Xbox One receives pre-Christmas $50 price cut in the US

by Mark Tyson on 28 October 2014, 12:35

Tags: Xbox

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Microsoft has announced yet another price cut for its Xbox One, this time slashing it 'temporarily' by $50, pre-Christmas. With this effort it hopes that it can finally overtake Sony's PlayStation 4, which has lead in sales for the 9th month running, according to IGN.

The Microsoft next gen games console was released just under a year ago for $499, and had already dropped in price by $100 by the start of summer. With the new initiative, beginning on 2nd November, the price of the Xbox One will fall to $349. The $50 saving also extends across a range of bundles including special editions for Assassin's Creed: Unity ($349, or $449 with Kinect and Dance Central Spotlight), Sunset Overdrive ($349 plus exclusive white chassis) and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare ($449 with 1TB hard drive and custom chassis design).

"Fans don't have to wait for Black Friday this year to enjoy great savings on Xbox One," said Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president, Microsoft. "We're offering our best price yet, with unprecedented choices and value, so more people can play on Xbox One this holiday."

The price drop is a good indication that Microsoft is willing to do more than its competition to change the sales narrative around its flagship console, in the hope of wriggling from under the oppressive thumb of PS4 sales worldwide. Sony will most likely respond in some way pre-Christmas, whether it adjusts its own console pricing, intros new bundles, adds exclusive games or a combination of these ideas.

One thing worth noting is that Microsoft is making the price drop a temporary one which only carries through to the 3rd January 2015. The limited time offer will attempt to give prospective Xbox owners a sense of urgency. If sales reach expectations Microsoft may consider keeping the offer in place instead of choking sales. Overall it's good to see consumers benefiting from this games industry competition.

Unfortunately, those in the UK who are wondering whether the price promotion will reach outside of the US may be disappointed. A UK Microsoft spokesperson has confirmed that "decisions about promotional and pricing strategies are made at a local level and based on market context. We have nothing more to announce at this time."

HEXUS Forums :: 4 Comments

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Posted by The Hand - Tue 28 Oct 2014 13:30
The irony is the XBox One is doing moderately well in the US/North America. I would have thought Europe would have got this deal too at least. Sony is selling over 3 times as many PS4s in Europe compared to XBO as of the 18th October. Maybe MS are trying to win decisively in one area.. and maybe they're already resigned to defeat/distant second place in Europe etc.
Posted by Saracen - Tue 28 Oct 2014 15:50
Personally, and I understand this may be a minority view, there are NO circumstances under which XBox One in current spec is going in my house. At an absolute minimum, I want to either completely disable Kinect cameras and/or microphones except when I positively want them, or better yet, a version with no Kinect in the first place. That's not my only issue, but it is a red line issue. And unlike Obama, my red lines really are make/break lines.

Without that, MS could offer me a completely free XBO, and every game I fancied, and I still wouldn't accept. So, personally, $50 certainly isn't going to change my mind.

If they do ever come up with the much-rumoured Lite version, Kinect-less, then I'll reconsider. Until then, it doesn't matter to me what the spec, bundle or price is.
Posted by shaithis - Tue 28 Oct 2014 16:19
You can actually disconnect the kinect now with the newest firmware I believe and you get ~10% extra GPU performance due to releasing the streams it was reserving for kinect to work.

Although that still won't get me to buy one either! Future exclusives are underwhelming compared to PS4 and I can't even be bothered to buy one of those yet.
Posted by Jowsey - Tue 28 Oct 2014 17:28
Saracen
Personally, and I understand this may be a minority view, there are NO circumstances under which XBox One in current spec is going in my house. At an absolute minimum, I want to either completely disable Kinect cameras and/or microphones except when I positively want them, or better yet, a version with no Kinect in the first place. That's not my only issue, but it is a red line issue. And unlike Obama, my red lines really are make/break lines.

Without that, MS could offer me a completely free XBO, and every game I fancied, and I still wouldn't accept. So, personally, $50 certainly isn't going to change my mind.

If they do ever come up with the much-rumoured Lite version, Kinect-less, then I'll reconsider. Until then, it doesn't matter to me what the spec, bundle or price is.

FYI, you can purchase an Xbox One without a Kinect, and have been for a little while now. My flatmate has one, you lose a lot of the slickness in some functions but don't miss out on many actual features. Microsoft have made it so you need a kinect to use voice command features even if you have their (horrible) headset plugged in. (Seriously, I didn't think they could make the 360 headset feel cheaper but they've managed it!).

Outside of that though, it's not an great situation to be in. The machines (XBone & PS4) are largely comparable when the Xbone doesn't have the kinect on, the controller is a different shape and the exclusives vary but it's not ground breaking after that IMO. Small OS differences swing both ways if you ask me.

If microsoft want to discount the Xbone, and then Asda want to do a christmas bundle or whatever (my flatmate works for Asda and gets a flat 10% everything) then I may consider it. But I'm currently content with my computer.