Hmm this is interesting, now that its pretty much confirmed I wonder what it means for the hardware SKUs themselves?
My suspicions are that they want to create a dual pricing tier for the core gamers, for those 'in the know' and those 'not in the know'. I haven't given this much thought but thats my initial impression!
Both the Elite and Arcade are actually on different production lines, The arcade is FDOU and the Elite/Premium were CSON. This means that the features and specifications of them can differ if they so wish. I also heard rumours of an increase in HDD size for the Elite SKU from Fudzilla.
They couldn't add wireless to the design unless they both change the hardware slightly and do a motherboard revision. The current Xbox 360 design acts as a faraday cage for wireless signals and anything that escapes gets eaten by the interference from the 2.4ghz wireless module for the controllers.
Maybe, this could happen but only if they release Valhalla this year.
1. Shortened PCB (due to combining the two dies) leaves space for the PSU to go internal.
2. With a slightly modified hardware shell they could make room for an external wireless antenna. (spelling!)
So they could add wireless to the Xbox 360 Elite.
Now im not sure if this is whats going to happen but my best guess if the above Valhalla shrink happens this year.
Elite 240GB+ with wireless $300
Arcade 256mb basic unit $150
Shadow premium SKU $220-$250 (upgraded Arcade)
This way it solves the issue of having a premium SKU dictating the price of the Arcade upgraded HDDs (they want to encourage people to have HDDs for downloading) and it lowers the price over all two (three) SKUs. It also means that someone can't take an Arcade and add a HDD and make it an Elite, so it gives them more freedom in relative pricing.
Tease.
