With Xbox One X months away from the market, analysts are venturing to showcase what will happen with the new Microsoft console and industry in general. Recently, the analyst at Wedbush Securities, Michael Pachter, expressed strongly about the price of what will be the most powerful console on the market.
In an interview with GamingBolt, Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, talked about the price of Xbox One X, $500 USD, which he considers a wrong strategy that would cause problems with Microsoft to integrate the new console into the market and make it a product that catches the eye, in practical terms, to the consumer: “I don’t think so at this price, I think it’s too expensive. And everything is relative obviously, and you always hear these false equivalencies about what things cost… so you’ll hear things like “Xbox One X is cheaper than a big screen TV”, but my big screen TV will be useful for 10 years or more, and when I am done with it, it’ll still find use in my guest bedroom.”
At the same time, Pachter mentioned that the price with which Xbox One X will go to the market will put it at a disadvantage if you take into account that the consumer has been motivated by prices that do not exceed $300 USD: “I think $500 is a lot, and I think we’ve been trained since at least the PlayStation, and probably since before then – I don’t actually remember what the NES was at launch – that $300 is the price point people are willing to pay. And Microsoft started this $400 price point with the Xbox 360, Sony of course made the mistake of pricing the PS3 at $600. PS4 was $400 and quickly dropped to $300… I just think people are willing to pay $300 for a console, but not $500, $500 is way too much. And given that you frequently see Xbox One S and PS4 Slim discounted to $249, or at $299 with a good game bundled, the perceived price for both is $250, regardless of the sticker price.”
“Probably fewer than 10% of US households have a 4KTV, and certainly way less than that in any other developed country. So who is waiting for this? Next year, maybe around the end of 2017, we’ll probably be closer to 20% US households, and 10% for the rest of the world. And by the end of 2018, we’ll probably be at 35% and 20% respectively, and by 2019, we’ll probably be at 50% and 30%. So yes, it’s a more relevant purchase down the line, but… at $500, if I had only that money in my pocket, and I had to choose between an Xbox One X and a 4KTV, I wold buy a 4K TV. So, they’re only appealing to people who have $1100, because they have to buy a TV as well. This is the same problem Oculus faced. I really think the Xbox One X will not do well,” Pachter ended.
Xbox One X will debut on November 7th worldwide.
