKU to $299? Thus, not really a (true) price drop.

With the recent redesign, can M$ drop the 360's price as readily as some make it seem? I'm not saying it won't happen, but I just don't think the price to produce each 360 is so much less than $299 that M$ can drop the price in the drop of a hat.

Edit: wow, time flew when I was at grad school the past year. Been out of the loop. The 360 slim wasn't released as recent as I thought. Been almost a year. My skepticism still remains, though.

hahahaha!

I seez what you did there!

Typically they do, yeah, except that M$ added several things with the redesign rather than keeping the system the same and concentrating simply on reducing system costs. Adding Wifi couldn't have been a cheap addition, and adding the bigger HD had to cost a bit as well. Otherwise I would totally be with you on this. Like I said, M$ may very well drop the price this year. I just don't think the system production cost is so much less than the system sale price that M$ can drop price as easily as some make it sound.

Why is it still hard for some to admit that the 360 DID have a price cut in '09, just like everyone else.  To me it just seems like an excuse to explain why the PS3 has been selling so well against it, even though they both received a pricecut.  And you say MS will cut by $100 if Sony does.  But won't that just be "adjusting the size of the HDD" like before.  So I guess we can still expect to see the PS3 outsell the 360?  See how that flawed logic works against you sometimes?

As for the second bold, isn't that exactly what the 360 has going for it, as well?  Only the PS3's exclusives seem to be releasing more frequently.

What I don't get is... People think it will be MS responding to the Sony pricecut.

Why? Sony have no reason at all to cut the PS3's price before the 360 cut.

PS3 is profiting. PS3 is outselling the 360. PS3 is currently "winning" the Year. There is really no reason for them to cut the price before MS do. If anything, the recent Wii pricecut could push MS to cut sooner than they wanted to. If the Wii starts stealing the Kinect customers in America, then well... Yeah, the 360 has nothing really. Japan is non existant for them and "EMEAA" is starting to fade away for them too.

Wii cut is now.
360 cut is E3.
PS3 cut is Gamescom.

Also wouldn't be surprised to see another PS3 redesign, or finally releasing a load of different colours.

EMEAA Numbers -

360: 42k
DS: 42k
PSP: 37k
3DS: 33k
Wii: 33k

Saying the PSP is dead outside of Japan is soooooooo wrong! If the PSP is dead outside of Japan then what are the 360, DS, 3DS and Wii outside of America? All 5 of those consoles are within + /- 10% of eachother across "EMEAA".

xbox got a little close to confort this week :/ was this the week when psn was still down?? and sonys numbers in emmeaa and japan were terrible and pokemon is a sales beast are they up to 11mill now? 6 more to go to beat diamond and pearl and doing around 140k-80k a week it should get there some time in 1 and a half years i would guess if it gets bundled up but it should slow down soon

congrats to xbox even though there performance was the same and no gains there still hanging in there with kinect and gears hype i wonder how they will do when june rolls along with infamous?

HDD prices continually drop. 2 years ago the size that was most cost effecient was the 120GB drives. Last year for the same money the 250GB drives became the most cost effecient. This year it will be the 320GB-500GB drives. So MS/Sony change the size of the drives to keep costs down.  This is why the 2009 cancellation of the Elite wasnt a price reduction it was an SKU reduction.  If they had done it in 2 steps then there would be no argument. MS adjusted the SKUs down to 2. One without HDD and one with and got rid of the unit with the larger HDD. MS also removed items that they now sell outside of the box. Yes you can get 3rd party, but like Sony they hope uneducated consumers by the official product. WiFi is cheap and was easily a quick throw in.

The financial results from MS division shows that the 360 is very profitable and can easily drop price, not to mention MS also gets to drop price on Kinect as well.  PS3 still isnt making much money, it is finally profitable, but Sony wont drop the price and produce losses again. Not to mention the PSN outage costs and I mean the immediate expenses associated with getting the network back in operation, the losses in profit and revenue from operations, and finally the long term costs associated with fines and lawsuits are all going to eat into profit and revenue.

This all adds up to 360 is a better position to drop price. It has been a year longer than PS3.  We are approaching the end of 360 year 6 and in 360 history the non HDD model has dropped $100 and the HDD model has dropped $100 from the initial launch.   Still I think MS will wait for Sony to drop the PS3 in price b4 they make a move. Possible exception is Kinect. I could see them drop the price of Kinect and 360s with Kinect 1st.

PS3 in Japan also had plenty of fairly big titles delayed due to the quake did they not? That alone hurt their momentum.

As for you question, if PS3 EMEAA sales are considered terrible than everyone else is considered... uhh... dying?

I have a good point too considering people say PSP is dying everywhere but Japan.