Man, I bet the people who bought it over the last couple of weeks are pumped.

Never underestimate the power of friends either. I think a huge part of the 360's success was because people got it knowing their friends had it. If I am getting a console to play COD, why would I get a PS3 if none of my friends are there? Obviously there are bigger factors, like the 360 being out sooner, being cheaper, and having a better online service, but I think it's worth considering.

Crackdown!

Sony has to follow suit pretty soon. A gamer with $400 burning a hole in his pocket is going to buy a XBONE and a game rather than a PS4 by itself a majority of the time.

If you don't care about forza or sunset overdrive or busted ass halo it has nothing though. Binding of isaac is more interesting than all of those to me. By fucking miles.

Not that the PS4 is any better with big games right now, I haven't played it for more than an hour or so in the last couple months. I've played my OG gameboy more than that.

This move will hurt their credibility since the customers who already bought their xbones before the latter price cut will feel cheated by Microsoft .Also those who still haven't bought an xbone will hold off until a new price cut get announced by MS .

The best remedy is ,of course a compensation to make consumers feel like MS is doing the best they can to provide a satisfactory deal with their customers .

@notnert427:

I think both systems have been pretty bleh for first-party stuff in 2014, really. Looks like 2015 is going to be a better year for that with Bloodborne and The Order: 1886 on PS4 and Halo 5 on Xbone. That said, yeah, the Xbone isn't a bad system and, while the PS4 is always going to perform better when comparing multiplatform titles, there's still plenty of reason to have an Xbone. MS just needs to start pushing exclusives (their own exclusives, not timed exclusives like Rise of the Tomb Raider) that aren't Halo and Forza again. If MS can get out of their rut and rebuild their first-party offerings to pre-2010 levels, I think they'll be OK.

I would rather know their worldwide sales for the console and whether it's anywhere near the 18.5 million that the PS4 sold at. This price drop feels like a reaction to the those sales figures Sony released.

@monkeyking1969 said:

@cerberus3dog said:

Microsoft wants to get these into peoples homes

haha this is what Microsoft needs to be doing. Or just go the Oprah route. "YOU get a xbox. And YOU get an xbox. And YOU get a xbox. Everyone at this live show audience GETS A XBOX!"

I assume this is without the Kinect?

Still no games I really want for it.

Microsoft has been hyper-reactive to the market throughout the Xbox One's development and production since 2013 so this doesn't surprise me. 200 dollars used to be the target price point for consoles in the 90's. 400 is the sweet spot now with 350 probably being seen as a value. They should just make 350 permanent, take the hits, but get more consoles out there.

This stinks of incredible desperation to the point where I feel embarrassed reading about it.

Good job guys. Really. You have no fucking clue what you want to do with the product you want to sell. Is it always online? Yes. Wait, no. Does it always require Kinect? Absolutely. Wait, no it doesn't. Will it work to replace cable boxes with our own original programming? Sure thing. Actually no. Let's abandon that. Price drop. Quick. Push it out the door.

Holy fuck...

Stop it.

@aiurflux: Quite literally everything you've said is incorrect. After all this time, and all these news stories detailing everything about the console I'm starting to wonder if maybe it's not Microsoft's communication skills but rather reading comprehension on the consumer side that is at fault here.

They've dropped the price on the console so people can buy it for less, and you feel embarrassed by this how exactly? Because they're offering good deals to people in order to stay competitive in the marketplace? They offered a system with the kinect and people were angry they didn't give you a choice. They release a new bundle without the kinect and people complain that Microsoft can't make up their mind. Seriously it's the consumers that need to make up their minds. You want choice or not? You want better deals or not? It's ridiculous.

Sales must have hit the floor hard.

You're acting like Microsoft didn't originally dig their feet in and act like all of these things wouldn't change. Yeah, it's good that they did change their product in the end but it's not like there weren't weeks and months where they were saying the direct opposite of what they're saying now.

