MCV

this may help in the UK, but not likely elsewhere in the EU

a faulty product is still faulty even if it is less expensive.

It's a really great price. This really mixes it up for the next-gen and, I would say, erodes some of the momentum PS3 had been building. It could even pout pressure on Wii, too.

Very well dont to Microsoft, have to love the Xbox 360 for gaming and luckily all new machines are running on the new Falcon chips so no overheating :-)

Looking forward to many games this year and am loving the 360 for all the amazing RPG's.

I have a feeling that if this does make any impact Nintendo could quite easily slash the price of the Wii and turn a profit on system sales alone, due to the cheaper architecture. Nothing could persuade me to buy a machine that so many of my friends have had horrendous problems with.

I'm on my third 360, and whilst the technical issues are a bit of a pain, it's definitely still my next-gen console of choice. And I have all three machines.

If it does force Nintendo to drop the price then thats good, its needs to be reduced in price and that would also mean when supplies are low sellers wont jack the price incredibly high as quickly.

its simply implies to me that they know sony has a great line up this year and with a blu ray player thrown in for good measure, sony are even in talks to sort microsoft out with a blu ray, ha ha, we sold an elite on sat and its come back with 3 reds lights, so im not interested in falcon chips, or £40 for a years worth of lag, the 360 we sold on sat was the first we have sold in months !

Goes to show microsoft are worried about the great sales ps3 is having right now ! PS3 out selling the 360 5 to 1 in my shop !

@john ashby

£40 for a years worth of lag? I would suggest getting your connection sorted out then ;-)

well graw 2 as soon as you had more than 4 players on co-op everyone dies as soon as they spawn, 8 of us tried to host all with 10 meg all with same results, once i sold my 360 and got a ps3 Graw 2 online was a totally different game, ran so smooth as it was designed too, I enjoyed my 360 for 2 years, but im sorry PS3 has the edge for me now, and with the TV channels coming to it, its only getting better.

Look, peckers - turning this into a debate about Xbox Live is unspeakably cretinous.

I also don't think this will spur Nintendo into any sort of price action - the Wii is selling like wildfire. they'd be mad to cut the price. This is all about countering the PS3's increasing momentum - something I'm sure it will do to a certain extent.

oooh err mrs, sorry, well i do agree it will increase 360 sales, any price cut on consoles is welcomed by consumers,although the red light issue and paying for xbox live, along with all the acessories on top are all factors for customers in our store, so i think its really only a small thing.
So many 360s have been traded in for a ps3 just because of the exclussive software due out this year and the free online service, built in wireless networking, etc etc

I think this is a great idea for microsoft, I'm not going to get into quabbles with people who are so narrowminded, And people that complain xbox live isn't free?? why?... You get enough monthly content to cover the cost of a measley £4. For christ sake it's like buying an official mag from the shop, you get demo's, news, gamer pics, films, videos... But you'd pay at least a fiver in the shop?

Anyway more to the point.. this will boost sales for the 360, I'm not sure on how much but it will. Sony are going to have to bring the price down on the ps3, Which they no doubt will. The Arcade 360 is under £150 on amazon.co.uk, seems a great upgrade for wii owners.

come on now its not just xbox live and we all know it, 120gig hard drive upgrade for £120 !!! thats a joke, £60 network adaptors!! £14.99 play n charge,
Our wii customers are either young kids who are not interested in xbox or ps3, or adults who want a party machine,or just die hard Nintendo fans.
Its not narrow minded for me to tell you how our customer buy and why and what they complain about, its not my point of view its fact in our 2 stores simple as that.
In all honesty if it boost sales and we sell 10 x 360s a day i would welcome it, but with our current customers i cant see much changing really.Its all about software, you dont buy a wii if you want to play gears of war or Gran turismo 5.

Microsoft is lowering the prices, nice of them, they have a huge selection of greats and a great online service with lots of downloadable content.

@ John ashby

Yes your right, you don't buy a wii if you want GT5 or GOW, but I'm talking about parents. If they bought their kid a wii for christmas or birthday they are likely to go and buy a 360 at this price.. not a PS3. It clearly makes sense for a parent?

I agree the 360 accessories are overpriced however, but then you can get in an arguement that the PS3 witha 40 gig hard drive is over priced? when you can get a 360 with treble that memory for less money? but lets not get into that. Everyone has a different opinion at the end of the day.

