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XBox (Games) The Almighty Buck

Next-Gen Gaming to be Uber Expensive 159

Posted by Zonk from the shocker dept.
The CNN column Game Over is running an article discussing the costs associated with going Next-Gen. Using the Xbox 360 as an example, they calculate that to get the full next-generation experience would cost almost $2000. From the article: "The first test comes this fall, when Microsoft debuts the Xbox 360. The company hasn't announced a price for the machine, but several industry observers believe it could cost $399 -- $100 more than new consoles have traditionally cost."
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Next-Gen Gaming to be Uber Expensive More

Next-Gen Gaming to be Uber Expensive

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  • Didn't the PS2 and Xbox both debut at a price point a hundred dollars higher than the previous gen consoles back in 2000/2001? Are we surprised that the latest batch will be more expensive yet?

    • Re:The last round of consoles was more expensive, (Score:5, Interesting)

      by StocDred ( 691816 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @01:52PM (#12615356) Homepage Journal
      In the US, the PlayStation launched at $300 and the PS2 launched at $300. I don't recall what the N64 launched at, but I think it was higher than the GameCube ($200). These doomsayer articles show up for every new console launch, because it makes good theoretical press to run around screaming "OMG PS3 WILL COST $600!" Ignore it.
      • Ah. Never mind me, then. Thanks for the correction.
      • I believe both the N64 and the Gamecube released for $250. Dreamcast came out at $200 though...

        For some more comparison... Xbox came out at $300. Sega Saturn came out at $400 and the 3DO came out for $700. So with the exception of the Dreamcast, price can be a pretty big factor in a console's success, so I doubt the Xbox360 nor PS3 will break the $300 mark, but it is possible...I could easily see the Xbox360 coming out for $350-400 and the PS3 right at $500, but I seriously doubt it. Revolution will prob
      • The N64 launched at $200. Nintendo talked about it launching for $250, but a month or so before the launch announced it would only cost $200. It was an effective strategy, as I knew a few people that planned on buying it after the first price drop ended up getting it at launch.

        I think the SNES was $200 as well, but it came with Mario World and 2 controllers.
    • Are we surprised that the latest batch will be more expensive yet?

      Generally speaking, pricing at the launch of new systems has been lower than the generation previous, not higher, when adjusted for inflation. For the most part, absolute pricing has remained within the same general range.

      Here are some launch prices of various systems and the cost in today's dollars:

      Atari 2600 (1977)
      Launch price: $199
      Today's dollars: $645.75

      Intellivision (1980)
      Launch price: $299
      Today's dollars: $759.36

      Colecovision (1982)
      Launch price: $199
      Today's dollars: $403.70

      NES (1985) (note that Nintendo has consistently been on the low end of console pricing)
      Launch price: $159
      Today's dollars: $282.17

      Sega Genesis (1989)
      Launch price: $189
      Today's dollars: $294.60

      PlayStation (1995)
      Launch price: $299
      Today's dollars: $372.01

      Personally, my thinking is the next systems will be in the $300-$350 range, and that's not really out of line with previous launches. Nintendo will probably come in at $200 and undercut the competition, like they usually do (the one exception was the SNES, which came in at $199 compared to Sega's $149 at the time).

      $400 might be a stretch and will limit the launch of these systems but it's still not totally out of the range people have paid for systems in the past, in terms of dollar purchasing power. Prices do go up over time, but then so do salaries. People may have a bit of sticker shock at $400 but they'll probably get over it.

      One thing I was thinking to myself the other night, though, is that the focus on HDTV with these systems may actually hurt them - at the end of the day people do only have a limited amount of money, and a lot of people are now upgrading their TV's (not specifically for games, but just generally). Spend $1,000 or $2,000 on a TV - even for unrelated reasons - and that's $1,000 or $2,000 less that you have to spend on games or game consoles. It's sort of similar to what happened in 1983, when the industry crashed - people stopped buying consoles as they spent money on computers and other devices. People in general budget a certain amount for entertainment and games have to compete with TV, DVD's, PC's, whatever else... and we're at a point in the cycle now where a lot of people are spending a major chunk of money to upgrade one component in their entertainment system.

