Quote:
Originally Posted by Cry Me A River
If Microsoft planned to use digital distribution to compete with Steam on price point, don't you think they would have just announced that game prices are going way down? Talk about burying the lead!
Three big things.
1. Advertising price early is not necessarily a smart move. Seems odd to say that but there's a lot of reasons for it. The biggest one is that consumers tend to associate a lower price with lower quality. Before making fun of people who might think such a thing ask yourself something; if I told you there were two cars - one which cost $45,000 and another which cost $37,000 - which car do you think would be nicer, would be more premium? It's not a fair question since you don't know anything about the cars and so would naturally be left to assume surely the $45,000 one is superior. Now keep in mind that most people will end up knowing very little about the specifics of these consoles, and even less about the relative specifics, before deciding which they want to buy.
2. Price won't matter at first. Sony and Microsoft will both sell out of every single unit they have in production without getting anywhere near close to satisfying demand.
3. E3. E3 is imminent and the first place where the consoles will be going more 'head to head'. That's the first place the companies are going to start dropping bombs. Even beyond that this is a marathon, not a sprint. November is a long ways away and both companies are going to be working to maintain interest and build hype during the interim.