The June NPD numbers (apparently) are in. MSFT (Microsoft, i use the stock abbreviation a lot) sold over 500,000 consoles in what is a traditionally slow month. Some of this is tied to the PC/Xbox promotion (likely less than 25%).
What i was wondering is if MSFT did a stealth price cut a few months ago. What i mean by stealth price cut is that the price cut was really on the retailer side (not the MSRP). i would guess that somewhere around $25 per console has been taken off the cost for retail.
It would explain somewhat why there seem to be so many stores offering gift cards with purchases of Xbox consoles (and especially bundles). Maybe i'm wrong and stores are just seeing an uptick from a brief economic recovery. However, it seems to me that stores are not really using gift to act as a loss leader. Gift cards really are an ideal method for the stores (as either they won't be used or future purchases are "locked in" at that store chain). i find these gift cards reappearing so frequently interesting (a one off promotion i could understand, but virtually every week looks like a tip-off to a price cut or an effective price cut for them).
i postulate that the official price cut will be revealed before the end of TGS (mid September), at least for the consumer. i expect a $25-50 cut on console price, $25 cut on Kinect stand alones and a $50-75 cut to Kinect/Xbox bundles. This is not really based off of anything other than a guess.
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