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XBox (Games) Entertainment Games

Xbox Price Drop To $149 Now Official 527

Posted by simoniker from the less-money-less-problems dept.
bpitzer writes "It's official - Microsoft is cutting the price on the Xbox to $149, effective tomorrow, according to CNET News. Now, will Sony follow suit on the PS2? And how long until the next price drop? Maybe at this year's E3, making three in a row?" We previously reported on rumors to this effect, and other readers point to the official Microsoft press release, sporting a quote from noted tech analyst P.Diddy: "[I] believe that the system's cultural influence as a social entertainment brand has only just begun."
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Xbox Price Drop To $149 Now Official More

Xbox Price Drop To $149 Now Official

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  • Slashdot has officially jumped the shark when... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:17PM (#8705386)
    ...it starts trumpeting quotes from rappers as news.

  • Obvious question to follow... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by El Camino SS ( 264212 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:18PM (#8705395)
    When exactly does Xbox2 come out?

  • also in canada (Score:5, Informative)

    by Coneasfast ( 690509 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:18PM (#8705396)
    they also dropped the price in canada to $199 CDN
  • "[I] believe that the system's cultural influence as a social entertainment brand has only just begun."

    This just in: rampant usage of the xbox has increased usage of the word owned!
    ...thanks guys.

  • Still too much (Score:2, Funny)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) *
    There's only one game I'd like to play on the Xbox, so adding the $149 to the price of the game (which I haven't priced lately) comes in well above the threshold for fiscal pain.

    Thank goodness my old Amiga 2000 still works :-)

    • Re:Still too much (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:24PM (#8705514)
      I remember going out and spending $500 on a video card for a $2000 PC, then spending another $49 on the newest game. Basically, a $2,549 XBOX.

      So I like the new price. :)

    • many more games (Score:3, Interesting)

      by millahtime ( 710421 )
      "There's only one game I'd like to play on the Xbox"

      You are missing out on the games then. I have 2 for you to try. Ninja Gaiden and Ghost Recon. Oh, and get xbox live too. You will never go do anything else again.

  • Loss (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DarkBlackFox ( 643814 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:19PM (#8705414)
    So what kind of loss is Microsoft taking now to ship these things?

    If they already sold the X-Box for below cost, wouldn't this just hurt them further?

    • Re:Loss (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Egekrusher2K ( 610429 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:23PM (#8705485) Homepage
      Not necessarily. As time goes on, it costs less and less to manufacture these. The video core, which is kind of a haggle between a Geforce 2 and a Geforce 3 (basically, an overpowered Geforce 2 w/ vertex and pixel shaders), was beyond what PC manufacturers had out at the time. Now, we are 2 cores BEYOND that, so manufacturing costs have dropped signifigantly. As far as the processor goes- it's a 700mhz Celeron, which costs practically nothing to manufacture now. The 8GB hard drive they are using is now TINY comparatively. In short, that's how they do it.

      • Re:Loss (Score:5, Informative)

        by Troed ( 102527 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:29PM (#8705587) Homepage Journal
        No. Microsoft pays a fixed amount of money per chip to nVidia, Intel etc. They might have been able to cut something on the DVD-drives and harddrives, but manufacturing 8Gb-drives isn't cheap if you need to sustain a whole factory line just for one customer.

        The reason MS is in bed with ATI for the next system is because nVidia didn't agree to suggested price cuts by Microsoft.

        You're also wrong on the GPU. It's a Geforce 3 with an extra Vertex Shader, like the Geforce 4.

        • Re:Loss (Score:5, Informative)

          by mercuryresearch ( 680293 ) * on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:54PM (#8705943) Journal
          Actually it's no so clear this has to do with "price cuts" on the graphics chips per se.

          ATI negotiated the deal in a radically different way from Nvidia -- they sold IP, not chips at a specific price.

          The gamble in chip manufacturing is usually that you price the chips at a (near) loss at the start, and improvements in manufacturing result in cost reductions and profits later on in the process.

