@dcuk7: I think Kotaku likes baiting European gamers by posting bad news all the time.

Looks like they're a bit misinformed now.

Gunmetal_Grey

How is this surprising?! I think we had our price drop. The 360 is now competitively priced at every level now and has competing options for both the Wii and PS3.

Play.com are selling the 360 Arcade for £149.99, if you are waiting for the price to drop lower than that then I suggest you aren't ready to be a part of this console generation yet. Stick with your PS2 were the games and accessories are dirt cheap.

dcuk7

Bah, they're all ripoffs, i'm buying PC upgrades instead.

Skuld

Whatever.
Never intended on buying a 360, but Kotaku is taking this the wrong way... Elites and Arcade models are as cheap as anything in my opinion.

Gunmetal_Grey

Hooray for eBay!!

stupidjason

@shaunomacx: Ahh, I think I actually did get my numbers messed up. 600 might be over stating it. Maybe I was thinking of the stats for France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy instead...

42 days avg vacation time in Italy makes me cry when I think about my measly 10.

Aex

@Aex:
I also heard you guys get chocolate coated bacon snacks.

Gamer food ftw!

Numanoid

@Aex: the usual job is 39 hrs a week with 4 weeks holiday a year.

saying that its pro-rata so it depends on how many hours you work i guess

shaunomacx

I blame Gordon Brown

FlyLikeAMouse

The 60 GB Pro/Premium is already £100 cheaper than the 80 GB PS3 there. The Elite is £10 cheaper. The Arcade is £20 less than the Wii. This price drop in the U.S. really only getting the price differences w/the other consoles more in line with what they already are in the U.K.

Spartan1308™

@Numanoid: That acutally helps comfort the blow slightly...

Thanks :)

Don't get me wrong, I love you guys across the pond ;) I'm just super jealous :p

Aex

@Aex:
Yeah, but you get more Sushi bars.

Numanoid

I used to feel sorry for the Europeans about how they get railed on pricing...

Yesterday I found out they get a government mandated 4-6 weeks of paid vacation each year, and on average they work around 600 hours less than Americans.

...then my jealousy took over and my bitterness caused me not to feel sorry for them anymore :(

Aex

@coladict: i haven't seen my organ in years :(

shaunomacx

This finalizes the fact I'm getting a PS3.

Numanoid

"an Elite can be obtained on the open market in exchange for a kidney or other major organ" LMAO

coladict

@LedRush:

In the US, Tax is never included in the price.

tzaketh

old chap....teehee

excel_excel

absolute sh*te from microsoft, was hoping to pick up 360 for christmas :x

bubassi

whats new companys screwing over the uk another day goes by

adamr999

Also, don't they have a 20% tax included in the price? Shouldn't this be brought up to the government? You can't say the Arcade is $221 in the US just cause that's what you pay for it in Chicago.

LedRush

@quen: That is barely cheaper yes, by like £10, but still...it's not like that's helping the Xbox against the Wii at all here. Probably not even a £100 price drop will do it against the Wii. The games and hardware just isn't there (read: mini-games and waggle).

Candlejack

...Besides, they can take solace in knowing Australia has been screwed and will continue to get screwed over <3 I feel much better knowing someone else is suffering more then me. I think I'm the person I am today by finding such silver linings in situations :)

okenny :) ...building bridges (to hide under)

Yeah, but didn't they already do a UK price cut? It's already cheaper than Wii in any case, that's presumably their aim.

quen

Wasn't the UK the first to get a real price drop?! I doubt it would make sense to give them another price drop before other regions get one... wait your turn UK >:(

okenny :) ...building bridges (to hide under)

@Numanoid: You'll be happy either way but if you have an HD Display Ps3 is going to blow your mind.

Barf#1

@LedRush: To avoid confusion, it's legally required that prices in shops are displayed including tax (actually 17.5% in the UK). You can display them without tax in addition, if you like, but that normally only happens in eg catalogues that are expecting to sell to business which don't pay VAT.

Obviously as this is not a shop MS could quote the price excluding VAT if they like, but that would just be confusing, so they don't.

For silly (but obviously convenient to customers) reasons, in the US it's typically possible to evade sales tax altogether, so quoting prices without tax makes a lot more sense - especially as differing tax rates in states and sometimes cities etc would make it impossible to display prices for a nationally-available item with tax included. Neither of those apply in the UK though: short of outright criminality (in which case why not just steal it) there's no way for an individual to get a UK 360 without paying VAT, so quoting the price without VAT doesn't make any sense.

And yes it's dirt cheap already imo. Wii on the other hand, could do with a price cut, but then Wii sells and 360 doesn't, so...

quen

@dcuk7: absolute tosh, the 360 arcade is woefull in every way to justifiy the short price gap to its better equipped 'brother'.

bubassi

@Aex: lol i know those french dont know HOW to work

i jest i jest!

shaunomacx

We already got the price-cuts here in the UK around January -Feb. Theres no need for another one, the 360 is pretty much on par with the 360 right now when it comes to price (bundles mainly).

coffeehair

Um, region coding.

edhe (xbl)

The UK had the first of the 360 price drops in Feb 08...jeez what are some of you like? do y'all want a console for paying NOTHING £$?

Profondo

wow if the arcade is 281 in UK, u might as well just import it. im pretty sure shipping wont cost 81 dollars. (disclaimer: i could be wrong)

maraxusofk

@Numanoid: Because a PS3 is cheaper than a 360? :confused:

Rectangle

Who needs universal healthcare when you save a few bucks on a console? U-S-A! U-S-A!

