Is Natal the 360s last hope?

[Twistedpixel]

Lets see:

• Console is profitable, can price cut if they so choose.
• They haven't cut more than 33% off the price AFAIK on the lower end.
• They have a slimline console coming *based off 45nm combined GPU/CPU*
• They have an epic Halo coming this year, Halo years are ALWAYS good years.
• They have Natal, which caused a bump in hardware sales the week it was announced at E3.
• They have a 5M lead to waste and time their moves how they want.

So what will likely they do?

• Probably no price cuts in the first half of the year. Second half is a possibility although they could end up just bundling Natal. Doing both would be an epic move.
• Epic advertisement campaign to coincide with Halo + Natal.
• Try to repeat 2008 im guessing with a strong finish.
• Slim console, loses all prior reputation for unreliability and adds features like wireless which they cannot add to the present design due to interference with 2.4Ghz controllers and case design.
• Add a reasonably quantity of flash to the Arcade design to make it viable, this means they can drop the price delta between Elite and Arcade to between $50 and $80 if they so chose. I figure 8-16GB would do for this. This makes predicting the end price hard.