          Nvidia used this model for the original X-box deal, but the design wasn't finalized and additional complexity was added, raising manufacturing costs (this is what triggered the arbitration between Nvidia and Microsoft over the last couple years.)

          In any case, the X-box chips Nvidia sold weren't terribly profitable to them. I seriously doubt any chip manufacturer would accept a repeat of the arrangement. Obviously ATI didn't -- and had Nvidia negotiated a deal like ATI's on the original X-box the present situation would have probably been different -- the trade off being the potential profits would likely have been lower had the manufacturing cost reductions actually worked out.

      • Re:Loss (Score:5, Interesting)

        by ooPo ( 29908 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:31PM (#8705624)
        There was an article a few weeks ago about how Microsoft can't find 8GB harddrives anymore and has to pack in larger drives. This is why they can't get the cost of the Xbox down over time and is also why they're looking at not including a harddrive for the Xbox 2.

        This is because the harddrive industry increases size instead of lowering prices. Quite workable for the pc industry but not very good for the console industry, especially since the Xbox is designed around 'only' having 8GB available. Larger drives are just formatted to have 8GB available.

        • Re:Loss (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Krondor ( 306666 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @02:20PM (#8706296) Homepage
          There was an article a few weeks ago about how Microsoft can't find 8GB harddrives anymore and has to pack in larger drives. This is why they can't get the cost of the Xbox down over time and is also why they're looking at not including a harddrive for the Xbox 2.

          The Xbox hasn't been shipping with 8GB drives for quite some time now. Most are now coming with 10 GB drives. Ask any modders about it and they'll confirm (xbox-scene.com) I know mine included a 10GB Seagate. Also, I believe the 10GB drives are actually 20 or 30 GB drives with the extra platters disabled refurbised drives are probably a good bet on this.

          As far as why the Xbox 2 will not have a hard drive, lack of 8 GB drives is definitely *NOT* the reason. Hard drives below size X become a commodity, and thus an 8 GB drive isn't necessarily more expensive then a 20 GB in 2 years etc.. so drive size is not the reason. I'm not sure but it probably has to do with the modding scene (it is harder to for any real use something without permanent storage), increases in flash storage size and speed is probably a factor as well, and/or size and heat concerns.

    • Re:Loss (Score:2, Interesting)

      by blogboy ( 638908 )
      Sounds like the printer ink scam/strategy. Get 'em hooked on a platform and live off the game sale revenues.

    • Re:Loss (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Troed ( 102527 )
      ~$100 is the best guess as to the current loss per box, before this cut, I've heard. Microsoft obviously won't say, so you'll have to hunt down a few analystis who will. The only link I can offer is old - but Microsoft doesn't gain as much from increased factory optimisations as Sony and Nintendo do (for one thing - the Xbox hasn't had its layout optimised for over a year).

      http://www.xboxsolution.com/article154.html

    • Re:Loss (Score:3, Insightful)

      by baudilus ( 665036 )
      Not necessarily - This is a standard business tactic, it is an attempt to drive the market by creating more of a demand for the product. Think of it this way: sell 10 units at $100 or 50 units at $75. Still a loss per unit, but now you have 50 potential "investors" (read: game buyers) rather than just the 10. There is significant risk involved, due to the hypothetical nature of this reasoning. (What if people don't buy it at this price?) If the trend continues, they will likely scrub the project and work on

    • Not necessarily. They may have been able to reduce manufacturing costs. (I'd hope at *some* point Moore's Law was able to affect Xbox component prices).

      If that's the case they may simply be maintaining the same loss while hoping to pull in yet another slice of the bell curve of consumers.

      Not that I'm one of them. I'm boycotting MS best I can. Finally got Mozilla Firefox installed on my Winboxen. Slowly I purge my home of All Things Microsoft. (Still require WinOS for work projects, unfortunately, but Fire

    • Re:Loss (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Black Mage Balthazar ( 708812 )
      Plus the fact that the less they have to store, the less their storage costs are. I'm sure MS will suck up a few new companies to offset this loss. Really, when it comes down to it, this was their practise machine. I'm honestly wondering what will happen to my precious N5 when the next gen is out, and MS has (perhaps) caught on to the way this market works. At least there is no chance of them buying either of their compeition :).

