Ugh, June cannot come soon enough. Can't wait!

Worried? Rather Nervous!

I wouldn't say they're worried. They're hopeful.

I don't think many people in Europe bought a Playstation 1 or 2 for the MGS series... my opinion.

So analysts predict company emotions now...cool. I would think it would be difficult enough to predict economic trends and company actions. By the way, DO companies have emotions?

I wonder how much Nintendo helped inspire MGS awareness with SSBB?

My little bro saw Snake for the first time, being an avid CoD fan, he instantly loved the guy. Grenades, RPGs, and a UAV for a recovery hooked him.

I'm sure there are others that want to relive and now play MGS. I think Nintendo may have helped Sony's hype.

Is GT5 coming out for the 360? If not, I don't think Sony has any worries in the EU ;)

Sony still seems to holdto this idea that consumers are thinking about the PS3 the same way they did about the PS2. "Its not expensive when you think about it as a game system and a Blu-ray player". Thats what helped drive the PS2. It was a game system and a DVD player. Problem is this time around people arent clamoring to switch to the Blu-ray format. True that come next year all TV signals will be digital and HD sets are becoming the norm but too many people feel that they arent ready to fling their DVD collections out the window just yet. Sony has to concentrate more on providing alot of great games. Not just 1 or 2 a year. They arent Nintendo. They dont have that ability. Think about it like this. You can either spend extra and get a Blu-ray player with your game system or you can get an 360 sans Blu-ray but a crap ton of great games.

See that's why you should never count MS out; they're always going to screw with you when it comes to money :p
In any case, I'm the biggest MGS fan you'll meet but even I cannot deny the fact that it WON't exactly rain on MS's parade; it was never the type of game to bring HUGE sales numbers.

I'll believe it when I see it, until then analysts can just go back into hiding

@Setzer IIDX: They may also have scored points with Kojima and Konami, which would be the real benefit to them.

@jasoncourt: Yup! Nintendo is printing money, and I'm *sure* they're happy.

Wasn't the 360 already cheaper than the PS3 before this?

I think for many people in April, the 360 represents the cheapest route to playing GTA IV. That's the bottom line really.

I love the MGS series but they aren't really system-selling titles beyond the hardcore enthusiasts.

@jasoncourt:

So you're saying its not possible that Sony is worried over these new xbox 360 price cuts? I disagree. I also believe that MICROSOFT was worried when Sony cut the price of the PS3.

MS ill always have the edge when it comes to these price cuts, they can always afford them.

@Modus_Operandi: I don't follow your logic. PS3 can play DVDs, so noone has to throw out their collections.

Plus, a lot of people ARE buying it for just that reason. Perhaps even more than those getting it for gaming, I'm not sure.
Blu Ray IS the huge selling point right now. There are as of yet no PS3 Must Haves that are released for games.

@Dorphat the Insomniac: yes it was, and even then the PS3 was able to outsell the 360 in most of Europe.

Sorry to have to bash MS again here but /rantalert

IT'S NOT A PRICE CUT IF I HAVE TO BUY 2 OR MORE XBOX 360s IN A 4 YEAR PERIOD.

/rantalert

Yeah, still bitter about the fact that my 360 is dying w/o RRoD and with DREs instead (means its not covered under warranty)

@Modus_Operandi:

Why wouldn't they? Its sold better than the PS2 so that has to account for something doesn't it? The death of HD-DVD only helps strengthen that idea along with the PS3 being the best BR player on the market. And from my count there are more than 2 great games this year and most of them exclusive.

@Setzer IIDX: Yes it can play DVD's, so can the 360. Like you said the main selling point is that it can play Blu-ray. But I dont think the general public is big on upgrading to HD movies. Most are just happy with DVD's. What drove sales with the PS2 was that the genral non gaming public so it as a low cost DVD player. It had great value in that sense. Without a large majority of general consumers looking for a value priced Blu-ray player the PS3 main selling as one falls flat. Instead it has to try to sell the system as what it is. A gaming system. And based on solely being a gaming system the 360 has a better catalog of games with a lower price point. If Sony wants to make a big push it needs to crank out more high quality titles. The Blu-ray angle isnt going to push sales.

Europe, that place where people use Pounds

They'd be stupid to cut the price with GT 5 Prologue and Metal Gear 4 coming out so soon.
360 can do some damage if it's the cheapest GTA IV player in April/May, but after that I don't see them wowing crowds in Europe.

