That is a good question! They should just discontinue it or sell black versions of the Pro. Or, add a bunch of features like a browser and wireless to justify the price. But then, current Elite owners would be pissed.

Hey, I have the Elite so I don't have to worry about the bullshit. I don't have to buy third party brand shit that will kink out on me.

The point is the black color. Every SKU now has a HDMI port and the only advantage the Elite has over any SKU is that its black and has a 120GB HDD, which you can buy for $150 on your own at your own time.

I had the Elite console, certainly was worth it, but I wanted to have a original Xbox 360. The white SKU looks better than the black Elite. It was nice for a minute but I got quickly annoyed. The same can be said for the Halo 3 Edition SKU. It only had the special cover of Halo 3 and a rechargeable battery pack included with it.

that third party brand crap doesn't apply to cables, as microsoft is just buying the exact same cables and stamping their names on it.

Thanks for the info on the MS brand HDMI cable.  I could see this having some value since the majority of AV receivers do not process HDMI audio and only act as a HDMI switch.  This requires running an optical audio cable to the reciever for sound which I would have not expected to be blocked by the HDMI cable.  This almost seems like a design decision to get people to buy the MS brand HDMI cable.

I suppose if you really wanted to use HDMI and your AV reciever did not support audio over HDMI then the Elite would be a reasonable option since it is only $50 extra for the 60GB extra space and the black colour.  Although the HDMI video signal isn't that much superior to component video if you avoid EM interference.

Can you buy the 60GB HDD separate?

From what I understand, with a little bit of work you can get rid of some of the rubber on the connector without actually damaging anything and get both plugs in.

also, 1080p can only be transfered over HDMI so it depends on your TV whether you get any benefit from HDMI or not.

The XBox 360 LIVE Starter Pack comes with the 60GB HDD, wired headset, ethernet cable and 3 months of LIVE for $99.

@Blappo

Thanks I was just at GameStop.com and checked it. I see its $100, is it worth it considering the 120GB HDD is $150. Should I just fork out the extra $50 and get that pack instead?

There is no reason for the Elite now.

It used to be a reason when it came out, since it was the first model to have Zephyr (?) and it had the huge hard drive compared to 20 gigs, and the HDMI output, and the HDMI cable. So for an extra 79 dollars on top of the pro's 400 price point, you got 100 gigs of space, a HDMI port, cable, and the new chipset. Not too shabby of an upgrade. But now it's 100 dollars more than the pro and you get 60 extra gigs and a HDMI cable.

IDK how they got away with pricing the sku further away from the pro, and it having less value, but they did.