  • This is our chance to strike back!!!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:19PM (#8705424)
    They were already selling them at a loss! Let's all go out and buy one of these, that will be striking a great blow for open source!!

    Silly M$, this is an exploit for their business, not just Windoze.
    • Microsoft is sitting on billions of dollars. Everybody rushing out and buying an xbox will only serve to skew the results of who's leading in the console wars and make Nintendo look even worse. Besides, who's going to sink $150 into the thing and not get a game or two for it?

      I don't want to see Nintendo pull a Sega because of some silly numbers being inflated. Nintendo needs to get over the gaming is for kids only thing, but they've made and continue to make some quality games.

      Want to hurt Microsoft's inter

      • Re:This is our chance to strike back!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by PhoenixFlare ( 319467 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:57PM (#8705981) Journal
        Nintendo needs to get over the gaming is for kids only thing, but they've made and continue to make some quality games.

        The people that think Nintendo only promotes "kiddie" gaming are the same ones that won't play a game because they think their friends will laugh at them, playing something with bright colors and/or bouncy music is embarassing, etc.

        And yet again, this PA comic [penny-arcade.com] is appropriate.

        I realize you're not (directly) bashing Nintendo, but this rubbish that they only target little kids needs to stop. Just because they make games without massive blood, violence, or sex does not make them any less mature or enjoyable.

      • Re:This is our chance to strike back!!!! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @02:05PM (#8706091) Homepage
        Besides, who's going to sink $150 into the thing and not get a game or two for it?

        i did... in fact I bought 2 of them.

        they both sit on my network in my bedroom and my daughter's bedroom as Mythbox playback units.

        work great and you cant build a playback box for myth for anywhere the price of an X box.

      • Ah Yes! (Score:5, Funny)

        by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @02:11PM (#8706182) Homepage Journal
        But if we each apply for a national foundation for the arts grant, buy 10,000 of the things, superglue them together to make giant Tux-the-Penguin statues and have them all shipped to Redmond, we can do two things:

        1) Deal a financial blow to Microsoft that will make the EU fines pale in comparason and

        2) Raise up our army of giant tux-the-penguins for the last battle against the Evil Empire (Microsoft.)

        Hmm maybe I should lay off the cough syrup...

        • Re:Ah Yes! (Score:3, Informative)

          by dead sun ( 104217 )
          Funny, but even without the consoles out there to buy games for, that's 10,000 more to the gap of sales vs. the Gamecube. Microsoft attracts more developers for the Xbox 2 with great numbers about market penetration. MS continues to dominate the market.

          Besides, figuring a $150 loss per sale, that's only a cold $1.5 million on 10,000 units. Now, if those same units never sell there'll be double the pain, because they won't recoup $150 per box and the actual number of people playing legal games on the things

      • Does anyone else find it strange that in America, games are for adults and animation is for kids, while in Japan (with Nintendo, at least) the games are for kids and the animation for adults?
      • Well, I hate to rain on your parade, but here's an economics lesson for you: if you buy them (even at a loss) you are offsetting their losses. Here's why (numbers are made up - let's say it costs $200 to build an X-box and MS gets the full $150 for them)

        Cost to build 10,000 X-boxes: $2,000,000

        Scenario 1:
        Revenue from selling 10,000 X-boxes: $1,500,000
        Net loss: $500,000

        Scenario 2:
        Revenue from selling 0 X-boxes: $0
        Net Loss: $2,000,000

        So, because the way businesses work is they spend money to make a

    • Re:This is our chance to strike back!!!! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Cthefuture ( 665326 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:32PM (#8705635)
      I believe an XBox might make a nice Mame (prefer) or MythTV box.

      Is it expensive to get the thing running Linux? I saw someone in this thread mention modchips being more expensive than $150. Do you need a modchip to run Linux? Is there a cheaper "hacker" way? I can solder.

