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Why are 360 hard drives so expensive?

outunderthestars said:
This X 1000.


Ia it really that hard to figure out? They have a monopoly on 360 hard drives, and therefore have no incentive to lower prices.

Also, i really wish putting "$" in place of an "S" when referring to Microsoft or Sony was a bannable offense.
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I find it remarkable it isn't a bannable offence myself
 
Alex said:
I'm not some tech expert, but if Microsoft isn't making money off the elites, they must have some pretty wonky management. They obviously have to be considering what you can do even as an end user with 300 bucks in terms of building a PC.

That said, official accessories are always pretty expensive, Microsoft is the master at random acts of highway robbery though. You're asking why a hard drive is expensive on a console that charges for P2P online play.
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Nintendo is the only one who's always made a point of making money off the core console from day 1. Microsoft, Sony, Sega, and more have always lost money on the console and made it up on accessories / games.

The point I'm trying to make is that the price of the hard drive has come so close to the console+HD that buying just the HD makes no sense.

I'm not bashing MS (I haven't used M$ once), I just think it's nonsensical.
 
I know that they lost it up front, but it's been four years, the guts of the 360 are not impressive anymore like they were in 2005/6.

It would be nice if more accessories in general became open. Batteries in 360 controllers, drives in PS3's, etc.
 
Because they're still bitter about including a hdd in the original Xbox and want you to make up the loses.

I think at one point the hdd was costing them more than the rest of the system and they almost didn't include one in the 360 for this reason (which is why we have this stupid half and half set-up)
 
You can track it back to May 2007.

Shane Kim was asked why Shadowrun, the first game that featured cross-compatibility between XBL and GFWL users, on the PC was only $50 while the Xbox 360 version was $60.

His response? "It just is."

There's your answer to all these questions.
 
outunderthestars said:
This X 1000.


Ia it really that hard to figure out? They have a monopoly on 360 hard drives, and therefore have no incentive to lower prices.

Also, i really wish putting "$" in place of an "S" when referring to Microsoft or Sony was a bannable offense.
Click to expand...
Easier to just use the ignore list.

Grey market 120GB HDDs are currently going for under $60 on eBay so there are some ways around the ridiculous pricing. I'm waiting for the 250GB, but I don't want to be an early adopter just in case they start swinging the ban hammer.
 
It's a first party accessory. Just like 1st party controllers, memory cards, etc. It's rape so that they and retailers can make a lot of money from it. This was the way of operating for consoles for generations. It's too bad that they didn't look into the crystal ball and see that Sony was going to make them look so bad a year later by breaking with tradition, but they didn't and the die is cast. Deal with it or dump the platform. I just get sick of the whining.
 
Acessories pretty much follows the same logic as the games. It's a way for the manufactorer profit with their subsied consoles.
 
It's like a stupid people tax. You can find them for $60 or less from ebay anyways, and MS won't ban you for it either.
 
because people still buy them
i know some people who dont care about the price as long as they can put more dlc - xbla games on it :/
 
SailorDaravon said:
I thought it was actually?
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I wish it was/it should be/I wouldn't be against it being bannable.

All it is is something faboiz use to sound witty and cool when bashing the Xlol 3(Red Rings of Death)60(dollars a year for live)
 
madmook said:
I remember Major Nelson saying way back when on a podcast of his that the reason the 360 harddrives were so expensive was because of the proprietary way the enclosure works, to make the drive portable and useable on any 360 with that easy connection interface. Whereas with all other 2.5" sata drives (like on the PS3 and laptops) you gotta screw it into the motherboard and is thus not really "portable".

Still, it sounded like inflated bullshit because there's no way the price premium of the plastic casing on a 360 hdd can be justified versus the much-lower cost of regular 2.5" sata drives with much-higher capacities.
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it's premium plastic? looks like regular plastic to me.

also... DealExtreme sells empty enclosures for $11...
 
Q8D3vil said:
because people still buy them
Click to expand...

And here is the real answer. Just like how Sony after 9 years charges $25 bucks for 8 megs of memory. Sony and MS charge that much because people are paying for it. When has proprietary memory ever been cheap in the history of gaming?
 
I think it's actually partly to do with stupid people. If no one bought the hard drive then Microsoft would lower the price. But never underestimate the will of the people to be ripped off.
 
I kno right! Stupid Micro$oft!!11 (I put the $ there cuz they like money! LOL GET IT??)

Yeah, the HDD prices do blow.
 
I'm sure they did the proper research before deciding on sizes and price points to maximize profits.

That is why they are so expensive.
 
Its because they are rip off merchants basically.

Microsoft not allowing other companies to make and sell their own hardrives for the 360 is bad for us the consumer and good for microsoft bacuase no competition means they can charge exorbitant prices and we cant do anything about it.

