After XboxFamily posting about a price drop for Zune (and gaming support for the new model!), ZuneInsider confirmed Zune's new retail price will be $199 . Many retailers in the last few months already list Zune close to this price. ZuneInsider says this price drop had been scheduled for quite some time because surveys showed $249 was too much for Zune...
From ZuneInsider :
Some of you may have already heard, but tomorrow we’re dropping the suggested retail price for Zune to $199. It’s part of the normal product lifecycle, something we’ve had on the books for months. We just got some research back and customer satisfaction with the 30GB device is really high (around 94%) and we expect even more consumers will now want to discover the Zune experience at the new lower price.
Check also XboxFamily's post about this price drop. But another interesting part from this post is this:
[...] As far as gaming on the MP3 player goes, we’re still waiting on that. More than likely, it was scrapped and we’ll see the games on the new Zune line during the holiday launch. [...]
Microsoft hasn't announced anything about gaming support in the new Zune versions (maybe its because they have not announced any new versions at all!). But of course in the past months there were many rumors talking about gaming integration with dates of release varying from August 2007 till July 2008. We'll wait and see. In the meantime buy a (another) cheap Zune.
Related articles:
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New Zune with games in August 2007?
CES 2007: Zune gaming by July 2008