"Neil Thompson, Senior Regional Director for Microsoft UK, said the cut was possible thanks to global sales of over 20m Xbox 360 consoles so far. “We are now able to pass on the rewards of that success to the consumer with a new retail pricing,"

Unlikely, companies don't cut the price of products that sell well, more likely it's sales are falling and the price cut is intended to help it. Or perhaps you're introducing a new model and cutting the price on the old model to clear it and so that retailers aren't left with old stock at the same price as the new model.

Whoh! £230=€230 these days?

£20 is an appauling cut imo. If I didn't already own one, I'd certainly not be rushing out to buy one now that its down by £20.

"PlayStation 3 fans are likely to be pretty peeved at news of the Xbox 360 price cut, because Sony said earlier this year that there’ll be no UK PS3 price cut this year."

Surely PlayStation 3 fans already own a machine, and so what the price of one is later in the year changes to is fairly irrelevant to them?

Everyone is already getting a Wii for Xmas...

not a chance of me getting one.

i was thinking of getting a cheapy one to see how it compares to my ps3 (different games etc) but a £20 price cut on the £230 model (isnt this the only one with a hd - thats the only one of any use?) is only a few quid less than a ps3!

By that logic, if you can call it that, all games console sales should have come to an end by now and no more would be sold until the next generation are released.

Hmmmn stop moaning you whiners.

A 20 quid reduction in price for a much cooler gpu & processor (hopefully no RROD syndrome) + quieter dvd drive and less noise all round.

Even if hardware sales are flagging, software sales are still looking rosy for MS, and this is where they make their money. If they can claw back some ground to Nintendo with the Wii for occasional games players, then games sales + live subscriptions = HappyMS. Although the 360 and 3 are at similar levels game styles/hardware wise, MS wants to focus on NinWii than the 3's 'Hardcore Gamer' angle. Sony REALLY need to push their blu-ray player on the 3 rather than the games to avoid becoming an also-ran in round 6 of the console wars. It will also be a clever move come xmas, because less knowledgable parents who can't get the Wii for their little darlings may decide to buy an Xbox, after all, they do the same thing at the same price, don't they? :)

Sorry, I meant 7th Generation before I get flamed for that!

I'm put off by the fact that so many xbox 360's break. Is this solved yet?

Concurring with comments prior... £20 is an insignificant reduction in price, I couldn't even buy a game with the extra change I'd have in my pocket were I to buy this overlarge doorstop (get the feeling I don't like the XBox? Playstation on the way from The Fat Man this year, for my kids - honest). I do agree that these price cuts are to try and boost flagging sales, but I can't see this having much impact.

More likely this marks a downturn in sales. The Wii is more expensive and still sells better than the 360. The Playstation includes a blu-ray player, is more expensive, and is at least matching the 360.

The 360 just isn't particularly remarkable and if anything, its USP (Unique Selling Point) is that, if you're lucky, you'll get to find out what the red ring of death actually is...

Surely you mean that the poor sods that have only just bought one will be peev'd??

Oh wait.. now I see..

Mines the one with Retailers Only card in it...

I love the spin these people shovel. MS is loosing in europe and it's a close fought race in the USA and Japan, whilst less important has been lost already. 360 is loosing ground , PS3 is gaining momentum or at least, is being consistant, It's not a reward to all of us, it's an unfeasibly rich company desparate to win this round of the console war and happy to loose oodles of cash. Disregarding the 'waste of space 360 arcade' the other SKU's are pretty cheap but yer gets what yer pay for.

Paris because She also going cheap.

I'm a Playstation 3 fan, who owns an Xbox 360 because the PS3 is still just too fucking expensive. Therefore, a price cut on the PS3 would likely mean I'd buy one.

Ooh, Microshaft cuts the console price by half the price of a game! How generous! (That's sarcasm, Microsoft)

it's good for MS and good for gamers. A console price war is what they are doing and thats good for the end user.

I for one welcome this and no Ivana this doesn't mean it's a flop, it's still got more consoles in the houses of players than the PS3 so go back to yours and watch yet another BlueRay film.

Thanks to nintendo, we have been spared total domination by M$ on all computing fronts (mobile,desktop and living room). However, microsoft is not taking this lying down.

Do not kit your entire computing experience out to MS, diversity is the key - otherwise they will have you by the balls and raise prices when there is no alternative.

