Xbox price cut in the US, but not yet in the UK...

It’s console wars time again. Microsoft has announced price cuts for its Xbox 360 in the US, lowering the price of its entry-level console to $50 below Nintendo's top-selling Wii.

The move makes the Xbox 360 the first game machine of this generation of consoles to sell for less than $200, a key mass-market price that Microsoft said has historically accounted for more than 75 percent of all machine sales.

Of course this is all just in time for Christmas.

That's why although just now Microsoft’s PR people in London were saying: “Pricing for Xbox is handled on a region-by-region basis and we do not have a price drop in this region to announce", I’m betting a UK price cut is not far off.

The US price cuts come into effect on September 5 and they are across the board. The entry-level Xbox 360 Arcade, which comes without a hard drive, will be $199 (down from its current price of $279). The mid-range and high-end Xbox 360 are coming down by $50 each.

Basically Microsoft, which wants to turn the Xbox into a platform for much more than gaming in the home, was getting its butt kicked by the Wii and it had to do something.

Microsoft has sold over 20 million Xbox 360 consoles worldwide since its introduction in late 2005 compared to 14.4 million units for the PlayStation 3 and nearly 30 million Wii units since debuting in November 2006. In recent months, even the PlayStation 3 has outsold the Xbox 360 in the United States.

So what price cuts will Nintendo and Sony offer?

Comments

[Mun Yin]

Nice, wouldn't mind an Xbox 360, though I'm already set up in the PS3 camp. I heard somewhere (can't remember where, sorry) that Sony weren't going to be slashing prices as they already replaced the 40GB one with an 80GB one? But I suppose they can't really stand still if Microsoft are making a move.

[Graham]

What I would like is a games station that will play all the different types of games from CD to small cartridge so parents dont have to go and by all the games in different formats for older or new machines