
Xbox 360 Halo 3 Edition
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Today,
months after the Canadian Dollar hit par with the American Dollar,
Microsoft announced that it has dropped the price of the all Xbox 360
consoles in Canada. As of today, the Xbox 360 Arcade costs $279.99
CAD, reduced from $299.99 CAD, the Xbox 360 Premium costs $349.99
CAD, reduced from $399.99 CAD, the Xbox 360 Halo 3 Edition costs
$399.99 CAD, reduced from $449.99 CAD, and the Xbox 360 Elite costs
$449.99 CAD, reduced from $499.99 CAD.
It
has taken Microsoft quite some time to reach this destination. Back
in September
of last year we covered a story detailing the discrepancies between
the pricing of video games and video game hardware in Canada and
America, and asked all three major console manufacturers –
Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony – how they planned to compensate for
the higher value of the Canadian Dollar. While Sony initially said it
did not have any plans to cut the Canadian prices of its hardware, as
it had recently done so, it was the first to take charge, barely less
than a month later, dropping the price of not only the
Playstation 3, but the PSP as well.
Today's
announcement from Microsoft shows the manufacturer/publisher's
ability to stick to what it says and completely disregard
overwhelming consumer demand. The company held out as long as it
could before dropping the price, though one wonders why it couldn't
hold out any longer. The company's decision to wait before dropping
the Canadian price appears to be a poor one when considering customer
satisfaction,
especially in the wake of another recent
poor decision it made. However it could be
worse.
Microsoft is
not the last of the console manufacturers to give Canadians a fair
deal for their Dollar. Though retailers across Canada have dropped
the price of both the
Nintendo DS (from $149.99 CAD to $139.99 CAD)
and Wii (from $279.99 CAD to
$269.99 CAD), Nintendo has not
officially announced that it has dropped the price of
either system,
nor has it hinted at any plans to do so.
That
said, Microsoft has, once again, made a gap between the pricing of
the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360, and simultaneously bridged the
gap between Wii and the two least expensive Xbox 360 models. Also,
taking into consideration the fact that Nintendo has not officially
dropped the price for a Wii, this means the Xbox 360 Arcade and Wii
are now officially the same price in Canada (retailers' discounts
aside).