[quote]this may help in the UK, but not likely elsewhere in the EU

a faulty product is still faulty even if it is less expensive.[/quote]

in recent months we have been getting more faulty Playstation 3's than we have 360

@10 Graw 2 was known for its issues over xbox live - you pretty much had to have a rock solid connection otherwise you would experience ppl dropping - a friend in the US has this exact problem but only with Graw2.

This is a real nice price drop to be honest. I was expecting a drop, but not as much as £50 on the arcade sku. It will certainly bring in more sales for us at least.

Sales aren't too much of a problem in UK for Microsoft, Japan is their problem area. I would have considered buying an Xbox at this price but I would rather invest the money in more Wii games. I'm not a die hard Nintendo fan but appreciate good quality games. Its funny to see Microsoft battling with Sony in Nintendo's wake. Who would have thought a vastly inferior console would be winning

Did you know that if you put a space after the "the" in therapist, it spells "the rapist"!

John Ashby, From your comments above i take it that you run a gaming store??
Can i reccomend that you fire all the staff you currently have on the payroll, because if they are unable to sell a popular product (In this case the 360) For over 2 months, then they are quite simply incompetent and are losing you money.
I'm the manager of my local Blockbuster Video. Console sale's are a tiny percentage of our profits, but at present we're selling at least 3 360's a week, we sold 8 last week.
Microsoft are currently selling tens of thousands of xbox 360's a week, and it appears none of these sales are coming from your store... Which should already be ringing alarms for you John.
I'd recommend you wait until you are capable of running your own business before comenting on other people's business on the internet.

Funny.
Microsoft's competitor is Sony, not Nintendo.
From my point of view, a cheap next gen console with bad references (quality, hd dvd failure, pay for live) cannot compete any more with next gen consoles.
Congratulation Microsoft, after Xbox 1 flop, Xbox 360 abortive attempt, do you plan to release an Xbox 720 ?
A Microsoft fanboy (but disappointed)

How is hd dvd failure a mark on the 360?
MS allowed you to watch them on the 360 but its not like they were banking on the tech

Are you kidding? of course nintendo is a competitor for microsoft.. you don't think if microsoft could they'd rather have 360's in peoples houses instead of wii's? course they would.

i dont think you can comment on my sales trends or my staff,as you work for a large faceless chain store your told what to do from above you. I am on the shop floor in either one of my 2 stores and im telling you what my customers buy and dont buy, dont try to tell me i can run a business you have no idea about my or my business. Im in my 10th year of being an Independant now. Did you set up Blockbuster yourself ?
the only alarm bells that ring for me is when i sold a 360 Elite on saturday and it comes back monday with 3 red lights and a very very dissatisfied regular of mine.
Custmers are not stupid, 360 120 gig hard drive for £120 what a joke, buy a USB £120 seagate HD for ps3 £70 !! and it doest have to be a sony product.
360 sold by the bucket load first 2 years, now sales are mostly PS3 its not my staffs fault customers are fed up with 3 red lights £40 online lag, costly extras (network adaptors)
I would happily sell 360s all day long if there was demand.
Sorry maybe you get a bonus for selling microsoft products.
I run a business to me what ever sells is great, im simply pointing out facts that occur in my 2 stores regularly.
Truth be told DS has out sold all consoles in my store, then PS3 due to good relationship with centresoft, and Koch being as helpful as a chocolate fire guard.

Doesn't sound like you would be happy to sell 360's all day long to be honest?

You just slated it enough.. No wonder you can't sell them. Haha.

I am shipping for a used patagonia ski jacket
I once saw bill gates with an xbox controller hanging out of his ass

@25 - I'm with you John. It took us weeks to sell a single 360 this year as customer's aren't stupid. In January we took the very bold but very correct decision to focus on the PS3 as well as the Wii in store and it paid off. I got fed up with dealing with the 1 in 3 failures we had on the 360 which wasted hours of time for staff who could have been on the shop floor shifting working consoles and games instead. And @Paddy above - because of this reason, MS LOST us money - there's no doubt in my mind. You said it yourself, there's not much money to be made in console sales.

As i stated in another topic, the 360 is a 3 year old console.. the sales are going to start slowing down.. christ its 2 years older than the other 2 consoles.

Yep - not rocket science, as they say.