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XBox 360 Price Announced: $299 Standard/ $399 Premium (1 Viewer)

Ken Chui

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I came across an interesting factoid on why Japanese developers are reluctant to develop for the original Xbox: it is the most expensive platform (of the current three) to develop for. The figures were disclosed by 28 members of the Japanese Computer Entertainment Suppliers Association: the average cost of producing an Xbox game is 202 million yen ($1.82 million), whereas a PS2 title incurs an average development costs of 96 million yen ($877,000). The article can be found here.

Will things fare better for the 360? Development costs aside, there is minimal public interest at this time. A poll taken by the marketing research company Infoplant indicates that only 2 percent of Japanese gamers want a 360; the Revolution sparked slightly more interest at 8%. No surprise, the PS3 is on the wishlists of three out of every five gamers (60%); see article. Microsoft has its promotional work cut out for them at next month's TGS if they're sincere about gaining a foothold in the Japanese gaming market.
 

BrianB

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Those figures aren't really "fair" as Japanese developers by & large haven't experienced any economies of scale for their Xbox development unlike their PS2 development where they've been able to spread the startup costs over a great number of projects.
 

Ken Chui

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Microsoft has pledged software support of the Xbox platform until 2007, which may be comforting to the 21 million+ owners out there. My concern, however, is the hardware side of things. Earlier this year, during nVidia's Q1 2005 earnings conference, CFO Marvin Burkett made the following statement: "Microsoft has indicated they will not take any more product after Q2, and more importantly, we have stopped production of the Xbox and expect to have no inventory after Q2." For nVidia, the second quarter for fiscal year 2005 ends this August. With nVidia presumably halting production of GPUs at the end of this month and with no indication of ATI filling the void, what will become of the Xbox's supply for the remainder of the year?

Technically, MS isn't losing money on console sales because they weren't turning a profit on them to begin with. We can assume that developers are slowly shifting their resources to the next-gen platforms, though software development will continue for the existing platforms to ensure a stream of revenue while they make the transition to the 360 and/or PS3. Unless it's a multi-platform title, I assume that original offerings will slow to a trickle on the Xbox platform if the hardware isn't available for purchase at retail/online. Has anyone heard anything differently on the GPU/hardware supply?
 

Dustin Elmore

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Considering the partnership Microsoft now has with Square, there is no reason to believe these titles won't be released for the 360 as well.
 

BrianB

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At this point, Microsoft has zero announced Xbox titles due as far as I know. Microsoft can pledge all they want, it's all upto third party publishers at this point.
 

Ken Chui

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Thing is, no developer, regardless of country of origin, takes advantage of economies of scale right off the bat for any startup project. With smaller distrubution channels than a typical game released in N. America, a minor Japanese developer and/or publisher needs to minimize their input costs to ensure a greater likelihood on ROI. Also, smaller developers and publishers are likely to experience diseconomies of scale rather than the inverse with increased unit sales.

Let's put aside ROI and economies of scale for a second. It's possible that these (Japanese) developers are at a disadvantage from the start, without having drawn a single polygon or writing a line of code. Factoring the exchange rate, if the Xbox SDK, middleware tools, etc. are significantly more expensive to begin with (when compared with PS2 or Gamecube equivalents), this puts them deeper in the red. At this stage, economies of scale aren't a factor because no software units have been published, much less sold. A startup Xbox project requires a larger initial investment, and the risk on return is greater, setting the stage for a catch-22 situation between consumer interest and developer willingness to create projects.
 

Chris Bardon

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Perhaps-eventually... No way they're going to be out at the same time though, and that should be enough.

I'm with Morgan though-this generation had at least another year left in it! The only reason I can see to cut things short is that everyone wanted to be the first out of the gate this time.

I'll probably be in after the first price drop. I had the $800 to spend on an Xbox when it launched (System + HD pack + cables + games), but strangely enough, I don't this time (despite being a student last time, and working full time now). Stupid mortgage... :)
 

Morgan Jolley

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You think Kingdom Hearts 2 and FFXII will end up on the X-Box 360? FFXI was a success because it was on two platforms, and adding the X-Box 360 isn't that big of an investment that will likely turn pure profits. But putting KH2 and FFXII on the 360 would be a waste of time, especially since they both have established audiences that already have PS2s worldwide.

Besides, FF and KH have had spinoffs or sidestories, but FFXI is the only game in either series to be on multiple consoles. I'm guessing Square Enix will try a few new games on 360 but keep FFXI as the only crossover, at least for now.
 

