Cheats-Area.com

According to French research company LSA, Microsoft's console will get a price cut of 50 EUR starting next-week, in an attempt to boost sales for the RROD-plagued product.

It's a known fact that PAL areas, and especially Europe (and, in particular, France) are PlayStation's foothold. Sales for the Xbox 360 have not been as stellar as they have been for the more expensive PlayStation 3, and this shows you just how bad the situation is, and how much worse it can get.

Not to lose contact with the the competition, Microsoft apparently decided to cut the price for all three versions of Xbox 360 sold in Europe, if we are to believe the sources quoted by the French from LSA. They claim that a 50EUR price cut is expected for next week, making the Core Pack even cheaper than the Wii.

The modifications will be operated as follows:

1. the Core Pack will now cost only 229 EUR, from the previous 279 EUR (compared to the Wii, which now costs 249 EUR)
2. the Premium Xbox 360 will be priced at 299 EUR, from the previous 349 EUR
3. the Xbox 360 Elite will be sold at only 399 EUR, from the previous 449 EUR

Thus the Xbox 360 Elite becomes the direct rival (in terms of price) for Sony's higher-end PlayStation 3, which instead comes with an integrated Blu Ray player, more processing power from the Cell CPU, but with a less capacious hard drive (only 40GB, compared to Elite's 120GB) and no backwards compatibility with PlayStation 2 games.

Microsoft knows that with the Blu Ray now in lead, and with the HD DVD drive gone, consumers will find Sony's console more attractive, especially since hard-core titles like Metal Gear Solid 4, Resistance 2, MotorStorm 2 or LittleBigPlanet are all scheduled to debut this year. The upcoming price cut would be the second Microsoft operates in less than 8 months, after the one in August 2007.