XBOne Xbox One price 'less exorbitant after inflation calculation'

[Martok]

...Yet more expensive after exchange rate adjustment

Microsoft's Xbox One may launch this November as one of the most expensive consoles ever, but if its $499 price is measured against other consoles with inflation factored in, the system's RRP is not the steepest.

Games site Ars Technica has listed most of the major games consoles released since the Atari 2600, and adjusted each system's RRP for inflation to bring all in line with 2013.

The results suggest that the Xbox One, in real terms, is $200 cheaper than the PS3, more than $100 cheaper than the Sega Saturn, and less than half the price of the 3DO and NeoGeo.

Ars Technica's chart, pictured below, also suggests that games consoles are generally launching at a cheaper price in real terms. The Panasonic 3DO remains the most expensive, at a 2013 price of £1127, though the NeoGeo is at a close second at £1111.

These figures only represent US launch prices, however. Microsoft is launching the Xbox One in the UK at £429 for the unit, which calculates to $652.

Sony's PlayStation 4 price holds a key advantage, selling at $399 in the US and £349 in the UK.

Microsoft has confirmed an Xbox One release date of November 2013. It will go head-to-head with the PS4 release which is currently officially 'holiday 2013'

Source: CVG


It just sounds like more spin to me for the expensive cost of the XBone. You can't really compare launch prices in the past with prices today. In years gone by, electronics goods were more expensive, they always are until they are produced on a large scale. I remember the first flat-bed black & white scanners when they first came out were over £800, now you can get colour ones built into multi-function printers for less than £100.

$499 for the XBone translates to $652.47 (£429) for the UK. Taking off VAT (which won't be included in the US cost then that's £357.50 or $543.72, so a $44.72 premium. Compare that to the PS4 - $399 translates to £530.79 (£349) which is £290.84 or $442.34 ex VAT, so a £43.34 premium. So a similar premium on both consoles.

 

[ColSonders]

The bottom line is that you can only compare with current pricing, so looking at similar hardware the only real logical comparisons are between PS4 and Xbox1 and possibly a similarly specced PC.

To be honest the PS4 is the cheapest option of the 3 at £350.

Yes you can build a PC for less than that as some of us have done recently, but not with comparable hardware and not when taking into account the operating system.

For those who are curious the PC equivalent graphics cards for the Xbox1 are HD 7790's (a little better than what the Jackfrags £300 build used) and will set you back £100 or so. The equivalent to the PS4 is an HD 7890 (a whole step up from the HD7790 that is considered an entry level gaming card...the 7890 is considered a mid level card) which is in the region of £160.

Anyway, the considerably better graphics component in the PS4 and the lower price make it basically impossible to match on a home built PC for the same price. Add to that the fact that the PS4 is a console and therefore the different architecture means those same specs will go ALOT further than an identically specced PC and the fact that the consoles have games developed specifically for that hardware and thus are still very capable years later (unlike PC's that need to be upgraded) and it's a no brainer.


The only things Microsoft really can put out there to justify the cost is that they have what they consider to be a high end webcam included (not that this matters to a gamer at all) and they have the hardware for HDMI input (again not really something that matters to a gamer).