      When you add in the fact that major game stores all seem to now have mountains of used games for $10 or less (whole shelves devoted to them at my local EB), I'm getting a little concerned that people may hold off on buying new systems for a little while in favor of just sticking with current systems no matter what the launch prices are. Some people have been arguing another crash is coming for a long time, and I've always argued against it - I still don't think a 1983-style near-complete stoppage of the industry is coming, but a slowdown leading to a medium-sized shakeout seems pretty possible at this point.

  • All inclusive (Score:5, Funny)

    by MadChicken ( 36468 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @01:49PM (#12615278) Homepage Journal
    Uh... that includes $1000 for a HD-TV and $250 for surround sound?

    Plus, you'll want to gold plate your thumbs to get better reaction time and higher scores! That just drives the price up more!

    • Re:All inclusive (Score:3, Insightful)

      by turtled ( 845180 )
      The article makes parents think you have to get HDTV. You can play all platforms on a Standard Def TV. I think it is poor choice or price display.
      • True, but a standard TV is gonna suck compared to the HD. I'm hoping to use my monitors.

        • Re:All inclusive (Score:3, Interesting)

          by AuMatar ( 183847 )
          You're assuming people care. I'm tired of the effort spent on graphics in games- the things looked good enough 5 years ago. Lets stop with the graphic whoring and work on the gameplay already.
          • I think it's safe to assume that most of the market cares about graphics. A lot.

            Anyway, it's not the job of the hardware manufactures to write games. Go play your NES.

            • Which is exactly where Nintendo is headed. They will be offering a good, while relatively weaker, console which will allow playing of all your classic games from a downloadable online library.

              Last time i've been to one of my friends, he pulled out his old NES from the box and we had a good time playing some Crystalis, Zelda, Mario3, DuckHunt and such.

              This is exactly why I think Nintendo will actually have pretty good sales. I believe their new console won't be as pricy as the XBox or PS3, but will offer m
            • I think it's safe to assume that most of the market cares about graphics. A lot.

              BS. If this were true, the GameCube would be outselling the PS2 and the Dreamcast would have outsold the PS1. Neither happened.

              The public cares about games and image. That's all. If the next GTA game came out on the N64, you'd suddenly have a mad rush of people buying up used N64's to play it.

              People like good graphics but they generally consider it a bonus to the gameplay. There's a small subset of vocal people who may
          • Well to be fair, the improved resolution of HDTV can and will improve gameplay. It lets you fit more "player feedback" (more interface, more units, wider viewing field, things are clearer further off, etc.) on the screen. Certain console genres right now are a little limited because of the available resolution, especially strategy games. This will be improved by HDTV.

            Sure, it won't matter for a lot of games. But a clearer picture (especially a jump from 480i to 720p or even 1080p, which are both HUGE) can
        • Possibly, unless there's a tickbox that says "My TV is low-def, render half as much shit" and you get a 30% frame rate bump.

  • Price predictions (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mrbaggs ( 864520 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @01:51PM (#12615332)
    While most analysts keep saying the price will be up there, I think 360 will arrive at $299. Sony has already shown that it has superior hardware and MS knows that the slight gap of headstart they have on PS3 is their only real chance to seize hold of the console market. MS has shown with Xbox that it will take a hit to keep prices competitive and I believe 360s launch will be no different.
    • Sony has a theoretical advantage in floating point math. And I'm not particularly convinced that (based on the cell architecture) cells can be used efficiently in a useful manner (syncronization between main memory, the cpu/cpu cache, and their small working cache sucks up a lot of cycles).
      • Don't be so sure about that. The HardOCP article about the GPU (here [hardocp.com]) indicates that there are 192 separate FPUs built into the GPU's "Smart 3D Memory" subsystem. If nothing else, weird new features like that make it relatively pointless to "predict" relative capabilities of the consoles prior to release.
        • I think we both agree with each other, except for different reasons. :)

          Sony can *claim* to have an advantage in is floating point math (on paper), but as I was saying I'm not convinced that they can get anywhere close to reaching their projected figures (unless you're doing something where you don't care about syncronization of data, like particle effects; though that had better be some damn impressive snow given how much Sony is banking on the cell architecture...).

          I'm incredibly impressed with the xbox3
      • Sony has a theoretical advantage in floating point math.

        Until you look at their tech specs from their press release.

        Sony says 2 TFLOPS of floating point calculations... but the Cell is doing 218 GFLOPS, and the RSX is supposed to be handling the other 1.8 TFLOPS. The Xbox 360's triple cored dual threaded CPU does 1 TFLOP. As far as the CPUs are concerned, the Xbox 360's is more powerful, at least according to the floating point operations per second it can do.

