New Resurrected rumors about the XBox 360’s price dip started in again today. Now they’re saying that the 360 will drop $100 by Christmas. That would put the good bundle at roughly $300 (actually closer to $325 with tax). I’m not going to suggest that’s cheap in any way, but it is about half the price of the high end PS3’s MSRP.

So will Microsoft actually do this? I mean, as it is your options are to get the feature-complete 360 set for $400 or drop an extra $200 and get the comparable PS3. Maybe Microsoft decides to say, “We’re comfortable with that.” Why not? They’re still ahead of the Sony in terms of game library and price point. Why push it?

I think if MS does go this route it will be because of the psychological marketing concept of “Half Price.” But MS needs to be a little careful here so that “Half Price” doesn’t translate into “Half as Good” when they do their holiday commercial blitz. Which is actually why I think they’ll wait until sometime in early 2007 to drop the price. Their options would be to drop the price and say nothing, letting the comparison shoppers make the realization themselves or to trumpet the price differential. On the one hand you may have a situation where people aren’t aware that the XBox is that much cheaper than the PlayStation and won’t comparison shop at all to figure it out (perhaps choosing instead to go off of a child’s wishlist) but on the other hand you could have people saying, “Why would it be that much cheaper? Is it that much weaker?” Consumers—especially around the holidays when they are buying stuff for other people that they may not be very knowledgable about—can’t always be relied upon to make the smart decision based on the limited information available to those who don’t already know and don’t really care to find out.

And MS would really be better served by waiting a few months to drop the price anyway: It’s almost guaranteed that the PS3 will sell out badly in its first few months of release leading up to Christmas. MS can rest assured that they’ll sit back and sell plenty of units with their stockpile ready to go, filling in where Sony can’t match demand. After Christmas when Sony catches back up and stock comes in, then Microsoft can drop the price reduction axe on Sony. I know if I had $600 to spend on video games I’d rather buy a $300 XBox and $300 worth of games than just a PS3 and some crummy launch title. Not everyone is going to be as flexible as me (and unlike some people, I actually like the original XBox and would probably consider a 360 based on that merit alone) but I bet there are enough people that feel the same way that it has to be a real concern for Sony. Or at least, it ought to be.

Elsewhere, someone has written a pretty amusing list of stuff that has happened while people were waiting for Duke Nukem Forever. I suppose you could do this with any decade-long-or-longer wait (the fourth Indiana Jones movie, anyone?) but it’s pretty funny anyway.

Meanwhile, The Escapist’s 50th issue deals intelligently with women in gaming and suggests that perhaps the gender barrier is more of a feedback loop of media perspective than an actual barrier plus argues that non-sexualized female protagonists (such as young Alice-style girls) might be the correct way to get females to identify with game characters.

It’s a fascinating issue and generally speaking I think the gender barrier is mostly hype because it makes a good common wisdom type hook for fluffy magazine articles (the kind that The Escapist mostly tries to avoid). Women play games quite a bit, I think that they simply tend to be more picky about what they play. Whimsy is spending the last bit of her pregnancy playing Monster Rancher; Dr. Mac reports that the Mrs. is enjoying some of the minigames on the DS and Nik has been known to play plenty of Tetris and Kirby’s Avalance (Puyo Puyo). Video games tend to be defined by the fanboy hype machines like Halo, Madden and Half-Life but excluding the twitch games there are a lot that appeal to women, I think they’re just less willing to want to spend the effort to find something they’ll like.