Xbox360 Pricing, 2 Models at Launch

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."

UK buyers screwed again?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd put money on us Brits having to pay £299 and £399, with the usual inflated prices.

Not a bad deal

[fewnorms]

So, a 100 dollars will get you a 20 Gb hard disk, wireless controller, wireless headset, Ethernet cable and remote control? Not a bad deal. I do wonder how many people would actually get the "no hard disk" version.
On the other hand, it's still an expensive piece of kit, and odds are the version without a hard disk will still have the connectors on the inside, happily protected by "warranty void when opened".

failure

[skatephat420]

What better way to make no one want to buy your system than to release two different systems off the bat. If they were smart they would hold off because there just isn't a market for a new system right now. I think I'll wait and get the final version, you know, when they are ready.

Expectations are the mother of all sorrow

Re:well, that will probably be bad

[staed]

Isn't it possible that games will save your progress to a harddrive if one is present and if not it will save to a memory stick? Wouldn't be too hard to implement.

So.. entry level or luxury?

[plasmacutter]

This seems rather polar.. you either get bargain basement or everything they can cram into it.. and no in betweens?

What If you don't want wireless? What if you play rpg's for hours on end and want the comfort your control won't run out of batteries, but still want a hard drive and ethernet?

Don't get caught up in pre-release rumors

[cyberlotnet]

To sell a version without harddrive would be stupid

1. Used for saved games
2. Free parts XBOX Live needs hard drive to save content

They would be killing 2 of the most important aspects of the gaming system if they did this.

1. Developers would be unable to rely on the ability of a customer to save games, customers would be turned off and annoyed once they figured this out

2. XBOX Live argueably one the reasons the XBOX was so successfull in the first place would be neutered which would directly harm there marketshare and continued dominance in the consule online market

Re:Halo

[Gulthek]

You might want better info.

I own an XBox, but not either of the Halos.

It has never crashed.

Many people I know own an XBox for XBox Media Center.

I own it for the games. (Splinter Cell and Ninja Gaiden especially.) Most of which use the system's true 5.1 surround sound support.

Re:Where the hell are they getting 20GB drives?

[fwitness]

This is known as the "dirty little secret" of HDDs, that MS learned a bit too late. HDDs do not get cheaper anymore, they just get bigger. I suspect that this is probably going to be a laptop 2.5" HDD though, which you can stil buy in smaller sizes. For now...

Re:UK buyers screwed again?

[wackybrit]

That'd be cheaper than the US price though. The US price for the basic one comes out at £195, so it's only a £14 premium at the end of the day.

Re:Where the hell are they getting 20GB drives?

[alta]

Remember that story last year when someone thought it was newsworthy that Intel was stopping production of the P2-266? In light of that, I think 20gig drives should be easy to come buy, especially with all the mp3 players with them.

Remember when DualShock came out?

[LanMan04]

Something similar happened when the original DualShock controllers came out for the original PlayStation. I remember picking up Ape Escape, and seeing the big warning on the back "THIS GAME REQUIRES A DUALSHOCK CONTROLLER" on the back. I figured it out, but then again I also read Slashdot.

If M$ has ONE thing different between the systems (like HD vs no HD), then maybe people will be able to tell whether a game will work or not. Add more required unknowns (Headset? Broadband?) and the whole thing will go to hell.

Wireless Controllers Worth Any Price

[davemabe]

I would pay $1000 to get rid of the mess of cables that I have with my current Xbox. What a mess!

HDD experience vs no HDD experience?

[blankoboy]

So now we know that MS has taken us a step back in the 'next generation' of Xbox. We no longer have the HDD by defauult as we did with the first Xbox.

Apparently developers are not coding games to 'require' the HDD but I'm guessing it will be used for caching to allow for faster load times.

This begs the question, what will the gaming experience be like for a player who has the standard 'core' XB360 versus the person who paid MS an extra $100?

Will the cheapskate player have a lesser game experience due to longer load times? What will happen in multiplayer games? Will the person who obviously has more $$ to line Bill's pockets get all the good weapons before the player who is less wealthy (thus giving the advantage to the rich player)?

Next generation? More like, Next "iteration". Thanks so Microsoft. Ugh....

No Patching!

[Shook18]

Everyone is concerned about developers not being able to utilize the hard drive in the system, but think about it: half-assed games will not be able to be patched at a later date, which is a HUGE upside to the whole thing. Games will be fully finished by release day, not by "a few months later"!

Re:Dumbest "Package" Ever

[Pranadevil2k]

I know from years of experience arguing with my parents over which computers they should buy (because they refused to let me build one at half the cost..) that they will:

look at the price of the deluxe package first, and THEN they will see the cheap one and say "I save $100 for skipping out on these parts? Ring me up!"

Re:well, that will probably be bad

[beanball75]

What he meant is that hard drive prices have a floor. Cost per megabyte does go down, but overhead for manufacturing a hard drive doesn't.

Using Newegg as an example, we have a WD 40GB internal HD for $51.00.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16822140118 [newegg.com]

And a WD 80GB internal HD for $51.50.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16822144102 [newegg.com]

In the $50-60 range you will see 80GB and 40GB drives intermixed.

Manufacturers also tend to stop making drives no one buys like a 10GB internal drive. The price on a hypothetical 10GB drive would probably be so close to $50 that no sane person would buy one unless they had some capatibility problem.

