Microsoft will discount all of its Xbox One console bundles by $50 beginning Mar. 20, Xbox Live programming director Larry Hyrb announced on Friday.
The Xbox One has lagged far behind the PlayStation 4 in sales since both consoles were launched in November 2013, but Microsoft has been known to drop the Xbox One’s price below that of the PS4 to try to catch up.
The console’s latest markdown will bring the lowest-priced editions of the console from $350 to $300.
The move is part of the Xbox Spring Sale, which will see discounts on games purchased through Xbox Live as well as the console discount, and will include both Xbox One and PC games. How long the discount on the console itself will last was not announced, but it’s possible given precedent that it will eventually be made permanent.
The Xbox One has a colorful pricing history. When it launched in 2013, Microsoft bundled the console with the Kinect camera and charged $500. In early 2014 it began selling Kinect-free Xbox One consoles for $400, before doing a similar $50-off “limited time” deal later that year. That price drop became permanent in early 2015.
This latest price drop comes in advance of the release of the Microsoft published “Quantum Break,” which comes out for Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs on April 5.