Xbox One Available for $349 in the U.S. This Holiday Season

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

I must be the only one who doesn't see this as a good thing, and that includes the sharp price drop of the PS4 too.

 

The idea was to sell the consoles for at-cost value because selling at a loss "didn't work". Now all they're doing is giving away the hardware at a loss to make up for the poor sales. In the end we're stuck with the under powered hardware and they still lose money :no:

 

Did you fall and knock your head Andy? :P

 

We're almost a year on, I'd like to assume if there will be a loss with these cuts, it could be quite small now.

[Showan]

Yes, that's what I said. There's not a problem with the SKU itself, there's a problem that it was the only SKU.

 

There's also the problem that Microsoft still needs to make better use of Kinect, but that's another matter entirely. I still think it's worth the additional cost, but there's so much potential that Microsoft's left on the table. It certainly doesn't help that it gave up on Kinect games before the Xbox One even launched.

 

I think people would have been more tolerable if it were the only sku w/Kinect at the $399 price point.

 

And from what I hear, Dance Central (as usual) and Fantasia as pretty good Kinect games... These should have been available at launch to help Kinect's cause...

 

Im personally a fan of Kinect...but i'm in the minority...

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

Did you fall and knock your head Andy? :p

 

We're almost a year on, I'd like to assume if there will be a loss with these cuts, it could be quite small now.

 

Don't get me wrong, it's good for the consumer (in a sense), but these cuts were happening as early as March. This US promotion is obviously the most recent one and we haven't reached the festive season where prices will be cut even more. We'll be at half the original RRP before 18 months at this rate.

 

The 360 is still ?200 9 years later for comparison sake! Discount the price of the games in this X1 bundle and you're almost on par with the price of the hardware alone: http://www.shopto.net/video-games/xbox-one/XB1HW100-xbox-one-console-evil-within-alien-isolation-forza-5-dead (if you use a "generous" ?40 RRP per game and ?30 for the older titles).

[greenwizard88]

I think people would have been more tolerable if it were the only sku w/Kinect at the $399 price point.

 

And from what I hear, Dance Central (as usual) and Fantasia as pretty good Kinect games... These should have been available at launch to help Kinect's cause...

 

Im personally a fan of Kinect...but i'm in the minority...

 

I suspected ever since the disastrous launch that the xbox one was supposed to release this christmas, not last christmas, but Sony pushed their hand. Had it launched this christmas, they would have had so many wonderful games and a fleshed out UI. They could have announced backgrounds as "coming soon", and pleasantly surprised everyone when it was rolled out just a month later in time for Christmas.

[Vandalsquad]

Don't get me wrong, it's good for the consumer (in a sense), but these cuts were happening as early as March. This US promotion is obviously the most recent one and we haven't reached the festive season where prices will be cut even more. We'll be at half the original RRP before 18 months at this rate.

 

The 360 is still ?200 9 years later for comparison sake! Discount the price of the games in this X1 bundle and you're almost on par with the price of the hardware alone: http://www.shopto.net/video-games/xbox-one/XB1HW100-xbox-one-console-evil-within-alien-isolation-forza-5-dead (if you use a "generous" ?40 RRP per game and ?30 for the older titles).

 

I don't think the consoles cost anywhere near as much to produce this gen compared to last. I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see a shrunken X1 at this stage next Christmas or the one after at latest. 

 

I still don't see the issue here..? But I'm sure some we'll paid accountants have crunched the numbers and realised that the revenue gold, games attachment, accessories etc brings in for every console sale they can steal from the competition instead of losing to Sony more then makes up for the $50 discount over the life time of the console. 

 

I believe they're starting to look at this like mobile providers. Do we give the phone away for cost or free to have a continual greater income over the next few years? or do we let the competition sign that person instead? Sony and Microsoft make the majority of their money off anything but the console. 

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

I don't think the consoles cost anywhere near as much to produce this gen compared to last. I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see a shrunken X1 at this stage next Christmas or the one after at latest. 

 

I still don't see the issue here..? But I'm sure some we'll paid accountants have crunched the numbers and realised that the revenue gold, games attachment, accessories etc brings in for every console sale they can steal from the competition instead of losing to Sony more then makes up for the $50 discount over the life time of the console. 

 

I believe they're starting to look at this like mobile providers. Do we give the phone away for cost or free to have a continual greater income over the next few years? or do we let the competition sign that person instead? Sony and Microsoft make the majority of their money off anything but the console. 

 

That was the old way of doing things, but they both changed strategy this generation. Ultimately in the end they've gone back to the old ways and sell at loss to make it up with software, digital and accessories as before.

 

Why I'm annoyed is because we're stuck with the mobile internals in the consoles that were planned, designed and sold using with their optimistic new strategy.

 

They've gone full circle for nothing in other words and we have rubbish hardware for 5 years as a result.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Don't get me wrong, it's good for the consumer (in a sense), but these cuts were happening as early as March. This US promotion is obviously the most recent one and we haven't reached the festive season where prices will be cut even more. We'll be at half the original RRP before 18 months at this rate.

The 360 is still ?200 9 years later for comparison sake! Discount the price of the games in this X1 bundle and you're almost on par with the price of the hardware alone: http://www.shopto.net/video-games/xbox-one/XB1HW100-xbox-one-console-evil-within-alien-isolation-forza-5-dead (if you use a "generous" ?40 RRP per game and ?30 for the older titles).

To be fair I did see the sunset bundle going for ?280 or ?289 on HUKD. Crazy price.

[George P Global Moderator]

These systems aren't as custom as the last gen ones are, they'll drop in price faster, heck, people are questioning how long they'll be on the market period, nature of going x86, we see it on the PC side.    If both come out with new systems in 5 years but keep backwards compatibility, because we're still using x86 and they don't come up with some crazy custom stuff again, then the model just changed from what it was.    And it's less of an issue overall if they come out a bit quicker with newer hardware because your games will still run, and newer games could still run on the older ones, though not as well.    Would be a interesting twist if that were the case actually.

[spaceelf]

I wouldn't be surprised at all with a five year turnaround IF any of the major tech breakthroughs we've been told about actually come to market.  So far it's been year after year after year of 'coming soon' and nothing to show for it.

 

Probably why these consoles were so late coming, IMO...they expected the market to be changing more than it did as well.

[spenser.d]

I still think it'll be closer to 7 years. There's a lot of money to be made by prolonging the life of consoles.

[vcfan]

how crazy would that be if they shaved off another $50 for black Friday :|