      Can you add more RAM to it? How about hard-drives? Does it have a free PCI slot?

      I mean, $150 for a 1 Ghz (?) P3 and nVidia card sounds like a good deal to me since I need more of these cheap "weak" machines for common stuff like MythTV and arcade machines.

      In normal PC terms, $150 would only buy a 1.3 Ghz Celeron+Motherboard with GF440MX video. You'd still need to add RAM, a hard-drive, power supply, and a case.
      • If you can borrow 007 Agent under Fire, MechAssault or Splinter Cell (the first one) and a memorycard from someone, you can with two additional small soldering blobs hack your Xbox at no cost at all.

        http://www.xbox-scene.com

      • Re:This is our chance to strike back!!!! (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 29, 2004 @02:19PM (#8706277)
        Can you add more RAM to it? How about hard-drives? Does it have a free PCI slot?

        The memory is soldered onto the mainboard, so unless you are an electrical engineer who has insides with the Xbox team, I doubt you'll be able to add RAM to it, nor or a PCI slot.

        The 3 most common ways to allow you to run unsigned code (such as Linux) is to either:

        1) Follow the soldering instructions, which require you to solder (IIRC) 2 seperate spots on the bottom of the mainboard. I tried this with a friend, and he fried his mainboard. I would not suggest doing this unless you have some good experience with precise soldering of electronics.

        2) Use the James Bond 007 exploit, which requires a specific saved game to be put onto a memory card, and then once you load that saved game from within James Bond, it will allow you to load unsigned code from the Xbox. The only problem, atleast when this exploit first came out, is that you have to redo the exploit everytime you want to reboot your OS (or everytime you want to load some new unsigned code).

        3) Buy a modchip. There are plenty of companies out there that sell modchips that don't require any soldering (but the chips can be a pain in the ass to line up correctly at times). There are also the chips that require soldering, sometimes up to 10 or more seperate points.

        Unless you have A) The money to burn, or B) The skills to solder, I would suggest buying a no-wire modchip such as the Matrix. I purchased a few of these from easybuy2000.com (no personal affiliation, just a happy customer) and have had no problems.

  • And so it begins... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:20PM (#8705431)
    I wonder if Nintendo will/can drop their price below $99. Personally... I'm a big Nintendo fan. I can't believe, in the 2+ years I've owned the console, that it took me so long to try Metroid Prime.... what a delight!

  • Xbox price cut coverage everywhere (Score:5, Informative)

    by securitas ( 411694 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:21PM (#8705448) Homepage Journal

    Here's some links from an almost-submitted post.

    Microsoft Cuts Xbox Price to $150

    Microsoft has cut the price of its Xbox game console to about $150 [bbc.co.uk] ($149.99), a $30 drop. The price cut [reuters.co.uk] was widely expected by analysts [com.com] in a move to spur slowing console sales for the Xbox as the current generation approaches the end of its cycle, and gamers anticipate the next-generation of consoles in 2005. Microsoft also announced several price cuts on Xbox games and titles [reuters.co.uk] including 'Xbox Music Mixer, Project Gotham Racing 2 and Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge.' More coverage at CNet [com.com], CNN Money [cnn.com], ZDNet UK [zdnet.co.uk], AP via Seattle PI [nwsource.com] and Bloomberg via Seattle Times [nwsource.com]. (Microsoft press release [microsoft.com])

  • New Milestone? (Score:4, Funny)

    by pegr ( 46683 ) * on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:21PM (#8705450) Homepage Journal
    Is it a significant milestone when a console becomes cheaper than the modchip for that console?

  • DUMPING (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:22PM (#8705467)
    So we have an established monopoly with $50b in cash in the bank now selling their product way below cost to steal market share.

    how is this NOT dumping? if Sony or Hitachi did this with TV's they would be prosecuted.

