Microsoft Xbox One price cut to £299.99 in the UK

by Mark Tyson on 13 April 2015, 12:35

Tags: Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Xbox

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qacqob

Add to My Vault: x

The official price for an Xbox One console in the UK has dipped under the £300 mark. At launch, just ahead of Xmas in 2013, the console was priced at £429.99. While the console price has been seen to slide by 30 per cent since launch the new £299.99 pack doesn't include the Kinect Sensor peripheral.

Microsoft wants to stress that this latest price cut isn't permanent or a cut to the official RRP which stands at £349.99 in the UK. A Microsoft spokesperson explained the move to VideoGamer as follows; "This is a UK-only retail promotion and offers great value for fans looking to buy an Xbox One ahead of the launch of 2015's highly-anticipated games like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and Batman: Arkham Knight, along with Xbox exclusives such as Rise of the Tomb Raider, Forza Motorsport 6 and Halo 5: Guardians".

While the RRP was a penny under £350 the average UK selling price of an Xbox One bundle in Q1 2015 was actually £316, according to stats by retailer GAME. We can now expect that to drop further.

In other recent Xbox One news Microsoft and HBO gave away a free 'Game of Thrones' Season 5 premiere episode, until 16th April. Also an update to the Xbox One system has provided an energy-saving mode to users who don't want to spend an average $6 to $15 in energy costs per year in the U.S. to keep their console in a state of perpetual standby with updates downloaded automatically. Now Xbox One owners can opt to save the planet/$10 per year and experience a "slower startup time" and "get interrupted for updates".

Is anyone tempted by the latest price cut?

HEXUS Forums :: 12 Comments

Login with Forum Account

Don't have an account? Register today!
Posted by Brewster0101 - Mon 13 Apr 2015 13:33
Guessing Microsoft are testing the water to see if the price drop is sweet enough to encourage sales and then make it permanent.

Think they need to get more family games / kids games on the One and then make a family bundle - currently the Xbox One only appeals to the mature (+16) market.
Posted by Saracen - Mon 13 Apr 2015 14:27
HEXUS
Is anyone tempted by the latest price cut?
Dunno about anyone else, but personally, not really.

If I had been hovering on the edge of buying, it might tip me over, but I wasn't, so it doesn't. And it's not significant enough to make me really tempted.

Mainly, when it came out I took a hard look, but concluded it wasn't for me, for a number of reasons, some of which have been addressed. First was ‘always on’, and that system update seems to address that, but I still have questions about how updates would then work, if in ‘energy-saving mode’.

The biggest initial was Kinect. I always said I'm NOT having an always-on Kinect in my home, and I'd need convincing I needed Kinect at all. As it was built-in initially, I'm paying for something I wasn't convinced I wanted at all, and would not tolerate being always-on. Now, I believe, there's Kinect-less version. So, maybe that's been addressed.

So MAYBE if I looked seriously at it again, MAYBE I might be interested. But even at £300, I'm not convinced I'm interested enough to spend the time looking at it again. £200 and I'll think about it. But I'm not holding my breath on that.

One question would be …. can I use it for offline gaming, with no internet connection, or does it require a net connection to work? Another is …. can I find, and buy locally, single-player offline games that interest me, without a net connection? Yet another is whether an MS account is required? The wrong answer to any of those and my interest is zero, regardless of price.
Posted by shaithis - Mon 13 Apr 2015 14:32
If it was £200 and there was a killer app (like Gears of War), then I might be tempted. Until then, not really interested. Which is a shame as I thought it had so much potential but ended up being woefully under spec and the list of exclusives were really “meh”
Posted by Lee H - Mon 13 Apr 2015 15:12
Tempted to get a 2nd console at that price for the kids to play on :)
Posted by Rob_B - Mon 13 Apr 2015 15:23
There have been loads of deals for sub £300 including games recently, so £299 is ‘meh’ but of that in turn reduces the ‘actual’ price of the bundles in the shops then…maybe.

I'm invested in the Sony eco-system though so it would take lot for me to move over and lose all of that.

SEE NEWER »