http://www.joystiq.com/2007/08/07/rumor-target-done-with-xbox-360-core-model/

Although not mentioned as part of today's Xbox 360 price drop announcement, more evidence is coming in that the Xbox 360 Core model may be finished. An employee of a Target store took multiple images (sadly the clearest one is above) of the store's PDA showing the Core model as "discontinued" in the "status" bar at the top right.

This follows last week's Best Buy information that the Core model was finished there as well. The stories are starting to stack up. We've been told by numerous sources that their various stores haven't stocked Core units in a while, this all feels identical to the way the PS3 20GB death occurred earlier this year.

First Best Buy and now Target? Is MS getting rid of the core once they run out? Also doesn't this go exactly in the opposite direction of the whole philosophy of the core which is getting the 360 as cheap as possible as quick as possible?

Well with 4 SKUs on the market...they should discounitue it..its not a good model considering your only getting a wired controller and a regular Xbox 360..THATS IT...so with the Preimum, Elite and now the Falcon on shelves..the Core should be discounited and another thing...NO HDD!!!

Really to be totally honest what hell was the point of the Core model anyway?? I mean your going to have to walk out the store paying close to $300 anyway...You purchase the Core package and you just spent $300...then if you wanted the HDD you have to spend $100 for the 20GB and $180 for 120GB and if you wanted a memory card it was $40 for that...so you mines well spent $400 on the Premium edition because you get all the goodies in that....

Care was there for ignorant customers, like Aunt j buys little timmy a 360 so she chooses the least expensive one.

This is bad, this will make the 360 unable to compete with the Wii for the mass market.

MS are moving away from the core for two reasons:

1/ They want to push people online - hard to do with the core.

2/ Future games may require hard disk support. 

My understanding is that sales of the core have been pretty weak anyway.

This also positions the 360 more against the PS3 than it does against the Wii. Maybe MS have ceeded that part of the battle, and just want to focus now on not letting the PS3 overtake the 360 (anytime soon).

...

If the PS3 does manage to overtake the 360 anytime soon (i.e. 12 months?), its basically goodnight for MS (for this generation anyway).

+1 for shams

I just the Core was useless anyway, you as well may buy a premium, because well....It has the most important things that the core does not have. But that's my opinion what's yours (pointing to the audience)?

I agree Kratos the Core as I stated above is really trash..considering everything is packed in the Premium with goodies, where as the Core is just plain jane....

How come the mods are the only ones that get +1?

 Discontinuing the core is a good idea, since ofcourse like shams said, the 360 will need in the future a harddrive in order to play certain games, but I dont expect the sales to jump much if not at all if they discontinue a cheaper core unit.