Besides, I like my futuristic fighters, with a bit more curves!
Posted on 08/07/2007 11:16:04 AM PDT by PAR35
SEATTLE (AP) - Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) (MSFT)'s Xbox 360 video game console will be $50 cheaper starting Wednesday, confirming fuzzy snapshots of leaked advertisements posted by bloggers in late July.
The company said its most popular console, which comes with a 20-gigabyte hard drive, will cost $349.
A basic console without a hard drive or wireless controllers will retail for $279, $20 less than its current price, while the Xbox 360 Elite, a black version with a 120-gigabyte hard drive and high-definition video support, will drop $50 to $449.
- snip -
Sony Corp. (SNE) slashed the price of its 60-gigabyte PlayStation 3 to $499, from $599, in early July. Nintendo Corp.'s Wii, the least expensive of the so-called next-generation consoles, costs $250.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.excite.com ...
“Perhaps if they licensed the Wii technology from Nintendo....”
Nintendo is the true innovator here. They are being rewarded.
They can cut it to “free” and I’d still prefer to play on my PC.
Don’t need it. Don’t want it.
They can give the X box away for all I care.
Costing aboout half as much out of the chute didn't hurt, either.
MS is in a serious bind w/ the 360. Their sales have ground to a halt (this price cut was desperately needed during the last holiday season—if not another $50 off the “premium” package) and they are going to find that Sony is going to slowly build momentum and, I think, surpass them (and not nearly as far down the road as many might think.) Nintendo, however, has become a force unto themselves and this gen, effectively, is over insofar as who will come out on top (I would add that I am a “hardcore” gamer and the Wii and DS are breaths of fresh air in a hobby that has, somehow, managed to become more insular despite its huge increase in size over the past decade.)
Truly.
But there ain’t no “Halo 3” for the Wii ;)
If I pick up the 360, “Halo 3” will be the only reason.
The DS is THE hardware to have for the elementary school set.
Nintendo saw where the market was.
I credit X-box, Sony Playstations, and WII’s for the fact that good looking, educated, twenty-something year old gals are going after guys in their mid-thirties who missed this whole fanaticism...
Good job Microsoft!
Although, I cheer this a bit reluctantly because...what does that say about America’s future?
Yes, so its $50 cheaper than it used to be, still $100 more than a Wii, likely to fail 1/3 of the time and offers nothing innovative at all...
XBOX $20 Billion burned and counting... MS stock holders should be demanding Gates head for continuing this failed business.. $20 BILLION in 7 years, its year head start in the marketplace will be whiped out by Sept by the Wii, and HALO is basically all its got to hang its hopes on... and it won’t be enough.
360 is a ~25 Million unit system... it won’t make the division profitable, and MS will lose even more money having to put out another system in a few years.
Nintendo is the only game company in existence today, its what they do and its ALL they do. They make money on every system sold, and have for ages... Some of the very early Gamecubes were sold at a SLIGHT loss, but they were making money on those shortly after release.....
They have pushed gaming experiences and concepts, and continue to do so. Targeted a broader market with an intuitive and fun system and completely changed the gaming experience. Sony and MS are still button mashing FPS land.... While Big N is delivering some of the first Virtual Reality type gaming in a home system.
Metroid Prime 3... T minus 20 Days.
Neither Sony nor Microsoft is going to be market leader with price-points like that, the average consumer just can’t afford it; Plus Nintendo has one Awesome machine in their Wii (I don’t have one’ they’re STILL sold out-other than “bundles” put together by retailers online costing $500).
That being said MS has a 1 year advantage (and going against your opionion-repectfully- MS X360 Machine has a slightly better quality graphically (I’ve seen comparisons on gamespot/IGN, ect). I don’t think Sony’s comming back-However Nintendo is the sure winner with Wii/DS combination!!
Besides, I like my futuristic fighters, with a bit more curves!
A radio station in my town is giving away x-boxes just for going on their website and taking a survey.
MS’s one year advantage has nearly evaporated... Will will have sold more units by Sept/October than MS has sold XBOXS with an entire years head start.
360 has better graphics than the Wii.. SONY has better graphics than either.... but the Wii is more fun than anything else out there. Not only that, but they actually make money when they sell a system.
Until then we're loving our Wii.
I call them Generation ‘X-Box’.
It still won't have the Wii features.
The games are masterpieces compared to the garbage Sony has hoisted on the public with the PS3.
I credit X-box, Sony Playstations, and WII’s for the fact that good looking, educated, twenty-something year old gals are going after guys in their mid-thirties who missed this whole fanaticism...
Good job Microsoft!
Although, I cheer this a bit reluctantly because...what does that say about America’s future?
***
I’d also credit these things with making our kids fat and dumb.
They could cut it to “free” and I’d still prefer my family and my work.
Suck? While pretty much everything EA has released for it has sucked.. but that’s because EA bet on the wrong horse and decided to quick port stuff to the WII late to jump on the bandwagon... as have other game designers that made the same mistakes.
Zelda is a masterpiece. Metroid 3 will completely redifine the first person shooter/adventure. Wii Sports is fun for all ages.. Sure not everyone game released for the system has been a home run, in fact a lot of 3rd party stuff was rush to market because like EA they bet on the wrong horse. Elebits is enjoyable... Paper Mario... etc etc etc.
Now that game shops have paid the heavy price for betting on the wrong horses, you will see 3rd party software improve.
i would not touch an X360 with ten foot pole. the defect rate on these boxes is astonishingly high...
Play Boxing as part of Wii Sports with your kid for 10 minutes, and tell me how lazy your kid is... I play sports between 6 and 10 hours a week on average, and 10 minutes of that against my son I had as good of a sweat going as I get playing sports.
