Microsoft: Xbox 360 to Cost Around $300

Corporate Vice President J Allard, who heads Microsoft’s video-game efforts, has confirmed in an interview that the Xbox 360 will be priced in the ‘neighborhood’ of $300 - matching the original Xbox’s launch price and the speculated price for rival Sony’s PS3.

TheStreet.com’s Troy Wolverton discusses a number of topics with Allard, including the challenge from Sony, which is introducing its own next-generation machine:

Q: Sony’s planning on launching their PlayStation 3 around six months after the Xbox 360 launches. They’ve gotten some rave reviews for their new device. Have they stolen some of the 360’s thunder?

I don’t worry about great visuals that they showed that weren’t actually running on real hardware*. It doesn’t matter. Gamers don’t make their purchase decisions based on movies that were shown in May for products that come out in March. They just don’t.

* See Playstation 3 Demos Running on SLI & G70.