Microsoft has announced that the Xbox One's price will be cut from £429.99 to £399.99 in the UK on February 28th but the company has said that at this time, there are no plans to introduce a similar cut elsewhere.
Speaking to Official Xbox Magazine, Xbox UK marketing director Harvey Eagle explained:
“My responsibility is only for the UK so I can only talk about our territory. This is about offering the best value to UK gamers, and as a result we’re announcing this new price point of £399. There’s no announcements in other countries planned, so it’s a UK-only adjustment and we feel this is the right thing to do in our market.”
There was strong criticism of Microsoft's UK pricing for the Xbox One as £429.99 equates to $715. The reduced price of £399.99 works out at $665. The Xbox One costs $499 in the US and €499 in Europe.
A PS4 meanwhile costs £349 which is $580, elsewhere the PS4 is $399 and €399.
Eagle said the timing of the move to reduce the Xbox One's UK price is bassed "very much around Titanfall." He pointed to the success of the recent beta and added:
"It's about value rather than price. People buy a console to play the best games, the best games coming this year include Titanfall, and Destiny, and Watch_Dogs, and if you want to play all three of those you're going to need an Xbox One. And as we said in the announcement today from the 14th March customers are also going to get a copy of Titanfall included when they get an Xbox One, we think that's really good value."
Microsoft today announced a Titanfall Xbox One bundle which will see the game included at no extra cost from March 11th in North America and March 14th in Europe and the UK.