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Xbox 360 Elite gets price cut, Pro phased out
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 27th August 2009
Microsoft will cut the price of the Xbox 360 Elite model tomorrow, phasing out the existing Pro line completely.
The Xbox 360 Elite will be cut to just £199.99 starting tomorrow, while the Xbox 360 Arcade will get a price raise to £159.99 and will not now be bundled with any games or software.
In the US meanwhile the Xbox 360 Elite will fall to $299.99, while the Xbox 360 Arcade will cost $199.99. In both territories the Xbox 360 60Gb Pro bundle will be completely phased out and the Xbox 360 Elite will no longer come with an HDMI cable.
The most likely reason for the price changes are clearing things up for a new Natal bundle in the coming months, as well as trying to compete with Sony, who recently lowered the price of the PlayStation 3 to £249.99 in the UK and announced the introduction of the PlayStation 3 Slim. Microsoft claims the motives are a tad more philanthropic however.
"As we continue to refine and make improvements on the internal components for the Xbox 360 and costs come down we pass those savings on to our customers in the form of price drops," said Microsoft's Aaron Greenburg in a press statement.
The fact that Microsoft's price cut coincides with Sony's announcement is a pure accident, claims Microsoft - who also rubbished rumours that an Xbox 360 Slim was on the way.
"We feel great about our console," said Greenburg. "We have taken a different philosophy, adding more value to our existing console through updates and reinventing the system software. We feel like our system has done very well for us in the current form. We have no plans for a slim."
What do you think? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
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And we all knew they would have to drop their prices sooner rather than later.
Refine and make improvements my ***
and this explains a RISE in Arcade cost how?
Nice bit of kit, even a bit quieter than previous models and with an extra 100gb of storage over my last one!
There's no way I'm paying £160 just to play Brutal Legend and GOW2.
The cable that came with my Elite works perfectly fine with both my 360 and two laptops. I don't think there's much to improve by buying an OTT-priced cable.
Just like buying a dedicated Soundcard for a pc. For most onboard sound is sufficient. For most a cheap HDMI cable will do. For others, they will spend £100 on a Soundcard, or they will pay £40 on a HDMI cable.
A 50% failure rate is an absolute JOKE.
The signal is essentially analogue (as are all modern electronics). The quality of the cabling can still make a difference. Google "jitter". The question is whether you care enough about (or can even perceive) the difference.
The difference is that you have been suckered into believing that a problem that digital specifically solves still affects the cables. The only reason to spend more money on digital cables is if you are doing exceptionally long runs or have a densely packed media centre with lots of interference.
I've been suckered into nothing. I use a £5 HDMI cable with my XBOX and I'm perfectly happy. Digital signals only help solve transmission problems. You need other techniques to guarantee flawless signal reproduction and cheaper electronics rarely incorporate these things (reclocking, error detection, error correction and retransmission, for example).
I've heard of HDMI 'jitter' before, but it seems to be more of an audio concern than anything else.
Can't blame em, it's made of gold..
for an HDMI cable.....seriously! is your xbox 100meters away from your tv?
Why not drop it altogether as there really isn't any point to it anymore.
What's the difference between a solder joint and a connector? Here's a clue; gold helps maintain the quality of one but not the other.
What? Bull crap, same as the 360 elite, with bluray, built in wireless, rock solid hardware? Far from too pricey now, the PS3 slim is the best deal out right now.
For those of us who have one I still don't see it as a compelling purchase; inferior online service and not enough exclusives to make it worth while. I do keep toying with the idea of getting one but I just cannot justify it.
Not enough exclusives? BS, PS3 now has as many if not more then 360, and particularily, this year the 360 lineup is weak. Inferior online? Meh, not really, not by much, it is good enoguh for being free, it has come a long way. The exclusives argument was Ok 2 years ago, not so anymore, PS3 bashers need something new now. Really not much difference anymore in PSn and xbox live, only price.
At the end of the day we are all entitled to our own opinions.
In MY opinion (and to be fair alot of the gaming media) the PS3's online service is still inferior to the 360's which is in turn inferior to the PC's and lets face it the Wii is pegging last.
Again in MY opinion there aren't enough exclusives on the PS3 that interest me enough to purchase one. Off the top of my head the games I would like to play would be the latest Gran Turismo, Little Big Planet (my daughter would love to play that as well), Wipeout HD and Resistance. Now 4 games does not make that system attractive enough for me to buy. All the other games I like to play are available on the PC and if not the 360.
And as for wanting one as I said if there were more going for it, i.e. more games, then I would get one at the current price. Drop the price a little more as we stand now then again I would get one.
Also have read Naughty Dog has been able to make Uncharted 2 look so good because they have used textures 3 times the size they could have used on 360 with blu ray disc having 3 times capacity of a dvd. And thats just a single sided blu ray. Double sided could have used 6 times size. Textures never need to be compressed and lose quality on ps3.
Looking through Edge's top 10 titles coming for 360, most of them were being released on all platforms. The ps3 top 10 had mostly exclusives.
Better lineup of games, actually cheaper, plays blu rays which look amazing and upscales dvds well, 360 does nt upscale dvds and is noisy. Can upgrade hard drives without being ripped off
Could you be any more wrong? Both consoles in terms of textures have terrible quality. A blu-ray isn't going to solve a weak GPU.
