XBox 360 Elite for $299 US is official

[ljkkjlcm9]

So in obvious direct response to Sony, Microsoft is dropping the 360 Elite Bundle to $299 on August 30th.

Yup, 360 Elite Goes $299 On August 30 - xbox 360 elite - Kotaku (http://kotaku.com/5343009/yup-360-elite-goes-299-on-august-30)

I'm planning on getting a PS3 in due time because of games I want. I would of regardless, but because it's finally a lower price, and it's a Blu-Ray player, it's pretty much win-win for me.

360 is nice, but I still don't think it's worth the buy. Most of the games I really like on it are also on PS3, or soon to be ported, like Tales of Vesperia.

THE JACKEL

[Rase]

I was pleased with the PS3 price drop because I was so certain it would prompt Microsoft to follow suit. As someone who owns neither and is looking to eventually get a 360 due to friends owning them (and already owning games for it that I play on friends systems) I'm all for paying less when that time comes. Maybe they'll dip the Pro to $250 rather than discontinuing it, that would be nice.

[Bolivar]

This is something they absolutely had no choice but to do. There's no way they could've kept the Elite on the market for $100 more than a ps3 with considerably less features.

That being said, I'd much rather prefer a newer kind of model with a lower failure rate. The Elite just feels like an arcade with a hard drive.

[Dreddz]

I would have knocked it down to $250. If your comparing the value of each system its a joke to think an Xbox 360 Elite is worth the same price as a PS3.

[Yew-Yevon]

I finaly have the chance to get a PS3! Though I might have to get a new PS2 aswell since my 8yr old PS2 is finaly begining to show its age(it still has that i-link port beside the two USB ports)., Its still plays all my games but can't load DVD movies anymore. :(

[Zyphus]

personally this price drop isn't so big. I already own a xbox 360 elite anyway, i paid around £200 for it and that was brand new in stores. What im worried about is all this talk about the Arcade version bumping up to around £160 and some other accessories are rumoured to be going up.

[Markus. D]

It's still a rather similar price to what they sell it here for anyways... :]!

[Iceglow]

The funny thing is, that PS3 fanboys will claim that the price drop is obviously a response Microsoft had no choice but to make considering the new ps3 slim being only 250 quid and a far superior console (sorry I can't use the pound sign on this laptop the laptop is polish and the keyboard set to USA and bah) The people in the marketing industry come out with the idea of the fact they had to follow Sony down the road to compete but reality wise:

The Core and Pro models of the Xbox 360 were long since announced as discontinued, the Core featuring it's 20gb hdd was discontinued after the release of the Pro model and now the Pro model is going, though if I were Microsoft, personally I think I'd keep the Pro and the Elite and phase the Arcade out, the main reasons the Arcades sell where I work (in the biggest music store in the world!) is because people who experience the RROD or other failures (for example: one customer came in desperate to replace his 360 because his 3 year old daughter had decided to put toast in it's drive and close it leaving him with a 360 no longer of this earth) in this "disposable" society we seem to be living in despite the calls for recycling and change people even with a 3 - 5 year warranty on an item often cannot be bothered to simply put it in for repairs and would rather just shell 120 quid to replace it.

Ok so I went off on a bit of a tangent about my dislike for the continued sale of the Arcade over the Pro but hey, at 160 quid the Pro would have worked as a nice alternative to the Elite, some price concious families would like to have a console with a hard drive and therefore the option of saving games but cannot afford 200 - 250 quid for an Elite model. The fact of the matter is, that with the Pro discontinued the drop in price of the Elite was very much INEVITABLE anyway because you do not market consoles with a 200 quid price variation when a hard drive costs about 50 quid to buy. It's plain suicide frankly. Therefore although Microsoft has a long history of not being honest with it's consumers which unfortunately due to their stranglehold over the computer industry in general is pretty much everyone whether you use it at work or at home you're still using Microsoft. I honestly believe the price drop is not in response to the new PS3 slim. I do however think that Microsoft may have held off on announcing the amount the price drop was by until Sony announced how low they would be going with the Slim. I mean it'd be worse and very obvious if Microsoft had announced a price drop to 350 dollars and then Sony said "Well Bill, we're going to 299 beat that biatch" followed by Microsoft further cutting the price of the Elite, that would show they were concerned about the possibility of the new slim ps3 being a serious contender for the position of console selling king.


I discounted the Wii since I think that it falls in to a category of it's own I mean reality wise it's just a freaking game cube placed in a smaller, shinier, whiter shell with motion sensitive controls. Hardware wise, I don't think theres much change is there? Though, yes clearly this is still the fastest and best selling console in the world, the main battle however is now between Sony and Microsoft with the PS3 and the 360 duking it out. I love my 360 it's true and I have a healthy respect (and will be buying one soon as I can afford it) for the PS3.

[Croyles]

The funny thing is, that PS3 fanboys will claim that the price drop is obviously a response Microsoft had no choice but to make considering the new ps3 slim being only 250 quid and a far superior console (sorry I can't use the pound sign on this laptop the laptop is polish and the keyboard set to USA and bah) The people in the marketing industry come out with the idea of the fact they had to follow Sony down the road to compete but reality wise:

The Core and Pro models of the Xbox 360 were long since announced as discontinued, the Core featuring it's 20gb hdd was discontinued after the release of the Pro model and now the Pro model is going, though if I were Microsoft, personally I think I'd keep the Pro and the Elite and phase the Arcade out, the main reasons the Arcades sell where I work (in the biggest music store in the world!) is because people who experience the RROD or other failures (for example: one customer came in desperate to replace his 360 because his 3 year old daughter had decided to put toast in it's drive and close it leaving him with a 360 no longer of this earth) in this "disposable" society we seem to be living in despite the calls for recycling and change people even with a 3 - 5 year warranty on an item often cannot be bothered to simply put it in for repairs and would rather just shell 120 quid to replace it.

Ok so I went off on a bit of a tangent about my dislike for the continued sale of the Arcade over the Pro but hey, at 160 quid the Pro would have worked as a nice alternative to the Elite, some price concious families would like to have a console with a hard drive and therefore the option of saving games but cannot afford 200 - 250 quid for an Elite model. The fact of the matter is, that with the Pro discontinued the drop in price of the Elite was very much INEVITABLE anyway because you do not market consoles with a 200 quid price variation when a hard drive costs about 50 quid to buy. It's plain suicide frankly. Therefore although Microsoft has a long history of not being honest with it's consumers which unfortunately due to their stranglehold over the computer industry in general is pretty much everyone whether you use it at work or at home you're still using Microsoft. I honestly believe the price drop is not in response to the new PS3 slim. I do however think that Microsoft may have held off on announcing the amount the price drop was by until Sony announced how low they would be going with the Slim. I mean it'd be worse and very obvious if Microsoft had announced a price drop to 350 dollars and then Sony said "Well Bill, we're going to 299 beat that biatch" followed by Microsoft further cutting the price of the Elite, that would show they were concerned about the possibility of the new slim ps3 being a serious contender for the position of console selling king.


I discounted the Wii since I think that it falls in to a category of it's own I mean reality wise it's just a freaking game cube placed in a smaller, shinier, whiter shell with motion sensitive controls. Hardware wise, I don't think theres much change is there? Though, yes clearly this is still the fastest and best selling console in the world, the main battle however is now between Sony and Microsoft with the PS3 and the 360 duking it out. I love my 360 it's true and I have a healthy respect (and will be buying one soon as I can afford it) for the PS3.

I stopped reading at 'fanboys' and the wall of text l0l sorry.

Anyway, im glad the market is staying competitive.