Best Buy ad offers yet more evidence of Xbox 360 price cuts

While it seems to be all but a sure thing that all three Xbox 360 SKUs will be getting a price cut on September 7th, if you need a bit more reassurance, you can now take comfort in this apparently authentic Best Buy ad provided by a helpful tipster, which should be making an appearance in paper form just in time for the big day. Just like Radio Shack's, this one lists the Arcade, Pro and Elite for $199, $299, and $399, respectively, and, unsurprisingly, there's no mention of a motion controller with any of 'em.

[Lyle @ Aug 26th 2008 4:06PM]

Do we really need any more evidence?

[Forrest @ Aug 26th 2008 4:12PM]

Well they gotta talk about something. It's a slow news day.

[MarkD @ Aug 26th 2008 4:11PM]

It will be interesting to see if they can outsell the wii at $199. They'll need a big marketing campaign to get the word out.

[Joel @ Aug 26th 2008 4:23PM]

I think they'd need to offer a free Wii w/ purchase in order to outsell the Wii at this point.

[thrillchuckles @ Aug 26th 2008 6:13PM]

dear joel,
that makes no sense at all.
love, fail

[ddub @ Aug 27th 2008 2:33AM]

I think if they included a free 360 with every wii purchase then they would move even more units.

[JK @ Aug 26th 2008 4:17PM]

Hey look a metallic silver DS

[Ross @ Aug 26th 2008 8:22PM]

no shit sherlock

[Gman @ Aug 26th 2008 4:12PM]

I though the first ad or two may have been photoshopped, but now I believe it. If only I had $299 to blow... I guess I really don't need one though considering I have a PS3, but having Halo 3 would be nice.

[nathan.wong @ Aug 26th 2008 5:36PM]

I have a Wii and the PS3 and I just got an Xbox360 earlier this month (a gift). Of course it goes down in price after I get it. It could have saved my family $50. Anyway, I found the Wii doesn't have many games I really want to play. Wii Fit was fun for a week and now I just use it as a weight scale and BMI indicator. The PS3 is fun, but there aren't as many games as the Xbox 360 currently has. I JUST finished Halo 3 the other night. Took me about a day to finish it, but I was able to do it. Fun game. Very engrossing story. However, because I never played the other Halo games some things I didn't get, such as that little orb that said I was a friend and the meaning of the number 117.

Man, I hate this response system that engadget uses. For a company that's trying to keep the world in touch with the future their response system is worse than some of the BBS I used decades ago.

[Frank @ Aug 26th 2008 4:13PM]

I figured this was all a done deal... seeing as the circuit city ad tucked in my copy of the Sunday Boston Globe had the price cut officially listed for the Pro 360.

[mugupo @ Aug 26th 2008 4:26PM]

Nice, but can't never beat the 299 elite deal in dell few weeks ago.

[Rogue_Genius @ Aug 27th 2008 3:31PM]

I heard and almost got in on it. By the time I tried, it had been killed. I guess that's what I get for not surfing engadget on my Treo...

iFail. :(

[My Ipod beats your computer @ Aug 26th 2008 4:21PM]

best buy to sell iPhone next month as well :D

[phanbouy @ Aug 26th 2008 5:13PM]

My iFist beats your question mark head.

[Iridium @ Aug 26th 2008 4:28PM]

$199, $299, $399 pricing makes a lot of retail sense. It is where the XBOX consoles need to be. The major problem will be overcoming the bad publicity of RRoD, yes it still matters, and the overall hardcore stigma if the XBOX is going to pass the overall success mark.

The Wii should have always been $199 but Nintendo was able to generate ungodly hype to sell the least powerfull and more crap ridden console in numbers the others could only dream of.

Sony needs to cut the price of the 120 GB to $399 and the 80GB to $299. There is still no way for Sony to get to a $199 price point for the near future. As long as they can have a console at $299 they can prevent Microsoft from gaining momentum again. The $199 Lets go and Play XBOX will never sell over a Wii and the gamer in the market for an Xbox is going to buy one with a hard drive.

[3dpenguin @ Aug 26th 2008 7:51PM]

I think Microsoft is counting on one of two things happening, Sony refuses to sell the PS3 at any lower cost giving them the upper hand, or Sony drops the price of the PS3 again and causes the company to lose even more money on the money pit of a system they've created and the board of directors forces Sony to scrap or cut back on their game division, either way Microsoft will win.

