Microsoft Xbox 360 Pro Drops to $299.99 on Sunday

[CoFree]

Microsoft Xbox 360 Pro Drops to $299.99 on Sunday
Brandon Hill
Best Buy Sunday ad scan.

Target Sunday ad scan.

Microsoft prepares to drop the price on its mid-range Xbox 360 model

There have been rumors swirling around the internet for the past week that Microsoft would drop the price of its Xbox 360 Pro system from $349.99 to $299.99. The speculation was fueled by leaked ad scans from various brick and mortar retailers.

The price cut is all but confirmed by new GameStop signage which was forwarded to Engadget and Joystiq. The internal store memo shows that the price of the Xbox 360 Pro will fall to $299.99 on Sunday, July 13.

Further confirmation came today from a leaked Best Buy Sunday ad which also shows the new $299.99 price as a "$50 Price Drop". Target is going even further by not only mirroring the $299.99 price tag, but also tossing in a $25 Target gift card instantly with the purchase of an Xbox 360 Pro.

Interestingly enough, there is no word on a price cut for the current low-end Xbox 360 Core system which is priced at $279. With only $20 separating two consoles, sales of the Core are likely to take a huge dive unless Microsoft makes complementary price cuts to the system.

Microsoft last cut the price on the Xbox 360 Pro back in early August, 2007. At that time, the price was cut from $399.99 to $349.99.

[CoFree]

Target Selling $299 Xbox 360
By Kris Graft
Ahead of an expected official announcement from Microsoft, Target has begun selling Xbox 360 Pro hardware at $50 less than the "official" price as of Friday.
Target's website shows that Xbox 360 Pros with 20GB hard drives are available "in stores" for $299, down from the current official $349 price tag.

An Xbox 360 price drop has been rumored for weeks now, with convincing evidence popping up at retailers from Kmart to GameStop.

Microsoft is expected to make an announcement just prior to E3, which begins next week.

Some analysts say that Sony will have to follow suit by cutting the price of the PS3, although Sony has said that its focus is on profitability, not selling more consoles than a year ago.

[Sesshomaru]

If the PS3 drops to $300, I might break down and get one, what with FFXIII around the corner. The 360 at $300 is a helluva a good deal I must say, the 120GB is mostly useless imo.

[parminder]

yeh sony should be following the same target but actually lost so much so there are no price slashes for them as said by company CFO Nobuyuki Oneda. but what their target is to make the parts production much cheaper like drives, chips, processors and individual parts. they will be chucking in some games 4 free with it to increase sales.

[Digital Menace]

i'll repeat what i said somewhere else....

if they keep making 20gb pro's OR sell the new rumored 60gb pro's at $299, then sony would need a cut but this is doubtful.

now i really doubt ms will sell this new 20gb-replacing 60gb for $299, (if they do
i think that'll be just great) but i think they'll bump up the price back to $350 atleast.

then again they might scrap the arcade and make the 20gb the lowest end model, but i doubt this too.

we'll see what happens i guess.

i look at this "price cut" nothing more than trying to get rid of left over 20gb pro's faster to make room for the back to the $350 priced 60gb, just my theory.


i hope around xmas both consoles see a definite $50 price cut or more.



what you guys think ?

[Sesshomaru]

Well Parminder pretty much hit the key point, Sony's price cuts are directly related to the expenses involved with producing blu-ray diodes and such. At launch they took about a $200 hit per console sold. It has leveled off a bit, but they still are in the red for each console sold. I do think Sony will have to match the price cuts, they are still firmly #3 in the console wars. PS3 sales have been even with the 360 since late last year (ahead in some cases), but if you factor in the 360's much bigger game library and the XBL juggernaut, they are still clearly in 3rd place by any measure. I agree with you DM, scrap the arcade, release a 60GB HDD 360, throw in some 65nm GPU's and GPU's and it's good business for MS. The memory cards are such a rip off.

[Enraging Chaos]

i'll repeat what i said somewhere else....

if they keep making 20gb pro's OR sell the new rumored 60gb pro's at $299, then sony would need a cut but this is doubtful.

now i really doubt ms will sell this new 20gb-replacing 60gb for $299, (if they do
i think that'll be just great) but i think they'll bump up the price back to $350 atleast.

then again they might scrap the arcade and make the 20gb the lowest end model, but i doubt this too.

we'll see what happens i guess.

i look at this "price cut" nothing more than trying to get rid of left over 20gb pro's faster to make room for the back to the $350 priced 60gb, just my theory.


i hope around xmas both consoles see a definite $50 price cut or more.



what you guys think ?

The 60GB are replacing the 20GB so they will be $349, here's an article:

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/07/13/micro ... ow-at-299/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;