Xbox 360 Cutting Price Cutting…Huh?

For those that ran out to pickup a 20GB Xbox 360 for the low low price of $299… sit down. This may hurt a bit. Their is a new rumor stating the Xbox 360 is undergoing another price cut, for all consoles in their full array of consoles.

Let’s just get this over with quick:

  • Arcade (no hard drive) to $199
  • Pro (60GB) to $299
  • Elite (120GB) to $399

This is a highly competitive price cut making the Xbox 360 much more desirable, a price closer (and in some case beating) the Nintendo Wii. Imagine, a graphically powerful console for a price near that of the “last generation” graphics of the Wii.

Of course, those purchasing a Wii aren’t buying it because you’re saving money on a next-generation console. In the end, if this price cut is real, we’re seeing the next-generation console market really dropping to some realistic figures.

Bad for Sony, considering they’re still trying to make money on their expensive box. No doubt Sony’s in this for the 10-year plan but if they can’t keep competitive with Microsoft people may ignore you for the next 10-years because it’s too costly.

(Thanks, Kotaku)

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Since the last breath of HD-DVD rumors have been flying about Microsoft’s need (desire?) to get into the Blu-Ray hardware for their 360. The rumor was feasible because Microsoft already spent time working the HD-DVD angle for their “home entertainment” Xbox 360 console.

Although Microsoft’s Shane Kim told Forbe’s, “I can categorically say that we’re not working on a Blu-Ray player for Xbox 360,” there is further proof in Microsoft’s direction: Netflix. From a profit standpoint, Microsoft’s got more to work with in a downloadable digital format with Netflix than they do sending another specification off to manufacturing.

The effort that went into the HD-DVD addon was significant but with risk comes reward, but risk also comes with the chance of failure. Microsoft had to write it off as a failure, do they really need to go through it all again when digital downloads are the future of media? Probably not.

The Xbox 360 is going to be three years old this year, positioning another addon hardware storage player seems like the wrong idea for many reasons:

  • Spend your R&D efforts on the next-generation console, not more fluff addons to compete against Sony.
  • Blu-Ray for movies is still risky, considering the cost of movies in the market (and their slight increase when HD-DVD died).
  • Global adoption of Blu-Ray is still years off

Undoubtedly, Blu-Ray would be a great storage medium for their next-generation console because it could be established as the core storage platform for developers. If the intent is just to play Blu-Ray movies, you’re going to work hard, today, when adoption rates are so low.

Until you can use a Blu-Ray player for both games and movies, stick with digital downloads of movies and retail purchases for games. Maybe next-generation.

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XBLA offers great opportunities for the indy developer but everything comes at a price. Over the last three years Braid‘s developer Jonathan Blow spent a reported $180,000 to create the popular Braid title on Xbox Live. He’s going to need a lot more sales before he can celebrate the highly valued, highly reviewed title.

The Independent Games Festival was kind to him, giving him the “Innovation in Game Design” back in 2006, since then he’s put his money where is mouth is; his own money. There are good times and bad times when you’re discovering your dreams. The reviews surely made him feel great about the work he has done over the last three years but a review won’t pay the bills.

It may be a hard road ahead for Jonathan, hopefully at least breaking even on the project. Although he may not look back at the game as a financial success we can only imagine he’ll have a lot easier time getting funding or publishing for his next title, if that’s the path he chooses.

(Thanks, Kotaku)

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Major Nelson outlined some of the new features coming to Dashboard and the Xbox 360. Besides the avatar feature, which is cute, we’re going to have the ability to install games directly to the hard drive and play them.

This feature explains the recent press release about the 60GB Xbox 360 and the price drop on the old 20GB box. Once we can install on our hard disk we’re going to be able to watch our disk space fade away just like we can do, today, on our PC.

You’re going to need to keep the disk in the drive, however, to play the Xbox 360 games you’ve purchased. This will continue to be Microsoft’s solution to Digital Rights Management (DRM) with their console. The end goal, however, is a faster load and a much quieter gaming experience as the 360 DVD player is tremendously loud.

Pretty soon this system is going to be no better than a PC if it keeps getting features like this!