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Xbox Pricing: Microsoft Travels Middle Of Road, Presumably Plans Not To Get Run Over
Electronics | Jul 20, 08
Microsoft’s new Xbox 360 will have a 60 gigabyte hard drive and list for $349, placing it between a costlier Sony PlayStation 3 and the lower-end Nintendo Wii.
Ahead of the August release of the 60 GB model, Redmond also said it would drop the price of the current 20 GB Xbox to just under $300 until current supplies are exhausted, and indeed several merchants on PriceSCAN.com offering the older system at $299.99. By contrast, the PS3 is offered at $399.99, and while its hard drive is only 40 GB, the extra $50 gets you a built-in Blu-ray player, not a bad deal when one considers the cheapest stand-alone Blu-ray player goes for over $200. Meanwhile, Nintendo’s Wii captures the low-priced market at just under $250.
According to a recent report by Bloomberg (quoting NPD Group data) in the first five months of 2008, PlayStation 3 unit sales edged out Xbox 360 1.2 million to 1.12 million, but the big volume is to be found on the cheap side, with Nintendo moving 2.8 million Wii players.
So does Microsoft believe an extra 20 GB and fifty bucks less beats a Blu-ray- sporting PS3 while trumping a wildly popular Wii that’s $150 cheaper than the new Xbox? This strategy sounds a bit more robust when one considers Redmond’s alliance with Netflix, which will reportedly make some 10,000 streamed movies and television programs available this fall to Xbox Live Gold members who subscribe to Netflix. When combined with current Xbox Live Video Marketplace offerings, this makes Microsoft’s value proposition compelling when compared with Sony’s PS3 based video download service; reports have the latter offering some 300 movies and 1200 television episodes from Sony, Warner, Fox, Lionsgate, Paramount and Disney.
To be sure, Sony’s offerings will include high-def Blu-ray content, but such material will reportedly only be available for rental, not purchase. Netflix’s streams for Xbox will apparently not be in high-def, but HD content is available from the Xbox Live Video Marketplace. In any case, if Microsoft and Netflix can deliver a broader array of desirable video content then Sony, a larger hard drive and lower price may give the new Xbox an edge against the PS3, Blu-ray notwithstanding. That said, sooner or later the Microsoft/Netflix alliance may well have to address high-def to stay competitive as Sony expands its offerings As for Nintendo’s little wonder, perhaps in the new age of video stream and download-enabled game consoles, the number one seller will seem just a “Wii”-bit lightweight, but, then again, that huge fan base may be having too much fun playing with their controllers to even notice.
Posted by jeffrey.trester (Permalink)
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