        GPUS are a bit of a different story.

      • Indeed synchronization is heavy, but that's exactly why there is the "core" Cell CPU. Its main function is handling the synchronization between SPEs.

        However, parallelization seems adequete for games. Atleast AI and physics can be handled seperately, in parallel, due the sheer number of elements that these areas incldue.
        For example a racing game, each car's physics can be handled by a different SPE and report back to the main CPU each frame.
        • That's an aweful lot of processing power to waste serving a glorified dsp ... so while the cpu is busy with its "care and feeding" tasks for the cells, what will be taking care of the AI? The audio? Feeding the graphics card?
          • All these things can also be done on the SPEs.
            AI, audio, certainly work the SPE can handle easily.
            Feeding the video card? I don't know if the SPEs can handle it or not, but don't forget this CPU is pretty strong as it is and can do that too.
            • You actually have read nothing about how the SPEs work, have you?

              The SPEs can't feed the video card. They don't have direct access to the system bus. They also can't handle the audio, as they don't have direct access to the system bus. They can pull chunks to and from ram. At best the SPEs can transform some of the data before the processor sends it to the various components, but those are operations typically performed by the hardware and not by the processor.

              The SPEs do not have integer units, and t

    • Re:Price predictions (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Quarters ( 18322 )
      Sony hasn't shown squat. All they've produced is some specifications (which are naturally biased) and a video of Killzone which has been admitted to be, at best, a CG rendering of what they expect the final game to look like.

      Microsoft has, on the other hand, shown running games and let people actually play those games.

      The 360 is arguably as "powerful" as the PS3. It also has one thing that Sony either isn't interested in, or can't fathom how to produce....XBox Live. The new Live service alone is enough

      • The screenshots of the running games I saw looked like ass compared to the Unreal engine demo. That demo, BTW, was running on the actual hardware, not a dev kit. The rubber duckies demos and other tech demos were also extremely impressive.

        Stills from the Gears of War demo have been up on the Unreal Technology site for at least 4 months. I don't know what's up with that, but it's a strong indicator that it was not running in realtime on the XBox 360.

  • And... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ghost429 ( 828987 ) <`ghost429' `at' `gmail.com'> on Monday May 23, 2005 @01:53PM (#12615373)
    Who wants to bet the Revolution will be cheaper than both of them... again.
    • It's not hard to be cheaper when you're last out the gate, especially since the Revolution is expected to have less horsepower than either one.
      • I think being last out of the gate may really work for them.

        A LOT of people are just going to be waiting for the PS3/XBox2 price to drop and/or for a game that they want to be released before jumping to the next gen. If Nintendo prices the Revolution low enough($150 less than PS3) I could see them outselling Sony this time. Price is going to be the biggest factor for me. My XBox1 w/ EVOX already does everything I want in a media PC(without any DRM).

        If Microsoft continues to burn money [theinquirer.net] like they did on

  • Well (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Ailure ( 853833 )
    Didn't the x-box struggle until they had a big pricedrop? Price will matter alot amongst people after all...

    You never know, Nintendo could lead next generation with their revolution if it's more affordable than PS3 or X-box 360. But i'm not surprised if they do a big pricedrop a few months after release so...
    • I think Xbox struggled because they didn't have a foot in the door yet for livingroom console games. When the price was dropped, people started to try it out.
  • .... is only if you get ALL the consoles, plus games, extra controllers etc. (maybe even throw in the PSP and DS for good measure)

    I dont know about you, but I'm not buying them all, probably not more than 1 before the first price drop. I may not even get one of them (xbox 360) ever. Plus I can trade in my old systems.

  • $2000 is an underestimation! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Snowmit ( 704081 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @01:55PM (#12615411) Homepage
    What?! $2000 is LOW! I mean, come on! It only includes the cost of the system, TV and speakers!

    They totally left out the price of extra controllers ($30 x 3), a router ($50), broadband access ($40/month), wires ($20), home theatre cabinet ($200), couch ($500), foot stool ($80), snacks ($5/day) and house ($100,000-$1,000,000).

    I could cost you as much as $102,902.00 to play Xbox 360! And that's assuming that you get a relatively modest house and does not count your monthly expenses. Truly, we are at a crossroads were the gaming community will be divided into the haves and the havenots. It will be a crisis, my friends. A true crisis.
  • 1 - Companies only need to bring the next generation development kits in-house ONCE. They make it seem like they need a new SDK for every next generation game.

