Price cuts; you know you want them. The Wii was first to fall earlier this year, and with the PS3 price drop announced last week at Germany’s Gamescom the Xbox is expected to follow in order to stay competitive. That Xbox price drop may actually be happening quite soon as rumors are circulating that the console will get $50 shaved off next week at Walmart.
Over at Joystiq, they published a Walmart newspaper flyer advertising a $50 “rollback” on the Xbox 360 4GB Kinect bundle. If this is true, this would bring the price down to $249 for the week of August 28. However, this doesn’t seem to be a permanent change.
Microsoft issued a statement in response to this, saying: “Walmart made an independent decision to implement this temporary price cut. We’ve made no announcements about price drops, and do not discuss our pricing plans in advance. Xbox is the number-one selling console in the U.S. for 13 of the past 14 months, and is showing record growth. With an incredible line-up of games and entertainment, we’re expecting the biggest year in Xbox history as the best-selling console worldwide.”
Yes, its too good to be permanent, but perhaps its too soon for Microsoft to notice the changes brought about by the PS3 announcement. Last week, Microsoft’s director over in Europe, Chris Lews, said that the Xbox 360 wasn’t feeling any pressure from the Playstation 3’s price drop. The PS3 now goes for $250 and $300 for the 160GB and 320GB models respectively.
The Nintendo 3DS recently saw a huge jump in sales overseas in Japan after falling almost 50%. The 3DS sold 215,000 units between August 8 and 14.
Well, the Xbox’s temporary cut is either cruel or hope inspiring. Perhaps we’ll see a change closer to the holiday season.