@jasoncourt:

Actually MGS is far more popular in the PAL regions than the US. Likewise for Tekken; unrelated but interested to note.

They're dropping the price in expectation of the ass raping their new blu ray addone is going to give you.

@RPGr:

Hmm that sucks. Its past the 1 year factory warranty? You know you could easily just RROD it. I don't see why you're complaining about how DRE isnt covered under the 3 year RROD warranty. You can just leave it on for like 12 hours straight or you can do the towel thing.

june 12th is the day people are OK spending $500 on a game console. please.

mgs4 will have an effect on ps3 sales, but who knows what the 360 price will be on that date in the US. also, mgs4 is a big franchise, but its not GTA/Mario/Halo big.

metal gear will certainly keep ps3 sales higher than they would be without the bundle, but the question is what will it bump ps3 sales to. if ps3 sales are sub 200k per month before mgs4, and it bumps the sales to 210-250k for an extended period of time before the winter months (lets say through september) that will be seen as a success.

Am I the only one who thinks that this is Microsoft's defense rather than offense?

I just want a 360 price-cut here in Asia =/ A 40GB PS3 is cheaper here than a 360. Well, naturally it's practically bundled with NOTHING (just one controller), while the 360's are typically bundled with the games, headest, two controllers etc.

@Modus_Operandi:

BD drove some sales in Jan (US) after Warner's announcement and with HD-DVD's death, the momentum is likely to continue as small it may be. Every bit counts. Despite having a stronger library AND a lower price point, the 360 was lagging behind the PS3 already. So this may boost sales for a while, but with a strong software lineup coming in the next few months, things will likely change.

And being a DVD player pushed the PS2 in the first 6 months to a year.

Sony shouldn't be worried at all.
I have Wii, 360, and Ps3. Yes, 360 may be like $150 cheaper INITIALLY. But wait! What about a hard drive? Need one of those 120Gb HD runs u $180, 20 GB runs u $100, oh man I need extra controller(s) (60-70 each cause u need the rechargable battery pack... no need to waste money on batteries). Oh wait! ONLINE PLAY! $50 a year... wait Ps3 is free... Oh man... DVD 360 games are $60... and Ps3 blu rays are too????

I like my 360 and my games, but being cheaper than the ps3.. F that. They are around the same or 360 is more expensive.

Sorry for the rant, but damn... they need to factor this stuff in. 360 needs to lower its price to compete with Ps3. (360 has better games atm, ps3 has better user interface, and Wii has Smash).

@PirateThom:

Probably. It's a little too late for defense in that region.

@SG79:

* lagging in Europe that is, not the US.

@Sparx: Those numbers always bothered me. Its evident that the market for games has grown larger. Primarily because of systems like the PS2 and the DS. SO it stands to reason that a system that comes out 6-7 years after the last one should sell faster. Thats just market growth and common sense. While alot of us gaming types and tech nerds thought the format war was a big thing, Joe Consumer didnt even notice it probably. You can make an arguement that digital distrubition has been more widely accepted by the average consumer than the idea of a new DVD format, mainly because of things like iTunes. AGain I just dont think the Blu-ray angle is going to count for much right now. Unfortunetly thats what accounts for most of the price difference between the PS3 and other systems.
And 2 great exclusives is nice but for a console entering its second year it doesnt cut it. This is Sony afterall. They have the best first party dev's this side of Nintendo. Again the games are going to decide this and right now MS has the wider library, due to thei early start, while Nintendo has the typical classic titles to fall back on. Sony is laggin in the games dept. Not the tech dept.

@NutManIV: I guess I could try to RRoD it but the system just plain locks up only after an hour of playing. Then I'd have to send it in then go through all the crap to get a redownload of all my downloadable content (that is what irks me the most) and recreating a new gamer tag so I can redownload my stuff (and be able to play it offline).

In any case I'm sick of MSes horrid build quality. At this point I just want MS to release an external DVD drive for games, that alone would fix up my problem...

so after this move if sony does a similar price cut m$ can say goodbye and to the EU market after Japan...
Cool.

PS3 will lower its price this year for sure. If they do it to coincide with the release of MGS4? Hyper Ultra Mega Win.

Price isn't the issue for X360. MS needs to fix the hardware issues, stop gouging customers for accessories and stop charging for online play.

