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Microsoft PlayStation (Games) Sony XBox (Games)

Microsoft Readies Cheaper 360 249

Posted by Zonk from the i-think-they-had-this-ready dept.
Officially Microsoft is putting on a brave face, saying they won't drop the 360's price even in the console's weakest market: Japan. Just the same (probably in anticipation of Sony's PS3 price drop), the San Jose Mercury news says the company is secretly working on preparing a lower cost Xbox 360 SKU. Called 'Falcon', it's a cost-reduced system using 65nm chips instead of the at-launch 90nm electronics. This ties right into Michael Pachter's expectation of such a cut; it should be noted he doesn't see the DS or Wii prices moving any time soon. Related to all of this, Newsweek's LevelUp blog has two great interviews today: a Peter Moore discussion harkening back to last week's warranty announcement, and a chat with Jack Tretton about the price cut and the 360's hardware issues.
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Microsoft Readies Cheaper 360 More

Microsoft Readies Cheaper 360

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  • Considering how badly the consumer has been screwed this console war I'm glad to see some things which benefit us finally.
  • If they redesign to use 65nm, and the end result is a 360 that runs cooler and doesn't need to blast the fan as much, I might consider replacing mine with one. But it would need to have the same hard drive space (preferably more) than the current non-Core system.
    • To be honest the fans on mine aren't so bad, it is fairly noisy, but kind of to be expected considering it is such powerful hardware in a small box. But the real issue is the DVD drive. Mine sounds like a jet taking off, non-stop, whenever playing a game. It's actually quite nice to play demos downloaded to the hard disk, as the console seems whisper quiet in comparison.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Eponymous Crowbar ( 974055 )
        The more recently manufactured models have relatively quiet DVD drives. I can't even hear mine over normal game audio and it is barely noticeable when the TV is silent.
      • The PS3 is in a smaller box (especially if you consider the lack of an external power supply), and it's far quieter.

  • I think (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Jaaay ( 1124197 )
    they should focus on getting the HD-DVD right in a cheap package for the sake of killing blu(e?)ray. The Xbox 360 elite seemed to be a bit of a screwup making a slightly nicer new console and ruining the price advantage with the ps3 without much extra. Still you'd imagine this *has* to happen with more cost-effective building because even though the 360 is a very nice console they're still losing a lot of $ on the bottomline.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by kurokaze ( 221063 )
      Why? by not bundling a HD DVD or BR player into the console, they have the best of both worlds. Should HD DVD fall, they can easily create a BR add-on drive.

      As it stands right now, the format war is still a toss up.. no sense in packaging in something that could potentially kill you should you have happened to pick the wrong side.

      Anyway, it is too late at this point.. adding either HD DVD or BR now is pointless since game developers cannot target it because its not a guaranteed feature (just like the hard

      • game developers cannot target it because its not a guaranteed feature (just like the hard drive.. oh lord what were they thinking... )

        They were thinking Console games shouldn't require multi-gig installs. That's actually a "hidden benefit" of the core system, developers can't use it as a crutch. If you know anyone with a 20 gig PS3 (and didn't upgrade the hard drive) ask them how long it took before they filled it up just playing the games they bought (IE, no added content downloaded from PSN).

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by amuro98 ( 461673 )
      What exactly would putting the HD-DVD drive into the 360 accomplish?

      It's not used for games, and would only increase the price of the 360.

      The vast majority of folks don't care about either HD-DVD OR Blu-Ray at this time. The reason being that they don't want to be bothered with being on the losing end of a format war. When there's a clear winner, or the dual-format players arrive, folks will start buying in meaningful numbers. Right now, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD combined make up less than 2% of the total video

  • Sony is back to square 1 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by suv4x4 ( 956391 ) on Monday July 09, 2007 @11:52AM (#19802241)
    Imagine the losses Sony endures after they cut their price with additional $100. And now the competition leaves them in the dust again. Let's say MS puts the price with $50 down (let's be conservative right). Note, the prices have been de-retardified for better comparison:

    Wii: 250 usd
    360: 350 usd
    PS3: 500 usd

    And the killer feature for each console:

    Wii: totally new way to control games
    360: the best online gaming experience of all consoles
    PS3: Blu-Ray

    Notice: PS3's killer feature isn't gaming related one. One reason gamers aren't very excited about it...

