Can Microsoft reach the $199 price point with a slim model by next holiday?

[Alby_da_Wolf]

I think they are losing a little on Arcade now, but in a year components costs should drop enough to make possible a slim model with little or no loss at all at that price, at least if they'll have 45nm main chips available, otherwise heat dissipation for current chips on a smaller case could drive costs up.
But let's not forget that given very good sales now, in a year word will be spread from disappointed users that by then will have discovered that on Arcade you have to pay extra for storage if you want to, er, store, downloadable contents, while HDD price drop will make Sony able to afford standard HDD storage at very little cost increase compared to diskless consoles, so next Xmas MS could be forced to offer it too, and on a $199 or less base price HDD cost weigh more than on a $299 one.
To make it simpler: while at $399 PS3 is considered by most too expensive, at $299, with standard mounted BD and HDD it will be perceived as good value for money, while next Xmas those extras will cost Sony a lot less than $100, so MS diskless base models would be perceived not as bad value, but nothing special given what they don't have at that lower price (while now XB360 Arcade, at $200 less is VERY good value for money).