Re:well, that will probably be bad

[alvinrod]

Any idea if Microsoft will be using regular HDs, or if they're going to have some sort of proprietary type that you can't just buy in a store?

For $100 I can get a 200GB HD that really could turn an Xbox 360 into a media center. 20 GB just isn't going to do it for me.

A hard drive actually has a lot more value to me than the rest of the stuff. Don't want to bother with batteries or charge times for a wireless controller. Don't need an ethernet cable since I already have some, can get them cheaper elsewhere, or make one if I really have to. I hope the remote control isn't required for DVD playback, which just gives me more reason to hack the sucker, but if it is I'll just use a DVD player. The wireless headset doesn't really do much for me either since if I mod/hack the box I probably won't be able to play Live.

On the other hand they could just as easily use some type of HD that I can't just go out and buy. Which means I'll probably be stuck paying $50 (or more!) for a hard drive that's maybe worth $20. If this is the case I don't forsee myself getting an Xbox 360 until there are some major price cuts.

I know I don't speak for all of us, but for some of us, the HD is probably the least useless part of the package.

Less reliance on patches?

[503]

People have complained about buggy games that were rushed to market only to be patched later. If developers can't count on the presence of a hard drive, which is critical for patches, will they have to spend more time on testing because deploying bug fixes may no longer be possible across all systems?

As someone who would rather wait for a stable release than deal with patches, this could be a good thing.

Re:well, that will probably be bad

[Dinny]

Oh but Halo sells system. I think they might try to use Halo to sell more harddrives. It's certainly going to have downloadable content and push the 360 to limits. Why not go that extra step and require a hard drive. It would sell a lot of hard drives.

Re:UK buyers screwed again?

[dhovis]

As far as I understand it, European prices usually include VAT, whereas American prices do not include sales tax (the closest equivelent we have to VAT).

So to do a direct comparison, you need to factor in that most Americans will pay additional sales tax (6-8% is typical), though sales taxes are all at the state or local level in the US, and some states have no sales tax.

You also need to account for the fact that most of these items are made in China or Taiwan and are shipped by sea. The shipping distance is greater to Europe than to the US, and that adds to the cost.

So don't just convert currency and say you're getting ripped off, I'd be willing to bet that it evens out.

Re:Just like SEGA

[glowimperial]

I'm more than willing to accept your crisisism of my post, but I'm sorry, I'm not a Microsoft basher. I'm actually one of those people that thinks Windows isn't a bad OS, and uses a number of MS programs on a daily basis.

I do think it's a mistake to sell the 360 without a HD. How is little Johnny going to save his game? I'd consider a gaming system without a built in save game solution to be a doorstop, at this point. I could care less about the wireless controller, and I think selling a platform without 2 controllers is a much more (and apparently industry standard) serious issue. And if I recall correctly, NES, SNES and Genesis all shipped with 2 controllers in the basic system.

I'd also consider it a misstep to ship a system without a game. How many million more NES's sold because of the popularity of Super Mario Brothers?

Re:well, that will probably be bad

[Phisbut]

Don't even joke about that. Of COURSE they will use a standard hard drive. Otherwise what are us folk who want to have a Microsoft subsidized Linux box going to do??!!

And don't forget to read the whole EULA before buying an Xbox harddrive, because they might try to pull a Hotmail on you and claim ownership to anything and everything you store on it. Ever read the Hotmail terms of service?

Re:UK buyers screwed again?

[antifoidulus]

I have a question, so do the retailers all pay the same price for the system then? I just moved to Germany from the US, so I'm not very well informed about how this all works, but it seems that retailers who sell it for the suggested price in lower VAT countries would make out a lot better than in the higher VAT countries. For instance, does a German retailer who sells an Xbox for 299 euros(with a 16% VAT) make more money than a French one who sells for the same price(an almost 20% VAT)?

Actually, the best analogy is

[jbellis]

"just like the PS2 HDD"

nobody developed for it because nobody had it, and nobody bought it because nobody developped for it.

it's possible that 360+HDD will be worth developing for if MS can get enough people to buy it early enough... good luck.

"Approaching" isn't the same thing as "equals"

[DeadScreenSky]

The quote you give simply doesn't state that the Xbox will be able to do Toy Story graphics.

(And the reason people keep pushing it as a Sony quote is because when the PS2 was announced you kept getting different people suggesting that it could do that. There's no official quotes because Sony wisely didn't make them, but it isn't a secret that they obviously fed that kind of comparison to the media somehow. There's no way all sorts of places would start making that comparison just out of the blue.)

Re:I've solved which of the next gen systems to bu

[WillAffleckUW]

I'll get Nintendo Revolution (yep, I'm a fanboy). What I do like so far is that they have said virtually nothing; they are quietly learning from the other 2. On the other hand, Sony and M$ have over promised, built expectations and are figuring ways to under-deliver (such as M$'s backward compatabilies issues)

So far for me it's a tossup between Nintendo Revolution - because they have more of the games that I tend to like and aren't so FPS-oriented - and the PS3 - which seems like a better system than the xBox.

Note: I currently own a GameCube and an xBox - but only own two titles for the xBox.

Pretty much for me - if it plays The Sims and it's variants, plus some cool Japanes and Euro games - you got me. Or if they come out with GTA: Seattle then I'll buy a platform that plays that.

PS3...

[cornface]

I'm not sure how accurate this is, but saw the link in a fark.com thread.

Amazon PS3 page [amazon.com].

Note the price: $299. If that's the case MS really is doomed.