Europe xbox price to drop.. MS runs and hides

http://www.eurogamer.net/news.php?id=20799

Aparently the sales were so bad they had to drop the price INCREDIBLY early.. sound like the 3do yet?

/me wonders how much this will backfire, and if sony will drop price also

Retailers were already dropping the price big time just to move units.. and it didn\'t work very well.

This move by Microsoft is almost unnecessary.

Well, its really the only choice they had..
They could have done nothing, and sold nothing
or dropped the price and have it look really bad but hope to sell more units..

Although, the 2 free games part is crap..
Don\'t you think the people who paid that much for the console already got the games they wanted?

Thats going to piss off lots of people..

I guess it was their only choice.

but a big question remains

Who the $*$@# did the research for this country!! Don\'t you think they would have figured it out that nobody would buy it at that price!.. but perhaps its not the price.

Well, people bought the PS2. And it was equally expensive, although it had about ten times as much momentum going for it. I think X-Box will definitely sell alot better with the price drop because, unlike in Japan, in Europe it has alot of games that appeal to it\'s consumers, plus SEGA support, which remains a strong brand among Europeans.

[GmanJoe]

HA HA!

Those people that post here and posted their approval of MS for doing the right thing by selling it at that high price in Europe, please speak up so I may gloat and say to you.....

I TOLD YOU SO!

MS was wrong to price it that high. And you didn\'t believe me.

~I~ rule. Remember that xbox fans.

What I say happens.

It looks like Australia is getting an even better deal.  On April 26th (the same day as the Europe price cut) the Xbox price will be cut to 399!! (That\'s only $215 USD!!!)  That means that the PS2 at 499 ($270 USD) will actually be more expensive than the Xbox in Australia.  And when the NGC is released there on May 17th, the Xbox will cost exactly the same amount. :eek:

http://www.zdnet.com.au/gamespot/xbox/features/story/0,2000027223,20264690,00.htm

Also, the new Xbox price in Europe is very close to the NGC\'s price (which will be launched on May 3rd, one week after the price cut).

One word comes to mind: Kamikaze!  Just think of how much money Microsoft will be losing trying to get their console to sell well.  They will be losing about $135 for every console sold in Australia after this price cut.

Now the question remains, what about Japan and America?  Will Japan see a price cut even after its already low price there, or will they decide to pull out of Japan altogether because of the extremely poor sales since launch?  And what will happen when Sony drops the US PS2 price this E3?  Will Microsoft follow up with their own price cut?  And will Sony follow up with another Europe/Australia price cut to counteract Microsoft?  This is getting pretty intense!  This is what competition does to the industry -- drives down prices!  Woohoo!  In the next year or so, we could experience one of the biggest price drop wars in video game history.

(OT -- now if only Sony would make a handheld to compete with Nintendo. )

competition is wonderful, this all benifits us. Now consoles are getting alot cheeper, only if something could happen to all the overpriced consol games (compared to pc versions)

Woohoo, finally they loose that stupid price.

*loves competition*

well, the only free games you can get in europe are


"Although a full and final list of available free games won’t be ready until the critical 26th April date, the current application form lists Halo, Rallisport Challenge, Project Gotham Racing, Amped Freestyle Snowboarding, Oddworld: Munch\'s Oddysee, Dead or Alive 3, Blood Wake and Fuzion Frenzy. Not a bad line-up."

lol... first party games
What about JSRF or other games?

Sounds like Microsoft does want to "stay" competitive (I put stay in brackets because they were never really competitive in Europe). It is a great price - here in Switzerland the price of an Xbox will be droped from 699 CHF to 449 CHF. If I\'m correct, the PS2 is currently being sold at 499 CHF overhere. Anyway, I doubt it will really have a big impact, because some shops already droped the price before without any big success.

Another thing what I\'m wondering is what will happen in Japan? I think Europe is less important because all the major game-developers are in Japan and that\'s where Xbox is really flopping. If they don\'t get the sales up overthere, they won\'t have the fine software to "stay" or become competitive.

MS was loosing support...Wreckless and Enclave going multiplatform was probably not a good thing.  More projects were/are probably planned to follow suit.  This price drop is only a good thing...

More consoles=more game sales=happy developers.  

Honestly though it\'s going to be hard to build momentum back up, I believe.