i expect 360 sales to go over 100 k for the first week and over 85k for the coming weeks...

Bear in mind that the first "week" of recorded sales will actually be 6 days of extremely low sales due to an impending price drop and just one day of actually having an effective price drop in place.

The second week will be the first full, indicative week.

 But you know Sony fanboys will go crazy. PRICECUT FAILED LOLOLOLOL...

Of course we will We never miss an opportunity to mock

LOL.  This will be completly ignored by most of this forum.

because it's missing limbs that you require for it to be a full console:

1) Hard Drive ( how can you make the most of game saves, replays, custom music, dlc without one?)- its am ust and doesn't come cheap.

2) WIFI - granted not everyone needs it, but many do and again it doesn't come cheap.

3) if you add the prices for the 2 items that should really come with the console, then you not looking at $199 anymore. $199 is nothing more but a sales pitch that some unfortunate people who are not informed on consoles will fall for.

 I don't get what is bad about having choices? You can play the Arcade just for the singleplayer games, you want to play online, go and buy the package for it, (HDD, Headset, XBL-Membership).

If you like to play online straight away, buy the pro.

If you really need a lot of space on your HDD, because u r into Video on Demand and stuff, buy the elite.

I really like this idea.

you missing the point dude. if you are a gamer, you will need a Hard drive. Where else will you be able to download all those xbox games on the Live? if you are a gamer, then you will want to make the most of gaming so online will be needed considering one of the strongest selling points of the xbox brand has always been its online service. using logic, it should then be norm for MS to have the simplest console at a cheap price range but at least give the consumer what is needed to get the most out of the system.

yes, offering choices is great, but make the choices worthy at least. It's like selling you a car for £10 with no doors and saying that you shouldn't complain since it can get you from a-b and that is it's soul purpose. 

First-day they'll probably sell out. Within two weeks they'll be back to more or less the same levels they were before.

I think the simplest way to predict the 360 price cut outcome is using the following questions:

1) how many people want a 360? if the console is not in demand, a price cut won't make much of a difference.

2) how many people think the 360 arcade model is worth spending $199 on? everyone i know who has an arcade model (about a dozen friends), have all ended up having to pay for wifi and HDD. This brings the price of the console up by at least another $100 minimum.

3) what games are being released to make the system worthy of purchase? Currently there is GeoW2 and Fable2. Is there anything for the kids? Is there anything for the casual?

Conclusion: There will be a spike for those who are wanting a 360, but after these people have made there purchase, the numbers will drop again. There isn't enough appeal for the price cut to have a huge long term effect. If anything and as sad as this may sound, the only thing the 360 arcade will be competing with is the ps2 consumers. Although it may not sound much, but if this is a strategy, it is a great strategy. Kill the console that brings in profits for Sony to make up some of the losses on the ps3. However, MS doesn't seem to be using this reasoning or logic, they are after the Wii and PS3 consumers and this will be far more difficult to achieve having less and less on offer as time passes in the console life cycles.