Until then I'm not interested in X360 at almost any price.

Personally, I've been predicting a Playstation 3 price cut for months. I've gone so far as to say that it would hit around the time that MGS 4 comes out. That prediction may not come true after all, but I stand by my prediction that it'll have a significant price by the holiday season at the end of 2008. I think the news of a 360 price cut will propel Sony to take action with a price cut even sooner and that it's even more likely to occur. After hearing about the production cost reduction early this year, I thought a cut was imminent as soon as it seems like action needs to be taken to do better against the 360, and the increased sales that are likely to come as a result of the 360 price cuts may be enough to make the PS3 price cut come sooner rather than later. It's only a matter of time as far as I see it. Personally, I think the bet move they could make for their business would be to lower the price as soon as the MGS 4 bundle hits. The day of release should be the first day at a lower price point. Although I'm not sure what an appropriate price would be. Ideally, 399.99 for the 80 GB MGS 4 bundle, but even 449.99 would be a huge improvement.

@PirateThom: I agree that this seems like a defensive move.

@Heliophage: How do you figure it's too late for defense? That comment makes no sense to me. The PS3 has been in the news a lot lately for its upcoming features & games, it's been increasing in sales each week, there are reports of it overtaking the 360 throughout Europe, and the Red Ring problem doesn't seem to be going away. The good/bad ratio for the PS3 lately has been far far better than the good/bad ratio for the 360 in the news lately, and as such I think the only way to properly play things out was for Microsoft to reduce the price, which they've done, and it strikes me as inherently defensive. If you'd care to argue that it's offensive, please do, I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

This feels like a desparation\price undercutting ploy by MS. Which leads me to believe that yet again we will see 2 MS consoles for every one of Sony's. And to me they still won't be worth the silicon they're made with.

Sony won't do a price cut before MGS4 comes out. Maybe they do one to coinside with the launch but not before. Either way MGS4 will move a lot of systems.

@Waka in Japan: Err... that's kinda extremely wrong :P

AKA, more PS3 price cuts, nice.

if sony does a price cut it happens in very late summer or fall. seeing as they already announced the price of the metal gear 4 bundle at $500, its more than unlikely that any kind of drop is happening before or near afer the launch of mgs4.

@sitsalot: It all depends on if they've claimed money from retailers for distribution of the bundles yet. If they haven't, they can easily change the price before it comes out. If they have claimed their money, they can still change the price and issue refunds to the retailers, though that's probably very unlikely to occur if those are the circumstances.

I am sure they can always preach Value vs Price.
Truth be told that thing is one awesome Bluray Player.
That you know
plays GT5-P and MGS4

I'm pretty sure I read an article stating another analyst predicting that ps3 will outsell 360 in March. Then again that was before the price cut announcement.

Has anyone gone into HMV lately...£30 ($60) for a new blu ray film(usual suspects), you can get a game for that much money. The worst thing about that is that its not even filmed in HD

MGS4 isn't going to make much of a splash in terms of console sales. As the news post says, people bought the console for it already. If previous sales of MGS series are something to go by, MGS4 won't really do gangbuster sales either.

MGS2 sold roughly 7 million copies over the life of the PS2 and launched probably when it was around 30-50 million consoles sold world wide (guessing).

MGS3, which was superior to MGS2 in every way and selling to a user base of about 120 million, roughly 4 times as large as MGS2 did, sold less than 4 million copies or about half what MGS2 did.

The PSP version has barely cleared the 1 million mark despite the large (not DS huge, but still quite impressive) user base.

So, MGS4, selling to about 10 million users, maybe 15 million by June, will most likely be selling to the people that own a PS3 and the odd person that was holding out until the MGS4 bundle. MGS4 won't come close to matching Gears of War or Halo 3 or Mario Galaxy or Smash Bros in sales and will not move consoles like any of those games did.

Has MGS4 even been given a release date for Europe yet?

@Modus_Operandi:

There's no question the market has grown dramatically but the growth has been seen primarily in the sales of the Wii and PS2. Even with the bigger market the 360 is still hoovering around the total sales of the original xbox so that point is kinda moot. Assuming the same is true for the PS3 then their adoption rate, considering the price point, is something to keep an eye on.

Btw, I'm still wondering where you're only getting 2 great games, not syaing you're wrong necessarily, but a little elaboration would be nice.