Commentary: Will Xbox 360 Have More Preorders in US, Too?

There hasn't been much praise for Microsoft's new game console cable box with the fiasco of how games will be played on it.

Apparently, that doesn't matter over in the United Kingdom where Xbox One preorders are exceeding the PlayStation 4. Despite gamers' protest of needing to connect online at least once every 24 hours and the console not playing used games, the casual market doesn't seem to care.

For the casuals who play Call of Duty and Madden on their Xbox 360 here in the US, will that trend carry over?

It's possible, but that theory will be tested with Microsoft releasing the product at a steep $499 retail tag that was announced at the Electronics Entertainment Expo on Monday. A relase date of this November was also announced.

The price is about $100 more than what some analysts predicted. With both versions of Madden and COD coming out for this generations' consoles, the number of early adopters may be very small for such a high price despite generally favorable responses from the E3 presentation.

Sony's presentation will be tonight. They have potential to gain the attention right back that the Xbox One has received for weeks if they come out with a lower price (if that's planned) and attract to both the casual and hardcore gaming markets.

If so, then the next step will be to physically move those gamers to Sony's next console. In a way, Microsoft's undoing could be the same that Sony faced over six years ago when introducing a high-priced model with some non-gaming features (Blu-ray player).

More speculation and response to come after Sony's conference.

[Source: NBC News]
[Image credit: Flickr/NewGameNetwork]