I for one love the Wii, and look forward to the Wii Fitness Board, not so much for the Wii Fitness game that will come with it, but more for how other games will utilize it, like snowboarding, surfing, skiing and skateboarding games.
“They can cut it to “free” and I’d still prefer to play on my PC.”
I feel exactly the opposite way. I got tired of the whole rat-race of PC and video card upgrades necessary to run the latest games, and assorted glitches and what-not. I prefer the gaming experience on a console, where developers know exactly what hardware they’re writing the games for. Of course, I actually have to buy the games that I play.
My only issues with the 360 are its abysmal reliability record, and the amount of heat and noise it produces. The gaming experience has been excellent. They really need to get the next generation of 60-nm process chips out to reduce power consumption (ie heat output) and cost. Also, they never should have had a version with no hard drive. Well, maybe I should have waited and gotten a Playstation 3.
I play on my PC while I watch TV.
$349 and guaranteed to break after 6 months. I was foolish enough to buy an XBox when they first came out, never again. When I took it apart, the DVD player in that thing was about the cheapest POS I ever seen in my life.
Master Chief pwns ALL !!!!
;)
MS reliance on the HD-DVD standard, when Blueray is easily leading the race, is disturbing. Content will decide the winner in the HD DVD races, as with the console games.
How about “Generation X-Lost”
I’ll play what ever Guitar Hero plays best on. Currently PS2 but want the PS3. Only waiting on Guitar Hero III
I'm not a gamer, I'm a freeper.
But..
A few months ago, on vacation to relatives I had occasion to Bowl on a WII.
It was fun. I made the mistake of going through the motions as if I actually had a ball in my hand.
Sore for 3 days!
Same here.
When I was heavily into flight sims (Stick, throttle, pedals - complete HOTAS system) I spend over $1500 a year keeping up to date.
I bought my X-Box solely for Halo and it was worth it.
I’ve bought about five other games, then Halo 2.
Push a button and boot it up.
On-line combat was a cake walk and better than anything PC-related (including the Delta Force series).
Never requires an upgrade and easy enough my kids can turn it on, put in a game or DVD and go to town.
When Halo 3 hits the shelves, I hope prices are down enough on both the console and HD flat panels ;)
GH 2 is supposed to ROCK on the X-Box.
Nintendo knew its market. What most people don’t realize is that the Wii is the way it is primarily because of business decisions. And looking at their sales, they made the right ones.
They realized that most people will not pay more than $250 for a game machine. They realized that it had be small to fit into people’s already crowded entertainment centers. They realized people wouldn’t stand for a loud machine. They also realized that the couch-bound button masher was a bad image in people’s minds about gaming. They also realized that people were not going to string ethernet cable to their living room to play a game online, so they included WiFi out of the box.
Put together all of these and you get the Wii. A small, inexpensive, fanless box that you have to stand up to play the included game.
MS revived HD-DVD from the dead purely in an attempt to hurt Sony.. and it failed. You’ll be picking up 360 HD-DVD player add ons for $50 or less in the wal-mart clearance rack in 8 months or less.
Wii has this generation wrapped up, it will be the biggest installed... it has the broadest appeal, so it has a bigger pool of buyers, a cheaper price point AND it costs considerably less to make a Wii game than a PS3 or 360 game.
The battle will be for 2nd place, and as Blu-Ray clearly is the winner in the HD war, and as HD tv’s get more adoption, PS3 will sell better. Sony hurt themselves short termin the console war to ensure they would win the much more profitable and important hi def DVD format war and that strategy has paid off.
Endgame is going to be Wii in 1st, by a large margin. PS3 will grow slowly as more quality games come to market, price declines and Blu-Ray is the obvious winner.
360 is just a limited system, it will sell about the same number worldwide as the original, which will not be enough to take 2nd place, or remotely anywhere near first.
I see it playing out as Wii, PS3 and 360 in last place.. HALO is not enough, and its all MS has.
Microsoft should have done a backroom deal with Sony to include Blu-Ray on the XBox360 for some $$$ from Sony. That would have been the end of the format wars.
Everyone talks about the Wii....I asked the kids at Starbucks and they all said their parents play them.
Whenever my parents are in town, they demand to play whatever new games I have for the Wii. Bowling is by far their favorite.
Cost control requires innovation, and plenty of it!
I agree.
But, for me, it’s not the platform, IT’S THE GAME and the HALO series is the best thing out there (IMHO).
Like my current X-Box, I’ll gain 10 pounds and lose 8-12 months of my kids lives, but I’m gonna play Halo 3 when the goddamn thing comes out ;)
The Wii is finding favor with senior citizens as a way to get them in motion. Your experience is an example of why the Wii is succeeding in that market. The human body was made to move. The Wii combines the video game with that need to move.
In just two weeks, the 360 will be getting a game that might even be better than Halo (at least the single player, anyway) in Bioshock. That is, if the early reviews are accurate.
Better graphics, yes. Better games, well, that’s up to you but, by and large, it’s more of the same but prettier (and I’m damned tired of more of the same.)
I called some stores, found one and picked it up. Now I have a dozen more requests from their friends. Apparently it has become accepted in the Asian community as an alternative to television.
Are you accusing me of being a sedentary old fart?
Ok, I admit it. ;^)
My Chuck Norris Fu Is Strong. /keyboard commando
My son’s box lasted for a year and MS replaced it 2 weeks ago and it lasted for 3 hrs before it crashed. He is waiting for the second replacement box. Piece of junk.
Pray for W and Our Troops
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