Gizmodo: Price

G1 Pre-Sale Madness: T-Mobile Triples Production, Sells Them All

Jesus Diaz — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 20:10:00 EDT

According to a T-Mobile spokesperson, pre-sale demand on the Android G1 is so big that they have already sold all their units. She says that this is specially impressive because it happened after they tripled the amount of available G1 cellphones. Of course, this could mean anything without knowing actual shipping numbers, but it seems there's plenty of interest despite its many shortcomings. If you want to pre-order yours, however, you can pre-order now through October 21 to get it at a later date:

Given the great anticipation and the heavy pre-sale demand for the T-Mobile G1 with Google, we nearly tripled the number of phones initially available for delivery on our Oct. 22 launch date, and have sold through them all. However, to accommodate additional T-Mobile customers who want to pre-order a device, they now have the opportunity to place a pre-order through Oct. 21, for delivery at a later date. Also, people can still pre-register on the T-Mobile G1 Web site to be notified prior to launch where they can purchase the device beginning Oct. 22.

[T-Mobile G1 Site]

Xbox 360 Price Drop Official in Europe

Kit Eaton — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 05:34:00 EDT

Microsoft's officially announced price cuts to the Xbox 360 in Europe: Arcades will now go for $230, 60GB Pros for $303 and 120GB Elites for $410 (that's €179, €239 and €299 for you Euro-zoners,) representing between 10% and 18% in price cuts. It's part of an MS strategy to "open up the ultimate in high-definition gaming and entertainment to an even wider audience" apparently, and that'll also include a new Xbox Live experience in the Fall. It's also clearly part of a "lets try and sell lots in the upcoming holiday season" strategy. [XBox360Fanboy]

RadioShack Flyer Indicates Xbox 360 Price Cuts on Elite, Arcade Systems

John Mahoney — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 08:45:00 EDT

The Xbox 360 price cut rumors we've been hearing for September look to be gathering even more steam, as this RadioShack ad shows drops to $399 for the Elite system and $199 for the Arcade. That's down $50 on the Elite and $80 on Arcade, making your choices a nice smooth progression of Benjamins—$199/$299/$399. The drops are rumored to hit early next month. UPDATE: We've also just heard from the folks at setteb.it, who have news of an official 60GB upgrade to the 20 GB Xbox 360 system at the same price, €270 in Italy. [Joystiq]

Huge Labor Day HDTV Price Drop Coming Up

John Mahoney — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:15:00 EDT

Just in time for NFL, the World Series and all those delightful new network sitcom premieres, Gary over at HD Guru has caught wind of an across-the-board price drop that will lower prices of 2008 panels by a couple hundred dollars. Tons of Samsung's series 5, 6 and 7 sets will see a drop of $100-$200, with Sony, Mitsubishi and Panasonic expected to follow suit by Labor day, so it's probably a good idea to hold your horses on that new set until the prices start to fall, Wal-Mart style. Head over to HD Guru for Samsung's full discounted model list. [HD Guru]

iPhone 3G Could Cost Just $100 to Make, Say Analysts

Kit Eaton — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 07:29:00 EDT

Soon after the iPhone Mark 1 launch last year, we brought you an estimate of its manufacturing cost, and now the same analysts have looked at the iPhone 3G. Portelligent thinks that this time Apple may pay as little as $100 for the components, down from $220 for the original. The saving's made in engineering advances and Apple's buying power: the extra 8GB in the 16GB version may cost as little as $20, but you'll pay $100 for it. "But we're only paying $199 for the phone, so Apple make less!" you may point out. True, but Apple may be charging AT&T as much as $400 for each unit. And with 70 countries eager to buy iPhones, the analysis suggests it might be Apple's most profitable device yet. [EETimes via Yankeegroup via Fortune]

Sprint's Samsung Instinct Now Costs $199 After Rebate

Jason Chen — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:36:10 EDT

We previously heard that the Samsung Instinct was going to be $299 after rebate on Sprint—not too bad a price for what we said was the best Sprint and best Samsung phone ever. Turns out the iPhone 3G's $199 reveal sent Sprint back to their abacuses, which they used diligently to come up with an extra $100 mail-in rebate to equal the playing field with AT&T. The win for Sprint's deal is that current customers can supposedly buy the phone without renewing their two-year contract, which is pretty great for someone who plans on ditching carriers soon. [Phone News]

Netflix to Jack Up Prices For Blu-ray Renters

Jason Chen — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:15:00 EDT

What's the best way to punish the same early adopter customers that helped make your service a success in the first place? If you're Netflix, it's charging them extra for renting Blu-ray. CEO Reed Hastings justifies this action by saying "consumers are used to paying more for high-definition," basically punching this next generation of early adopters in the nads for doing what they love to do.

We're not sure how many Blu-ray rentals you need to have before you qualify for the higher-priced membership (or if you need to pay up before you even rent one), but this is undoubtedly a limited time deal. We can't imagine Netflix will keep charging people more once 25-50% of their customer base starts renting Blu-ray movies.

Will Blockbuster follow? We hope not. For their sake as much as ours. [Alley Insider via Marketwatch via CNET]

WiiFit Japanese Pricing Announced: $75

Jason Chen — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 02:57:58 EDT

This Japanese pricing of 8,800 Yen ($75) for the WiiFit should give you a good idea of how much that Nintendo Wii balance/exercise/yoga board is going to cost in the US. It's going to go on sale December 1 in Japan, and if Nintendo wants to cash in on any kind of holiday sales at all, you know they're going to try and pump it out before December 25 here as well. In comparison, the Wii is 25,000 Yen in Japan ($213) as opposed to the $249 here, so you could probably expect the WiiFit to go for a bit more than $75 when it swims over. [Famitsu via Kotaku]

Unconfirmed: Retailer Says Xbox 360 Getting Price Cut August 8

Jason Chen — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 14:20:51 EDT

This is all unconfirmed for now, but a retailer is saying the Xbox 360 will get a $50 price cut come August 8. We haven't seen any pricing rumors since E3, where everyone thought the 360 was going to lower its price to match the PS3's "price cut," but that didn't happen. Peter Moore told us that they knew the PS3 was going to have a "price drop" for months now, which was obvious to them by looking at manufacturers and the supply chain. However, the "price drop" wasn't enough to jump-start the 360 camp into lowering theirs as well. Why now?