Dustin Elmore

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Well I keep up with the game industry pretty well, but only in the areas that interest me. I've never been big on traditional RPG's, so I don't know the current release dates for the FFXII or Kingdom Hearts 2, although I believe them to be releatively soon. What I do know is that the deal between Microsoft and Square is strong, and you should expect a strong showing of suport from both sides. (Also, I wasn't even aware that FFXI was released on Xbox?) FFXI was announced only because it is simply a port and will easily be a hit for the Live services. I seriously doubt that all further FF titles won't be made available for the 360. 12 probably won't be day and date with the ps2 release (especially if its coming out this fall?) but you can be sure that future FF titles will be. Xbox has shown a strong RPG audience, which is likely the driving force behind the partnership in the first place. And Kingdom Hearts hasn't been a one console franchise either, so I don't see any reason to expect exclusivity to the PS2. Again I don't expect a mutual release date, but we're talking about different generational consoles, with games that have very lengthy production schedules. I doubt they could release it simultaneously if they wanted to. I know neither of these titles haven't been announced for the 360 yet, but there are obvious reasons for that, and the fact that they haven't been denied is a clear sign that sqare is at the very least considering it.
 

BrianB

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Has anyone asked Square about it? I honestly haven't seen an interview covering it.

Y'know, Sega haven't denied that Shenmue is coming to the Xbox360 either - woohoo!

I'd love to know the Squaresoft reaction to Microsoft's decision to not include the harddrive as standard. When FFXI was announced for the 360, the harddrive was planned to be included with every Xbox360 sold... By changing that, Microsoft have restricted the market for FFXI on the 360 & I wonder how Squaresoft feel about that - the politics of game development is very different in Japan.
 

Dustin Elmore

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Yeah, they addressed it when the news first came out, thats why I mentioned it. In effect they went out of their way to not say it was coming or not coming. I didn't mean it hadn't come up at all. The point is that these two games are Squares big upcoming titles. It would be extremely bad buisness for themselves if they came out and said "hey, you can get these games now for the PS2 and its ugly anitaliasing, or you can wait a couple of months and get a better version in High Definition on a next Gen Console."

It would be interesting if Square were upset by the Harddrive news, but when it was released for the PS2 you had to buy hard drive as well. And preorders have already shown than the vast majority of 360 purhcasers will be getting the $400 Hard drive included version, so it's not really a big deal.
 

Diallo B

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for the amount of the xbox 360 'bundle' i can get a close to cutting edge video card and a few mmorpg's and be VERY happy.

no way i would fork out 600 or 700 bux on a system that barely has any support etc.
 

Ed B

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If you want to compare this to the original XBox in terms of cost lets look at what that extra $100 gets you.

XBox
733Mhz Celeron Proc (economy cpu)
first rev no cpu cooling, fans added to later revs.
8G HD
64M RAM
1 wired controller

360
3x 3.2 Ghz dual threading Procs (specialized cpus, very fast)
liquid cooling
20G HD
512M RAM
1 wireless controller
1 headset
Remote which I believe also interfaces with Win XP Media edition.

XBox accessories (today's prices per Amazon)
Live Headset - $26 ($80 for the logitec chordless)
DVD Movie Playback kit (remote) - $24
HD Video cable - $20
$10 difference between chorded and chordless controllers

Based on the initial release prices your paying about $20 more and for that whopping $20 your getting 2 more CPUs and a hell of lot more system than before.

The 360 core system is not one bit different from the PS2 core system when it was released both were the same price and came with the same accessories.

64M memory card is a bit pricey but consider this Sony still charges $25 for a 8M card for the PS2 which gets filled up rather quickly.

Yes 90% of the people that own an XBox now will not get the core system because you need the HD to be backward compatible but overall I dont feel one bit being ripped off. If anything MS is taking a larger loss on this unit than the initial Xbox.

We're talking about something that has the operational specs of a super computer and your getting it for less than the price of an under-powered PC that you woundnt be able to play any newer games on.
 

James St

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Shenmue 3 Ready for Next-Gen

To stay on topic, I'm planning on getting several games at launch so the bundle they list is roughly what I'll be spending. The only problem is I don't want most of the games listed. If I could choose the games I wanted I'd probably consider it. All the local stores are no longer taking pre-orders.
 

BrettGallman

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Those EB bundles are highway robbery. This is the main reason I've reserved only the system (and whatever game I want) at my local Gamestop. The original XBox cost me about $500 thanks to EB's bundle policy. It's simply ridiculous.
 

MichaelPR

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If you preordered instore you don't need to have a bundle at all. It's only for online orders and possibly instore preorders from this point on.
 

Ken Chui

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Are they? Industry and financial analysts offer estimates on production costs; per unit figures are rarely disclosed by the manufacturers themselves. Merrill Lynch believes that each 360 unit will be subsidised to the tune of $80-100, i.e. roughly the same amount as the original Xbox at launch.
 

Don_Limey

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Hey David thanks for the post, also the 20GB hard drive makes the X-Box 360 cross compatible with standard X-Box games which makes it another reason to shell out the extra hundred bucks.
 

BrettGallman

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I know. That was the point of my post. :)

However, EB did require bundles in-store for the last generation of systems. Either way, we can all agree that it's not a good deal at all (unless you actually want all of that stuff).
 

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