The Xbox Series X will be much cheaper than the PS5, suggests one notorious video game analyst. There have been reports that the PS5 will be more expensive because of its components, though this has not been officially confirmed.
Speaking to Summer Game Fest creator and The Game Awards host Geoff Keighley in a Periscope stream on Friday, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said that the Xbox Series X could be $100 cheaper than the PS5. If the PS5 costs $500, the Xbox Series X would be $400. Pachter said that the first 10 million Xbox Series X units could be "subsidized," sacrificing profit in order to get the console in more homes.
Pachter also had a suggestion of just when the Xbox Series X price will be announced. "I think that they’re waiting to have Sony blink first and then they’ll reveal the price," said Pachter. Xbox console developer Jason Ronald has said that the team plans to be "agile" with the Xbox Series X price and potentially changing the console's planned price so that it's cheaper than the PS5 could have been what he meant.
Pachter doesn't always get it right with his predictions, having once said that the PS3 and Xbox 360 would be the last console generation and told Nintendo to get out of the hardware business. However, Pachter's words here were supported by Peter Moore, the Liverpool CEO who spent years as the boss of EA Sports and was at Xbox where he helped to launch the Xbox 360. Moore said that the Xbox and PlayStation teams will be asking themselves "how much can we afford to lose in the first 12 to 18 months?" and "What are we willing to do in year one, two and three to hit 10 million?"
The Pachter prediction is also supported by Xbox's huge plans for services. A common strategy by many hardware makers, from gaming to mobile, is to sell a cheaper device so that there are more potential subscribers for a service. This is one reason why smartphone maker Apple has just released the more affordable iPhone SE. If those Xbox Series X players who have purchased the console for cheap subscribe to services such as Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass, it could make up for the loss incurred on the initial sale.
If that is what Xbox is planning then this could potentially be bad news for Sony, which expects the PS5 to sell worse because of that higher price, say rumors. There are also reports that the Xbox team is planning to offer a more affordable console called the Xbox Series S Lockhart and this could give this Xbox console generation a great start.
Source: Periscope - Geoff Keighley