StutterMilk

@quen:
"For silly (but obviously convenient to customers) reasons, in the US it's typically possible to evade sales tax altogether"
Well, I wouldn't call it silly for the US constitution to prevent tax on state-to-state goods. If states could do that, they might have imposed tariffs on other states to encourage in-state production. However, this would hurt the national economy and breed division within the early nation.

Besides, sales tax is one of the most unfair forms of tax.

Akin

Of course we are not getting a price drop any time soon. Forget the fact that we pay more here, that's just the way it is. They are not going to drop the price again that quickly. Its pretty reasonable right now. I keep thinking about buying another so I've got HDMI on one.

steve86uk

What about aussie price cut?? come on! give us that :D

squall3031

@quen:

Woah, 20% sales tax on top of your crippling, "progressive" income taxes? I thought 5% was nasty.

I'm very glad I don't live in a Socialist Paradise, now.

tzaketh

@quen:

My point is not in changing the way that stores market their goods, but for people to see the price. Whenever I hear about the EU or UK complaining about huge price differences with the US, I think that they need to calculate the tax THEMSELVES and understand their effect on what consumers pay.

I know the US will still pay less, generally, but by not nearly as much as the whingers would have you believe.

Also, I want to echo the other thoughts above...the US system of federalism is not silly and quite effective.

@tzaketh:

That was my point, of course. People should compare across countries unless they compare apples to apples.

LedRush

Its cheaper than the Wii in the UK, they don't really need to go that cheaper.

Anyone whos saying they live in the UK and suddenly arn't buying it are pretty stupid IMO.

flukielukie

@ Aex

its usually 2 weeks of paid vacation a year. Thats what i get anyway. No way is it EVER 6.

ANd i dont know about working less. Typically people here work 40 - 50 hour weeks every week. And we get around £5 an hour minimum wage. Which sucks.

I have to work for 32 hours to afford a 360 arcade. thanks MS for no price cut.

Im SICK of prices here. the average game for a console is £49 (around $80) too.

NovaBlack

@Numanoid:
Oh yeah Sony doesn't do such things, the PS3 for 1149 Guilders (about 499 Euros while it was 299 in the USA) and then saying because the Euro was lower then the Dollar they needed to do that. But once the Euro started to overtake the Dollar they didn't change it.

Calculate the PS3 price in dollars from Pounds/Euros and then compare it with the USA price. You'll see Sony does exactly the same (As does Nintendo). All three big ones are guilty of this nasty practise.

Dehnus

@StutterMilk:

Rofl. Well said!!!

Bum_Trumpet

@Aex:

Maybe in France or some other lefty county but certainly not in the uk. we have the longest working hours in Europe and the least public bank holidays by a long shot.

Bum_Trumpet

It's not the machine I want to pay less for - after all, most people only buy a console once! For me, it has always been about the software.

I wanna buy Battlefield: Bad Company, An Xbox Live subscription and a wireless 360 pad in the UK. That's £49.99 ($88.88), £39.99 ($72.10) and £32.99 ($58.65) (I'm going by the RRP here). Would someone be kind enough to post the recommended retail price in the US? I'm taking bet's now on who thinks the US will be cheaper than the UK.

We already get shafted as it is for our pasttime, so this is quite insulting that even during a recession, Microsoft don't see fit to make things just a little cheaper.

ZonalFear

@NovaBlack: 2 weeks sounds a bit low, even if you are excluding bank holidays. Unless you're temping/agency?

Marv2

@ZonalFear: U.S including Tax please

shaunomacx

@Numanoid:
Err, the cheapest 360 here is £149, the cheapest PS3 is £299. It's double the price. The 360 is cheap enough.

BristolRuss

@NovaBlack:

Where the hell do you live? Minimum wage is NOT £5. Games do NOT cost £49 (if you pay that you are a mug). Average working hours range between 35 hours (9-5) to 37.5 (9 to 5.30). And I get 25 days annual leave a year.

BristolRuss

This is lame. I hate being ripped off just because I'm living in the UK and everybody rips people off over here.

I'm sending my Xbox back for repair today. Since my launch console, this will be the 6th or 7th repair. I have lost count.

I think it's time to get a PS3. I'm so tired of all this crap.

EdwinJ85

"I think it's time to get a PS3."

What so you can be ripped off buying that too? :P

From a fellow citizen of Ripoff Britain.

tsurumaru

Actually I'm thinking about buying a Canon EOS 50D SLR when they're released, scheduled UK price £1199.99 ($2,116.74), scheduled US price £794.55 ($1399.99) now that shopping trip to the US is looking more and more tempting.....

tsurumaru

@Aex: That would be due to higher unemployment.

@tzaketh: The volume of tax taken through VAT (sales tax) actually makes the UK tax regime slightly regressive, especially given the middle and upper-class register-yourself-as-a-company tax dodge.

Chadders

@LedRush: Totally agree that if comparing price with US price, you do need to remove VAT from the price and it's stupid when people forget that. (Probably that means it would be appropriate, when showing dollar conversions alongside the price, to remove tax at that point.)

@Akin: Totally agree that sales taxes are regressive and I think they should be abolished (won't happen, sadly).

So I don't think it's 'silly' that the US has lower sales taxes, but - regardless of the technical reasons that make it difficult to change - it is pretty silly that you can evade sales tax in certain situations. It's a perverse incentive to buy things over longer distances, which is economically inefficient, and may also make the tax more regressive in some situations (if richer people find it easier to evade the tax - not sure to what extent that is true).

quen