XBox price cut pays off for Microsoft

SLASHING THE PRICE OF XBOX helped Microsoft more than double sales of the console in two months according to new market data.

NPD says Xbox sales jumped 131 per cent after the software company and hardware dabbler followed Sony's lead and cut $100 off the price in May.

Microsoft also managed to shift more than 10 million games world-wide in the first eight months the console was on the market, the researcher says.

Microsoft has also announced it is to bring the console to a bunch of new territories, including South Korea Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, New Zealand and Mexico. It currently sells in the United States, Japan, Western Europe and Australia.

The company is due to launch its online gaming service, Xbox Live, this autumn and is expected to roll this out into the new territories too, particularly into gaming mad South Korea. µ