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There's little doubt that gaming in the next cycle is going to be more expensive. At least one major publisher (Activision) has gone on record saying it plans to increase wholesale prices on its AAA games. Others will likely follow its lead. That will probably result in retail prices jumping $5 to $10 per title.

They tried this with the first XBox as well, originally the games were $10 more, supposedly MS's license fees were the cause. MS later lowered the prices to compare with the competition.

"We think Microsoft will price its next generation system at or above $300 for the base model," wrote Gikas. "We also think there will be a model that includes accessories or network devices that could price as high as $350-$400/system."

That's kind of shitty. Who will want to pay those prices? I had a problem paying that much for consoles when they originally were released last generation as well. The original XBox was pretty damn expensive compared to the other consoles and MS dragged their feet forever before finally dropping their prices to match competitors.

If the market adopts these prices, other console manufacturers may either undercut MS or adopt these prices themselves (I hope not).

Adding some accessories (like a network device) certainly does not warrant a $50-$100 price raise either. If anything consoles are supposed to be undersold and the price made up with license fees. Inflating the price of a cheapass NIC chipset and some other stupid shit to $50 (let alone $100) is fucking ridiculous. It seems like price gouging for an "enhanced" market segment. "You can always buy our cheap broke-ass version of the console!"

If they could provide the XBox at the price they do now with these accessories, they should be able to do the same with the XBox 2. I realize they're losing money on the XBox but the NIC and 10GB hard disk are hardly the most expensive parts. What would a 10GB hard drive and a NIC be worth nowadays? Not that much, but it would still be sufficient storage for a console.

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Well I'm not sure what all in all will happen but I can say this for sure. MS and Sony love to jew people out of as much cash as they possibly can on hardware. They sold their machines for an extra $100 higher, and overcharged on accessories so it's not all that surprising. I do know one bit of info though is that Nintendo is planning to use the 'real' traditional cost of the hardware people used before these fuckers which is $200 for a machine and $50 or less for a game. So if you're gonna get that pissed at those fucks for thinking a $400 system and a $60 game is 'fair' jump ship and show them how to fuckoff and die for trying to gouge you.

> So if you're gonna get that pissed at those fucks for thinking a $400
> system and a $60 game is 'fair' jump ship and show them how to fuckoff and die
> for trying to gouge you.

I would but I like games too much. Instead I waited for the price drops (which was why I was agonizing over how long it took them) and picked up my XBox used as well (nearly mint but used price).

When I can, I buy games for GameCube and PS2, as a last resort for the XBox (since I hate most games, it's surprisingly few).

You're right though about Nintendo, I didn't recognize it. When I got my NES brand new it was the same price as the PS2 brand new... tho it came with SMB/DuckHunt and a light gun... so I guess you're right.

Nintendo has always been stingy about their prices to developers though, controlling the cartridge...