I appreciate that sony didnt do the same. Got my 320gb PS hardrive for $100AUD while on the other hand I had to pay $180AUD for a 120gb 360 hardrive.
 
This is the only thing I really hate about MS's pricing.

Live is an excellent value @ $50 but the fucking STORAGE for games/downloadable purchases cost us an arm and a leg.


It's ridiculous but you can't blame them for doing it.. it's smart business on their part.. People can make their own cheap 360 HD's by modding, something that the average joe wouldn't do.
 
While you can blame them from a consumer point of view, if you ran the xbox division and your analysts proposed this would you not agree it is a good business idea? You would be insane not to.
 
A lot of people don't know this, but 360 drives come pre-loaded with hot no limits euro porn. Well, at least the ones on Ebay do.
 
Because Microsoft's strategy is to sell the console as cheap as it possibly can and then make up the money with ripoff accessories and subscription for P2P online gaming.
 
Slavik81 said:
Who else would we blame? If it's ridiculous, and its their fault, I'd have a hard time blaming anyone else for it.
Click to expand...

you left out

"It's ridiculous but you can't blame them for doing it.. it's smart business on their part."
 
Unless you started gaming this generation, I don't know why people are so shocked by the 'Video Game Accessories Are Overpriced' concept.

N64's multitude of add-ons, Sony charging me 20+ bucks for an 4 or 8 MB PS2 card or whatever, 60 buck controllers, MS wireless adapter, etc. etc.

You should come to expect this.
 
It fascinates me how GAF can bitch and moan about the price of so many products, but when it comes to an off the shelf 2.5" laptop harddrive enclosed in a piece of plastic, so many are apologetic to microsoft.
 
Slayer-33 said:
you left out

"It's ridiculous but you can't blame them for doing it.. it's smart business on their part."
Click to expand...
As previously noted by another poster, that really only makes sense if I were an investor. You could say the same thing about Monster Cables if you wanted.

Here, I have a nice ethernet cable to sell you.
 
mr_bishiuk said:
"So why doesn't 360 have a blu ray player"

or

"So when does the 360 not having a blu ray player start to hurt it"
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hmmm. . . so what are you saying? PS3 bullet point highlight threads. :lol

stealth PSN is free thread,
stealth MS overcharges on a specific peripheral that just happens to be cheaper to use in PS3's thread.

that only leaves blu-ray player

Controllers cost the same so no thread on that. . . except maybe "Is the D-Pad on 360 good for fighting games?"
 
fugimax said:
Nintendo is the only one who's always made a point of making money off the core console from day 1. Microsoft, Sony, Sega, and more have always lost money on the console and made it up on accessories / games.
Click to expand...
Microsoft have been making a profit on each console sold for a couple of years now.
 
AnEternalEnigma said:
I do believe he said "day 1".
Click to expand...
I'm aware of that. I was concentrating more on the "have always lost money" on consoles. Perhaps I should have quoted something else.

Through his other posts, he's claiming that buying an Elite will cause MS to lose money.
 
I'm pretty sure it's 100% 'because they can'. Theres nothing special about them but thats the only way to get a harddrive with your 360.




A better question would be to ask why it isn't built in like the old xbox.
 
CadetMahoney said:
Controllers cost the same so no thread on that. . . [/I]"
Click to expand...
batteries come seperate and a play and charge kit is way more expensive and less useful than a usb cable. bwuhahahaha

actual threads that have already been done many times already
 
fugimax said:
With the rebates and promotions recently, you can get an Xbox 360 Elite with 120GB HD for $200 (at some places with Lego Batman and Pure).

A 120GB HD for Xbox 360 costs $140.

Huh?

I get they make money back on accessories, but seriously? At this point, it's just hurting them:

- I've stopped buying games on XBLA and buy them on PSN instead.
- I'm thinking about buying an Elite instead, which they'll LOSE money on.
- As a consumer, it just ticks me off that I can get 1.5TB SATA for my PC for $80, and they want to charge $120 for 120GB.

EDIT: I am not bitching about price. I'm bitching about value. As a result, I am about to buy an Elite, which will cost them money.
Click to expand...
I did this.

$299 Elite - $50 Gift cart from Microcenter - $50 Rebate from Microsoft = $199 Elite.
Only $60 more than the price you list above. Plus it was an old pack that had the Kung Fu Panda and Lego Indiana Jones in it. :D

360_price_drop_10_2.jpg


elrechazao said:
where are these 200 dollar elites? or 250 elites with two games. Stop making shit up.
Click to expand...

I got a $199 Elite that came with 2 games. :-P See above.
 
I agree, the price of the 360 hard drive is ridiculous. It's an order of magnitude more expensive than consumer PC hard drives. This hurts 360 users and it hurts Microsoft, since people don't have the space to buy more products from xbox live. Why would you artificially restrict the size of your market?
 
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