Is it just me or is MS dangerously screwing arounf witn screwing up this generation (versus PS3) which they have in the bag?
For instance, most of you probably dont care, but I'm a big supporter of HDDVD in it's fight against Blu Ray, as is microsoft.
Well the news has all been good for Blu Rat lately with HDDVD struggling all due to the Blu Ray built into PS3.
So to counteract that, with HDDVD seemingly near death, I was really hoping/expecting MS to drop the HDDVD add on to $99 this Christmas. It cant cost them much to make, since it's just a bare drive and all the processing is handled by 360.
HDVDV really needed this boost. So what does MS do? Today they dropped the HDDVD a whopping 20 bucks to $179 along with five free HDDVD's.
http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2007/jul07/07-26ComicConXboxHDDVDPR.mspx?rss_fdn=Press%20Re
leases
Well, 5 free HDDVD sounds nice, but I hear the selection is all crap, and it takes months if ever to actually receive them by mail. So this offer isn't very attractive.
It's almost sometimes like MS doesn't want to win. HDDVD needs some big time help, Sony certainly gave Blu Ray all the help it needs, and MS isn't doing crap. Plus, I am pretty sure this is the only price drop the add on will get this year, since I cant see them dropping twice.
I'm sure most of you dony care about this. It's just a symptom of how MS is playing to lose these days. They have muddled the 360 so much with all the different sku's. Then the rumor http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i75ec4629cfe1313a51e0e767c0ee6860 is they will cut the 360 by $50. $50, who cares. I think this will be the only price drop this year for 360. It's not going to compel a lot of people imo.
People are just going to mostly try to buy the Elite anyway, which is usually sold out. So that will be $429 after this cut. Waaaaaay too expensive. An actual $30 price rise since 360 came out.
They need to simplify sku's BADLY. I dont know what they should do, but they need to drop at least one sku fast. Personally I'd do 199 Core and 299 Elite and eliminate the premium this fall. That kicks ass. Instead MS will have some stupid 3 sku system to confuse and irritate everybody, and all are overpriced. MS has the 65nm Falcon coming up, which will cut chip prices up to half. Believe me they can afford bigger cutas. But they're too scared of trying to make profits.
And what about the ridiculous accesory prices. $100 20GB HDD. $180 120GB HDD. $100 wi-fi. $179 HDDVD add on. $50 wireless controller. $50 512 MB memory card. All these accesories are priced about as high as they can possibly be. It gets annoying. To outfit a 360 the same as a PS3 is tons more expensive. Elite=479. wi-fi=100. HDDVD=200. total=779. Granted it's not fair, many people dont care about hi-def movies or wifi. but it illustrates a point.
I bought a 360 core. I had to they were sold out of premium at launch. In the end I probably spent more than I would have on a PS3. I had to get a $40 mem card and $40 VGA cable because core doesn't have hi-def cables. Then a $100 hard drive later. So it ended up being $480 or 20 less than the cheapest PS3. That's with no Blu Ray, no wifi, no wireless controller, and a pitiful 20GB HDD. I guess to be fair I would have had to buy cables with the PS3 too. Oh and I forget, already paid $100 for two years of Live so far, and I bought the extended warranty for another 50 (this was before MS had the three year warranty of course, but it's not like I get my money back, because the 3 year is only for RROD, while my two year supposedly covers everything else). So yeah, add that 150 to the total and I'm way above what I would have paid for a PS3.
I'm not trying to bash MS nor praise Sony. But just looking at what I have spent on 360 has gone well above a PS3, just not all at once. Look at live, if we all pay $50 a year for Live, for 5 years, in essence we are paying $250 more for our 360's over it's life. Just not all at once.
So MS is playing it safe and playing with fire. Three sku's just confuses people big time, and MS refuses to cut prices as much as they should, or give people cool features like built in wi-fi. I mean, wifi cost about $5 to integrate to a motherboard. The frickin Wii has integrated wifi. Too many beancounters at MS, and not enough attempt to give us cool stuff. Wifi is a perfect example of that.