That is not a legitimate reason for either to be better or worse, exclusives don't mean good games, and I can tell you that this is basically an opinion. In other words, you're just spouting random fanboy nonsense.
Perhaps the DVD part and the blu-ray argument might be acceptable, but upscaling DVDs isn't an important function and Blu-rays are still too expensive. And at $300 a pop, I could buy 2 Blu-ray players. :|
upscalling dvds is a massive function for 99% of people i know who went blu-ray. Awowzer actually makes a decent point. in reguards to the games. I own all 3 consoles but as it stands. What you have to buy to make the elite usable for somebody like me is rather insane.
console
wifi ( nearest pc is 20 meters away)
hdmi cable ( you must buy MS version from what im reading around due to audio issues)
xbox live subscription
You would also need a 2nd controller truth be told. + the Charge kit for the controller unless its included these days ( i had to buy mine seperate)
For a console that has a 50% failure rate. As ive said before PC for life( at least if it fails i can fix it myself without the 1 month return wait) People who say the new consoles dont fail is sprouting crap as well. im on my 3rd elite now. I know m8s of mine who promised they would never buy another MS console till they have confirmed failure rates below 10% again. Like wii and ps3 do.
Blu rays expensive were do you live? HMV sells them at the same cost of the dvd version for new releases around here. Play.com will do even better.
Wonder what hardware the next gen of consoles will have in em. Problem for consoles now is you cant really make a profit on the console sales unless you use years out of date hardware.(wii)
Think big problem in the future will be how much are people willing to spend on a console. Did sony find the sealing cap with the ps3 when it was at £400. It still sold but only to the few who could afford it / wanted a blu ray movie player ( was still cheapest blu ray movie player in england on release) 360 £300 sold better but the Wii at £180 destroyed both. People write the wii outta this console wars but its the true winner. Nintendo have never made as much money id guess.
If sealing cap is £400 and Hd is the future. Whats the current gen of pc hardware required to get games to run at 1080 full hd. And can it be made to happen below what most people consider to expensive for a console seeing the views on this site. Or will we return to great games and avr graphics were consoles really should be at. Id rather have 200 great games than 200 good looking games.
As for the Blu-ray, I'm speaking of B&M stores, those do overcharge, and hopefully it's obvious that more people go to a B&M store than E-tailers these days.
As for the Wii, they make more money out of peripherals than anything else. And for sure the PS3 was the cheapest blu-ray player, but you have to remember, the 360 is still cheap enough to warrant a purchase.
Mind you the Arcade is a terrible deal, but it sells, as for the 50% failure rate...well I've explained that, the Wii though does seem to be quite reliable.
I've tried 3 different hdmi cables on my elite (one was the supplied one) and there's no audio difference at all.
10%? You pull a random figure out of your butt? Post a link or STFU. The PS3 is incredibly reliable, has more features, just as many if not more good exclusives, I would not be surprised to see it, now with the price drop take off.
Agreed on that one, I run mine with a cable. I avoid gaming through a wireless connection like the plague.
I suggest you read rollo's post, it was there he pulled the 10% reliability.
I will admit, the PS3 does come bundled with more features, but if there's one flaw, the console before the slim was not a justifiable purchase, especially when you throw in extra games.
buy what console you want end of discussion really. Or buy them all
Umm, we are talking about the slim, so what's your point. Also, I disagree, even 399, the PS3 is a great buy, better so then a 360. The 360 @ 299, plus 59.99 for live was almost as much, and you got a lot less, that's a fact. Games, the PS3 has just as many good, if not better exclusives.
That's a lot. What less did I get with my Elite? Other than wireless of course.
natal definitely has more wow factor than ps3 wands. but as hardcore gamer i am looking forward more to the wands. not saying that because own a ps3. i really wanted a 360 till i found out the wireless network adaptor made it more expensive than ps3 which also had blu ray and better exclusives.
the e3 demo of ps3 wands actually being used in all the hardcore genres really easily compared to natal which could only demo casual games. i prefer having a trigger. wands were used really easily in an fps demo, rts and a sub mm accurate bow and arrow which could be an rpg. can natal even detect subtle movements of just your finger? It seemed only able to recognise movements of large limbs, the arms and legs. hands and feet yes. but individual fingers? by removing the whole controller it could actually make controlling a hardcore game impossible.
how do u zoom scope in fps? hold thumb and little finger together? movement? can't walk in that direction because limited room. lean in that direction?how specify want to strafe left and right instead of turn left and right? stick your bum out? the over complexity of even simple movement means player will probably be moved by computer along a pre defined path with player just controlling shooting. whereas with wands combine the best of both worlds with analogue sticks, buttons and motion control. wand in left hand analogue stick can control movement, can press a button when want to zoom scope, and wand in right hand just the motion controlled gun with a trigger. we will see. maybe though natal will create a new type of hardcore, but at moment it seems it would be impossible to control a hardcore game with natal, which is why maybe all its demos were for casual gamers.
But if natal does turn out to be good, i'll pick it up for pc and run things at 1080p with full anti aliasing not on the 360 at 720p with jaggies
Oh dear better stop. Have written half a book of 360 bashing. Its just so much fun watching elton fry himself into an omelette