Well, none of this will come as a big surprise here, but it's always nice to hear it straight from an official source. Microsoft has confirmed that a $199 version of new Xbox 360 will be coming in the fall toreplace the now-$149 Arcade, which is no longer in production. In addition, the company's also spilled a few more beans -- Kinect will be available as a bundle with the new Xbox 360, and though there isn't any official pricing information on that one just yet, we've seen some telltale evidence on that front which would lead us to believe it'll run somewhere in the neighborhood of $399 for an Elite and $299 for the Arcade. So now you know.

source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/19/microsoft-confirms-199-for-new-xbox-360-kinect-bundles-coming/

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I don't think the news of a replacement for the Arcade comes as a surprise to anyone but the rumours on Kinect bundles indicates a pricing of around $100 and that might also include a game to make the bundle actually worth getting. Thoughts? Comments?

Id like the Xbox kenect. not at that price though.

$300 is pretty good, the PS3 bundle is $400 and only includes 1 controller and not even a subcontroller (if i understand right).  Even if you wanted to get a wii for $200 it would be $270 to get a 2nd nunchuck and wimote and $410 for 4 controllers.  If Microsoft can emphasis the value of being able to play with 4 players for only $300 it would work in their favor.  I think i'm more interested in this $150 arcade with $50 gift card at wal-mart, i'm on the edge right now.

I agree with the 4 player thing being advertised. That's a pretty big feature of Kinect that I think is being overlooked. However I do wonder how well 4 player multiplayer works with Kinect as the most I've seen is 2 players at a time in any game.

The big problem with Kenect is. You need a huge living room. This is not going to work in my house.

Any news on what this features this slim arcade will have?

That goes for all 3 consoles if you want to play 4-player motion control games. A living room becomes pretty crowded with only 2-player motion control gaming.

Assumption on the $199 sku is: small HDD (60 or 120Gig) and no built in Wifi, otherwise same as 250Gig sku. Might be sans head set too I suppose.

Setting things up for a real showdown with the full feature 360 and PS3 being the same price, and the likely motion control bundles with the full feature 360 & PS3 being the same price. In some respects he who blinks first (drops the price), especially with the motion control bundles and pricing, loses, because it means they are not making the sales they want to.

it doesn't necessarily have a hard drive, at this point it they can't require a hard drive so it's not a big deal.  It might have wireless internet, kinect ready, new slim design and everything besides a hard drive.

Actually, the 250Gig PS3 is $349, vs the 250Gig 360 for $299. Granted, the PS3 is a Blu-Ray player as well, so there's that. Still, you can't say the "full feature" versions of each system are the same price because, well, they're not.

So cheapest 360=$199 then 250gb=$299

cheapest PS3=$299=pretty much same prices we have since last year=pretty much the same sales for the rest of the year going on to next year?

also i believe kinect will cost over $100 when sold separately b/c if there charging $100 when bundled that would mean they want more to just go out and buy another 360 instead of just buying kinect on its own resulting in higher HW sold then if kinect was the same price as it is in the bundle