A bundle of Microsoft’s Xbox One and Titanfall, a high-profile science fiction shooter game, is being offered at Walmart and Best Buy for $450. This is a $50 price cut from the combined price of the separate items. Consumers may find it difficult to find the new price at first. The new price is visible online only after you log in to the sites and place the bundle in your online shopping cart. The price cut also applies when you buy the bundle in Walmart and Best Buy’s physical stores.
The companies first began offering the bundle earlier this month for $500. That price was viewed as a considerable price drop on the console, as Titanfall is priced at $60 on its own. Now, the $450 Xbox One bundle includes a $60 game, making price of Microsoft’s console $10 lower than $400 Sony PlayStation 4, which does not include a game.
Spokesman for Microsoft David Dennis said in a statement, “This is a special promotion offered by Walmart and Best Buy stores in the U.S. Microsoft sets a suggested retail price, but specific pricing and offers vary by retailer.” Manufacturers like Microsoft set wholesale prices that can influence how much a retailer charges for a product, but Mr. Dennis said Microsoft did not drop the wholesale price of its product, indicating that the price drops were the decision of its retail partners.
With this action, Sony has lost its pricing advantage over Microsoft for the latest generation of game consoles. The price of the PlayStation 4 was one of Sony’s biggest advantages over the Xbox One. There was originally a $100 difference in price between the systems. This price difference helped the PlayStation 4 outsell Xbox One in the first few months that the consoles were on the market.
Titanfall is exclusively for Microsoft game systems and all signs are pointing to anticipation for Titanfall helping to boost Xbox One sales before the game even came out. The scarcity of PlayStation 4s on store shelves recently may also have benefited Microsoft. However, Best Buy spokesman Jeff Shelman said in an email that Best Buy would be receiving “tens of thousands” of the consoles from Sony in the coming weeks, eliminating the inventory issue.