[Dakota @ Aug 26th 2008 4:30PM]

If this is really going to happen, then why are the urls, and stuff blocked out. Just makes me think it will not happen but "hi I don't care I prefer sony."

[Ken @ Aug 26th 2008 4:36PM]

So that people who were going to buy one today pay the higher price instead of waiting out the price cut, duh!

[Tid @ Aug 26th 2008 4:42PM]

URLs are presumably blocked to prevent anyone at best buy tracking down his/her IP from the session data stored in the url? Or it could be as simple as his/her personal data (zip code) is being passed in the URL

[Squid7085 @ Aug 26th 2008 4:29PM]

What I want to see is a price drop on the Wii, the 360, a much more powerful and capable machine is cheaper than the Wii now. However, I think we can see that the Wii probably wont drop in price until people are no longer willing to pay the current price for it. For example, if I were to find a Wii, I would buy it on the spot, despite the fact it is ridiculously expensive for what it is.

[Matthew T @ Aug 26th 2008 4:37PM]

That seems like kinda crappy logic for a purchase. See Nintendo's artificial demand has got a hold on you. Buying something you don't really need or want just because Nintendo doesn't want to produce enough to saturate the market. I find it very very LOW of them.

[alexisawesomex @ Aug 26th 2008 4:34PM]

where do they get the future ads?

[Mark @ Aug 26th 2008 4:37PM]

Heres a better idea Microsoft. Rather than cutting the cost, to try and clear the shelves of all them broken units, why not fit better components, and raise the price slightly.

From here, it looks like that's the only way your gonna have any impact this generation.

[Duke 2 @ Aug 26th 2008 5:03PM]

OOOHH, NICE flip comment there bud, except for the fact you don't have a clue...

They have been upgrading components both in terms of CPU and GPU all along using the same sku's. Do just a little research and try googling Zephyr, Falcon and Opus and others, each of which are interim hardware releases designed to improve stability, efficiency and system failures not to mention cost savings which is part of how they've been able to lower retail price points.

I'm just as much of a critic of those who feel MS didn't make the changes earlier than they did, but can't STAND to see ignorant posts about how they've done nothing about the infamous RROD issues. Reality is they have and RROD's are down significantly.

ALL console manufacturers upgrade hardware over a sku's product life cycle, Xbox being no exception.

[Mark @ Aug 26th 2008 5:09PM]

@Duke 2

Shame that Microsofts changes have not actually fixed things. I know the difference between Xenon, Falcon, Opus and Jasper.

Shame the first three don't actually fix it, and the last one (the final possible fix) is not out yet...

[Duke 2 @ Aug 26th 2008 5:30PM]

Shame there's still people who are hell bent on bashing for the sake of bashing.

You certainly have the right though man, so go for it!

The same people who continue to bash the Opus / Falcon improvements (which factually reduced RROD's from Xenon / Zephyr) will still bash post when Jasper is released and even when Valhalla (even cooler combined chipset) is released with the rationale that unless there are no defective consoles what-so-ever (an impossibility) MS hasn't 'fixed' the problem and are just out to fuk the public.

Again, far be it for me of all people to defend the likes of filth like Ballmer, but the facts are improvements have and continue to be made. There will never be a utopian-high-performance-zero-defect console from any manufacturer- period.

[CaramelZappa @ Aug 26th 2008 4:34PM]

Price drops are always good. Hopefully this will convince sony and nintendo to do the same, though I doubt nintendo will. Personally, I've been waiting to get a ps3. $399 is just too much. They keep anouncing new SKU's, but then instead of making them cheaper just keep the same price points with bigger harddrives. I'm going to put my own harddrive in it later anyways, just give me $299 ps3.

[Striker @ Aug 26th 2008 4:39PM]

WTF? "Internet Explorer pro"? Never heard of that browser.

[Farris @ Aug 26th 2008 5:23PM]

http://www.ie7pro.com

Apparently it's an add-on to give IE a bunch of extra features. Personally I'm a FF guy, myself, though.

[ChuChu @ Aug 26th 2008 5:26PM]

It's for Professionals only.


Amateur.




(j/k)

[G.K. @ Aug 26th 2008 4:43PM]

Soooo, do we have to wait until there's another ad from Sam's Club or Tuesday Morning to make it official, or will the price cut still be pure speculation?

...must be a slow news day...

