Xbox 360 Pro Being Phased Out Pretty Soon?

By Luke Plunkett (Edit, to draft, Top, Slurp)

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The staple Xbox 360 - the Xbox 360 Pro - looks set to march straight off retail shelves and into the history books, if new console packaging is anything to go by.

First hinted at by Ars Technica's ever-reliable mole in June, then further hinted at by new 360 packshot renders later that month, photos sent to us by GameStop employees earlier this week seem to offer proof that Microsoft will soon go from offering three Xbox 360 consoles to just two.

Look at the spine of these new, actual 360 Arcade boxes (pictured above, on the right) arriving at retailers across the US. Unlike previous models of the Arcade (on the left), which showed the relative inclusions offered in the Arcade, Pro and Elite models of the 360, this new box only shows the Arcade and Elite. No Pro.

Wonder if this means the Elite is in line for a price cut (to the price the Pro is currently), as it assumes the mantle of "standard" 360 console? It'd make sense, especially as a spoiler for Sony's surely-impending launch of the PS3 Slim.

Why do all your thread titles have brackets?

OT: I wouldn't be suprised.

more bracketcs. -_-

Anyways, this could be a good and bad thing depending on how this plays out.

Edit: If true that is, just noticed its not confirmed.

was leaked by Art Technica some weeks ago

makes complete sense to me

$300 with Fable 2 and Halo 3 with a larger hard drive versus $200 with some internal memory and no hard drive or games?

Sounds like the Elite is going to sell like hot cakes.

If the Elite drops to $300, and the Arcade stays at $200, it will give it a small boost because of the instant sensation of "OMG 360 PRICE DROP!", even though the price point is just being replaced by another model, ala PS3 summer 2007.

Interesting. Hopefully this means a price drop for hard drives as well.

You would think so. I mean if the Elite is going to be $300. Then they'll almost certainly have to drop hard drive prices. I would not be surprised to see MS start selling a 250GB or larger hard drive at the 120GB hard drives's current price point.

Makes sense to me. I don't see MS dropping the price of the arcade so really this would be their only other option in trying to counter any cut made by Sony. IMO this won't create anywhere near as big a percentage increase in 360 sales as a price cut will in PS3 sales (depending on the size of the PS3 price cut obviously) but it will soften the blow. I'm hoping it's true, if the Elite comes down to the Pro price I will definitely be picking one up in the new year.

What I don't like is that it appears the new Elite doesn't come with HDMI or even Component cables??? Copying the PS3 mantra of only including Standard Def cables out of the box?

Other than that, I was expecting a new hard drive size refresh this month or next just like last year. I would expect a 250GB available as well.