Xbox360 Pricing, 2 Models at Launch 621
Tom writes "According to news in the LA Times, Microsoft will release two Xbox 360 packages when the console is launched later this year. The basic package will retail for $299 and will not include a hard disk, nor will it include a wireless controller, instead shipping with a wired pad.
The second package will retail for $399 and will include a 20 Gb hard disk, wireless controller, wireless headset, Ethernet cable and remote control. No release date has been revealed, but a mid to late November date is expected."
This is news how? (Score:1, Insightful)
Who am I kidding, this is
well, that will probably be bad (Score:5, Insightful)
I assume you'll still be able to use it for saving games, but what about multiplayer stuff? Are new levels going to go on the memory card? And didn't I read something about MS using HUGE memory cards for the Xbox 360? Like, 1Gigabyte cards or something?
I'm just surprised they would split the market like that. But they're MS, they're crazy.
Re:Dumbest "Package" Ever (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell me, have you seen the front of the console??? The Memory Slots are RIGHT THERE!!
I'd say the $399 deal is pretty good considering it comes with just about everything, and given the fact that you can't buy a laptop hard drive yourself for under $70
Cutting it close on the release date (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dumbest "Package" Ever (Score:2, Insightful)
And yes, if you've been paying *any* attention at all, the Xbox 360 will have memory card slots. They're very, very visible on the front of the console.
Re:Dumbest "Package" Ever (Score:3, Insightful)
A potential customer looks at the price of the standard package, then looks at the price of the deluxe one... "So I get all this stuff for a little bit more money? Ring me up!"
Plus it'll look nice in the catalogue... "Xbox 360, only $299!". Joe Average buys it for his kids, as it's "cheaper than those other consoles", not knowing it's about as useful as a brick without a hard drive.
Just like SEGA (Score:1, Insightful)
Actual LA Times link (Score:5, Insightful)
The actual link to the original story is here [latimes.com].
Where the hell are they getting 20GB drives? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dumbest "Package" Ever (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Where the hell are they getting 20GB drives? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Don't get caught up in pre-release rumors (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:UK buyers screwed again? (Score:3, Insightful)
I figured it to be VAT and import taxes.
Re:Not a bad deal (Score:3, Insightful)
-Jesse
Ignoring the inherant dangers... (Score:1, Insightful)
It just works (Score:4, Insightful)
Wasn't one of the main reasons people said they preferred console games to PC games because they didn't have to worry about their system being able to handle running the game? Because it "just works"? Now console gamers have to be mindful of system requirements as well.
Wait, so... (Score:2, Insightful)
Two different versions... And the more expensive version doesn't even come with a wireless adapter... that's another HUNDRED bucks.
Baaaaaaad move on Microsoft's part. Out of fear that their games won't sell as well, publishers are going to have to design their games to not need the hard drive... either that, or everyone without a hard drive is going to have an expensive paperweight when games still require the hard drive.
This is going to lead to a fragmentation of the Xbox owning public, which is a bad thing for everybody... the consumer, and the gaming companies.
Re:Actual LA Times link (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not a bad deal (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure they've had some psychologist work on that. That way, you draw the attention away from the $400 price tag and towards all the extras you get for $100. Same way burger joints typically have an "extreme" burger to make the "big" menu seem more "normal". It works wonders. I know many people that are that way, you make them pick the "good" deal in a set of bad deals, and they're happy with making a good deal.
I particularly remember one time I was with my mom buying an appliance for me, and she insisted on getting a 150$ more expensive one because she was getting $40 off, and it had absolutely no value to me over the cheaper one. Somehow that was a better deal than buying the cheaper one at retail price. I call it $110 down the toilat. I think the historic quote is this one:
"It is not because of the few thousand francs which would have to be spent to put a roof over the third-class carriages or to upholster the third-class seats that some company or other has open carriages with wooden benches. What the company is trying to do is to prevent the passengers who can pay the second class fare from traveling third class; it hits the poor, not because it wants to hurt them, but to frighten the rich. And it is again for the same reason that the companies, having proved almost cruel to the third-class passengers and mean to the second-class ones, become lavish in dealing with first-class passengers. Having refused the poor what is necessary, they give the rich what is superfluous." - Jules Dupuit, 1849
Kjella
Re:I've solved which of the next gen systems to bu (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:well, that will probably be bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Then there are games which could use it. For example, to download patches, extra levels and so forth.
Then there is MS touting the box as a multimedia hub (although in reality it was more like a dumb terminal). A HD could mean that it could rip songs, movies etc. to disk and play them on demand. And MS could sell video on demand - films, shows, trailers and so on, as well as distributing firmware updates, patches and more on it.
It seems pretty strange that they're going to piss this all away which is what they're doing.
Re:Dumbest "Package" Ever (Score:2, Insightful)
"unless they plan on selling memory sticks, which I haven't heard anything on yet"
he's actually right...hold on squire, hear me out...they are not releasing 'memory sticks' because it doesn't use 'memory sticks' they use their own memory card. Why would they want to help Sony by using their 'memory sticks'?
Incidently, yes the HD is key to the XBox, but not the 360.
I think the starter package is just what is required, the softcore gamers don't want all the fancy pants wireless stuff, they just want to buy their kids the 'latest thing' without going overboard on price. I think MS have it right with this setup.
Re:well, that will probably be bad (Score:5, Insightful)
You are confusing the cost per one unit (MB), when it is really the cost per the unit that matters. One a certain capacity minimum is reached, the hardrive doesn't get a whole lot cheaper. It costs nearly as much to make a 10 GB drive as a 160GB, since much of the cost is the assembly, mechanics, and electronics which are the same on both units.
