4. The Price

I don’t necessarily think that the 360 is overpriced right now. I do think that Microsoft needs to get the price lower. Like I said in the last article, Sony’s biggest problem with the PS3 in the first year was the price. If it wasn’t for that, the PS3 would probably have overtaken the 360 by now. While the PS3 is still not as low in price as the Xbox 360, it is low enough to where it isn’t as much of an issue anymore. The Bluray drive is really what makes the PS3 a better bargain than the 360 right now. I know at first the PS3 was suppose to be superior hardware, and if you listen to Podcast and other things, people will still bring that up, occasionally, but many dont anymore. The reason? Its just not true. As it is right now, there are starting to be less of a differentiators between the 360 and the PS3. Games are the biggest, and the PS3 may get closer to even-ing that out in the next year. The price is another, and Bluray is the third. Microsoft cant do anything about the Bluray drive, unless they are going to get Bluray themselves, so the only way to combat that is with price.

The Solution:

This is what I think needs to happen before years end. First "stealth-add" Wifi to all new 360’s (come on Microsoft, it probably cost you guys more to exclude it than it does to have it a part of the 360, the DS even have WiFi). Then release 3 sku’s with these prices

  • Xbox Live Arcade…..$179.99
  • Xbox Live Pro….$249.99
  • Xbox Live Elite…$299.99

The only difference between the SKUs are really just the Harddrive size and Xbox live gold kit (that comes with the pro and elite). I’m going to talk about the Harddrive’s in a minute, but if they make the changes to Xbox live that I mentioned before, they could remove all the Xbox live stuff (headset etc) from the Pro to cut cost.

With this change, they would be well below the price of the PS3 again and the lower price will once again become a decision maker when it comes to deciding between the PS3 and Xbox.