Both Sony and Microsoft are suffering from the fact that they have spent too long making slight better versions of games that already exist. I dont want to fork out £200 on a box to play a slightly (even much) better verion of a game I played 8 years ago. Only the WII and PSP offer something new e.g true portabillity or the option to involve your family. As a 38 year old who grew up with gaming im tired of spec sheet marketing, I want a WiFit!

PS3 fans also should realise that they aren't going to have to buy an add-on next-gen media drive after they have bought their console.

On your assumption all PC's, Apple machines, Mobile phones, Ipods etc are flops because the manufacturers have reduced the price.

I'd suggest that you go an look up Moore's Law and manufacturing costs.

When launched the Xbox 360 the hardware was new and hence expensive, as product ramps up and production technology improves it gets cheaper.

That's why we have Dual Core based systems costing less than 486 based machines when they were launched.

As the console market is quite cut-throat and there is a recession on any manufacture will try to reduce costs to boost sales.

I own neither a XBOX or PS3 and have no preference, I just can't stand stupidity.

Iain, you beat me to that point. But you could take it further: not only will people who already own a PS3 not care how much it costs at a later point, they most likely won't care at all how much an Xbox 360 costs at any point!

Also, since when did games consoles have 'fans'?* I mean, it's a piece of hardware, not a football team you spend your whole life following.

*A prize to the first person to make a joke referring to the Xbox 360s overly loud fans...

£20 isn't so much a console price war as a console price minor disagreement... "Oy... you lookin' at my market?"

***"Neil Thompson, Senior Regional Director for Microsoft UK, said the cut was possible thanks to global sales of over 20m Xbox 360 consoles so far. “We are now able to pass on the rewards of that success to the consumer with a new retail pricing,” boasted Thompson."***

So not a desperate attempt to deal with flagging sales and being trounced by Sony and Nintendo, then?

Paris, 'cos she'd believe it.

My names is .... And I used to own and XBox 360, but thankfully, I saw the light and sold it, now I'm fully re-abilitated and the proud owner of a PS3..

In conclusion... 360's suck! they're too noisy (or were), have crap controllers and generally bad games.

I see the Sony fanboys turned up in force again.

Why can you not just be happy that the game industry is doing pretty OK and that there is no one console to rule them all.

Sad buggers

No - the £170 Premium model also has a hard disk. It's only 20GB though compared to the 120GB HDD in the Elite.

The rule of thumb with this gen of consoles is ignore the fanbois and buy what all your mates have got, otherwise you'll be a lonely billy-no-mates.

MS and Sony both need to think about doing the following:

1) Re-engineer the products. Remember the PSOne and how Sony slimmed down the PS2 - both Sony and MS need to save components, power and space. Both units are too big; I've no idea on power consumption.

2) Promote Blu-Ray - MS supported HD-DVD, now the war is lost, where is the support? If Sony aren't going to reduce the price, bundle a few Blu-Ray discs with the unit and promote it that way.

3) Market to Adults, not kids. Adults have the cash - OK, there is pester power but we're talking over £200 for a games machine.

I don't own either. A small, efficient unit I can place in my living room this XMAS will win me over. MS have excellent online features and some exclusive titles, however, RROD and their arrogance (e.g. HD-DVD) have put me off. Sony's arrogance and pricing has made me hold off as well though if I had to buy a unit tomorrow I'd go down that route.

Well, I think the 360 is a great machine with some brilliant games. At £99 you can't go wrong. Saying the machine is pointless without a hard disk and wireless isn't exactly true - if you don't want to multiplay online or download themes, games, demos etc. then you don't need them and the Arcade 360 will be fine for you!

Why the hell do all you geeks slagging off the XBox care so much? If you've got a PS3 and like it then great, it's also a good machine. The XBox is good value and many of the games are excellent - and mostly at least on par with the PS3. It's a bl**dy games console not your girl-friend so stop getting so worked up!

PS2 has done, to date, somewhere in the region of 120 million units worldwide: concurrently its price in the UK has dropped from about £300 to about £80. If Ivana reckons PS2 was a failure, one wonders what in her book would constitute success...

You'd have to be MAD to buy the arcade model.

Composite only? Oh i'll just smear vaseline on my screen then, won't notice.

Lack of hard drive is increasingly a problem too, you can't even play Burnout online without one.

Surely any price cut is good news for consumers? Of course it is.

For Microsoft, they obviously figure that selling more at a lesser margin is going to be better for their long term business. That doesn't mean it's failing.

For the record, I've got a PS3, Wii, DS and a decent gaming PC - I have no intention of buying an Xbox 360 ever, but that doesn't stop me welcoming the competition it presents to the consoles I have got.