Here are some of the reasons we can think of.

• It's almost two years since the launch, which is about the time when most consoles make their first price drop.
• The 360 is selling fairly poorly, down 61% comparing the fourth fiscal quarter of 2006 to the fourth fiscal quarter of 2007 (Q4 fiscal is summertime for Microsoft).
• They want to differentiate themselves even more, pricewise, to the PS3. And lower themselves into the Wii-pricetag space. A $249 price for the Core would be doing just that.
• They can. Prices for parts have gone down since launch, so they're able to make the same consoles much more cheaply.

[HollywoodReporter via Kotaku]

Sony's $100 price drop on the PS3 bumped ...

Jason Chen — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 12:00:01 EDT

Sony's $100 price drop on the PS3 bumped the console up to #1 in the video game sales chart on Amazon. [Amazon]

Rumor: Microsoft to Cut Premium Bundle in Anticipation for HD DVD Player

Travis Hudson — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 13:30:51 EDT

Digitimes, the premier news source in usual bullshit rumors, has a new one today that actually seems a legitimate, kind of. They are reporting that there will be a $100 price cut on the Xbox 360 Premium bundle, bringing the price down to $300 so that they can later bundle the HD DVD player with the Xbox 360 for $400 and still have a solid competitive price on the PS3.

Microsoft, to prepare for the price cut, has negotiated reduced production costs for the Xbox 360 with Taiwan-based manufacturing partners, stated the sources. The manufacturers estimate that the total production cost can be reduced by 15-20% due to diminishing costs for most components along with increasing production scales and decreasing defect rates, the sources pointed out.

For once, that rumor actually makes sense. But I'm a little pissed that I dropped four hundos on my premium without an HD DVD player. I need to listen to my mother more: "Good always comes to those who wait."

Oh, and Microsoft Taiwan denied the report, but that was a given. – Travis Hudson

Microsoft Rumored to Cut Xbox 360 Price by US$100 [Via Kotaku]

The XBox360 is 'Spensive

johnb — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 12:23:22 EDT

Our brother-in-law, Kotaku, is talking about how the XBox360 will bankrupt us. If you buy the bare bones system, you're basically getting screwed. To get the most out of your 360, you'll need:

Xbox 360 Standard: $399.99 Gold Xbox Live Subscription: At least $49.99 (Likely more.) Wireless Networking Adapter: $99.99 Second Wireless Controller: $49.99 Two Play and Charge Kits: $19.99 times two. Total: $639.94

Not to mention a new HDTV and all sorts of jive. Let's see what the PS3 makes you buy. Maybe you have to hire a manservant to turn it on and off.

Related
Gizmodo's 'Spensive Threads

The Xbox 360 Experience Comes with $650 Price Tag?

XBox 360 Official Pricing - $299 and $399

johnb — Wed, 17 Aug 2005 11:03:25 EDT

Ok, so we were a little off. Stuff is always more expensive in Switzerland anyways—5 dollars! Why I oughta!—but we weren't far off. There will be two tiers of XBox 360 pricing:

The $299 version will come with the console, cables and 1 wired controller, but the $399 version will come with the 20GB hard-drive, a wireless controller, headset, ethernet cable and also a wireless remote control.

Seems like the $299 is aiming for the kiddies and the $399 is aiming for the folks who want a Media Entertainment Center for the living room which also happens to play video games. Good on 'em.

Official: Xbox 360 Prices are $299 and $399 [PlanetXBox360]

Nintendo Micro Price/Date Set - DS Drops $20

johnb — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 13:35:42 EDT

The elf-sized Nintendo Micro is now set to launch September 19 for about $100. This also coincides with a $20 price drop in the DS in conjunction with the release NintenDogs—which is actually quite a cool little game involving lifelike dogs except that these electronic dogs rarely excrete feces, unlike our own dog, Phoebe, who often dumps on this crazy long pile wool rug my wife bought.

These announcements, coming one after the other, don't really seem to say much about the future of Nintendo. It seems that they're just trying to hit the back-to-school crowd, especially with NintenDogs and the DS. We'll see as new games and new consoles hit the streets what Nintendo really has up its sleeve.

Micro Date, Price Set? [Kotaku]

XBox360 is $299.99 and Is Hard to Program

johnb — Tue, 02 Aug 2005 10:50:50 EDT

According to anonymous sources at Wal-Mart—a company so powerful that even MS must bow to its whims—the XBox360 will be priced at $299.99 with standard $59 games. It is also apparently very hard to program for so the first games will be Snake, Tic Tac Toe, and an exciting game called Hello World featuring a delicately rendered image of floating words in an extruded Helvetica font.

XBOX 360 PRICE REPORTED [TotalVideoGames via TheInquirer]

40-inch LCD Prices Falling - Buy Two

johnb — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 16:14:05 EDT

According to market research firm iSuppli—get it? Like supply with an i—the prices of 40- and 42-inch LCD panels is swiftly falling down to about $950, meaning a nice big Christmas LCD will cost about $2,500 or less in December.

Smaller LCDs are almost free, now, at $550. Generally, there's a glut of these things out there which means more bigscreen Shark Week drink-a-thons next year.

40-inch LCD TV prices set to slum [TheInquirer]