Yesterday I was in Media Markt Groningen. It's true.

Man.. then they really shoud advertise that.. cause I only see:

And that's after the cashback action... note the big * at the price... why wouldn't they advertise that....
And strange that http://www.budgetgaming.nl/ doesn't mention it on their site.. cause they always search for cheap hardware & games in the Netherlands.. (I love that site) not even in the news section!! Mike buy me one.. fast!

@ NiKKoM

The questions you have to ask here are "Is it really worth it?", and "Is it having any real effect?". The answer to both is a resounding "No."

Let's look at the region you first brought up, Japan. The PS3 has been rather dead from the start, and the 360's sales have been outright dead, so the truckloads of money that they spent securing titles like Blue Dragon, Eternal Sonata, ToV, etc, coupled with all the money they've lost on price cuts has proven to be more costly than what it's really worth it.

Even in Europe, the 360's sales right now are high due to the holiday season. Prior to that, even after the second price cut, the sales difference was rather minimal, and the PS3 even outsold it one week before the holidays began. After the holidays are over, 360 sales will return the normal, and even if it's still ahead of the PS3, the sales difference will be rather minimal, certainly not what it is now.

You might be able to anwer in the affirmative to the aforementioned questions if the 360 was the market leader this generation, but that's not the case. Nothing that Microsoft has done has had any real effect on the PS3's sales. That can be credited to Sony's own mistakes, and if you want to bring up another console being bought instead of the PS3, then that is easily the Wii, not the 360.

So you see, MS's repeated attempts to hurt Sony haven't had any significant effect. What has had a significant effect is Sony's own blunders and the sucess of the Wii, the latter of which has also hurt Microsoft.

Gee.. I'm good for the money.. I'll pay you back.. heck even with shipping it to Eindhoven your Xbox360 at the mediamarkt in groningen is cheaper then the one at the mediamarkt Eindhoven..

I'm not sure about that. Getting developers' attention away from the PS3 caused a drought in Japanese PS3 titles. Although it didn't improve 360's sales much, it's plausible that it hurt PS3 sales further than they were already hurting.

Regarding Europe, you're right that the gap to the PS3 isn't big, but that's the whole point. Look at how much market share the Playstation brand has lost. That's partly due to the Wii, and partly due to the 360 price cuts. I'm not saying this particular temporary price cut will have a big effect, but it's one more thing hurting the PS3/360 gap.

Yeah I would think that the region crying out for extra attention from Microsoft would be the 'we're losing 3:1 against the PS3 Japan'...not the region that's currently (almost) 2:1 in their favour...if they want to hit Sony where it hurts they'll drop the price there, increase marketing and bundle Last Remnant. I don't understand this move either.

Are you serious? Better double check your Eindhoven store first.

If you did so, I can help. You will have to transfer the money (including posting costs) to my bank account first. Send me a private message.

@NiKKoM and MikeB: Aren't you guys comparing the Arcade with the Premium?