After weeks of rumors, The Wall Street Journal is reporting
that Microsoft will announce a price cut for its Xbox 360 gaming platform as
early as Sunday.
Currently the Xbox 360 is sold for $349.99, but Microsoft
intends to announce a new price before the upcoming video game trade show, E3,
which runs July 15-17 in Los Angeles.
The new retail price of Xbox 360 will be $299.
Microsoft has slashed the price of Xbox 360 with $50 in
August last year, before the release of its iconic game Halo 3. The rumored
price cut could be Microsoft’s response to the poor sales of Xbox 360 in the
past few months.
Despite Microsoft’s expectations, the release of Rockstar’s GTA
IV has failed to boost the consoles sales. The game was released for both Xbox
360 and PS3, but Microsoft hoped to attract the gamers to buy its console
because starting this autumn it will offer some exclusive game content on its
Xbox Live service.
However, Microsoft seemed pleased by the release of GTA IV
and the company said that Rockstar’s game has helped the Xbox Live community to
reach the 12 million members milestone.
According to NPD, the Xbox 360 version of GTA IV outsold the
PS3 version in a 2:1 report since the release of the game.
However, according to the latest figures released by the
company that tracks the gaming sales in US, NPD, in May Xbox 360 sold only
186,000 units compared to 208,000 PS3s.
There are rumors that Sony is also considering a price cut
for its PS3 console. The Japanese company confirmed last week the launch of a
movies download service for its gaming console.
Unlike Microsoft and Sony, Nintendo confirmed few weeks ago
that it has no intention to cut the price of its Nintendo Wii console, which is
still selling like hot cakes. Last month, 675,100 Nintendo Wiis were sold in
the United States.
In April this year, Microsoft has cut prices for its Xbox
360 gaming console in Asia. The price cuts
range from 5 to 20 percent and cover four Asian markets: Singapore, Taiwan,
Hong Kong, and South Korea.
The most important price reduction was for the Premium Xbox 360 SKU which now
costs in Singapore
the equivalent of $366, a 19.5 percent reduction. The drops vary with both the
market it's sold on and the Xbox 360 model.
The price of the Xbox 360 Elite model, which comes with a
120-gigabyte hard drive, was cut 12.5 percent.
