We all know about early adopters; those are the people who pre-ordered an Xbox One before Microsoft even wrapped up its E3 presentation back in May. But what about the early adopter’s more patient cousin, the late adopter? This story is for them. If you’ve never had an Xbox 360, the next two months — specifically the Black Friday weekend — could be a tempting time to finally “jump in.” Unfortunately, Microsoft’s newly announced holiday bundles are not gonna make things easier on your wallet, as they’re disappointingly still overpriced.
Here are the options hitting store shelves next week:
Xbox 360 250GB Kinect Holiday Value Bundle ($400): Kinect Sports: Season Two, Kinect Adventures, Forza Horizon, and 1 Month of Xbox Live Gold
Xbox 360 4GB Kinect Holiday Value Bundle ($300): Kinect Sports: Season Two, Kinect Adventures, and 1 Month of Xbox Live Gold
Xbox 360 250GB Holiday Value Bundle ($300): Halo 4, Tomb Raider, and 1 Month of Xbox Live Gold
Note: All these consoles appear to be the Xbox 360 E model, the one that looks a lot like the Xbox One and features one less USB port and no optical audio output. That makes the Xbox 360 S the better system in our eyes. CNet’s Jeff Bakalar does a good job of breaking down the differences between the two models here.
Xbox’ Major Nelson says US retailers will be further discounting the consoles by taking $50 off each bundle starting October 13 and running until January 4, 2014. Of course the smart money says don’t buy a thing until you see what Amazon, Best Buy and the rest will be doing come Thursday, November 28 (Thanksgiving). That’ll be just a few days after the Xbox One launches on November 22, and we’ll be real disappointed if we don’t see 250GB 360’s going for $199 at the least.
Of course selling an 8-year-old console for $399 (even with Kinect and a few games), the same exact price as the PlayStation 4 is, well, let’s say very glass half-full on Microsoft’s part.
