The Legitimization of the Arcade

[amirnetz]

Squilliam said:
The real question is what they do with the Arcade in the future!

I can see 3 good choices.

1. Do nothing, it works why change it?

2. Put an SD card slot. You can grab a 4gb SD card for like $10, but they lose the HDD upgrades. They could do this if they intend to drop the price of the Premium but not the Arcade, otherwise it wont make sense.

3. Install a small flash HDD like Nintendo does, possibly a combination with 2. It doesn't have to be much, but 4gb would allow people to say download Live Arcade games and stream netflix which should help them sell Live content and Live Gold subscriptions.

I vote for (1). Microsoft is comfortable with the Arcade as a "starter system". They want to see customers buying accessories or electing to buy the Pro for more features. Upgrading the Arcade might just takes sales away from they other higher margins SKUs without any revenue increase.

The Arcade is doing its job perfectly.