    • Re:DUMPING (Not) (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Erbo ( 384 )
      Got news for you...all console makers sell their product below cost, and have for many years. They make it up on the games, though, which actually winds up making them more money than in the days of $300 consoles and $30 games. (Keep in mind that the console makers collect license fees even on third-party game titles, because the titles have to be officially licensed to run on the consoles. This not only ensures a revenue stream, but keeps third-party publishers from flooding the market with cheap, crapp
    • I suggest you do a little research, game consoles rarely make a profit on launch, even Sony and Nintendo loose money every time you buy their latest and greatest consoles, why would they do this? Because they not only want to get into your living room, but they want to stay there for years to come and have you be a loyal buyer of games for their system.

    • Re:DUMPING (Score:4, Insightful)

      by GlassHeart ( 579618 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @02:07PM (#8706108) Journal
      an established monopoly with $50b in cash in the bank now selling their product way below cost to steal market share.

      Microsoft does not have a monopoly in the game console market.

  • the next bet. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DenOfEarth ( 162699 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:22PM (#8705469) Homepage

    I wonder if they are gonna drop the price once again when halo 2 comes out. That would seem like a pretty reasonable way to move a whole lot of Xboxes, but that's just me. I like halo.

  • Is this ethical, really? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Saven Marek ( 739395 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:23PM (#8705482)
    I must say I don't mind a price drop of this nature. As a consumer it's a good thing, at least short term where I lay out few clams and come up with a good product for the lower price.

    However I'm sure nobody believes MS is anywhere near making a profit, indeed they're taking gigantic losses (not relative to their income of course, but in real numbers) to do so. Obviously Sony will be doing the same with the PS2 and whatever it's next box is, and Nintendo too if they release another.

    Doesn't this just end up as a war of attrition, where the company who is most able to sustain gigantic losses comes out on top? Not only coming out on top but coming out as the ONLY contender. While it's not a monopoly situation now it seems clear to me it's heading that way.

    I know nobody can prosecute a company on something they have not yet done, and there's perhaps no indication of who will win in the end out of the gigantic gaming manufacturers. Indeed, far be it for me to tell someone they CAN'T throw away their profits, but looking ahead it seems impossible to end up in any other way than someone with a massive monopoly. No new players, no competition between existing ones, and it won't end cleanly... because (forgive the cliche) in the end "there can be only one"

    Adult mac desktops & wallpapers [67.160.223.119]
    • Sony and Nintendo are both profitable [or in Sony's case the game division is profitable]. Microsoft is trying to get into the console space by outspending everyone else. How long do you think it's going to take MS to recover the almost $300 million they paid for Rare? "Grabbed by Ghoulies" has been a pretty big failure so far. Or the $2 billion they've committed to spend developing XBox Live?

    • Re:Is this ethical, really? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Coneasfast ( 690509 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:40PM (#8705753)
      Doesn't this just end up as a war of attrition, where the company who is most able to sustain gigantic losses comes out on top?

      i'm sure once the price reaches a certain point, it will be a war of who can produce the best system, in terms of graphics, games, features, etc... people won't neccessarily buy the one with the lowest price, the market doesn't work that way

    • Re:Is this ethical, really? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by southpolesammy ( 150094 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:41PM (#8705782) Journal
      Hmm...sounds like the end of the Cold War to me, when Reagan continually up-ed the ante in that great poker game of defense spending, knowing that either the Soviet Union is going All-In, or is going to fold.

      And the rationale behind why the US did this? America could match the Soviets' defense spending dollar for dollar (ruble for ruble?) and still have enough budget left for other goverment programs to keep the conutry sustainable, while the Soviets cut everything in order to keep up with American defense spending. So while we had like 30% of the budget going to defense, the Soviets had like 80-90%. Ultimately, the US knew they could "outbid" the Soviet Union and that the outcome would destroy the Soviet Union's ability to govern, and therefore they would defeat themselves and crumble.

      Sounds like history repeating itself again.

