Xbox 360 price drop from Friday in Ireland
Microsoft have revealed an expected Xbox 360 price drop for Europe today, in Ireland the entry-level console will have an estimated retail price €199.99 from this Friday, March 14.
The standard Xbox 360 with a 20GB harddrive and wireless controller is expected to retail for €279.99, while the 120GB ‘Elite’ console will €379.99.
According to the company, these will see the prices come down €100 for the entry-level console, the Xbox 360 Arcade, and €80 for both other packages.
“History shows that €199 is the price point where a consoles audience begins to expand, and with these new estimated retail prices in place we’re ready to bring more consumers into the Xbox 360 world,” said Chris Lewis, vice president, Microsoft Interactive Entertainment Business Europe.
Xbox 360 HD player with free films
- Free films offer open in Ireland until end of January
Buyers of the of the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player in Ireland will be offered the chance to redeem five free films for the add-on. The Xbox 360 player (pictured right with the games console) retails at around €170, while the offer runs until January 31, 2008.
The player is currently facing a massive advertising push by Sony’s rival high definition format Blu-ray. The Sony format is included in the company’s PlayStation 3 console.
The two HD formats have been lined up by their backers as the successor to the DVD. Both are in a format war last seen with VHS and Betamax in the 1980s — like then, it is unlikely the two formats will survive in the medium to long term.
The Xbox offer includes 13 titles from Warner Brothers, Universal, Dreamworks and Paramount. These are: Serenity, the Chronicles of Riddick, Hulk, Children of Men, the Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift,
Troy, Full Metal Jacket, Corpse Bride, the Prestige, Swordfish, Black Rain, Dreamgirls, and Word Trade Center.
Orla Sheridan of Microsoft Ireland said: “The HD-DVD player for Xbox 360 gives customers a high quality and affordable way to enjoy state-of-the-art HD-DVD movies. We’re delighted to enable everyone to enjoy the technology to the full and offer some fantastic movie releases, completely free”.
Xbox launches student karaoke contest
Xbox have launched a rock ‘n’ roll karaoke competition aimed at college
and university students in and around Dublin.
The karaoke contest, Songs of Praise, kicked off last night at the
Village on Wicklow Street, it will continue at the NUI Maynooth student
union bar on Tuesday.
The overall winner will receive a Gibson electric guitar worth over
€2,000. And each of the seven heat winners will walk away with an Xbox
360 package worth over €1,000, including a console, Guitar Hero III,
and other games.
There are six other dates between now the finals at the Button
Factory (formally the Temple Bar Music Centre) on December 6. These
include nights for DCU, UCD, DIT, and TCD. There is also a second
general night at the Village next Sunday, December 2.
The karaoke addicts will be given a rest with Phantom FM’s
DJ Sinead NiMhordha playing sets between karaoke stints. The Xbox 360
game Guitar Hero III — in which user play the game using a guitar — is
also on playable at the nights.
The Songs of Praise karaoke night is a regular on Sundays at the Village;
the Dubliner called it “Dublin’s best Karaoke Night,” the Irish Times said
it was “Dublin’s most successful and only credible Karaoke”, while the
Guardian said “now firmly established as the city’s place to go on the
Lord’s Day”.
The dates in full are: Tuesday November 27 at the NUI Maynooth SU
Bar; Wednesday November 28 at the DCU SU Bar; Thursday November 29 at
the UCD SU Bar; Sunday December 2 at the Village; Tuesday December 4
at the Odeon for DIT; Wednesday December 5 at Radio City for Trinity
College; and the finals on Thursday December 6 at the Button Factory.
Free tickets to the event can be got via getpraiseatxbox360.com.
GameStop opens midnight for Halo 3
Gamestop say they will open 14 of its 46 in the Republic and Northern Ireland at at midnight on Tuesday for the European release of Halo 3.
The retailer are to have midnight openings at Henry St, Stephens Green, and Clare Hall in Dublin, along with their outlets in Belfast, Derry, Limerick, Drogheda, Wexford, Tralee, Letterkenny, Mallow, Midleton, Killarney, and Bangor.
Other retailers, such as HMV, GAME, and Smyths, are also likely to have midnight openings in at least the main cities.
A Microsoft spokesperson told us this evening that, in Ireland, “Michael Finucane from Game stop says that pre-orders are running at twice the rate of Halo 2″, while a statement released this afternoon says the company worldwide is “running off 81 games per second to ensure that they meet global demand for this title”.
“It is fantastic to see the level of interest shown by Irish gamers, all of whom are eager to be one of the first people in the country to get their hands on what is set to be the must have game this Christmas,” said Orla Sheridan, country manager at the entertainment and devices division of Microsoft Ireland.
Halo 3 demand high says Irish retailer
Microsoft Ireland are reporting “Huge demand” for pre-orders of Halo
3, what it is calling the fastest pre-sales in video game history,
while Gamestop are say the
demand has been “nothing short of phenomenal”.
Worldwide pre-orders of Halo 3 have exceeded the 1 million according
to Microsoft, the publisher of the game and maker of the Xbox 360 games
console. No Irish sales numbers were released.
It’s set to be released in standard, limited, and “legendary
edition” - according to the publisher, the ‘legendary’ version is
expected to sell out before its September 26 launch.
Midnight openings are expected across Ireland for the launch of the latest Halo game.
