How much will 360 cost?

[10spro]

The only thing the EB people seem to know at this time is that the new Xbox 360 is due around November. However no one seems to know the price. Any ideas?

[dbdynsty25]

It hasn't been announced...you can bet it'll be between 350 and 500. That's my guess anyway.

[10spro]

Wow, that would high for a bunch of people. It'll be interesting to see how Bill Gates will market the 360 knowing the PS3 is on their heels. The latest Time Magazine from Europe was quoting that the Xbox hasn't seen 1 dime of profit yet, despite being out there already for what ,4 years?

The article goes on saying that a CO needs to spend a bundle on promotions, and Microsoft loses cash on every box sale, hoping to make it all back by taking a cut of game sales.

And that apparently hasn't happened yet to Microsoft.
Hopefully they'll price the 360 within people's reach.

[fsquid]

$1 Bob

[XXXIV]

Price must be higher than most will be happy with or they probably would have set it at E3...

Maybe?

[pk500]

$360. Makes too much sense as a marketing ploy to price at any other point.

Out,
PK

[LAking]

I just sold my xbox and a few games at EB for about $130 and put it all down on an xbox preorder. I can cancel it at any time and use it for credit just in case the launch price is too much. $400 is probably a tad too much. $360 i can swallow, but that extra $40 would just pushing it beyond my idea of reasonable. I wish they would just give us the price already. When again is the 360 launching? It's less than a year away. I think MS absolutely has to offer it at a reasonable price considering PS3 is just around the corner and people really bought into Sony's E3 hype even though it probably was a bunch of BS prerendered stuff we won't see for years to come. I'm praying for $300.

[jLp vAkEr0]

$360. Makes too much sense as a marketing ploy to price at any other point.

Out,
PK

Lame marketing ploy IMO.

If that was the case, I would have preferred they called it Xbox299.99

[thejake]

Do y'all think there will be any bundles at launch with a free game or something. I am doubting it seriously. So whatever the price of the box is, I will probably plunk down another $100 on top of it for a couple of games. Hopefully it will come with component cables. I remember hearing that you wouldn't be able to use the Xbox ones. I should be ok on the audio because i think i have a couple extra optical cables lying around.

[10spro]

$400 is probably a tad too much. $360 i can swallow, but that extra $40 would just pushing it beyond my idea of reasonable. I wish they would just give us the price already. When again is the 360 launching? It's less than a year away.

I heard the release will be for the Mid November just in time for the holidays. I think if they market the 360 right, people would probably buy it for $300-350. Let's remember that it supposed to be more than a game machine.

[WillHunting]

$299.99

I think MS can do it so Sony would have to match it somehow, or seem way overpriced.

[vinny-b]

don't know. But as it stands, am not doing anything until the PS3 releases.

blame it on E3.

[wco81]

When they designed the chips, they should have had certain manufacturing cost targets which would enable them to price the box at a certain price range.

Ballmer said it was going to have just 256 MB of RAM just a few months ago but they bit the bullet and decided to raise it to 512 MB, which cost them $30 more per unit and is a big jump in their overall costs.

You would think however that they're going to be around $300 after all this planning and design. There are some risks. The IBM chip and the ATI chip are both pushing the envelope. IBM hasn't been able to deliver a 3 Ghz PPC chip for Apple in over a year so they have to prove they can do it (of course this applies to the Cell as well since IBM is involved but Sony has more time).

Including the hard drive may also have been a very recent decision as well as providing some kind of backwards compatibility. These would add to their costs as well.

But MS may feel they have to be aggressive with pricing, although good preorders now might make them think otherwise. The X360 still should be cheaper to manufacture than the PS3 so they could cut price by the time the PS3 launches.

[dbdynsty25]

The fact that they are using graphics chips that are more advanced than anything we've seen on the PC yet should be very disturbing then, according to your theory Wco. The fact that the top of the line pc cards will run you upwards of 500-600 bucks (retail of course) would blow the 300 dollar price point out of the water. I still have a feeling we're going to be looking at a 400 dollar machine...at least.

[wco81]

Actually, people who are way more into GPUs are predicting that by the time the PS3 launches, both ATI and nVidia will have chips with comparable power. The R520 and G70 may both have launched by then and refreshes of those chips may be in the market by then.

Those cards have much higher budgets, with predictions of 512 MB cards.

Where the consoles may stay ahead of PCs for a couple of years is in the CPU. Even with multicore Intel and AMD chips, it may take awhile for them to match the floating point power of the Xbox CPU and the Cell.

But it should more than be made up by more powerful GPUs.

There's no guarantee for instance that X360 and PS3 games will be able to consistently hit 60fps. If you think about games this generation, most developers have chosen better details instead of trying to lock in at 60fps. I can only think of a handful of 60fps games off the top of my head. Indications are that developers will have to make a similar choice, between details and having a lot of AA and things like HDR lighting versus less or no AA, no HDR but higher frame rate.