    • Re:Is this ethical, really? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by dead sun ( 104217 ) <[aranach] [at] [gmail.com]> on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:43PM (#8705801) Homepage Journal
      I don't know. It seems that the game is played by selling the hardware at a loss and making up for it with good titles and collecting money from 3rd party developers who make money because your console is widespread.

      Given that, while the hardware may be taking losses, I don't know how hard the gaming unit at MS or Sony gets hit as a whole. And cripes do they make up for it with accessories. One controller and extras cost $25+. Memory cards going at $20 for 8 MB? The initial console sale is a loss for sure, but there's plenty of room for profit.

      So what's the problem with console makers dropping their price horrendously with time? If you look at initial pricing, you can now get an xbox and gamecube for less than the initial price of the xbox or the PS2. If Sony dumps the price again you can get the xbox and the PS2 for the price of either initially.

      I don't think this is heading towards a monopoly, I think it's heading towards trying to grab more customers that already have a system and aren't likely to give another a shot without incentives. I have a PS2 which I got at the $200 price point. I'm now considering an Xbox at this new point. And why not, Ninja Gaiden is sweet and there's some other games I'd like to check out as well. Will I stop buying PS2 games? No way. Well, unless they're the all platform games, in that case I'll pick whichever looks the nicest, likely the xbox's version.

      Heck, new hardware at $150 means skipping 5 new releases at $50 each and waiting until they're $20 each. I don't have to skip the games, just wait a little bit. And if I have a good selection of "Greatest Hits" or whatever for the console I just got they're as good as new games to me, right?

  • *Sigh* Here they come... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MacOS_Rules ( 170853 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:23PM (#8705491) Homepage
    Let's restrict the "We'll bankrupt Microsoft by buying the $150 XBox and coverting it to Linux" topics to replies to this post. This includes all cheap PC quotes from pricewatch, as well as arguments to the real cost of the XBox (better graphics, small HD, working from TV instead of monitor, monitor cost, yadda-yadda-yadda.) Not meaning to be a troll, but it seems 3/4 of the conversation revolves around these topics. [Well, there goes the Karma].

    • Re:*Sigh* Here they come... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by buffer-overflowed ( 588867 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:47PM (#8705855) Journal
      But you're not costing MS money, you're mitigating MS's loss.

      Say they pay $300 per unit, and are selling it at $150. For you to be able to buy that $150 unit MS has to be out $300 to make it. When you buy it, their loss shrinks from $300 to $150.

      And, if enough people buy it and then buy games for it(since more games are made as it penetrates further), the loss decreases. The only way purchasing an XBox hurts MS worse than not buying one is if it spurs a large amount of manufacturing of new units which then go unsold.

      You are in NO way hurting MS by buying an XBox, you're helping them. Feel free to do so, but stop saying you're costing them money. You aren't.

  • This is proof Microsoft cares about the consumer. (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What other company would sell a device for $149 when it costs $400 to manufacture? Only Microsoft would. Linus sure as hell wouldn't.

    Zealots are sure in a quandry here. If Microsoft raises the price to above it's manufacturing cost, they scream that Bill is being a robber baron. But yet if they make the price more palatable as the Zealots want, it's labeled as dumping. The Zealots can't pick one stance.

    But Microsoft does. It's stance is 'quality products, at a fair price'.
    • Nice troll. The "selling the console at a loss" state is not unique to Microsoft. Most (or possibly all) of the consoles are like that. It's like cell phones -- sell the hardware at a loss, make it up on the accessories, services, etc.

      I also recall hearing somewhere that they get the manufacturing costs ways down as the product matures, so later revs are as much of a loss, or possibly not a loss at all.

    • Good try.. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by beldraen ( 94534 )
      Name the company that sells an OS and an office suite at 80% profit margin? Name the company that could significantly cut prices across the board because it has 40+ BILLION in CASH in reserve, but doesn't? Name the company that is inducing a loss-leadership so that eventually it can make large profit margins. Capitalism is the best system in the world, but it is hardly perfect nor always thinks of the consumer. Make no mistake, Microsoft has demostrated a willingness to own markets at any cost, especial

  • Wake me.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by MImeKillEr ( 445828 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:24PM (#8705499) Homepage Journal
    ..when they're giving the Xbox away in a box of Lucky Charms.

