The Xbox One’s Price Just Dropped $50 Until Next Year

The once-$499 Xbox One, which plummeted to $399 in June, just dropped in price again: You can have one starting next week for $350.

It’s a limited-time thing, but Microsoft’s giving fence-sitters plenty of time to make up their minds, running the promotional pricing from November 2 (next Sunday) through January 3, 2015. You’ll have to find a participating retailer, but Microsoft’s list covers the majors.

It’s also an “any Xbox One” thing, so you can basically knock $50 off whatever you like, from the base model without a game to any of the bundles, including the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Unity ($349, or $449 with Kinect and Dance Central Spotlight), Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare ($449 with 1TB hard drive and custom housing) and Sunset Overdrive ($349 and a white finish) SKUs.

Phil Spencer’s wrong when he boasts, “Only on Xbox One can you play some of the most anticipated exclusives, newest blockbuster franchises and innovative independent games of the year.” The Xbox One checks those boxes, sure, but so does Sony’s PlayStation 4 (to say nothing of Windows PCs). I’d include Nintendo’s Wii U, which checks the “most anticipated exclusives” and “innovative independent games” boxes, but it fumbles the “newest blockbuster franchises” one because of the abject state of third-party support.

The Xbox One’s temporary price drop is both a sign of how much Microsoft’s trying to change the sales narrative around its flagship console — the perception that its basically getting clobbered by the PlayStation 4 worldwide — and an indication that the company’s willing to do more than it’s competition to make that happen. If you want an example of a system that’s arguably not doing enough, price-wise, to shore up the gulf between its price and perceived value, look no further than Nintendo’s Wii U.