What's weird isn't that they dropped the price, it's that they dropped the price for the holidays, raised the price back up for all of two weeks, and then dropped the price again for an undetermined amount of time. It's weird!

@spraynardtatum: weeks and months after the console launch. It's been a while since launch. We all know it's not online-only as this was dropped before the console was even available. Since then the other major change was that they've released a bundle without the Kinect. This isn't that hard to keep up with.

Steam has sales all the time and then games go back up to regular prices. It's not uncommon for someone to buy a game full price only to see te same game go on a 50% discount over the weekend. Granted this is a system so it's something we haven't seen before. I'll agree it might be a bit "odd" but I'm vehemently against using the term "desperate."

I don't think it really matters how long its been since since all the changes. It's not hard to keep up if you're paying close attention but it is a lot to keep up with. Policies were changing left and right, 24 hour check-ins were on and off (there still seem to be frequent check-ins on both consoles considering the issues people were having with digital titles during the holiday hacks), Netflix was behind a paywall and then it wasn't, the kinect was integral and then it wasn't, the price is going up and down and up and down. If it isn't desperation it's at least an extreme amount of tinkering.

They still haven't called this a full price drop. That means the price will go up again. Why would anyone buy one of these things at $400 now? If there's a holiday promotion, it goes back up, then two weeks later there's another promotion? If a promotion could come back within two weeks of the last one than why on earth would anyone buy it at $400 at this point? You'd have to be completely uninformed or a dingus.

They made their bed when they announced the console with the original policies and now they're lying in it. Whether you call the constant tweaks desperation is debatable. They're definitely working reaaaaaallly hard to make this thing appealing.

I'm just interested to see how long this promotion is. Why raise it back up ever again? Why not just cut the price?

@humanity: You seriously have some blinders on if you can't admit Microsoft misread the market by a huge margin and had to dial back their entire vision for the console. The always-online, Kinect-enabled, TV-integrated features were core to the very design and idea of this system.

I actually applaud MS for adapting their model and strategy so quickly in reaction to consumer tastes, and arguably trying harder than Sony to compete on price and offers in order get these machines into people's homes – but they are making every single one of these moves while reeling on their heels. They are scrambling to get traction, which is a little strange since even this "losing" console is selling better than the last generation of hardware.

It doesn't seem like desperation, it just seems like they are a big corporate machine that is still really bad at handling marketing/public relations/messaging to consumers. They are trying to make the Xbox more appealing with their updates/price drops/game deals and are selling units, but keep making these moves that just make people shake their head in wonder.

I bought an Xbox over the holidays after my PS4 took a shit after a few months due to system level error that wouldn't allow it to read game discs. Plays Blu Rays fine, put in a game and it can't authentic it. Sony refused to exchange it for a new one, only refurbished. I did not pay $430 with tax for a refurbished unit so I took it back.

My Xbox works well enough, but sometimes achievements don't pop, programs crash, Xbox Live is down. I read on here about how since then Sony had system update brick consoles, they were down for days during Christmas. People say buy a computer (I have one, I cost me 3 times what a console does and needs to be upgraded every 2 - 3 years to play games) or a WiiU (90% of their games are franchises I got tired of over a decade ago).

I bought every system last gen. This gen I had a PS4 that died in two months and an Xbox I don't even bother to turn on because the games don't work, and when they do are just slightly better looking versions of last gen games. This generation just seems fucked...rant over.

This is a bummer. Previously I was saving way more by not coming close to one.
But they are slowly cutting into my awesome savings!

I think many of us are still waiting for those system seller games...they can drop the cost to as low as free but without any meaningful games to play on to incentivize us, I won't buy.

I'm all for competition and if MS keeps undercutting Sony they may pull ahead. I'm not a fanboy of any console, but the Playstation brand hold the same place in my heart as Nintendo does for a lot of people, so I like seeing Sony ahead in the race. I'm worried that MS has so much cash to burn that they'll just keep the price lower through sheer attrition until they get a big lead, and idk if Sony would have an answer in the middle of the generation.