    2 - They only pay for a next generation SDK once! They do pay Sony/Microsoft everytime the license is used to make a new game.

    3 - All the jacked up price at the beginning of the console launch is strictly marketing & business. Nothing to do with engineering.

    4 - When companies claim they "lose money" on the hardware, it's always debatable. I
    • When companies claim they "lose money" on the hardware, it's always debatable. It cost alot less to build a console at the end of the console's generation.

      That's only true if the console manufacturer has total control over the engineering of the hardware. Playstations and Nintendo consoles can be reengineered over the life of the hardware to maximize die space and minimize production costs only because Sony and Nintendo have total control over every transistor being used.

      Microsoft, on the other hand, b

    • Do you work in the industry?

      #3 is certainly wrong. At the start of a generation you basically try to write an engine that will last you for the next 5 years. That task is expensive and exactly the reason why EA purchased Renderware, Microsoft is standardizing on Unreal internally and Sony have named it the official middleware provider.

  • How could they forget the sneakers! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23, 2005 @01:59PM (#12615477)
    Which in some cases could cost over $200 just to walk up to your new console.

  • Who Are They Marketing NextGen To ? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by garett_spencley ( 193892 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @02:06PM (#12615580) Journal
    I might be wrong now, but I always believed that the largest demographic for video games and consoles were teenagers and college students who either rely on their parents to buy them or who don't have the money to buy them thanks to tuition costs etc.

    If a console costs $500, doesn't include any games, and the games are $60 - $80 .. what parent in their right mind is going to shell out this kind of money for their kids?!

    I realize that there are lot of hard core gamers who shell out $800 for the latest graphics cards and spend a lot on cooling and PC mods etc.. but I'd like to believe they are a minority.. I guess I'm wrong as it seems that's who MS and Sony are targetting now.

    All I know is .. as much as I may want a NextGen console .. and even if I could afford one .. I would never spend over $200 - $300 on a console.
    • I don't know if you were spoiled as a high schooler, but aren't kids 16 and older supposed to get jobs?? I got one at the grocery store as soon as I turned 16 and so did my brother and so did many of my friends. Those employees at Burger King and McDonalds are all teenagers.

      While they don't make much money, they all live at home and are supported by their parents. That means the money made at their job (which for me working 20 hours a week at $6.00 an hour is $120 gross per week) can be spent on toys.

      Of c

      • "aren't kids 16 and older supposed to get jobs??"

        You're lucky you got to wait until you were 16. My dad was a builder so I was working summers by the time I was 6. I remember looking forward to being able to sleep in when school started back up in the fall.

        Back to the topic though, I remember having quite a bit of spending money when I was a teenager. You can tell by looking at my CD and movie collection. I have massive amounts of CD's and movies I bought as a teenager, but as soon as I was on my own

    • Re:Who Are They Marketing NextGen To ? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by javaxman ( 705658 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @04:22PM (#12617322) Journal
      All I know is .. as much as I may want a NextGen console .. and even if I could afford one .. I would never spend over $200 - $300 on a console.

      Who are they marketing to? Not you.

      Like Apple ( well, at least Apple before the Mac mini ), they're marketing to People With Money.

      They're marketing to people who buy their _kids_ iPods and color-screen cell phones. People who buy their kids new cars the second they get their learner's permit. If you're worried about how much it'll cost... they're not marketing it to you, at least not for the first few years.

      Here's the real test, IMHO. You don't have at least one High-Definition television in your house? They're not marketing to you.

      Which is to say, they're marketing to gamers. They're marketing to people who are thinking really hard about spending that $800 on a graphics card that they know will cost $250 in 8 months. They know they'll pick up blokes like you and I a year to two down the road, when their costs have dipped a little. But first, it's time to fleece People With Money ( and early adopters and gaming fanatics with skewed priorities ).

      • Well, obviously :)

        But we always hear about the holiday season being the big cash flow for the gaming industry. Consoles are always released around the holidays .. so I always figured that they were marketing to parents who buy consoles as gifts for their children for xmas.

        And I'm not that poor. In fact, my income is above average for my area. I also know a few parents who make close to or above triple digit salaries .. and they don't own a high def TV nor would they buy their kids a $500 console. I just h
        • I guess I just don't understand the economics behind these new consoles.

