According to investment analysts at Goldman Sachs, the Xbox 360 will hit store shelves in October or November. Well yes, you knew that, given it's information that has been in the public domain for months now.
What is more interesting are the expectations for shipping numbers offered by GS. According to the collective Internet readings they have clearly sifted through, a launch shipment figure of 3 million units is expected, somewhat more than the million initially mentioned by Microsoft at GDC in March.
A retail price of about $249 to $299. was also offered, with Goldman claiming that the Xbox console would cater to the “lower-end” of the consumer segment - interesting news if true, though the report does seem to be more of a collection of old Internet news, base-level guesswork, and a keen adherence to the official Microsoft company line.
As the Forbes report on the issue notes, “Goldman Sachs said it confirmed with Microsoft that the company is unlikely to discontinue production of the Xbox videogame console with the launch of Xbox 2. This is in contrast to the briefing given to retailers in recent weeks on the subject.
There is also the small point that Microsoft confirmed that it probably wouldn’t be doing something, with the only flat out denial of a complete end to Xbox production coming from the blog of Xbox Live director of programming Larry Hryb (which is not used as a below the line Microsoft marketing tool, honest) who said, “There are a few stories floating around this vast thing we call the Internet today that say Xbox has been pulled from retailers. Furthermore, people are saying that we have 'reached our targets and want to get ready for the next console'. Let me be perfectly clear: We are not pulling the Xbox from stores.”
As with everything Xbox-related, only time will tell.
SPOnG feels creakily old when we cast our collective memories back to the days when the Xbox project would only ever be about games and not full content delivery. Honest…