Microsoft Corp., the second-largest maker of video-game consoles, said Wednesday it will cut the price of its most powerful Xbox 360 player 25 percent in Japan, after a similar reduction in the U.S.
The ¥29,800 price for the Xbox 360 Elite console, previously ¥39,980, takes effect Sept. 10, Joji Sakaguchi, director of marketing at Microsoft's Xbox division in Japan, said at a news briefing in Tokyo. The Elite features a 120-gigabyte hard-disk drive, a headset and wireless controller.
The company will no longer fix a price for the 60-gigabyte Xbox model, which used to cost ¥29,800, Sakaguchi said. A stripped-down Arcade model will stay at ¥19,800, he said.
The reduction is part of the worldwide push by Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft to lure users to the 3 1/2-year-old platform and fend off a comparable price cut for Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 last month. Japanese gamers bought more than twice as many PS3s than Xbox 360s in Japan in the year that ended March 31, according to researcher Enterbrain Inc.
Microsoft sold 398,633 Xbox 360 consoles in Japan last fiscal year, compared with 999,903 PlayStation 3s, the Tokyo-based researcher said in April. There were three PS3s for every Xbox 360 in the country as of March 29, it said.
Tokyo-based Sony last month cut the PS3's price by 25 percent to $299 in the U.S.