Xbox (Photo : Reuters)
Microsoft’s flagship game console, the Xbox One, will be getting a huge price cut in Chinese stores this week, Microsoft China announced on Wednesday.
Kinect-bundled Xbox One consoles, which currently cost 4,299 yuan ($692), will drop to 3,799 yuan ($611). Versions without the Kinect will see an even bigger price cut, from 3,699 yuan ($595) to just 2,999 yuan ($482).
Microsoft still has yet to share any sales figures for the Xbox One in China, but the price drop is seen by analysts as Microsoft's efforts to bolster flagging sales of the console.
On Tmall, the console has sold less than 300 units in the past month, according to tech news portal Tech in Asia.
The numbers on Taobao don't look good either, with most of the top Xbox One sellers offering gray-market imports rather than the Chinese version of the console, the report added.
The Xbox One also recently went region-free in China in an attempt to better compete with Sony's PlayStation 4, which is also being sold domestically by the same Chinese partner company.
However, both consoles face a difficult battle in China, where gamers lean more to the PC platform and strict government censorship severely limited the number of console games sold in stores.
At present, both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 have paltry game libraries of games available to Chinese users, and the result has been a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the "console revolution" in China, the report said.
Microsoft also has few tricks up its sleeve: the U.S. software giant is planning to release "Halo: The Master Chief Collection," which contains four games under the iconic Halo franchise, in June this year, as well as highly popular titles "NBA 2K15" and "Just Dance 2015."
