Maybe they are getting rid of stock before the big announcement
Why? If the refresh is coming in 2024, it won't be until later in the year. They'd want to time it for the holidays because that's when Xbox hardware traditionally sells best. So, are Microsoft going to eat costs on Series X hardware for nine months, or is this just a temporary price cut and then sales slow down dramatically again? That just leaves retailers with Series X hardware slowly getting sold through most of 2024.
If they're trying to clear the channels altogether of X units but won't be refreshing until the new model, and that doesn't release until Fall next year, they're just going to go nine months or so with no new Series X hardware? Because why would they make more of the model that's about to be replaced, just to either have it sit around (priced too high) or lose money on each unit sold (priced too low)?
I don't think this has anything to do with a refresh. It's just Microsoft trying to clear out some clogged channels of Xbox hardware so boost the holiday sales numbers. Xbox hardware isn't doing very good right now, they're tracking behind OG Xbox's 3rd calendar year and in places like Europe sales have seemingly crashed. America is maybe the only surefire market MS can still push some big numbers but they have to get a lot more aggressive with pricing hence the price cut. I guess they also feel it gives them an advantage since technically the new PS5s are a bit higher cost than the old model (well, the new Digital one is, by $50).
Although this also cannibalizes a lot of the new Series S sales because who in their right mind would by a 1 TB Series S for the same price as a Series X?
Meanwhile, at Target last week.
I actually really like this as an idea and it'd be cool if Lego could do this with other consoles or even computers. Gamecube, PS2, PS3, Saturn, Dreamcast, PC '98. It'd be pretty neat.
An incredible offer, but the same mistake of MS always, prioritizing only the sales of the USA and UK while treating the rest as second category users..... Here in the EU there has been no offer during the BF close to that.
Upcoming release of an XSX hotfix?? It should be an announcement and launch very soon. Announcing a new revision and release in 5-6-7 months would be the right decision to totally destroy the sales of the current model no matter how many sales they made. Do I see a possibility of a new bundle with the next "sebille" controller? and want to clarify the current stock.... The TGA could be the date.
The plain truth is, US and UK are the only markets where Xbox is still viable, and even there, they are losing ground to PlayStation (and Nintendo; yes Nintendo also reaps from this) at an accelerated pace. They don't have infinite resources (as a division, plus they already kinda spend like $69 billion so no more free money for a while from daddy MS), or the management wherewithal to stage comebacks in all the global markets, so they had to hedge their bets.
Their big 1P releases this year were basically commercial duds and in some ways also critical duds (especially RedFall, but Forza didn't fare that well and Starfield was at best somewhat above-average but very average compared to other big RPGs this year like BG3). So their only tools are really a price cut for the model that has more demand, and maybe some stuff into Game Pass. They can't do a promo price cut for Game Pass after they just increased the cost, that would defeat the purpose there. And they just got the biggest games they could realistically get for the service added the other day.
All that's left is a competitive price cut, particularly when the new digital PS5 is $449.