  • PS2 Price Drop Coming Soon (Score:5, Informative)

    by TrentL ( 761772 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:27PM (#8705542) Homepage
    The article also mentions a PlayStation 2 price drop in mid-April, so don't buy an X-Box based on price just yet.

  • PS2 Already 150... sort of (Score:5, Insightful)

    by samsmithnz ( 702471 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:30PM (#8705602) Homepage
    I thought that Sony dropped the price about 6 months ago, but then added in a subsidized modem and slightly increased the price to 170, so that the price effectively stayed the same, but the value of your purchase increased.

    Bunch of marketing crap really.

  • P. Diddy understands Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:30PM (#8705608)
    When you have no design skills yourself, you simply sample from someone who does.

  • Cheap Entertainment PC? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:30PM (#8705612)
    With this new price point and the hacks for the XBox out there, is this worth purchasing as a MPEG, MP3 and PVR entertainment PC? I'm not really interested in the games for the thing, but if I can get a decent computer out of the thing for $150, I'd be game.

    Thoughts?

    • Re:Cheap Entertainment PC? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by BigDish ( 636009 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @02:14PM (#8706213)
      Xbox Media Center [xboxmediacenter.de] That application alone is worth the $150 for an Xbox console.
    • if you're comfortable with spending another $150-$200 or so to create the appliance.

      I picked up an XBox around Christmas, ordered my mod chip (Xecuter 2.3b), bought a 120 GB WD HD and proceeded to get busy. A couple of hours later, the Xbox was ready and I began to copy over my media. By the end of the night, I had everything stored safely on the box with a simplistic enough setup (EvoX & XBMC) so that my wife (a bright technophobe) was, suprisingly, very comfortable with. Add another $30 for a rem

  • Cluster Goodness (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ianoo ( 711633 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:32PM (#8705637) Journal
    50 x $150 = $7500

    This gives me 35000MHz of processor power and 3200MB of RAM. That'd be a pretty nice setup.

  • Translation (Score:5, Funny)

    by dr_dank ( 472072 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:35PM (#8705691) Homepage Journal
    other readers point to the official Microsoft press release, sporting a quote from noted tech analyst P.Diddy: "[I] believe that the system's cultural influence as a social entertainment brand has only just begun."

    Or for those of you who know Diddy-speak:

    "yeah, uh huh, uh, thats right, c'mon now"

  • oh boy! (Score:4, Funny)

    by malus ( 6786 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:41PM (#8705772) Journal
    i've been waiting for this price drop! i'm going to go out tomorrow and pick one up! it'll sit right next to my PS2 which has been idle for the last 8 months due to Lack of Playing Time(tm). But at least i can say i have one!

  • $99 by Labor Day??? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Viking Coder ( 102287 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:43PM (#8705797)
    Didn't I read somewhere that it was going to $99 by Labor Day? Or was that just an ugly rumor, and this is the only price drop I can really expect?

    Nope, I'm not nuts - this [cnn.com] was the rumor.

  • why buy a game machine (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sirinek ( 41507 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @01:49PM (#8705890) Homepage Journal
    For a long time I wanted to play GTA3. I pondered buying a $199 PS2 and then said "Naah, I'll wait for the price to go down". That was a year and a half ago, and they are still $179. Last year I bought GTA3 for my PC and a game controller very similar to the PS2 controller. Together the pair cost me maybe $65 and the graphics blow away the PS2.
    • For a long time I wanted tp play KOTOR. I pondered buying a $179 Xbox and then said "Naah, I'll wait for the price to go down". A few months ago I warezed KOTOR for my PC and just used the mouse. It cost me $0 and the graphics blew, period.
      Seriously, I never played GTA3 on the PC but the PC ports of console games that I have played have sucked royally (NFS:U, LOTR:ROTK and of course KOTOR). I even spent $100 to buy a new video card so I could run the above mentioned games at a decent frame rate. I was
    • 'cause you're not a IQ=65 kid who with enough luck can be taught not to put the DVD disk upside down and any maintenance beyond pressing reset is beyond them. Game consoles are so dumbed down, that you just can't break them by doing something wrong from the UI. And stupidity costs. Simple.