Joe K - it's not composite only! That's just down to the cables supplied. A component cable can be found for £5 so hardly going to break the bank.

Any price cut is surely good, means more people will be able to afford to buy next generation console.

I started out with the xbox360 arcade machine and is perfectly o.k for my racing games. Not into on-line gaming so no need for hard disk. XBOX360 is looking good price wise now. Also £170 Premium model has a 60GB hard disk now - a recent change. So this recent reduction in price also comes with increase in the harddisk size. What more could you ask for.

The PS3 price is looking very expensive even with built in blu-ray especially as standalone blu-ray players are now near 150 pounds. I prefer to have a dedicated blu-ray player than PS3 - fits in nicer with my amp and settop box.

Arcade model has HDMI ports. like all the xbox360 models available today.

You can play Burnout off-line without a harddisk. Not everybody wants to play on-line gaming.

the arcade only does composite out?

might as well get a bloody wii!

what level of 360 does proper hd output? which has a hdmi? optical out?

"PS2 has done, to date, somewhere in the region of 120 million units worldwide: concurrently its price in the UK has dropped from about £300 to about £80. If Ivana reckons PS2 was a failure, one wonders what in her book would constitute success..."

Talk among yourselves all you like, XBox is not the best seller and they would not be discounting if it was selling.

So either they're discounting to try to improve the volume or they're clearing old stock to make way for a new version.

@Keith_C

The 20 gig Pro was discontinued in August. The Pro now has a 60 gig drive.

@Joe K

All of the current 360s have HDMI ports. The Arcade has an HDMI port, it just doesn't come bundled with an HDMI cable.

The new Premiums have 60GB HDDs I believe (and HDMI output), not 20GB.

£20 is better than nothing but MS really should go £99, £149 and £199 for each of the three models. They would then sell pretty damn well.

I own a PC for my main gaming, along with a XBox original, a Wii and a PSP (plus use of the daughter's DS Lite). I would rather like a XBox 360 and may well get one.

What really annoys me are the childish PS3 owners who for some reason have to slag off the 360 just because they own a PS3. Why? You have a PS3 - good for you. What difference does it make if MS cut the price of the 360? You have your PS3 and your blu-ray - go away and play on it. I'm assuming the average age of the readers here is mid-30s (I may be well off there!) so why so many childish playground comments?

Bloody Sony Fan-boys are as bad as Apple Disciples (and I own lots of Sony kit and a couple of iPods, but it does not give me a hard-on)

Rant over (and expecting a bit of a flame back!)

NoOnions

The last 360 price cut did nothing (except a few silly headlines about 100% sales increases over a 2 week sample). This one is unlikely to do much either, for several reasons.

1/ It's not a Wii or PS3 (which is where the money is being spent this year in Europe).

2/ It's still known as the noisy, unreliable console, with the failed HD format.

3/ It's not got the casual games like the Wii and PS3 has (I'm not counting the Singstar and Buzz 360 ripoffs here..), it's still basically a hardcore first person shooter console.

4/ the bottom end machine that's cheaper than a Wii, is so crippled it's beyond belief, you need to spend the PS3 kind of money to get to play online and download stuff from the marketplace.

Clearly you would have to be a total idiot to buy one.

If you like casual games, get a Wii

If you like casual games, hardcore games and HD movies, get a PS3.

There is no room for the 360 to fit in the middle there...

Don't see what people are bitching about - I finally bought a 360 a few months back, off ebay, for £130. It was a premium, but old school, so having to use composite (which is actually perfectly fine for 1080p AFAIC).

If a £130 arcade had been around, I would of bought it in a flash, as it would of had HDMI to sweeten the deal, and also a bit more warranty.

£130 for a very powerful games console, with excellent games, when compared to some twats that will happily pay £50+ for a haircut, and a months worth of petrol @ £80, is toss all IMO.

I'm sorry Fanboi's I was too busy PLAYING GAMES to notice what you were saying. *lol*

Yeah its crap this 360 thing with its online social playing thingy, good thing the PS3 never really took off with it! *lol*

Anyway you can ignore me and go back to watching movies on your GAMES CONSOLE. *enjoy!

*\. Looking for my phone, so I can get a game going.

Has always been a part of computing heritage.

From the days of the ZX Spectrum and the Commodore 64, Crash and ZZap64 made sure of that :)

It is a form of team cheering, you know, like football teams, you trash talk the opposition.

I don't see how people don't get it, and start to moan about it. It is actually quite useful as it highlights the best and worse of each platform.

