The dollars are near even but Canadians are currently paying $100 more for their premium 360s.

This is probably gonna be a tie situation for 360 and PS3 in the americas. Let´s see what it changes. The Permium model should ge tthe biggest sales boost, maybe a long lasting one which would be great.

But again, there won´t be any PS3 domination starting in September. Lair is not nearly as big as Halo or Bioshock on 360 and the PS3 has literally nothing to compete with Nintendos "Holy Trinity".

 Umm, Elite is going from $480 to $450, a 6.25% drop.

This price cut just seems like a less than half assed attempt to respond to Sony.   It also seems like a tacit admission that losing money on the console to make it back on games is a strategy that hasn't worked and is being abandoned.   Otherwise, I think we would see prices of $200, $250, and $350 for the 3 SKUs.  That would put the 360 at Wii levels of sales (maybe just below it because of the RROD).

Whatever, price is not the only thing making a console sell.

The Wii would sell better than the 360 no matter what it´s price is. At the moment the games on the 360 appeal to the core gamers and core gamers are just 21% of the gaming market.

Louie -

How exactly do you think the X360 appeals only to the core gamer, and absolutely nothing else?

Price helps determine who buys a system: if the X360 is too expensive for "non-core" gamers to buy it, then of course it sells to hardcore owners: They are the ones that feel the need to buy the system.

With a pricedrop, this will allow the non-core buyers to pick up the system. You'll find out very shortly :)

 really I thought it was the RGB one (the 3 connector one I mean)

so basicaly a good picture connection plus a optical for sound is still better than HDMI ???

thanks for the info 

 Ah, that made me look like a fanboy right? :(

Of course I don´t think it sells just to core gamers but mainly.

Maybe I used the wrong words: Nintendo is looking for an audience the 360 and PS3 are not targeting, non gamers (I apologize: casuals was the wrong word in that case), in a dimension Sony and Microsoft do not try to reach them in this gen. They really focus on non gamers this time, trying to bring them back to videogames.

 The 360 will be cheaper soon and that will boost sales, but not to a level the Wii sells I think. Look at Japan, the PSP sells at a strong rate, yet it isn´t able to catch up to the DS because the DS appeals to non-gamers. Does that mean the PSP sells bad? No way, just not as good as the DS.

 Same goes for the 360: At the moment (that´s what I said) it appears mainly to core gamers. Sure some casuals will pick the system up when the price goes down, sure the 360 will sell better than the XBox. But even after the price cut Wii is cheaper than the 360 and has more casual and non-games. It is targeting those people and will get more of them.

 Microsoft still has a long way to reach that audience, but they are doing some first steps now which is good. I clearly think the 360 will sell better in the next few months - much better - with Halo and a Price cut.

I was just answering to whatever who said if the price drop was larger it would automatically boost the 360 sales to a Wii level (= all of a sudden selling on a PS2 level) which I just can´t believe as competition is really strong this time and Sony is targeting the same audience. I don´t see that happening right now.

What if the 360 gets a lot of non/casual games? Well, that´s another story. I could see it happening then.

By the way, Mrstickball: Do you know how to add piecharts to your signature? Or where did you get yours from?

I expect a boost from this but not as big as the PS3 boost, but when Halo 3 comes out there will be a huge boost.

Bioshock and Blue Dragon might help boost sales too but I don't expect them to be huge system sellers.

This price cut will help a bit but won't have any major, long term impacts. (One of the reasons sales have slowed down is because many consumers have been expecting and waiting for a price cut.) MS also needs to consolidate their skus. I think having three main skus (and multiple limited edition ones) is causing some confusion with the average consumer.

This will have no impact to Wii sales. (It'll be similar to how much the PSP price cut affected DS sales.) Wii sales are supply constrained and will remain so through the end of this year. Hopefully Nintendo can get its act together and not face these shortages in 2008.

Steve 3.2:

Why shouldn´t it have a longterm impact? The Permium model will be 50$ cheaper, opening new markets for the 360. Don´t expect sales to skyrocket, of course, but it should have a significant impact and together with Halo and other big games the effect will be even bigger I think.

360 sales don´t effect Wii sales: I agree.