“What we’ve experienced is nothing short of phenomenal, Halo 3 has
eclipsed the previous record set by Halo 2″ said Michael Finucane,
commercial director at Gamestop.
“It set a benchmark for others to follow and is a real indication of
how video games has now come to the forefront of the entertainment
industry… The excitement for Halo 3 is incredible”.
Irish pricing for Halo 3 console revealed
Pricing for the limited edition Halo 3 Xbox 360 was released today by games publisher Microsoft.
When the console (pictured above) is released Wednesday two weeks,
September 26, it will retail at an estimated price of
Sony still dominates Irish games market
- Nintendo shows strength
- Xbox 360 outranks PS3
…But dwarfed by Sony
Independent numbers do not support Xbox 360 dominance in Ireland as figures released yesterday by Microsoft suggest.
The Chart-Track Irish games charts
released last week show that, for example, Xbox 360 sales of the
multiplatform ‘Transformers: The Game’ accounted for only 16
percent of the total sales on the top-20 multi-format chart.
Meanwhile the PlayStation 3 accounted for 6 percent less of sales of
the Transformers game at 10 percent; however, the rest of the sales
went to other Sony consoles, the PlayStation 2 (50 percent) and
PlayStation Portable (17 percent).
The game - at number one in those charts - entered the charts over
four weeks ago at number three, at that stage Xbox 360 sales were at 24
percent but since dropped to the above number.
Microsoft hold similar or lower percentages of multiplatform games
sales lower in the charts, and their console features less the Sony
brands. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 only features in five places of the top-20
multi-format chart, while Sony brands are in 12 different places.
Unlike the older PS2 that is still going strong with a massive Irish
install base, the first Xbox is a no-show.
Questionable numbers
“For the past year, Xbox 360 has been the number one console in
EMEA, having obtained more than 30 percent of the market in terms of
overall revenue (more than 45 percent in the UK, Ireland, Netherlands
and Sweden*),” reads a the Microsoft press release [NOTE: there is no
corresponding note following the '*' included].
However, if the examples outlined above are anywhere near close of
the true picture of the games market in Ireland, it shows that
Microsoft yesterday unfairly stated that they have 45 percent of the
market in terms of “overall revenue”. It’s unclear if Ireland is
incorrectly included among the UK, Netherlands and Sweden, or if the
company has an abnormal meaning of the term ‘overall revenue’.
Another possibility is that Microsoft are selectively calling
classing the ‘home’ market as the wider market while excluding portable
console which make up a large percentage of the actual games market.
Unlike its Japanese rivals Sony and Nintendo, the US-based company has
no handheld consoles.
This confusion mirrors Microsoft press release in March which gave
“record-breaking” United States specific numbers, but when we contacted
the company at the time a spokespersons said they “never release country specific figures”.
Nintendo with eight exclusives
Nintendo meanwhile have eight exclusives on the charts including
taking up places from two to six. If more comprehensive set of figures
were publicly available Nintendo could even come in second for overall
market share.
Nintendo looks to have gained since the launch of its low-priced Wii
console, added to this the handheld DS system has been a larger seller
in Ireland and continues to be such.
The particularly high Nintendo presence could be explained by the
low games release for the industry over summer months, however any
summer irregularity would not explain Microsoft’s low percentages which
are in line with our past reports on games sales in Ireland.
The future?
It still looks as if Microsoft has yet to capitalise on their head start launching the 360 before Christmas 2005, compared to the PlayStation 3 that only launched in March.
With the high cost of the new Sony console and a price drop for the
360, Microsoft could still convince many users of Sony’s older console
to switch over.
A lot depends on how long and to what extent Sony and third-parties
continue to support the PlayStation 2 while the PS3 slowly moves to
price drops and how fast can Sony build the new console’s catalogue of
titles.
Our independent source
The Chart-Track Irish chart is the only available independent source
of games point-of-sales information in Ireland. While it should be
noted that retailers GameStop and Smyths are not included, the chart
firm’s website lists a large selection of retailer such as Argos,
Play.com, Currys, Roxy Records, Dixons, Tesco, Game, Tower, Golden
Discs, Virgin, Heartbeat City, Xtra-vision, Heatons, Zhivago, HMV, PC
World, and other unnamed independent retails. Chart-Track also compile
the Irish music charts and the UK games charts.
Xbox 360 price drop for Ireland
- Xbox 360 Elite launches Friday
- 360 remains
World Cyber Games Irish finals still open
- Irish finals open without attending 
- Must register on lanparty.ie and then on page sign up
- Two Dublin regional qualifiers in the next weeks
Registration for the Irish finals of the World Cyber Games is still
open, and is open to everyone not just those who competed in the
regional heats.
Gamers wishing to play in the finals must register at lanparty.ie, and also then sign up to the event on the ‘WCG Irish Finals‘ page.
Games to be played are Counter Strike 1.6 on PC with a team of five,
Project Gotham Racing 3 on Xbox, and FIFA 07 on PC.
Tickets cost
World Cyber Games Ireland details
Regional heats of the World Cyber Games Ireland
are on in Dublin on the weekend of August 17, and in the Midlands on
the weekend of July 22. A third event in Galway is due to be announced.
The Irish qualifiers for the World Cyber Games in Seattle are to be
held again this year at the Digital Hub, and will take place on September 15 -
16.
Games in the Irish events are Counter Strike 1.6 (pictured) on PC with a teams of five,
Project Gotham Racing 3 on Xbox, and FIFA 07 on PC.