Anyway you are all a bunch of sados for playing computer games at your ages, should be ashamed of yourselves - I am just jealous you lot have the time :)

Can't stand misinformation so here goes:

The last 360 price cut did nothing (except a few silly headlines about 100% sales increases over a 2 week sample). This one is unlikely to do much either, for several reasons.

1/ It's not a Wii or PS3 (which is where the money is being spent this year in Europe).

The Wii is of course doing very well but the PS3? Look at the software sales for a better idea of just how close the PS3 and 360 are. Plus the PS3 is really struggling in Japan and the US.

2/ It's still known as the noisy, unreliable console, with the failed HD format.

It does have a noisy DVD drive (although this has never bothered me) - but this problem will be alleviated in a few weeks time with the release of the Autumn update which will allow you to install games to the hard drive. Also it's no longer unreliable and very few people purchased the HD DVD drive anyway - people just aren't all that interested in a HD optical format.

3/ It's not got the casual games like the Wii and PS3 has (I'm not counting the Singstar and Buzz 360 ripoffs here..), it's still basically a hardcore first person shooter console.

Ever heard of Xbox Live Arcade for starters? Then we have Guitar Hero, Rock Band (is that even out on the PS3 yet?) and all of the other multi platform multi milion sellers. I see you've also glossed over the amazing exclusives too.

4/ the bottom end machine that's cheaper than a Wii, is so crippled it's beyond belief, you need to spend the PS3 kind of money to get to play online and download stuff from the marketplace.

Clearly you would have to be a total idiot to buy one.

The Arcade isn't 'crippled' at all, it just lacks the hard drive which isn't even needed to play games online anyway (and can be purchased and added on at a later date). If you have broadband though I would recommend the Premium console instead which comes with the 60GB hard drive. Lots of people don't have broadband though and the Arcade would then be perfect for their needs.

If you like casual games, get a Wii

If you like casual games, hardcore games and HD movies, get a PS3.

There is no room for the 360 to fit in the middle there...

This is my take:

If you like waggling buy the Wii

If you like paying an extortionate price for HD optical discs then buy the PS3.

If you like gaming in any form then buy the 360.

My Xbox broke for first time two weeks ago, it was launch one aswell so it survived along time but i got a brand new one back manufacture date 21/08/08 and it runs NEAR silent and much cooler, so hopefully everything hokey kokey pigada pokey

/Quote: Neil Thompson, Senior Regional Director for Microsoft UK, said the cut was possible thanks to global sales of over 20m Xbox 360 consoles so far. “We are now able to pass on the rewards of that success to the consumer with a new retail pricing,” boasted Thompson. /Unquote

While all you FannyBoys were jacking each other off with your PS3 vs. XB360 goading, you really missed the real trick here!!

To translate Mr Thompson's statement into understandable terms . . .

"Cos we had loads of FannyBoy suckers just creaming themselves, foaming at the mouth and GAGGING for it when the XB/XB360 launched, we made a shitload of money outta their stupidity of being early adopters, which has allowed us to fuck over our original buyers by offering it at our lowest price ever to (hopefully) even more FB suckers in an effort to shift the last of our production stock before we fuck them over again by bringing out a new Ooby-Dooby new XB (Let's fuck 'em again Bill) console."

Would you like me to elucidate some more?? Thought not . . . ASSHOLES!!

BTW:

Sony can't drop the PS3 price cos they're still paying for the cock-up of their BD folly with their subsidies to all and sundry to get rid of HD-DVD.

As with the VHS vs. Betamax war of the 70's, the best format lost out but Sony made damned sure they weren't gonna lose out again!!

Paris? Cos you're all bigger suckers than she is!!

What a balanced response from Mark H.

I think the 360 and PS3 are fat, noisy (360), ugly, power hungry, too expensive (PS3) and both need refinement (cut the chip count, reduce the power, lower the cost, make it smaller) to be the centerpiece of living room entertainment. That's a Wii then. OK, no media playback and 1080p not in a million years but I can wait until the fat competition shapes up. XMAS 2009 I reckon.

And SU and YS. Those were the days!

The 360 just has better games than the PS3 at the moment. I've been planning on getting one for about a year, but being a poor student have been unable to afford it, even with MS making it cheaper two or three times. Also the new chipset & CPU process should make it a little more reliable, as my mate's older model does make quite an annoying noise.

Hmm, maybe if I put off buying one till January it'll be £150 for the pro one.