          I think one thing to do is to look to the past. These machines are going to be around for several years. They're going to be expensive to start with. Heck, the PS2 launch price was $300- over four and a half years ago, when nobody could believe a console could be so expensive.

          Not everyone is going to have one or be able to get one - which is a good thing, if we *all* went out to get an XBox this christmas, there wouldn't be any on

      • Who are they marketing to? Not you.

        Like Apple ( well, at least Apple before the Mac mini ), they're marketing to People With Money.

        They're marketing to people who buy their _kids_ iPods and color-screen cell phones. People who buy their kids new cars the second they get their learner's permit. If you're worried about how much it'll cost... they're not marketing it to you, at least not for the first few years.

        It's also worth noting that there's an equally large segment that they're marketing to: Gamers.
    • Check out the PS2 price history on the wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org]. With XBox360/PS2 price wars, I'm hoping prices will drop faster, but they'll be expensive on launch, no doubt. Remember how crazy we all thought it was to spend $300 on a console when the PS2 first came out? Then nobody could get one, and we all wanted one... expect more of that.
  • XBOX 360 still does analog video out so there is no REQUIREMENT for HDTV. It is merely an upgrade path you can choose to follow if you want to.... as your finances allow.
    • Racing on a console sucks because the resolution is low and limits visibility. Most games compensate with large signs and simpler track layouts. This gen, expect tracks to become more complicated thanks to HD. People with SD will have to work harder at memorizing the track since they won't see it as well.

  • So? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    To get the full PC gaming next gen experience (64 bit everything, SLI cards, etc.) it could cost me over 4,000 easily.

  • That's what you get, games industry. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    That's what you get for letting production costs run wild on everything from good games to crappy ones (a la Hollywood), for assuming that advertising the hell out of even shitty games that you shouldn't be making in the first place will help them sell (a la Hollywood), for paying out the ass to create games around licenses that ultimately nobody cares about (a la Hollywood), for bickering back and forth about and ultimately creating a regular business practice of obtaining outlandishly far-reaching exclusi

  • Inflation (Score:4, Informative)

    by FidelCatsro ( 861135 ) <fidelcatsro AT gmail DOT com> on Monday May 23, 2005 @02:28PM (#12615896) Journal
    "Several industry observers believe it could cost $399 -- $100 more than new consoles have traditionally cost."

    That is about the ammount the dollar has devalued since the launch of the last generation , a little more perhaps , $399 is around 317 (about the price the last generation launched at in the EU) and around 218GBP so its a tiny 18 GBP and 17 (well i think they were a bit more expensive in the UK last time around compared to europe)above the previous launch prices if my memory serves me correctly

  • Won't anybody think of the children? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hey! ( 33014 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @02:42PM (#12616094) Homepage Journal
    If the cheapest car you could get your hands on was a Lincoln Navigator three things would happen: nobody would drive, we'd have a kickass public transit system, and Ford wouldn't sell any Navigators to speak of. Car companies that want to compete in the luxury segment rely on their being an entry level market to to support the infrastructure and provide customers for the upgrade treadmill.

    Given how huge the gaming industry is, it's surprising how monolithic it has been to date, with manufacturers vying head to head with flagship products. I'm not a gamer, so I only follow this peripherally, but it seems inevitable that they're going to start producing product lines that in automative terms would be Chevy Cavaliers, Honda Accords and Hummers.
    • When the next gerneration comes out, it doesn't just go away. The PS2/X-Box 1 will continue to be big sellers for several more years. Heck, they're still releasing PS1 games. The PS2/X-Box will become the Honda Civic's of the game world, while the 360/PS3 become the Navigator's of the world.
    • Let me explain this the best I can.

      Every console launch sells out. (Well, except the PSP). The colsole manufacturers know this, and take it for granted.

      If they know for a fact that the next generation console will sell out at $199.99, then why not up the price?

      Will it still sell out at $299.99? Yep. So what's it hurt to up it some more? Will it still sell out at $399.99? Yep. How about $499.99?

      They extimate how high a yield they'll have for the initial shippments, and what demand will be. Then t
      • I think that's a sound analysis, at least in the short run.