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by fistfullast33l ( 819270 )
      Actually, I would argue that the PS3 has more than Blu-Ray going for it - HDMI 1080p output (just bought my 46" 1080p TV this week and I'm completely blown away), 802.11g wireless, and a guaranteed hard drive - which helps with games like Oblivion and GTA which need heavy caching. Add in the nice stuff like the media server integration (streaming music wirelessly from my linux server to my PS3 works really well), PSP remote play if you have one (I do), web browser, and the ability to install Linux and you
      • Yeah, I keep hearing this stuff like "I don't have a HD set, so it's worthless." Well, yeah, the PS3 is pretty much worthless if you don't have an HD set. I hooked up my PS3 to a SD set, and tried all my games on it. It doesn't really look much better than a PS2. However, if you do have an HD set, especially if it's 1080p, I can't see how the PS3 isn't the best deal.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dabraun ( 626287 )

          However, if you do have an HD set, especially if it's 1080p, I can't see how the PS3 isn't the best deal.

          Because the 360 delivers the same level of graphics, immensely better online gaming, and a far larger library of solid fun games at a lower price? (the 'fair' comparison being $400 360 vs. $500 PS3)

          No HD: Buy a Wii
          HD: Buy a 360 (and maybe a Wii too)

          Want to pay a premium to watch one of the few HD movies? Buy a PS3 ... or just go with the 360 and use the video marketplace - it probably has more movies t

    • 360: the best online gaming experience of all consoles Only If you pay $50 a year the other are free.
    • Imagine the losses Sony endures after they cut their price with additional $100. And now the competition leaves them in the dust again. Let's say MS puts the price with $50 down (let's be conservative right). Note, the prices have been de-retardified for better comparison:

      Sony produces the PS3 in house, In the half a year since launch they should have significantly ramped up yield and reduced production costs. unless you have really good info I wouldn't bank on Sony taking a huge loss, they stopped takign a

  • SKU (Score:5, Insightful)

    by locokamil ( 850008 ) on Monday July 09, 2007 @12:00PM (#19802361) Homepage
    $rant = "Stop using SKU in everyday conversation."

    For those of you who need it spelled out, run this at the command prompt: perl -wc split ('', $rant)

    The correct term is 'model'.
    • and we know what "model" is being used to mean, what difference does it make to use one versus the other? Its similar to using $variable notation in a Slashdot post: is that "good English" as your high school English teacher taught it? Who cares. It was comprehensible to your audience, leave it at that.

      However, I will disavow all knowledge of the above paragraph if I am ever shown a memo with the word "lol" PRINTED on it. Unless the memo reads "All hands: use of the word 'lol' in any business capacity i
  • Back in May there were articles [blasteroids.com] floating around that Microsoft expected the Xbox division to be profitable in 2008. However, they've recently decided to offer an extended warrenty to customers in order to deal with the high failure rate of the Xbox 360. An earlier Slashdot article [slashdot.org] has this estimated to cost Microsoft around one billion dollars.

    The earliest reports [joystiq.com] pegged the Xbox as costing about five hundred through seven hundred dollars to manufacture, a loss of a few hundred dollars on each console sold.
    • Maybe the warranty charge comes this year, so they can declare the profit next?
    • Microsoft doesn't remember how to make money without owning the entire market. It seems clear that their plan for the 360 is to get themselves into a monopolistic position with their codecs, DRM, and interactive content combination. Once they've done that they can fall back on their traditional innovation stifling, market milking business model. They don't necessarily care about having a profitable gaming division. What they really want is the ability to collect a royalty every time somebody buys digital me

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Hedgethorn ( 859353 )
      I believe Microsoft took the $1B that the new warranty program will cost and applied it to fiscal year 2007. So, 2007 is an extra billion dollars in the hole, but since they don't have that baggage hanging on them in 2008, it's still possible that they might turn a profit in 2008.

      To say the same thing in a more cynical way, if you play with the numbers enough, you can make whatever year you like profitable.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by shplorb ( 24647 )

      With the costs of the new warrenty (in addition to any costs that can be associated with the honoring existing warrenties to cover the high failure rates of the console) and cutting the price which changes the profitability on each unit sold, when does Microsoft now expect their Xbox division to become profitable?

      It will be considered profitable when they're bringing in more money each quarter than they're spending. This is where I don't get it, but maybe that's because I grew up in a family business and no

  • i dont know any great studies about xbox 360 initial quality, but it seems that there were some complaints around. If the board/hardware was responsible for issues before, one can only assume that a reduction in price based on a cheaper board/electronics will result in more issues... this seems like a major problem considering microsoft is spending a billion already to boost the warranty service, etc. It's interesting to watch how their system issues play out a lot like what working on some microsoft-base

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Broken scope ( 973885 )
      The funny thing is, I know plenty of people with working launch boxes, but I know plenty of people with boxes bought during the summer of 06 that are breaking frequently. Considering that they have issues with chips popping off boards and bricking the systems it makes me wonder if these issues are caused by removing the usage of lead in solder to comply with RoHS and bad planning. The company I work for is having major issues with chips popping of BGA connectors because the silver solder is so brittle. We d

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kelbear ( 870538 )
      It's not the same. It's not saving money by switching to a lower-quality manufacturing process. This is saving money by switching to a more efficient technology. This one is actually an improvement for the consumer as well. The quality will depend on who handles the actual manufacturing, the process itself is a step up.

