I'm thinkin $299.99 for Elite, however the big thing they could do is give the Arcade a real HDD.

This scenario makes the most sense. Elite competing directly with the PS3 Slim, and the Arcade appealing to people on a budget.

many xbox 360 players are going to be too busy playing ODST or MW 2 to even care about PS3's sudden success this coming holiday. You will see.

I keep on forgetting Halo: ODST is coming out.

I see this too...maybe they will launch a new sku with a much larger 300GB HD.

the elite price drop/sku swap will happen probably tomorrow. Although, with them taking out the hdmi cable to me it seems more like they are upgrading the pro to a 120 gig hardrive instead of dropping the price of the elite.

Personally, I don't think it will be that effective at countering the ps3 price drop. Unlike previous years, sony has a really good line up. Factor in a huge price drop and sony has effectively boosted thier momentum going forward IMO beyond what microsoft has.

I think the ps3 will be able to make up 3 to 4 million of the gap in the next year. However, next fall, Microsoft will unveil Natal and their own price drop that will switch the gears back in their favor for the remainder of this generation.

Thats my prediction anyway...

M$ has been far better is strategic planning this generation...so I'm sure they have something cooking up...maybe not to announce tomorrow, but definitely before the heavy holiday season.  Just to refresh the memories of people:

“Microsoft executive Aaron Greenberg has told Edge Online that they expect a PlayStation price cut soon.

Microsoft's recent sales success has been powered by sweeping price cuts for Xbox 360 but Sony has been slow in following suit.

"We absolutely expect the PS3 price drop to happen in the next couple of months," explains Aaron Greenberg. "We're frankly surprised it's taken this long... I would expect they'd have to move on price, sooner than later, for sure."

With Xbox 360 and Wii now considered the cheaper consoles, do you think a PS3 price cut would have any major impact on the console wars at this stage?"

http://www.oxm.co.uk/article.php?id=7711

So, if M$ has been planning for a possible PS3 price cut as early as March…and they were thinking about this in Janurary, and it’s now August…hmmmm….seems like they have had ample amount of time to formulate a executable strategy with multiple contingencies for what Sony might do.  Here’s the thing about…this move has almost been expected for the last 2 months, so I’m quite sure M$ has a planned response.  What’s it going to be…dunno…but they have had ample time to think about a response.  The question I REALLY have is what Nintendo is going to do…the Wii is going to take a beating in Japan, unless they do something…maybe a $50 shave…maybe even a shave to $179…which would void the PS3’s advantage against that platform.

If I was MS I'd wait and see how PS3 performs before pressing button on any price changes.

1) I wouldn't want to look like I was falling over to keep my product cheaper - that's close to admitting that at the same price the other product is superior and they are simply the cheaper brand

2) I wouldn't want to give away margin I didn't have to - I'd want to gauge the degree of boost the PS3 price cut gives then determine the best price point for my product based on that, rather than base it on estimates of that boost

3) 360 is selling fine at current price point given economy and is now very secure in US. They have time to wait and see a little before jumping the gun

4) Clearly MS already have a response and SKU change lined up, and it would look better to stick to that rather be seen to knee-jerk respond to a competitor.


Of course, if PS3 sales skyrocket then MS will quickly push through some fairly big cuts to counter it - but until they saw evidence for that I suspect they'll stick to plan and see what sales PS3 has over next 4 weeks. They have an 8M unit buffer, they can afford to lose some of that to make a considered response rather than rushing anything.

The interesting thing is even die hard xbots want 360 price cut... I have more faith in the box then you lol

Microsoft needs to stay calm right now and see what happens. There is no reason to react if PS3 sells 125k a week while MS moves 105k-110k systems. The most agressive and probably effective would be Arcade price drop.

BTW Does MS lose money on Arcade?

I believe the last projections had them at a slight loss on the Arcade model with profits on the Pro and Elite models.