if the Arcade were to Drop to 100 dollars, WOW, RROD or not i'd buy it without a care.

Frankly the answer is no. I doubt M$ will lower it. Instead they will discontinue it and drop another model to $199.

Eventually both M$ and Sony will be force to a single model. Of course there will be special game bundles and crap but overall there will be only 1 single model.

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?sku_id=0665000FS10095079&logon=&langid=EN

@MattAAron

That would be entirely elitist bullshit in my book. Has it ever occurred to you that their might be people in the world that cannot spend three hundred dollars on a gaming console. There is such a thing as living within your means. Some time in your life your going to need to make a concession, and make do with less then you covet.

I do not think trading off a hard drive to save a hundred dollars you couldn't afford anyway is hardly a stupid thing. Nor does it make the person who does so ignorant or stupid. We all want to live in a mansion, but the reality is the vast majority of us have to settle for less.

I did not find your comment humorous in the least, and I am sure there are a great many members on these forums. That for much the same reasons I laid out had to go with the basic model. They are not morons they made a financial choice.

I think it will drop further down to $100-$150 to compete with the ps2 within 2 years

my feeling exactly. though, I dont think we will see a single model from ms for two more years. sony, it could happen as soon as the next price drop. the user installable hd on sony console means in it makes less sense to offer units of different hd size being the only difference. however, if sony reintroduces a backwards compatable unit at a higher cost, it might make sense to continue the multi sku option. MS and the sealed external HD means they have to offer different sku until they get to a point where they will cap hd size, most likely 500gb. being a laptop drive really hurts MSin terms of storage size and cost vs the ps3 in the hd deparment

The Core is a good idea in some situations. If my 360 dies and the warranties are out, I already have a hard drive, so it'll be cheaper if I just buy a Core and slap the old hard drive onto it.

Why? The technology still gets cheaper to make, and there are still plenty of people who can't afford to drop two bills on a console.

Certainly the Wii can afford to drop below that price. The Arcade likely could in the next twelve months, though I suspect MS would rather do a "value added price shift", and cut the prices of the Premium and Elite, and drop the Core/Arcade all together.

If the ps3 dropped to 299, and started selling far better than the 360, then its quite likely the 360 would drop in price

In my mind that's an absolute necessity. The sweet spot for 360 would be the Pro at $199 and Elite at $299. Where that puts the Arcade, if it's even still supported by that point I'm not sure.

The only holdback to that eventual march is the Wii. If the Pro is $199 and the Arcade is even less when the Wii is still $269 and outselling it, it really makes the 360 seem like the less valued machine in the public's mind. (don't take that wrong, the value proposition would be great but the perceived value of ownership would be less)