Anyone else thinking about getting a 360 sooner or later but turned off by the horror stories surrounding 'red ding of death'? 

Last time I read, MS is currently working on 65nm process for the CPU andd GPU, aiming for release during this fall.  This means

-less heat

-less power consumption = lower chance of break down

-lower production cost = possible price cut?

anything else?

I really hope a price cut + better build quality + quiter drive then I would be owning this bad boy.

Yeah but, are you saying that we should wait? I mean that is a good point, there are a large quantitiy of 360's packed high on the shelves. It may take a while to sell the shelved units.to make way for the new ones, fall.....would prob put the new units avail at xmas?

That's the main reason I refuse to buy one. At this point though not till a price drop. I mean it's been so long that I might as well wait. I figure I'll get a PS3 when it's 400 bucks and a 360 when it's 300 or less

They have a one year warranty now and Microsoft pays shipping both ways and from what I've noticed it seems like the majority of the problems were from launch units or ones that came a few months after that.  But you're right reducing chip size should help a lot.

I dunno about that.  My friend bought his about 6 months back and has already had to have it repaired once.  There has to be some critical flaw that hasn't been fixed.  Hopefully this will be what fixes it.

see i want one, just dont want to give it up for repair, know whst i mesn?

Regardless. Microsofts comeback to this issue is "Things Break. Dont look at why, but look at How we fixed it". You build a 360 with the 65nn chip and resolve the Red Ring, and I would get one.
Oh, and they could address the disc scratching as well.

hmm, so I wonder when will we actually see these in store shelves considering there are lots of current 360s out there to sell off.
maybe later than this fall...:(

Another minor concern is the loudness of the HDD of 360.  They're not really qhat you call quiet are they.  Have they been improved on recent units?

http://www.rpg-tv.com/index.php?s=150

Just emphasizing my point through art. 

I wonder if it's possible for them to have an update for 360s that would allow the user to select the maximum speed the dvd drive can spin at. It would allow people to pick the best noise/speed ratio that they could live with.