In australia mircosoft has announced a $70 price drop for the Xbox 360 premium to $AU579 and a massive $100 price drop on the core to $AU399, exactly the same price as the wii's RRP.

 http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22244374-15306,00.html

IN Australia the PS3 starter pack is $999 making it a WHOPPING $AU600 more expensive than the new core price. An Australian dollar buys just over 80 US cents.

With US/Australia/Canada all seeing price drops hopefully Europe will see one soon as well. Now there is an even bigger margin between PS3 and 360 in Australia, Sony better move fast or they'll lose the country entirely.

Could this mean that a price drop in Europe is more likely now? Also the 360's reputation seems to have been hit especially hard in Austrialia, hopefully the new systems with added cooling will hit there soon if they haven't already.

Yeah. And Australia is the one "other" territory other than the USA where the 360 still regularly beats the PS3. Its not a big market, but with 2 million ps2's and one million xbox's sold, its not small either

Also its stated that the HDMI capable premiums will soon hit Australian shores, however still no date for the elite

Interesting apparently Microsoft has a world wide price reduction in mind. Rather then a single market model. This just might shift the dynamic in Microsofts favor for consoles sold world wide compared to Sony. My Halo 3 prediction is looking better every day.

i agree that they seem to think a worldwide price reduction is the way to go. However Sony has said the starter pack only runs till the end of this month at least in australia, so im sure they'll drop the price soon. that will probably limit the effectiveness of microsofts drop

Very interesting. This the first time the lower end 360 model is the same price as the Wii, correct? The Core requires more extra stuff than the Wii initially IMO, but an interesting milestone nevertheless.

So far as i know its the first time any 360 SKU matches the wii's price in any market. as a result we may see a localised wii price drop