      The biggest issue with Xbox360 reliability was insufficient heat management, this process will reduce the amount of heat and power. So this is pretty much good news for everyone except anyone

  • XBox 360 4.0? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TKOTolman ( 1089049 ) on Monday July 09, 2007 @12:32PM (#19802841)
    Am I the only one out her that is sick of the 360 and PS3 coming out with different systems? I feel that if I buy a 360 or PS3 now it will be a mistake and they will have a new version out in a year that has a 200Gig hard drive and folds my laundry. I want a next gen system that is set in stone where I am not going to feel like I got riped off in a year when they tweak it again.

    • Re:XBox 360 4.0? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by cowscows ( 103644 ) on Monday July 09, 2007 @12:56PM (#19803197) Journal
      I would think that anyone who's paid attention the electronics/computer world for the past couple of decades would have come to terms with the fact that the "biggest and best" is a quickly moving target, and the fact that something newer comes out doesn't mean that what you bought six months ago suddenly stops working.

      You might "feel" like you got ripped off, but you really didn't. It's definitely possible to not worry about such things, and so that's what I'd advise, because worrying about it isn't going to accomplish anything positive anyways.
    • Funny thing is, you can update your PS3 to any size HDD you can fit in there (youtube even has examples of using external 500GB 3.5" drives.. not practical, but doable...) So, unless they add "super pursuit mode" in the 80GB model... you're not getting _that_ much more than a 20GB has... (FWIW, I have a 20GB updated to 120GB for all of $75...) And my 360? Still at 20, because MS is greedy with their drive pricing...

      Sad that the 360 HDD is limited to what King Bill says you can have... unless you hack it,

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by RyoShin ( 610051 )
      To be fair, this isn't just a Microsoft or Sony thing. Nintendo is already planning a version of the Wii with DVD capabilities (and perhaps a few other enhancements, such as more internal memory or a built-in ethernet port) to be released before the end of '08. We've had remakes of the DS and the GBA (twice!) from them; it a shared reaction amongst the big three, though at least Nintendo waits a few years before releasing a new model, generally stopping production on the old one soon after.

  • Wow great (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Dr Kool, PhD ( 173800 ) on Monday July 09, 2007 @01:03PM (#19803273) Homepage Journal
    The 360 "Elite" didn't fix the reliability issues, what makes anybody think that this new version will be any more reliable? Microsoft has had 20 months since launch and they still can't ship reliable consoles.

  • New features (Score:3, Interesting)

    by llZENll ( 545605 ) on Monday July 09, 2007 @01:03PM (#19803281)
    The built in power supply would be a nice benefit, and use a quieter DVD drive and I'll get one. Built in HD-DVD would be nice, but not many people would want it, and the addon HD-DVD drive is already under a $100 at some places, very smart not including HD-DVD from the beginning.

    What other features could they build into it with the added room of smaller components? No one really thinks its too big, so changing the case probably isn't a good idea at this point, although it would be nice.
  • It makes sense that the Wii won't drop in price as quickly as the others, as 1) it's selling well, and 2) the hardware is more mature, so there won't be as drastic manufacturing process improvements in the short term.
  • I have actually been waiting for this "cheaper" 360. I don't like noisy fans, so I want a 360 that dissipates less heat. The new 65nm process chip will dissipate less heat and, I hope, will not require the fans to be as loud.

    What I really want is the new 65nm chip combined with the improved heat-pipe cooling system, and quiet fans. If the new "cheaper" 360 still has noisy cheap fans, I hope Microsoft will introduce a "Mega Super Elite" version that has a bigger hard disk or something, and has more expens

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by p0tat03 ( 985078 )
      I too would like a quieter 360, the current iteration is just too loud. But keep in mind that a cooler machine will NOT be much quieter. If you ever run your XBL Arcade games, you will find that the Xbox is fairly whisper quiet. It's audible, but definitely not a nuisance at all.

      The HUGE amount of noise comes from the third-rate DVD drive MS has in there. I don't know why it is that my 52x DVD drives in *all* of my computers are all whisper quiet, including the $30 crap ones, but somehow MS is unable to do

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