I notice they claim "Live" is free but without any little caveat such as you need Gold to play online. Of course the * could be so small I cannot see it.

Looks like this is going to become reality. I was a little suprised as I thought the Pro would become the Arcade and the Elite the pro as I think they are missing a trick by not including the HDD.

Of course I then go against mantra of choice and the 360 Arcade is the choice of the person who does not need a HDD.

Now we await pricing.

Really? Ugh. That annoyed me when I got my PS3.

How do you know that? The 360 is already heavily marketted in the UK as having a £130 opening price point, marketting this to be £169 wont have an effect at all to the normal everyday customers.

It might not even boost sales that much at all. If they want to dent a possible £100 pricecut from PS3, they need to make the Elite cheaper than what the Pro was, say, £150 which doesn't seem likely at all unless the Arcade goes to £100 or less.

Why is the box ripped and so beaten looking? It's supposed to be branded new, right? It looks like it's been traded in.

Manhandled by an angry Sony fan, no doubt.

Thread title shouldn't start with brackets. It looks very awkward.

Kinda strange that MS will call one console 'Arcade' and the other console 'Elite, but nothing in between. Neither of them sounds like the standard SKU.

Well this holiday Ms will probably make a new sku for holidays.

I can see Arcade go to $150.00 and old Pro down to $250 (to clear stock) and new Elite $300 and old Elite (if any left) at $350 with 2 games bundle.

The old Elite are not moving all that well, at least not at my local stores. I talk to several stores managers and the best moving 360 console is still the Arcade. For all the flak it took with the lack of hard drive the barebone unit seems to be the favorite with most people.

As for not including HD cables, I thik that's a bummer but I can see this as a way to allow stores a chance to sell HDMI to sucker that don't know they can pick it up for $5.00 on-line. And allow Best Buy to make huge commision on those "must have" Monster Cable. Or may be I am just very tired and reading too much into this conspiracy.

Anyway, still $299 for Elite is nice and down to 2 SKU is great , it's now just HD model or HD-less model. And Limited Edition Elite color for special edition ... they should do one for Forza 3, I would buy it!

That can't happen, the price is already so low comparitively, they were very agressive in the first place, and with the weakening pound, they can't get any lower

This wouldn't come as much of a surprise.