Exclusive: Next Xbox Pricing, Launch Window Revealed
All this week we’ve been telling you about Microsoft’s Yukon project, the follow up to the Xbox 360. It sounds great. Well, except for those plans about pulling backwards compatibility a few years in.
Anyway, I’m sure everyone is wondering how much can we expect to pay for Microsoft’s next console, and when will it arrive.
It seems like there was still a debate going on within Microsoft when these documents were created. In some places it suggests a retail price of $399, in others, $299. In fact, they bring up the phrase “$2000 PC in a $300 box” multiple times.
I also questions whether or not Kinect v2 will be included, and how this will affect the price. Everything in the planning for the next Xbox suggests that Kinect v2 won’t just be another peripheral, but an important part of the system’s functionality, whether games make much use of it or not. Although I’m sure marketing wants it to hit shelves at the cheaper $299, that might be hard to pull off as a package, console, Kinect and all.
Either way, it looks like they are trying to avoid the slow start Sony had with the PlayStation 3. Top of the line technology or not, people have trouble justifying $600 for a videogame system.
Similar to their plans to drop backwards compatibility, they already have a rough outline of the price-drop schedule for the console, for both $299 and $399 starting price points. Either way, don’t expect to see a price drop before its third year on shelves, and then only by $50. The plans stretch out for the full proposed ten-year lifespan of the system. For context, I just landed my first real job out of college, and under one plan Microsoft plans to still be charging $200 for this system when I’m 35. Good luck with that.
But when will this thing actually drop? If I were you, I wouldn’t hold my breath for news out of E3. Not anything concrete anyway. The documents strongly suggest the official unveiling of Microsoft’s next console will happen at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, January 2013. A quick search around the internet reveals that one date hinted at in the documents, January 6, is the date of “The Official Press Event of the International CES“, or the big official press conference day a couple days before the show officially opens.
Actual boxes on shelves aren’t expected until the somewhat vague “holiday season 2013.” In other words, somewhere between September at earliest and mid-November at the latest. After all, gotta have them ready to go for Black Friday.
So, you’ve got a year and a half to save up. Who’s interested?
The Xbox Leak:
- Kinect 2: four players, two cameras
- Hardware back-compatibility dropped after 3 years, 10 year life-cycle
- Blue-ray drive built in, support for augmented reality glasses in the pipeline
- Announced Jan 2013, released holiday 2013 costing $200-$300
Disclaimer: The documents Nukezilla have seen come from a trusted source, and while we believe them to be accurate, and have done our best to verify them, we can not be absolutely certain. As such, consider this information more strong rumor than fact.
News Tags: 2013, CES, Next Xbox, Yukon
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wont happen, no company would release any product in january. it hink they’d rather release it 2 months earlier or 9 months later in order to get the holiday sales
@paul bailey:
Did you read the post AT ALL? You didn’t. Stop being lazy. They say January 6th is the REVEAL, not the release.
That being said, MS will NOT be at CES next year (this year was their last one), so this whole piece of news is busted.
I know they won’t be on the floor, but that doesn’t mean they won’t do it around that time.
I’ve been to Activision events at PAX when they didn’t have a spot on the show floor. They weren’t officially part of the show, but they got just as much coverage out of showing off games in a nearby hotel conference room. MS could still be doing the same thing.
I think you were hoodwinked. Microsoft pretty clearly publicy has pulled everything out of CES events. The goal of launching a project is to get that project press (often). It also wouldnt make sense to reveal any major product during a week of a flood of new tech product releases.
@Ron: I’ve seen the documents myself. They’re extremely plausible, with a lot more detail than what has been posted here. And now I’ve seen them leaked from two different sources.
Well…..MS announcing it at CES 2013 is a no go. Microsoft wont even be there next year. Im thinking an official announcement a few weeks before E3 with the full unveil at the MS converence at E3