[G.K. @ Aug 26th 2008 4:43PM]

Soooo, do we have to wait until there's another ad from Sam's Club or Tuesday Morning to make it official, or will the price cut still be pure speculation?

...must be a slow news day...

[Nick @ Aug 26th 2008 4:51PM]

Damn, at $199, that might justify me buying a second xbox just to use its DIVX streaming capabililties for my home theater...


any thoughts? are there cheaper solutions to stream divx?

[Jin Saotome @ Aug 26th 2008 5:00PM]

Dell is selling some Inspiron desktops for ~$240 (plus taxes, shipping and all that). Core Duo 2.0GHz, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD, and Ubuntu (deal breaker for some I guess, but if you have your own OS you want to install it'd be fine). Add a wifi card, and a cheapo card that can handle HD decoding and you have a very nice system as a media center for ~$300. Sure, it's no 360 but it does have more flexibility.

If you want to find out more, just go to Dell.com, and type in Ubuntu in the search box.

[Kurt @ Aug 26th 2008 5:02PM]

I like how they added Divx just as people are starting to move away from it. I hope they add MKV support in the future.

[chefgon_ign @ Aug 26th 2008 6:02PM]

I bought one at $270 for that purpose and I thought it was totally worth it. Keep in mind, though, that you'll need a wired network connection to hook it up. Otherwise it's an additional $100 purchase to get it up wirelessly.

[Speeddemon2008 @ Aug 26th 2008 4:57PM]

Sad cuz I can go to Target and see 3 sitting on the shelf, Same with gamestop and bestbuy. I never understood this artificial demand thing when I always see so many sitting on the shelfs.

[Speeddemon2008 @ Aug 26th 2008 5:06PM]

stupid reply system. first time it got me.

[Bruno @ Aug 26th 2008 5:21PM]

The first images and details of Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2:

http://livebetas.net/2008/08/26/primeira-imagem-do-internet-explorer-8-beta-2/

Windows Live Beta Wave 3 for all day 28? :

http://livebetas.net/2008/08/26/windows-live-wave-3-beta-dia-28-de-agosto/

[Gino @ Aug 26th 2008 5:01PM]

anyone hear new news re: the jasper chipset? i'd expect it to be appearing in the next couple months...

[Plain Jane @ Aug 26th 2008 5:06PM]

Those ones won't be $199, this is just a firesale to clear out all the old faulty falcons sitting around in retail gathering dust.

[Duke 2 @ Aug 26th 2008 5:08PM]

I'm hearing September for the Jaspers (smaller GPU 65/90nm) and suspect the latest round of price drops is linked to the cheaper consoles.

[Duke 2 @ Aug 26th 2008 5:41PM]

@PlainJane

The XBox 360 never has and never will have multiple pricing on consoles with different components. They didn't during ANY transitional phase between chipsets when old gen / new gen consoles could both be found on the shelves and won't when Jasper is launched either. Keep in mind, it's the same FREAKIN sku with a single price at a given point in time.

[Gino @ Aug 26th 2008 6:46PM]

@ PlainJane

Yeah, Duke2 is right. The vast majority of consumers have no idea nor care what chipset is in their xbox. all they care about is "is it gonna overheat and burn my house down?"

also, let's think business for a second here: no company is stupid enough to re-release the same product with the same "visible" specs (hard drive size, hdmi, etc) for a *higher* price. save that "firesale' vocabulary word for another post ;)

[Alexius @ Aug 26th 2008 5:04PM]

Lawl Vista.

[Ron @ Aug 26th 2008 5:25PM]

I think I'll take the plunge again once the 60GB Pro drops to $299, I just got a SyncMaster so I'm gonna need some HDMI and the 360 I have not does not have it.

[Richard Glitter @ Aug 26th 2008 6:36PM]

I was at Best Buy just the other day and they had a price on the XBox 360 Elite bundle with two games (Forza 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance, which came in one DVD case together inside the XBox box) for only $374.99. I of course bought it, since I was in the market for one anyway. I asked if it was a permanent price drop and they said it was a "store exclusive". Whatever that means. This was about a week or two ago.

[rTwelve [xbl:chilblane] @ Aug 26th 2008 8:24PM]

Manager's special. At our store we had them at full price but were throwing in an game up to $60 in value of your choice.

[Anthony @ Aug 26th 2008 7:03PM]

glad for the xbox and all, but silver ds lite? i was right, it is coming.

anyway yay whoopee for the xbox fans. (im not one.)