Tue, Sep 16, 2008 | 10:03 BST
Rumour: Euro 360 price cuts “brought forward because of Woolies leak”
Seems as though this morning’s European 360 cut announcement was sprung on retail as well as everyone else. UK retailers only found out about the timing of the new prices yesterday, and we’re told by a reliable source this morning that the announcement was jumped forward thanks to last week’s Woolworths leak.
Apparently Microsoft is furious about the incident. Gamer.tm rumoured yesterday that the cuts were to be announced at an event next week.
As was confirmed this morning, the Arcade will drop to to £129 (€179), 60Gb Pros to £169 (€239) and Elites to £229 (€299), reduced from the previous £159 (€199), £199 (€269) and £259 (€369) pricing.
11 comments
#1
Blerk
16/09/08, 10:18 am
No doubt they’ll be looking for someone to fire. Again.
#2
patlike
16/09/08, 10:21 am
Couldn’t believe it when I saw the Woolworths thing. Apparently everyone’s been getting it in the ear on the retail side since that happened.
#3
Blerk
16/09/08, 10:53 am
I can imagine. You can’t stop leaks like this, though. Not now every man and his dog has a digital camera in his biro. The only thing they could do would be to hold the information back from retail as well, which would mean everyone’s catalogues would be carrying the wrong prices. You’ve got to decide which is the worst scenario.
#4
patlike
16/09/08, 10:54 am
I guess you can stem it by announcing it quickly, as they’ve done. Not as messy as the US cut.
#5
deftangel
16/09/08, 11:47 am
With the lead times of print ads why are they surprised! At least they’ve learned their lesson from the US like you said but I don’t see the problem of anticipating it will leak and be ready to action the cut as soon as it does.
#6
Xephon1970
16/09/08, 10:33 pm
What amazes me is the fact the Arcade still exists. You would have thought that the 20gb would have been made the entry level model, then all versions of the 360 would have a hard drive. I really can’t fathom why the Arcade is still around.
As for the leaks, this sort of thing never stays quiet for long, it’s what the internet has created a demand for.
#7
No_PUDding
17/09/08, 12:05 am
Yes the arcade is going to be part of the problem for the future.
#8
Psychotext
17/09/08, 12:44 am
Makes no difference at all, that ship sailed long ago. Had they got rid of the core / arcade model in under a year after launch then maybe, just maybe developers could design games that ignored it.
But it’s been around for nearly three years now, and games are being developed for release two or more years from now with it in mind.
#9
No_PUDding
17/09/08, 12:48 am
Are you from the future?
#10
Psychotext
17/09/08, 12:51 am
Que?
Lets see if I can make this clearer for you. Games take time to develop, some of them up to 2 or 3 years (some longer). When developers start that process they look at what hardware they’re developing for and in the case of the 360 they know they have to account for the arcade / core.
By the time these games are finished this gen will be nearly over. Thus making the removal of the arcade at this stage utterly pointless in terms of allowing devs to target just the HDD models. Even if they were removed now, it’s likely that they wouldn’t want to ignore whatever % of the 360 userbase doesn’t have a HDD anyway (that’s if MS would even allow it).
#11
wickedman
17/09/08, 4:24 am
Shit!!! i agree 100% on the guy up here ^ they take more to develop the games ,my friend u r a genius ,wait are u Bill G…..? ‘-)