Yesterday (Friday 28th February 2014) saw tech giant Microsoft launch its price drop test on the UK market for its next generation games console, the Xbox ONE. The move comes to bring their sleek new device a big step closer to the price tag of its main competitor, Sony’s PlayStation 4, as the Japanese console steels ahead in terms of global sales based largely on the lower cost and the potential of the technology under the hood, which if we’re honest still hasn’t been fully exploited yet on either side of the console fence.
The new price sees the console retailing at £399 taking it down from its previous bundle price of £429 with a game. This puts the Xbox ONE just £50 more expensive than the PlayStation 4, which retails at £349 without a game. However, when you compare similar game bundles, like the PS4 with inFamous: Second Son, which will set you back £389.99 at the time if writing from Game, there’s just a tenner in it.
The new price has a number of bundle options of its own, but by far the most exiting is the Titanfall digital download bundle that combines the game and the console for the £399 cost. While Titanfall‘s release date of the 13th March 2014 is a couple of weeks out of sync with the new bundle, but anyone that gets it early will be able to download the game when it’s released.
Other game bundles that fit into the Xbox ONE UK price drop include a package with both FIFA 14 and Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare roles up into the £399 price. There’s also a fair few bundle offers retailing around the £420 mark, which combine Plants vs. Zombies with one of either Forza 5, COD: Ghosts, Battlefield 4, The Lego Movie, Dead Rising 3 or Ryse: Son of Rome. Either way you look at it, Microsoft are clearly taking the first steps in a potential price war to bring their console a little closer to the PS4.
While global sales of the Xbox ONE have been relatively healthy since it’s launch on the 22nd November, it’s being outsold by the PlayStation 4, which we believe is mainly due to the initial price difference between the consoles with the Xbox ONE launching at £429, compared to the £349 of the PS4. With the lion’s share of the extra cost of the ONE wrapped up in the tech of the Kinect censor, there’s a big question mark over the success of the strategy to bundle the devices as one.
With relatively few games really taking advantage of the potential of the new and updated Kinect censor, which was bundled with the console itself, the additional cost that it has brought to the offering doesn’t really feel massively justified at the moment. However, if someone tried to take our voice control capabilities away, we’d be pretty angry, so it’s swings and roundabouts to be honest. However, we expect a whole lot more games to start to take advantage of the censor over time, so it’ll start to become more of a selling point in the years to come.
In addition to the price drop, Microsoft will undoubtedly be counting on the sheer awesomeness of Titanfall to help boost their year one sales. The exclusive title is eagerly anticipated, especially after the success of its recent beta test, so it could turn out to be a big couple of catch-up months for the Xbox next gen console. Read our Titanfall review to get a glimpse if what to expect.
There’s no word as of yet from Microsoft as to whether or not this is a move that they’ll be replicating in the US or the rest of the world, but we imagine a lot will lie on how much of a difference the price drop has on console sales comparisons to the PlayStation 4 in the UK.