Well, leaving gaming totally out of it, this interests me from the point of view of its use as a Media Center Extender - even if I never used it to play games, it's still cheaper than any other extender on the market, so as long as it's not too noisy, it might be a bargain for that purpose alone. Being able to play games on it would be a bonus.

This will be the price cut woolworths were denying after their christmas catalogue leaked?

It's old tech, closed tech, bounded tech, secret tech. The price should have halved by now.

The cost of a TV dvd recorder has fallen in the same timescale from over £300 to around £45.

Paris, 'cos she likes playing games with money

Can't stand misinformation so here goes:

"Plus the PS3 is really struggling in Japan and the US." Considering the PS3 has outsold the 360 in both Japan and the US this year (and trounced it in Europe), if the PS3 is "struggling", what is the 360? Dead???

"It does have a noisy DVD drive (although this has never bothered me) - but this problem will be alleviated in a few weeks time with the release of the Autumn update which will allow you to install games to the hard drive. Also it's no longer unreliable and very few people purchased the HD DVD drive anyway - people just aren't all that interested in a HD optical format."

You can install a whole 3 games on a 20GB premium console, and NONE on the arcade. Tell me again how this fixed the noise problem? Installs take about an hour. As for reliability, sorry, that is Microsoft lies (just like the original lies, that there were no RROD problems), the current units are just as unreliable.

"Ever heard of Xbox Live Arcade for starters? Then we have Guitar Hero, Rock Band (is that even out on the PS3 yet?) and all of the other multi platform multi milion sellers. I see you've also glossed over the amazing exclusives too."

Ever heard of PSN? It's like XBLA, but with much higher quality titles, none of the crud. And yes Rockband for PS3 is out, it has been for over a year (PS3 is region-free for gaming) so is Guitar Hero. RB2 is out soon too, the same day as the 360 version.

"The Arcade isn't 'crippled' at all, it just lacks the hard drive which isn't even needed to play games online anyway "

Errm, so I can play Burnout Paradise Online on a 360 Arcade? (Nope...)

What about Football Manager? (Nope HDD required)

Can I play the forthcoming GTA IV DLC? (Nope HDD required).

Can I play ANY forthcoming DLC? (Nope HDD required)

Can I download games from XBLA? (as long as they are less than 256MB, and then only 1 game).

How is that not crippled? It's hideously cripppled. Once you add the cost of the HDD (120GB, as clearly a 20GB drive, which can only install 3 freaking games is clearly insufficient), you are close the price of a PS3 (£279), Add the yearly recurring cost of Xbox Live (£50 a year), and you exceed it. Keep it for a couple of years and you are £100 out of pocket (~3 games). This does not even consider you don't get Wifi or Blu-ray in the 360.

Gimped and under-spec'd. Get a Wii or a PS3. It's simple, both fit their function. The 360 cannot decide what it wants to be. Last year it was a movie player (before HD DVD died), now that's not a focus anymore, now the Arcade wants to be a Wii, the Elite wants to be a PS3. Neither make a very good job of trying to be either.

Why not get a PS3? The media centre extender capabilities are better, and the console is MUCH queiter. If you don't want to stream, you can store ripped content locally on the HDD (and the PS3 will even rip CD's to HDD for you.) Best of all, you can shove a big internal 2.5in HDD in there, or a massive multi-TB monster via USB2, and it "just works"(tm).

Whilst it puzzles me why people buy a 360 for games, it puzzles me even more why they would buy one for media-centre, when it's the worst on the market, and does not even do Blu-ray.

I meant "Media Centre Extenders" i.e. Media Centre (tm), MCE or VMC. For just streaming from a computer, I could get a PopcornHour or somesuch for a fraction of the price of a PS3. For local access, I already have a HD media player connected to my tv. I was talking about using the 360 to INTEGRATE with Media Centre on a PC, and use the same user interface - I don't suppose you could use the PS3 to schedule your pc to record a tv programme?

Yes, there are things you can't do on an Arcade. Some of them are even worth doing (playing Burnout Paradise online), though others mystify me as to why you should care (Football Manager and FFXI, the only two games that flat-out need a hard drive, are both better on the PC). But since one of the big points to this announcement is that the PREMIUM, 60Gb model is now less than a Wii, it's rather by-the-by.

"I don't suppose you could use the PS3 to schedule your pc to record a tv programme?"

Yes I can actually... Google for Hava. There are a few other ways of programming via the PS3's web browser too. I don't suppose you have that flexability on a 360, with no web browser. Even the Wii has a browser these days. LOL.