Ah, what we've been waiting for, and all speculation is about.

According to posters at NeoGAF, with actual corresponding pictures (ala the CC $499 PS3 ads), Wal-Mart now has printed flyers with the X360 Premium at $349.

The post can be found at http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=175076&page=7

This is a welcomed sight. With lower(ing) X360 sales numbers, and a significant - 5~7k drop on VGC numbers due to the RROD annoucement, this is sure to increase sales.

Damn, not $100. Are they doing this in Europe too? Wii60 possibility postponed for me.

Will it increase sales by as much as the ps3' s sales increased ?!?!?!?!?!

I would say it won't increase it 100% like the PS3 drop did. However, I think it could brig the X360 upto 50,000 units a week. This is GREAT news due to Madden, Stranglehold, Blue Dragon, Medal of Honor, and Bioshock coming out in the next 4-5 weeks.

A $50 pricedrop, although not what I wished for (I've been advocating a drop since Gears of War's launch last year), I believe there is an inerhant strategy:

Microsoft drops the price $50, and starts clearing out the ~1m remaining X360 consoles left unsold. By the time these consoles are sold (probably right after Halo3 launches, and sells through lots, and lots of units), the Falcon will be in production - saving MS more and more cash, and the more reliable system.

At that time, MS could easily decide to drop the price another $50 before Christmas to dominate the US market in Nov-Dec with a $199 core (as we've heard about).

The point is not to have a 100% increase for one or two weeks, it's to increase sales in a sustainable way, creating momentum. A real price cut is much more effective for that than an hardware upgrade.

So are they losing or making money on each console sold?

And is it just the premium or the core too?

The technology of the X360 is obviously more expensive than Wii: could Nintendo afford to drop their price too?

This is the smartest thing microsoft can do, they might dominate the market period and take on the wii. Unbelieveblie change of view here. Kudos to microsoft for trying there best to when this generation of games.

1. They've been making money on each console sold since Christmas last year. isuppli (the one that gave the prices of each next-gen console Nov last year) had the systems at $175 (Wii), $325 (X360 prem), and $750 (PS3 Prem) respectively.

2. As far as everyone can tell, it's across the board: Core, Prem and Elite

3. Nintendo could, but they aren't in a position that they need to: The Wii is still outselling a cheaper PS3 and X360 combined (barely). Why lower your price when almost every unit is sold out? That makes bad marketing sence. Nintendo will drop the price *only* as early as late next year and only if the PS3/X360 are doing better, and the Wii doing worse, than they are right now.

As long as the Wii is selling ~50k units/wk in the US and Japan, the Wii never should, or would get a pricedrop. They're making too much money to do anything outside of that.

nintendo was thinking of releasin the wii for $299.99 if they new it would sell this good.

Eh. I don't think Nintendo would of....Nintendo has always had consoles at sub-$199 pricing. The Wii is actually the most expensive console the N has ever had. I would agree that Nintendo, having known they'd sell this well, probably would of sold Wii + Wii Sports in Japan for USD equivilant $249, but didn't.

IMO, I think 60% of the reason the Wii is selling so well is the price, not the software or controller. This isn't a bad thing, as it's showing MS/Sony how to treat consumers (not like rich idiots).