I don't know but I thought the Arcade was bundled with a 512MB memory card

True, but it seems kinda weird to base your price drop over a few games, rather than a select plan and strategy, which I thought was the whole Netflix thing, combined with XBLM's Movie rentals and TV shows, and the casual games, plus the primetime thingy...

But apparently Netflix and DD aren't part of that according to JaggedSac, so Primetime and Viva Pinata/Lips/Movies is gonna push tons of Arcades...?

@ truth hurts

...

okay...

What does sony have to do with this? or apple?

 Downloading movies is still mostly for technophiles at this point. If you thought there was any mainstream appeal in that you are vastly over-estimating how quickly digital distribution is being adopted. Netflix and DD are meant to push the HDD models to the people who want to "get the most" out of a system. The Arcade is meant to sell to people (like myself) who don't see the value in it and just want a cheaper way to play games.

So why call 199 the "mainstream" price?

What appeals on the 360 to the mainstream?

 Because the last few generations that is the price at which consoles really start selling well? The appeal to the main stream would be the sports titles, Viva Pinata is being pushed hard for that, Lips, and al the other casual oriented titles they are trying to push out. You should at least try and pretend like you actually care about what is being discussed when trolling.

Sad, but true.  People come in my store looking for an HDD all the time, usually wanting a used one once they find out the price.

You can play games on a 360 without a hard drive, but when you look at what you get for your money, who would?

the arcade is far less then a 360 with a HD. With the HD, you can cache games, download demoes, movies, tv, netflix, download games that are not available outside of XBL.

The value you get for $299, is far better then then value you get for $199. This is why the arcade does not sell well, and why it still won't sell well.

The 360's real price point, is $299.

The false opening price point is a key microsoft strategy. It's something they do in EVERYTHING they sell. There is always an obscenely expensive top item (Vista Ultimate, 360 Elite, Microsoft Office) and an intro item for hundreds less then the top item (Vista home basic, 360 Arcade, Microsoft Works) which people buy only to find out, lo and behold, you can't use many (sometimes any) of the features you expected.

Then suddenly when they find out only one of their computers four processors are being used and they can't expand beyond a tiny ammount of RAM and capabilities in Home Basic they have to shell out 100 dollars for home premium or 200+ dollars for a full version of Vista. The MS works user finds out almost all real functionality only comes with the 400 dollar Office suite which they need to shell out for.

Ditto with the arcade which is missing very basic features in this day and age from wireless connectivity (100 dollars) to online play (50 dollars a year) to a hard drive (100 dollars for a TINY drive. I got a 500GB hard drive for my PS3 for what an 20GB drive costs for the 360, seriously). Suddenly the 200 dollar value purchase turns into this bloated 500 dollar expense. MS more then any other company except Walmart has mastered the opening price point gimick where you make it seem cheap even though its more expensive then a better higher quality product made by someone else.

That's one thing I like and respect about Sony and Nintendo. You get a full featured console with things like wireless internet access and a complete feature set on every one you buy, there is no accessory you need to buy for full functionality just for convenience (classic controller if you never had a gamecube, Blu Ray remote ect).

MS is making buying a 360 like buying a cheap car. You come in looking for a 10k car then suddenly you found out theres no AC (900 dollars) its manual (1000 dollars) it has 1970s non power windows/doors (600 dollars) and you can't get it at the dealer without alloy wheels (2000 dollars). Suddenly the 10000 dollar car which still sucks worse then a 14,000 dollar Corolla or something costs 17,000 dollars. It's crap and I hate that they do it.

I have an Arcade and I use it to play games, lots of games.

Value is subjective, if I just want to play games what good is a HDD to me apart for slightly shorter loading times on games that cache to the HDD?

The price of a Car model that comes with an airconditioning option would start at base cost+the cost of the option in a place like Florida where everyone wants air-con and its probably more than borderline deceptive to advertise the car without the option. However if you're selling that same car in Northern Canada where it hardly gets hot at all, you wouldn't even need to list it as an option for example. The same applies for the heated seats option, just in reverse.

The Xbox 360 Arcade is an excellent value option for people who just want to play games. Let them decide for themselves if they want to have a HDD. Microsoft actually doing something good by offering the 60gb packs for the exact same difference in price between an Arcade and a Premium. They haven't lost out by choosing the Arcade in any way if the Premium was the SKU for them all along. For that reason the price starts at $199, Microsoft is giving people an easy entry point into the console market and they should/will likely be rewarded with increased sales because of it.  

   He's right on this one, I do not know a single person outside of the 360 target demo (teenager to early 20s and male) that has any interest at all in the 360.  I know a good amount who either bought or thought about a PS3 and even more, especially girls, who thought about or bought a Wii.

   There is nothing about the Xbox platform that appeals to the mainstream, they might ADD gimicks to appeal to that mainstream, but thus far it hasn't really worked for them (since they mainly ripped off things their competitors have been doing better for years in Avatars and music/quiz games).