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Xbox One Titanfall bundle drops to $449 at Walmart, Best Buy

An unofficial price cut and a new pack-in game makes the Xbox One price competitive with Sony's PS4.

Dan Ackerman Editorial Director / Computers and Gaming
Dan Ackerman leads CNET's coverage of computers and gaming hardware. A New York native and former radio DJ, he's also a regular TV talking head and the author of "The Tetris Effect" (Hachette/PublicAffairs), a non-fiction gaming and business history book that has earned rave reviews from the New York Times, Fortune, LA Review of Books, and many other publications. "Upends the standard Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs/Mark Zuckerberg technology-creation myth... the story shines." -- The New York Times
Expertise I've been testing and reviewing computer and gaming hardware for over 20 years, covering every console launch since the Dreamcast and every MacBook...ever. Credentials
  • Author of the award-winning, NY Times-reviewed nonfiction book The Tetris Effect; Longtime consumer technology expert for CBS Mornings
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Dan Ackerman
2 min read

Microsoft's Xbox One.
Sarah Tew/CNET
One of the reasons Sony's PlayStation 4 game console has outsold the rival Xbox One in the early months of 2014 has been the $100 price difference -- $399 versus $499 -- between the two. In mid-March, Microsoft evened the score a bit, adding the exclusive game Titanfall to new consoles as a bundle. Assuming a $60 sold-separately price on the game, one could argue the base cost of the Xbox One was now just $440.

Now, a second wave of price cuts has come to the Xbox One. As noted by the New York Times, two major retailers, Best Buy and Walmart, are now offering that same Xbox One/Titanfall bundle for $449. Unlike the addition of a bundled game, this price change comes from the retailers themselves, and a Microsoft spokesman told the Times that the company's suggested retail price remains the same. Again, assuming you would buy the $60 game separately, this brings the hardware cost down to $389, or $10 less than the PS4.

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The Xbox One bundle price, as noted on Walmart's Web site. Screenshot by Dan Ackerman/CNET
Testing both retailers' Web sites, Best Buy offered the Xbox One/Titanfall bundle for $449 for either in-store pickup or via free shipping. The final price was hidden from view until the product was in your shopping cart, and it appeared to be in-stock in stores in the New York area. Walmart is only offering in-store pickup, with limited availability in some of the stores we checked. The same bundle is available on Amazon for $499.

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You'll only see the discounted price on the BestBuy.com checkout screen. Screenshot by Dan Ackerman/CNET
How long will the discounted price last? A Walmart spokeswoman told CNET, "There is no set end date. We will monitor the market and adjust our pricing accordingly," but also said that the $449 Xbox One bundle would be available until at least Easter.