Pachter: Xbox One could see price cut in ‘a year or two’

It's a little surprising that we're less than one month into the Xbox One's lifecycle and we're already talking price cuts — especially since Microsoft's next-gen system has had no problem selling through its launch supply. But despite the sales success of the Xbox One, video game analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan expects it to receive a price cut in "the next year or two."

“Next few months I think they both sell out," Pachter told Geoff Keighley in an interview on GameTrailers. "If either of them gathers dust on the shelf it’ll be the Xbox One because of the price-point.

"Next year I’d say Sony out-sells Microsoft by 25%, so probably 12 million to 9 million or something. Something like that. And I think Sony keeps the lead until Microsoft cuts the price or explains to us why that Kinect is actually worth an extra hundred bucks," he explained.

So far, Microsoft has had to do little explaining, as the Xbox One continues to sell out as quickly as shelves are restocked. Regardless, Pachter sees a price cut in the future.

“I think Microsoft – in a year or two – Microsoft will cut price,” he added. “They’ll be priced the same, they’ll sell neck-in-neck. Sony gets an early lead, Microsoft claws its way back.

"I think the value in the consoles is going to be in the software, and is going to be in the services like Xbox Live, like PlayStation Network, and I think those are in early days of the service offering. So I think they’re going to get better and better and better, and people will really like them.

“But I’d say pretty close, I think they’ll be about where they came out this cycle, probably pretty even, and both bigger than last cycle, because Wii U is going to sell 20% as many units as the Wii, so there’s a lot of market share to catch," he concluded.

Have you purchased an Xbox One or PS4 at launch?