Microsoft has slashed prices on every Xbox 360 model, but if you want to engage in some local multiplayer action, that’s still going to cost you $50 a pop.

The 360 controllers aren’t dropping in price. Controllers seldom do.

Nintendo and Sony are guilty of the same practices. The PS3 controller has actually increased in price $5 since launch, due to the addition of rumble. Buying a Wiimote and nunchuck together still costs $60.

I asked Microsoft’s Xbox product marketing director, Aaron Greenberg, if there’s a price drop in the future for an Xbox 360’s basic necessity, the controller. “We haven’t done that,” he admitted in a telephone interview yesterday. “I hear you on that point. Part of it is the nature of the business.”

Greenberg sympathizes, but doesn’t provide much hope.

“I mean, I feel the same pain as a gamer and as a consumer that breaks out my wallet to buy a lot of the same stuff,” he said. “In general, it’s a business where people lose money on the system and they make it up on the software and the accessories. That’s what balances out for systems to be offered at such a great value for what you get. It is a bit of a trade off, but I hear you.”

Readers, it doesn’t look like the entry fee for local multiplayer is changing anytime soon. Do you think Greenberg’s reasoning is a worthy trade-off? Is it time for controllers to start dropping in price?

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