Look at the web page you linked to. Until the mid-90's hard drives were expensive, period. In say 1997, a hard drive costs $330 (2.1 GB). In 2004, a hard drive costs $250 (250 GB). The price didn't change a lot, but the capacity went up (by 100x). Granted, there are lower capacity hardrives that are cheaper, but you see my point (I hope).
Sure, you and I might be able to buy a few really cheap 10 GB hard drives off ebay, or from a surplus shop, but with the volumes Microsoft needs, they can't.
Re:Just like SEGA (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh geez, this is getting irritating. Folks, I know we all hate Microsoft and all and we hope and hope and hope they fail, but it really is causing people to spew some strange comments.
Sega screwed up by offering multiple bits of HARDWARE, like the Saturn and the 32X, not by offering different packages at different prices. What Microsoft is doing is more akin to the strategies used by Sega and Nintendo both for the Genesis, SNES, and NES systems. Remember the 'Core' system that only came with one controller and a game? They also sold them with 2 controllers and a pack in game for more money. BTW, all three of those systems were quite successful.
Doorstop, yeah. No HD or a wireless controller is going to seriously inhibit gaming on that thing. Right.
Folks, I know it's fun to hate Microsoft and all, but aren't we scraping the bottom of the barrel for doom and gloom predictions?
Real price of the XB360 base model is $340 (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft today announced the pricing of the Xbox 360 Memory Unit (64 MB)to be $40. So in reality people that buy even the base model will need to really spend $340 for the system. Since next-gen games are going to be released at $59.99, at the bare minimum the consumer will need to spend at least $400 to be able to enjoy the system. In reality the XB360 "value pack" only really cost $60 more.
Being that the Playstation 3 will allow users to use standard memory like SD/Compact Flash/MemoryStick (Sony has learned from their mistakes), I wish MS wouldn't lock consumers into their overpriced memory units.
Bad Move... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:UK buyers screwed again? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Morrowind Oblivion (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I've solved which of the next gen systems to bu (Score:3, Insightful)
Does this ring a bell? "The PlayStation 2 will be able to render Toy Story quality graphics in real time."
Can it actually do that? Obviously not. Does the general public remember that quote? No they don't, and they don't care now. Those same people were the ones that were frothing in ecstasy at the thought of that power when Sony made the proclamation. Sony built up the hype and then when they under-delivered the public just didn't care, so why should Sony be concerned about over-hyping their product now?
Re:UK buyers screwed again? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to mention the original Xbox was lauched in the UK for £300 and then dropped to £199 a month later.
Also, to argue that XB360 is more expensive because its built in China/Taiwan is also ridiculous. Pretty much everything is built in China/Taiwan anyways. There is a well established infrastructure to bring goods from Asia to Europe efficiently.
Re:failure (Score:2, Insightful)
I just wonder how many gamers are in my situation. Right now my computer is a little dated, and when I think about it, I could easily dump $400 into my computer to make it better performer for games while retaining all of its other useful functions. On the other hand, I could buy the Xbox 360 with that $400 for games and still be saddled with a dog of a PC.
Why wouldn't I update my PC instead of getting the Xbox 360? I could get a damn sweet graphics card with that sort of cash.
Xbox 360s and PS3s should not try to be all things to all people. They should do games very well, and leave the rest of the "convergence" crap to the computers. It's just a bad deal for the consoles to run up against the PCs. It's especially bad for MS, who is ultimately putting their xboxes against the windows OSs.
Re:UK buyers screwed again? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Where the hell are they getting 20GB drives? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Halo (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It just works (Score:2, Insightful)
Console game system requirements are nothing new. The N64 had a RAM Expansion Pack [nintendo.com] that was required for some features in certain games. In Perfect Dark [nintendo.com], for example, one could not even play the single player scenario without the RAM expansion. I'm sure this was a reason, albeit a smaller one, why Perfect Dark never sold as well as Goldeneye despite its notable improvements, marketing hype, and acclaim.
The case with the Xbox 2 "Plus" model (my name, not theirs) is somewhat different. What the Plus model offers are more accessories than required parts. You don't need a wireless controller, a wireless headset, or a patch cable to play single-player games right now. These are extras targeted to the multiplayer crowd, or more specifically, to the Xbox Live crowd. The lack of a hard drive in the base model is really the only drawback, but as many have noted, its uses are primarily relegated to game saves or custom soundtracks. Only a few developers such as Bungie have taken advantage of the hard drive in the Xbox to do things like better level-loading.
What MS has done here is marketing, and I believe good marketing at that. Rather than sell a single unit with a bunch of premium accessories for $400, a price I believe the console market would find hard to accept, they have given consumers a choice depending on what they want and can afford. I would not be surprised if at some point down the line they sold the accessories that come with the $400 unit as an "Accessory Pack" upgrade for people who have the $300 unit, given that the HD is detachable. Consider: Xbox Live will be free on weekends to non-subscribers. Surely many owners of the $300 unit will have a patch cable and a broadband connection and will check it out sometime. I think MS is counting on downloadable content and the multiplayer experience to sell the accessories in the $400 unit to people who go for the $300 unit early on.
Marketing for the future (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sony LOVES to sell peripherals. (Score:3, Insightful)
As has been mentioned, Sony are the kings of add-ons ; they won't miss this opportunity.
Re:Just like SEGA (Score:3, Insightful)
I have no intention whatsoever of buying a 360, but c'mon, this is silly - "little Johnny" will just be able to use a memory card, like the PS1, PS2, Xbox, and Cube have been doing for years with no problem.
I really fail to see how having to do that would render the system a doorstop.