        However, continuing the automotive analogy, I think this is not really that different than when a new model year comes out. They sell at a lower rate to people who are more interested in having a new car than having the latest car. While in part this is to get rid of inventory, I think that people who want the latest model car are different from people who just want a new car and for which a bargain is the most important factor. One will buy un

  • Does inflation not count for anything? (Score:3, Informative)

    by pnice ( 753704 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @02:45PM (#12616135)
    $399 for an Xbox360 or even $465 for a PS3 isn't really that bad. Think about it. In 1980 we were already paying $199 for the newest consoles. Hell, I even payed $199 for my NES and $299 for my Sega Genesis. Back in the early 80's when the Atari was $199 brand new you could buy a car for: Toyota Corolla 4-door sedan, $5,458; Ford Mustang, $6,408; Toyota Celica GT, $7,209; Mazda RX-7 GS, $9,095

    Now for most of these cars it costs what? $20,000+ If you adjust for inflation, when people bought an Atari for $199 back in 1980 it was like spending around $400 bucks today. Stop bitching about it. Either you'll pay or you wont. The price isn't really going to stop people from getting something if they really want it. They just might not need it as bad as they thought they did if the price is higher.

    • You make a good point, but there are mitigating factors that should keep the price point of these consoles in the same ballpark as previous generations. The video game market is worth several billions of dollars more a year than the 8-bit age and the pace of technology has far exceeded the cost of inflation. (If it didn't, we'd all be in rough shape economically.)

      The same holds true for cars. I just bought a new Acura and my $20,000 got me an upscale sporty car with a CD player, front and side airbags,

    • Thnk about what you're comparing. The cost of vehicles doesn't generally go down because it's a replacement market. The prices generally follow inflation, and typically car makers add features and options instead of reducing prices, because the reductions in cost are small. The new features for the reasonable price get you in the door, and they make a killing on the upsell.

      If all you do is sell cars on low price, you get a bunch of cheap bastards who won't buy any options, and that's bad for business.

      T
    • Psychological barriers and how parents think about prices are really important too though. Consoles have been 199 or 299 for a long time and people associate those numbers with what a console should cost. $399 is likely going to cause many parents to wait until next christmas for the price to drop. They'll think Four Hundred Dollars sounds like an awful lot of money for a gift.

  • Welcome to the weak dollar (Score:4, Insightful)

    by EnglishTim ( 9662 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @03:35PM (#12616815)
    Last time around the dollar was considerably stronger than it is now.

    If you compare against Pounds Sterling, for instance, One US Dollar back in 2001 would get you around 72p. Nowadays it'll only get you about 54p, so versus the Pound it's lost about 25% of its value, which coincides remarkably well with the $300 -> $400 change.

    Of course, the Xbox isn't manufactured in the UK, so the numbers will be rather different with respect to whatever countries it is manufactured in, but it is a trend. The Dollar just isn't worth as much any more and although you are to an extent buffered by your sheer size, if the Dollar doesn't increase soon you will find things getting more expensive.
    • As I am from a Latin American country, you wont
      believe how much I enjoy reading and listening those Americans crying about the value of their dollar and how things are getting more and more expensive for them.

      Now they are starting to look what they have been provoking in all these years to us the poor Latin underdeveloped countries.

      I just can say I am really not sorry for them, I hope you can learn from this and your dollar go down until it is worth a tiny cent of Pound!
      • America isn't responsible for your kleptomaniac government printing out worthless money.

        But the U.S. has actually benefitted from this modest amount of inflation. Domestic goods have gotten cheaper in relation to foreign goods, and foreign investment is attracted.
  • If you don't feel like shelling out $400 for the latest and greatest its first year out of the gate, wait 9 months. Same with all electronics. I've been an "early adopter" on game systems and paid the price. I waited for TVs, VCRs, PCs, and CD and DVD players to drop to half of their original prices prior to buying the latest and greatest, and it saved me a great deal of money. It's all about mass-production.

    It doesn't make sense for software to cost more, except for price-gouging. Original releases w
  • Here are a couple of ideas:

    MS may release the XBox 360 with a marketing-driven retail price.

    Xbox 360: $360

    I could even see MS doing something similar to what cell phone companies and ISPs are doing by subsidizing the cost of the 360 with a guaranteed commitment to Xbox Live. Possibly the following:

    XBox 360: $299 with a 1 year Xbox Live commitment

    Why not? It seems win-win for MS. They can entice more people with a lower cost of entry, and sell them on the service.

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