Certainly, the biggest announcements at this year E3 were
the price cuts introduced by Microsoft and Sony. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Pro just
went under $300, while Sony released a new version of its 40 GB PS3 console,
which just got a double hard drive.
The bad news is that the price cut announced by Microsoft is
not a real price cut. In fact, the company will sell the 20 GB version of Xbox
360 until it will run out of stocks. Then only the 60 GB Xbox 360 will be
available, but for $349.
In Sony’s case the bad news is that the company didn’t cut
the price of its 80 GB PS3, which is backward compatible with PS2 games, but
instead it added a bigger drive to the current 40 GB PS3.
It will be interesting to see if these price cuts will have
any effect on the sales of the two gaming consoles. Judging on the recent history,
the answer will be No!
Last year Microsoft has cut the price of its Xbox 360 right
before the release of Halo 3. According to the figure released by the NPD
Group, the price cut combined with the successful launch of Halo 3 has doubled
the sales of Xbox 360.
The game was released on September 25 and, during October,
Microsoft sold 528,000 Xbox 350 and surpassed Nintendo’s Wii for the
first time since the 2006 holiday season.
Sony has cut the price of its PS3 in October last year, right
before the start of the holiday season. The effect was similar to the one
reported for Xbox 360 and the sales have doubled in the following month.
On the other hand, let’s take a look at more recent event. Surprisingly,
the release of GTA IV has failed to boost the sales of the Xbox 360 and PS3,
despite the marketing campaigns. However, in Europe where Sony offered a special PS3 GTA IV bundle,
PS3 had registered good sales. But the offer was not available in the United States.
Therefore, it seems like just cutting the prices of a gaming
console without any other factor involved it won’t help the sales.
For September, Microsoft will receive some very important reinforcements,
such as some exclusive content for GTA IV and Fable 2. Sony is also trying to
build an impressive games line-up for this holiday season.
It’s not to hard to
guess that despite officials statements, both Microsoft and Sony will came up with
new price cuts and offers later this year. Maybe some special bundles or
another upgraded versions.
So stay tuned cause we will have a very interesting holiday
season.
