"Nintendo Wii or 360? Wii or xBox? Hmmm, tough choice."
"But the 360 is soooo expensive!"

Not anymore! The xBox price now matches that of the Nintendo Wii, as revealed by David McLean. Even though the price drop is astonishing, many believe that the 360 wont be able to contend with the Wii and PS3 market anymore, that console's time has been and gone.

After being available in Australia for 17 months, Microsoft has dropped the price of its Xbox 360, with the Premium package now retailing at $579.95 and the Core one at $399.95, the same price as Nintendo’s Wii.

Microsoft's Xbox director for Australia and New Zealand, David McLean, said that "Since launch we've always had a fairly deliberate strategy to secure the hardcore gamers first ... but now that we've done that job it's time to expand the market."

And he added, "We're now getting the benefits of reductions of costs in manufacturing, and we want to make sure we pass that stuff on to our consumers as soon as we can."

GfK Australia analyst Daniel Morse said he believes the nearing release of Halo 3 will combine with this price cut to make for a significant incentive for people to buy the Xbox 360 in the lead up to Christmas.

"You get a true next-generation device for the same price as the Wii and on top of that you can play Halo," he said, but insisted that Nintendo’s and Microsoft’s consoles are "two very different products"

Before Microsoft made the price cut announcement, a spokesman at Nintendo Australia said that there were no plans to do the same with Wii, as the company’s "still selling multitudes around the world" at the current price.

Infinite Gravity via aussie-nintendo.com »