It's always struck me as odd that last gen, MS was the first company to put a harddrive or flash drive in a console

This gen, with the release of the DSi and the eventual discontinuation of the DSlite, the arcade shall soon be the only console/handheld without storage.

So, place your predictions here, when will the arcade be discontinued or have a harddrive added as standard

My guess is that next time MS needs to price cut, the arcade will stay at $199 and get a 20gig harddrive, probably mid way through 2009

The Arcade might be discontinued if they can get the price of a 360 with ahard drive down to $129-ish.

Until then, the price makes 360 more attractive to potential purchasers. Even if gamers see it as being crippled.

It's obvious that the end of the Arcade will come when the Premium drops price to $199.

Peter Moore recently stated that MS could not wait to kill the original xbox. They felt they could not compete on price with Sony because of the cost of the hard drive. From a marketing perspecitve the Arcade is the perfect sku, and it may be the reason MS is able to secure second place this generation. I would like to see the percentage of sales across the 360 sku's. I think the Arcade probably accounts for 60 - 70% of the recent sales increase. I think the next generation systems will offer sku's without storage as well.

What's the point of discontinuing the Arcade? Unless you're suggesting that Microsoft eliminate part of their userbase by not requiring developers to target it, there's no point.

People are becoming increasingly price-conscious, discontinuing their cheapest model would be extremely stupid.

There was another topic on VGC that MS is having a hard time producing the arcade.
At this rate it will be a long time when the model is discounted. It could be their first $130 sku and still keep the premium out there as a viable option at $200.

The arcade will be around until the end of this generation of systems.  There really is no need in killing it as long as it can remain a cheaper option for the consumer.

The next gen consoles will probably not have the same kind of hard drives as we know them today.  There is something called a memristor that is being developed that will revolutionize harddrives making them cheaper and very much smaller.  (100gb in 1 cm surface area)  If this does come true we could see huge hard drives at dirt cheap prices.  

The core had no storage. The Arcade has a 256 MB memory unit. That's enough for alot of people. The Arcade wont be going anywhere.

the arcade will likely be around as long as there is demand for it.

I keep wondering when ms will drop the drive prices, but they may be waiting for some trigger in the market.

The arcade does have storage, it's called a memory card. It might not be MASSIVE storage, but you can download small demos and arcade titles, which is who the Arcade is targetted for. You can always pony up and pay $99 for the 60gig HDD, 3 month live headset combo. It's the same as the Pro but with more Live! SAVINGS!