Xbox 360 Halo 3 Edition

Today, months after the Canadian Dollar hit par with the American Dollar, Microsoft announced that it has dropped the price of the all Xbox 360 consoles in Canada. As of today, the Xbox 360 Arcade costs $279.99 CAD, reduced from $299.99 CAD, the Xbox 360 Premium costs $349.99 CAD, reduced from $399.99 CAD, the Xbox 360 Halo 3 Edition costs $399.99 CAD, reduced from $449.99 CAD, and the Xbox 360 Elite costs $449.99 CAD, reduced from $499.99 CAD.

It has taken Microsoft quite some time to reach this destination. Back in September of last year we covered a story detailing the discrepancies between the pricing of video games and video game hardware in Canada and America, and asked all three major console manufacturers – Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony – how they planned to compensate for the higher value of the Canadian Dollar. While Sony initially said it did not have any plans to cut the Canadian prices of its hardware, as it had recently done so, it was the first to take charge, barely less than a month later, dropping the price of not only the Playstation 3, but the PSP as well.

Today's announcement from Microsoft shows the manufacturer/publisher's ability to stick to what it says and completely disregard overwhelming consumer demand. The company held out as long as it could before dropping the price, though one wonders why it couldn't hold out any longer. The company's decision to wait before dropping the Canadian price appears to be a poor one when considering customer satisfaction, especially in the wake of another recent poor decision it made. However it could be worse. Microsoft is not the last of the console manufacturers to give Canadians a fair deal for their Dollar. Though retailers across Canada have dropped the price of both the Nintendo DS (from $149.99 CAD to $139.99 CAD) and Wii (from $279.99 CAD to $269.99 CAD), Nintendo has not officially announced that it has dropped the price of either system, nor has it hinted at any plans to do so.

That said, Microsoft has, once again, made a gap between the pricing of the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360, and simultaneously bridged the gap between Wii and the two least expensive Xbox 360 models. Also, taking into consideration the fact that Nintendo has not officially dropped the price for a Wii, this means the Xbox 360 Arcade and Wii are now officially the same price in Canada (retailers' discounts aside).