I've been expecting one for a while. I suspect what's happening is MS and Sony aren't pressuring each other, while the Switch is $300. So they're just happy to be making a profit.

If either does a price, the other would just do the same. Thus lowering profit and keeping competition equal really. This is why people should just wait for random deals or Black Friday.

Hmm, quite interesting. Seems like price drops became less strong over time. And that the more expensive competition drops fast to match the competitor.

Not sure this chart is accurate anyway. MS are selling the X1S for 239,- including F4, RDR2 and a 30 Euro Live card where I live (Germany).

I've noticed that over the years, the price on software drops faster and faster, especially used games at Gamestop.  However, new games drop to $40 then $20 just after a few months.  They may have to keep hardware prices up longer to compensate the lower profit on software.  I was surprised how long it took the PS3 price to come down, and I am even more surprised how hesitant they are to drop the PS4 price.

I have found in mzy area (Ab, Canada) that retailers have become a lot tougher, games disappear off the shelves instead of getting endkess discounts. I feel like Wii/ HD twins wass peak discount time...but maybe that is just here?

As for HW prices, I don't know if Nintendo, Sony or MS get lower "cuts" just because the games are discounted...seems unlikely. But true for first party sw, for sure. I wonder if Satoru Iwata has had anything to do with it? He noted that GameCube got only a small temporary boost fromthe 99 price cut, and I think he correctly identifiied that increasing value with great games is better than price cuts.  Definitely influential on Nintendo pricing, maybe leaked over to the competition?

Good points. 

I live in the US and here I see software prices drop fast, especially at Gamestop.  It's common now to see a new game go from $60 to $40 in about 3 months or so, and sometimes it gets down to $20 before the year is over.  This is for PS4 and XB1 games.  Nintendo games drop their prices much slower, especially the first party games.

I do think software has some influence over price cuts.  In the past, home consoles would drop in price quickly while handhelds got fewer price cuts (and still do in fact).  Handheld consoles have a lower tie ratio, so they can't afford to cut the price on a handheld device as much.  They need to make a little money on the handheld hardware, because they aren't making as much on the software.

Another factor on hardware price, for Sony at least, could just be adjusting to the competition.  When they released the PS1 and PS2, they were competing with Nintendo and Sega and making consoles of similar power (with Sony tending toward the weaker end).  Sony didn't have the experience in making games at the time that these two established game companies had, but they had a lot more capital.  The main way they could compete is keeping their hardware price low.  This included frequent price cuts.

Nowadays, things are very different for Sony.  Sega is gone from the hardware side, and Nintendo is intentionally making the weaker console.  Instead Microsoft is the company with the deepest pockets and the least game making experience.  So they need to make sure their game library is consistently better than Microsoft's, since hardware power is going to be similar.  So now price cuts are less important for Sony, but investing in their first party lineup has become more important.

Bought my Xbox One (without Kinect) in May 2015 (so 1.5 years after launch) for €256 (shipping & taxes included).

The Xbox1S could have been bought for an average 249.- for the entire year now (those are end prices for bundles with 3-4 games and a Live card). Sometimes the cheapest bundle was 199.-. Meanwhile, Sony increased the list price to 329.- from 299.- for the plain box (end of old ram deal?). t seems MS has to sell its console at a significant loss to actually sell it outside the States (though the average bundle price has also increased in the past weeks, but is still way, way, way lower than for the PS4)

As someone else said, these 500GB consoles are still very popular and in stock and have been selling for less than $300 for months. And as others have pointed out, Xbone has been less than that price for awhile now too.

Hell when I saw this thread and checked Sonys own website they still were linking to Walmart and the 500GB SKU.

Yeah, I think this is a factor too.  There are several factors. 

Although I'm still not convinced Sony will release the PS5 after 2019.  One reason that the last generation was so long was because Sony backed themselves into a corner by making the PS3 so powerful (and consequently really expensive).  IIRC correctly, the PS3 came down to $400 in 2008.  So that is only a 5 year gap between the PS3 at $400 and PS4 launch of $400 in 2013.  Once you account for the huge price of the PS3, it actually didn't take them an unusually long time to release PS4.  The unusual part was actually the high power of the PS3 when it was first released.