Microsoft: Japanese Xbox 360 Price Cut An Option

The president and CEO of Microsoft's Japanese arm, Darren Huston, has said that the company has no plans to cut the price of the 360 over there.

When questioned by news agency Reuters about whether Microsoft would respond to a PS3 price cut with a price drop of its own, Huston said, "Xbox prices in Japan are very competitive... Not at this time.”

When pressed further on the issue, however, Huston said, "We will be watching market conditions. Price cuts are one option."

This comes on the same day as Sony's announcement that the PS3 is getting a price cut and 80Gb version in the US.

SPOnG certainly hopes that Huston's backtrack indicates that “Not at this time” means “sometime soon”, because if Microsoft thinks it's competitive in the Japanese market there must be some other Japanese market that SPOnG's not aware of. Last month Microsoft sold 17,616 Xbox 360s in Japan, less that half Sony's 41,628 PS3s and less than a 15th of Nintendo's 270,974 Wiis sold.

Last week Microsoft announced that the 360 Elite will be on sale in Japan as of October 11th. It may be that once the Elite is released a price cut on the premium bundle will be forthcoming, as Sony has done with the 60Gb PS3 in the US.

SPOnG contacted Microsoft UK to see whether a 360 price cut may be on the cards in the UK, but was met with, “No comment.”