Even at $400 though, there's a lot of value there. Wireless controller, hard drive and there won't be any $400 PC that outperforms it. But obviously, sales would be better at $300 and would help MS get out to a bigger lead than if it was $400 or higher.

[dbdynsty25]

Well of course the GPUs available for the PC will catch up to the consoles eventually, but my point is that the top of the line cards will always be around 500 bucks...just for the graphics card. When the comparable cards come out, they will be in that price range. Microsoft will be taking a huge hit if they price the console too cheap. I agree, they will sell more at $300...but they certainly won't be making much on each console, and I'd be surprised if they didn't lose quite a bit of money on each, even at the $400 point.

[wco81]

For instance Gears of War is one of the games people seemed most excited about from the X360 showing.

That game is also due for the PC. So if the X360 version is 720p with 4XAA, its frame rate will probably be 30fps. But lets say they hit 60 fps.

A PC with maybe an SLI setup with the latest card out the fall of next year may run it at 1600x1200 and higher frame rates. Of course that PC probably costs $2k or more.

MS said they expect to make money this generation. One thing is they own the right to have the chips made by anyone, not just IBM and ATI. So that will let them cut prices over the next 5 years and still make money. Or at least, you would think they learned their lessons from the Xbox and plan to cut their costs.

They expect to make money from microtransactions and more XBL subscriptions. They say they want 50% of X360 owners to be on XBL, compared to under 10% now. They also hope to get people to buy Media Center Edition PCs, so that they could access photos, music and videos from the MC on their X360.

[10spro]

...but they certainly won't be making much on each console, and I'd be surprised if they didn't lose quite a bit of money on each, even at the $400 point.

Let's not forget MS has lost on every sale of the Xbox already, however in order to stay competitive with Sony, that's part of the business. B. Gates knew well that he wouldn't be very profitable in the first years of the creation of the Xbox, but he's got big pockets, and their profit is based on the sale of the games basically. Xbox is soliddly 2nd behind the PS2 and if they market the 360 adequately, where the price will attract new gamers, specially around the holidays, ($300-350?) they might just get closer yet to Sony's dominance of the game industry. Of course at that price MS will lose lots on every sale of the 360 but if anyone can afford to id Mr Gates.

[vinny-b]

The fact that they are using graphics chips that are more advanced than anything we've seen on the PC yet should be very disturbing then, according to your theory Wco. The fact that the top of the line pc cards will run you upwards of 500-600 bucks (retail of course) would blow the 300 dollar price point out of the water. I still have a feeling we're going to be looking at a 400 dollar machine...at least.

yes, but most people were saying this about Xbox 1 (pre-launch). I don't think Microsoft is dumb enough to price at $400. They are already behind the 8 ball, the way it is.

[brendanrfoley]

Every hardware manufacturer loses money on the hardware, it's one ofthe main reasons Sega dropped out of the console biz.

Because of that, I say MS does the "smart" thing and launch at $300 , knowing it's going to lose money anyways. Cut the price to $250 a year later when second gen games hit the shelves (ex. Halo 3) and the PS3 releases.

That will put Sony in a very, very difficult situation with the cost of the PS3 (which is being estimated at $400 to $450).

[webdanzer]

I think the PSP success is going to allow consoles to come out at a higher price. How many people dropped major cash on the PSP bundles, or even the system alone?

You think they'll only charge $50 more for the next round of consoles?

[Inuyasha]

But has the PSP been successful? The hardcore gamers have bought it, but how about the average consumer?

[10spro]

"

Weaver2005"]But has the PSP been successful? The hardcore gamers have bought it, but how about the average consumer?

Yeah, surprisingly I thought the PSP would be sold out everywhere but it's not. Personally, I think the y could have started $50 cheaper plus a game. Don't get me wrong it's a great handheld, but the games are slow coming out and so far with the exception of Hot Golf, Wipeout Pure and Ridge Racer, the rest of the bunch are just mediocre games.
To enter the gaming market and have a solid lead, marketing and a price that won't scare the average consumer are key to the pole position.

[Slumberland]

I am still scared of the price. If it were $200, I'd probably own one by now. At $250, once I factor in tax and whatever warranty I decide I need, it's in the neighborhood of $300, before I even get a game. Fifty bucks less would definitely make it easier for me to pull the trigger.

[TRI]

The CPUs in the XBOX 360 and the PS3 are IN-ORDER processors which are much cheaper to manufacture and smaller. IN-ORDER processors lack an instruction window and as a result cannot reorder instuctions on the fly and therefore are extemely susceptible to memory latency problems. This is a big down grade from your Intel P4 and the AMD chips which are OUT-OF-ORDER execution processors. The performance down grade will depend on the compiler and the developer. Unfortunately, there will be some penalty even if you have a good compiler. I remember my old 486 computer which had an IN-ORDER processor and it often stalled and it was very frustrating. When writing code for these processors you have very little margin for error and are very susceptible to stalls in the cache.The PS3 CELL may be at even a greater disadvantage because the SPEs lack branch predictors. So the CPUs in the next generation consoles although much faster are really not much of an up grade and should not be very expensive.