Gamers Evolved

Many people have wondered why the Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles have not out sold the Nintendo Wii and why they seem to always be struggling to stay ahead in the race. The two companies have been around for some time now and once upon a time they used to be the consoles to have. Now it seems that the prices they are asking for are too steep for most people to handle.

Many major game publishers beleive that the prices of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 must fall to $199 before the consoles will have any real mass market appeal. Cheaper hardware would increase sales even more dramatically and keep them both financially stable.

“The Wii at its price point is now setting a standard and an expectation and people say, well, the Wii is less complex technically. I don’t think that really matters as much to the consumer,” Activision executive Bobby Kotick told the Reuters Media Summit. “In the next 24 months they will all need to be at that $199 price point, and you can imagine Nintendo will be down to the $129 [£62.50] price point over the next few years,” he said.

Microsoft is likely to be the first to drop its prices. Already the Xbox Arcade can be found for only $270. The PS3 40GB has not even dropped to that price – but instead remains at $400. Sony has many high tech features that they offer (Blu-ray) – which means that they have put much money into creating them. Therefore they need as much money as they can make in order to see any profit.