Should you buy the new X-box, or should you wait?
The new X-Box 360 is coming out, and parents and gamers
everywhere will be asking themselves: should I buy it now? If
not, how long is a good time to wait? The answer will depend on
your financial situation - but for most people, it's probably
good advice to wait for a year or so if you can.
The first few months of any new gaming system are mainly for the
die-hard gamers. Getting a full X-Box 360 system with enough
extras to really be able to play it could cost you in the $600
range, even if you're only getting a few games. For most parents
or gamers who don't have a serious salary, that's just too much
to justify. Even many of the "extras" are really necessary to
playing the games - without a memory card, you can't save your
game, for example, or you might want that extra controller to be
able to play against friends. The real reason to wait, however,
is because prices for new game systems nearly always go down
dramatically within a year or so after they are introduced. The
reason: a combination of competition and economies of scale. The
competition factor is simple - the new Playstation will be out
within the next year, and Microsoft will likely be forced to cut
prices to maintain their market share. They don't want people
buying the other system, and they can stop that from happening
by making a new deal later on. Economies of scale will also be a
factor by then - this is the basic principle that the more of
something you make, the cheaper it is to make each individual
one on average. So, after they have tooled up the factories to
make large runs of the X-Box 360, they'll be able to lower the
price on each individual one.