    • why buy a game PC? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Malc ( 1751 )
      I have a PC that I've been slowly upgrading over the years (motherboard is 5 year old dual proc BX with 2xP3-850). It suits my needs just fine as a software engineer. The biggest cost this year was adding an 80GB hard drive - not much really. Why would I spend a couple of grand to get a machine capable of playing games? Why would even set myself up to that I would need to keep spending top dollar to keep it playing games? That's a waste of money. Not to mention that it's in my office and nowhere near
  • Since the Xbox is essentially a PC with a lot of anti-hack DRM crap built in, I wonder when it becomes practical simply to canibalize it for parts, stick on an "open" BIOS and turn it into a real low end PC?

    Not as a basement hacker project, but as a commercial scale re-engineering effort. If you are replacing the BIOS with a one that will turn it into a regular PC and not play any PS/2 games, they could hardly be raided for piracy.

    • Never. Or not really soon. (Score:4, Informative)

      by SharpFang ( 651121 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @02:08PM (#8706120) Homepage Journal
      Yes, it's a PC. But by nowadays standards, it's a crappy PC. The stuff is rather old. A P3 CPU, a 20-60G harddrive, some three years old gfx card, no monitor included, moderate amounts of DIMM RAM. Might be good for embedded projects like laser displays for a DJ, info booth boxes and such, but there are better and cheaper home PCs available.

  • How much for a PC? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SharpFang ( 651121 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @02:01PM (#8706035) Homepage Journal
    It's a PC. We all know it. How much would a PC with hardware of "the same class" cost now? I don't think it would be more. It's far from "state of the art" technology by now and PCs that are 2-3 years old, easily fall in the "economy class". Think something similar to HDD40GB, GForce2, P3 1GHZ, 256M RAM - where would such thing land on a shelf in a computer shop?

  • Not low enough (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CosmicDreams ( 23020 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @02:02PM (#8706055) Journal
    The price tag of ~ $150 is still not low enough for me to buy a second console. In fact, for someone like me who has already invested in "This generation" of consoles, anything over a hundred is too much. Its not a casual buy whenever you see three digits in front of the price tag's decimal point. I don't see what they intend to gain from this manuever.

  • P. Diddy didn't really say that... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Gruneun ( 261463 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @02:21PM (#8706309)
    Microsoft just sampled the press relesase of a more talented game console company.

  • I just wish....... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MrIrwin ( 761231 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @02:35PM (#8706486) Journal
    Somebody would make a tiny little box where I plug the TV in one side and my joystick on the other. On the top there is a little socket where I plug in my USB key full of MAME Roms.

    I reckon a MAME emulator like this would could cost something like $25 at the factory door.

    • Re:I just wish....... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by dspyder ( 563303 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @03:07PM (#8706855)
      You're close... the processing power required to emulate anything (especially arcade games that had a lot of custom hardware built into them) is quite intensive and therefore expensive.

      What might be a better option is something along the line of what the FPGA Arcade [fpgaarcade.com] people are doing. They're esentially replicating that custom hardware in the FPGAs. More hardware cost up front (relative to the actual chips themselves) but ultimately less cost than would be required to fully emulate everything.

      Another interesting thing I've seen is like a 10 pack of Atari games built into an original looking controller with RCA outputs. I'm not sure the hardware they're using, but I'm pretty sure it's not emulated. The code may have been rewritten for a specific low-cost chip.

      --D

  • Rip-off pricing in Britain (Score:3, Informative)

    by Andy_R ( 114137 ) on Monday March 29, 2004 @03:48PM (#8707314) Homepage Journal
    Over here it's 129.00, which at today's rates is 234.58 United States Dollars.

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