Impulsivity said:
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. Does Vista Basic still crawl after you install 8 GB of ram into the system, oh Vista needs 16 GB like Premium users can have? Oh and Microsoft offers a much cheaper Home/Student package for Office, I should know... I bought one. Oh and doesn't Toyota offer a souped up Camry and call it a Lexus for way more $$$? I should know the Toyota models we get are exactly the same as a Lexus.

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. Lets see - 60gb is a pretty good size for a system with no mandatory HDD install  and that you can't steal movies off the net to put on your console. Oh and you can stream the movies as well, so having a local store isn't such a big deal. Btw I think for consoles Sony takes the cake for opening price gimmicks. How about not including a memory card with every PS1/2 sold? Thats an instant $40 price hike TY very much.

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). Memory card? Excuse me! Saving games is pretty high on the list, I would call it right behind being able to play games and display them on a tv. Oh and for such an awesome inclusive company why doesn't Sony put a $2 HDMI cable in the box? Microsoft puts HD cables in with their Premium and Elite SKUs.

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. Well you can walk into a "dealer" and walk out with the same console advertised on tv. If the PS2 can get by with fewer in the box features as the Xbox 360 Arcade why does it matter? They both play games well and more than 50% of people don't take their console online. So wheres the issue?

   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).

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.  

If you're just a gamer, what you can't do without a HD:

• DL Demos (most of them anyway)
  
• Take advantage of the Disk on HD thing coming this fall
  
• DL XBL games, such as the classics, and XBL only games. That's right, the arcade does not play the same number of games at the other 360's.
  
• DL added content for games, such as the content coming for GTA4. Most every game now has some sort of downloadable content.
  

Most people buy based on value (if price was the only factor, everyone would just buy a PS2.) The Arcade sits around 10% of the 360's sales, and I think it will stay that way. The Pro being $299 I think is much bigger news then the Arcade being $199.

The Pro, for most people, is just a better value.