They may SCRAP the arcade & instead introduce the "pro" with a hard drive back at $199.

That could be an approach, they will be adding value to the purchase.

It would devalue the xbox 360 as it just had a series of price reductions. You need to space price cuts or you will start alienating customers who just purchased your product

Seems incredibly unlikely.  The PS2 was selling for $130 just six months ago.

Meh, not really.  Especially when the last price cuts were a year ago.  Shifting the Elite to the "Pro" price is nothing more than upgrading the pro at the same price point.  It was just easier this way and the Elite nominclature will help people think it is more valuable since the Elite was always the best SKU.

But we'll see.

i might buy it.

xanderzane said

....Pretty much and coming in 2nd is irrelevant. I guess it would mean more to Microsoft, but for Sony, it's really irrelevant because they were 1st the last two generations prior. When you're first, you don't want to come in 2nd or 3rd ever

what does that even mean......

Microsoft makes their money off of Live and attachments, so frankly they could probably reduce the price to 129.99 and get away with it. That said, I do probably see a 50 dollar price cut in the works. It would reverse the tide in Europe and give them the knockout punch they need in the USA, but it won't really affect Japan at all.

And lets be frank. They have sold over 100k units per week since late August. It's really not like they are begging for sales.

It's only been about a year since the last Arcade price cut. I think they are okay to do so as long as they wait until holiday season.

You also have to factor in that the Arcade unit is for the casual gamer/family unit, so its not so much about what the price was, but rather the fact that they can purchase an Xbox 360 and still have 150 dollars to work with, as opposed to a 299$ Slim. It would be a great move, but who knows if they'll actually make it.

Nintendo and Sony will play the parpherial game saying to get the true value out of a 150 xbox, you will need to pay for the following:

wifi, HDD blah blah we know the routine, also that price point brings in more competition from the Nintendo DS and PSP which in terms of casuals the Xbox will lose 99.9% of the time.

Until internal components become cheaper a $199 xbox is fine, they can add a hdd or bundle a full game and it will have better results than a price cut imo of course.

You give Sony's momentum too much credit. They will probably win September NPD over 360 but they may not even win October and on.

And as long as 360 is doing good in USA I dont think MS is worried.

Look at how long PS3 was pummeled by 360, many months, and Sony just stood and took it. MS can take it for a few months too and it wont be the end of the world.

We also have yet to see where PS3 sales will stabilize. They havent stabilized yet in Japan and are still going down, so I think it's safe to assume thats the case for the rest of the world as well.

I dont expect any Microsoft price cuts this year.