Every week we do a quick wrap-up of some news items that may have slipped through the cracks. The wrap-ups will be shorter versions of our articles, lumped together to give you an idea of things you may have missed.

Xbox Price Drops It Like It’s Hot

Call it a desperate plea for sales leading into the holiday season, or a marketing move that a year head-start allowed them to make, Microsoft has finally officially announced a price-drop across all their Xbox 360 consoles. The Arcade SKU (the low-definition, hard drive-less version of the console) will now be priced lower than the Wii at $199.99 (USD/CDN), and a $50 dollar price reduction will follow on each of the other SKUs. With the high-end version, the Elite, priced the same as the low-end PS3, Microsoft seems poised to take on the competition this holiday season with a large rush towards those still sitting on the fence in this generation. With the company trailing behind in sales over the last few months in North America, a region they all but dominated into the end of 2007, it seems as if changes had to be made in order to move more consoles to the consumers, and a significant price drop at this time of year seems to be the right idea.

Microsoft admittedly does not aspire to usurp the Wii from its top spot in sales, but they do want to challenge Sony. It sets a very interesting stage for the coming season, as neither Sony nor Nintendo look ready or willing to reduce prices this year. In the past, Microsoft has benefited from shortages of Nintendo’s console, and with many analysts and Nintendo themselves admitting that it may be a problem again this year, having a price-point lower than the Wii, or even very close at the mid-range, will give the Xbox a good edge in sales leading to Christmas. As for competition with Sony, it seems the Elite systems is now aligned to be the head-to-head fighter, but with no clear advantage to the normal consumer in terms of value, the push towards software will be a big one. You can anticipate the focus on Netflix in the US, Avatars, Gears of War 2 and many of the E3 announcements to be the marketing push to make their console seem like the go-to media hub to compete with Sony’s game system and Blu-Ray player.

Sony’s official headset for Papa Sierra 3

Anyone that is familiar with online gaming on home consoles know that all companies are essentially playing catch-up with Xbox Live. Consistency and feature-driven services within the Live service has made it the go-to example for how online should work. Although recent cluttering of the marketplace has brought on some changes due to be made this fall, there are a lot of staples of the online market that they’ve done right. One of these things is the channels of communication that are open on the Live system, be it through Messenger, Live-based text messaging, or voice chat. The latter is handled well, for the most part, due to the fact that Microsoft has been in strict control of how you communicate by including headsets with many of the consoles, and bundling headsets with games and Live packages. While Sony does allow the use of any Bluetooth headset, the lack of consistency and quality for voice communication on the platform, and the only recent inclusion of in-game Xross Media Bar (XMB), have made it an area where most still don’t feel comfortable venturing.

Of course, the solution is simple. Sony has released their own official headset alongside the release of the strategic, online shooter SOCOM: Confrontation due out in October. They are even bundling the headset with the game for a price of $60 (USD), and considering the regular price of the hardware alone is $50 (USD), it’s worth an extra 10 for a game. The headset itself touts a few interesting features such as noise cancellation it will allow for higher quality chat than most standard Bluetooth devices. The device will also display information like battery life and connectivity directly to the PS3 menu, and it comes with a dock that you can charge it on when it has run out of energy. It’s a step in the right direction for online communication on the PS3, and something any online aficionado on the system may want to look into.

Second-hand sales are bad?

It wouldn’t surprise many people to find out that the major publishers are not too happy about the idea of second-hand sales through companies like GameStop and soon Best Buy. What would surprise many, though, is the fact that they would say anything to that effect that may make some of the retailers uncomfortable, which Dr. Jens Uwe Intat of EA has done in a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz. One of the main concerns Intat seems to stress is that “people are selling multiple times intellectual property”, which unlike other used items doesn’t depreciate in value as time goes on. There is no way to really capitalize on used games, but the industry of selling games second hand has made companies that do it a fortune, while earning the ire of some publishers and purchasers alike.

Intat seems intent to not create a stir about it, but rather circumvent the idea with digital distribution and other online content. It’s not a war that any company wants to partake in, but the idea of losing potential sales seems to be something that EA has considered. As well, Intat stresses that perhaps they are losing potential money by selling games at a lesser cost that they could be selling at full price, using shelf space to push used products. The merit of used games aside, it does seem that the industry is taking notice the fact that retailers are moving more and more into the territory of used games. With the amount of used DVD and CD sales, which are in the same realm as games in terms of a lack of depreciation in value, it is not likely we will see this practice die out anytime soon. The market for gamers willing to trade in a lot of old games they no longer play for a single new one seems to be something that still makes a lot of money, year after year.