Yeah if they advertise it. It will kill in the US during holidays.

PS3 is being outsold by 360 now every week for a long time now ....

after 2 price cuts in a year. being no 100$ but 200$ cheaper.

u know price cut would work the other way around ie Sony having one, or nintendo having one =).

i love competition.

I think so but I still think PS3 will outsell the 360 unless M$ cuts price again on their arcade to $150.

Ok...Ninty does not need a price cut....And I really can't imagine people buying Xbox 360 becuase it's cheaper than PS3...there has to be something they want from XBox 360 to even consider buying one...PS3 might not be selling becuase people have not gone batshit over Blu-ray yet...When it's only a 100$ the Blu ray will make a difference...People just want Xbox 360...That's it...The Slim PS3 should do better...But I think it will have the same effect the pro had on the elite....

By September 2010 it'll be all over. Canned, buried, in the fridge.

there is a 200$ difference. cheapest 360 is 200$ cheapest ps3 is 400$-

It really depends on what features its got. The wireless penetration rate is increasing quite substantially, and if they can add some cool features like wireless + adhoc networking for local play it would be pretty awesome. It would absolutely crush in the college scene where you've got a high density of consoles in a particular area. Its especially useful to give peer pressure an edge in dragging people to buy an Xbox 360 to participate.

In general a $149 Arcade + $229-249 (shadow Premium from HDD upgrade) + $299 looks pretty solid overall to me. The people who need a cheaper price can always go for the Arcade + HDD upgrade option and the people who can't be bothered can get an Elite. I think its pretty good price stratification really between entry, entry+ and premium markets and it should help them keep their average sale price higher and sell more consoles at the same time.

No to origional poster. I think a 299$ Elite would just lower Microsoft's profit margins. Long story short a slimline PS3 will not come to market this fall as many hope, if it was going to come Sony would have revealed it at E3. So what would cutting the price really do? Christmas sales are already going to be high.

Also parent's buying kids 360's aren't going to know the differance between Elites and Arcades. They will buy there kids the cheapest 360 on the market. So don't cut the Elite if anything cut the arcade to even cheaper!

I had been expecting them to change the hard drive options this fall like last year. The cost to produce hard drives is relatively the same no matter the size. You pay for the platters, not how much data fits on it.

So in reality, the Pro/Elite cost identical to produce. And with the newest changes, they are removing the HDMI cable bundled with Elites. So essentially rebranding the Pro as the Elite isn't changing anything and is actually giving them higher profits by not including the HDMI cable.  When the Pro originally launched back in 2005, it was selling for a slight loss, but in 2006 MS was already making ~$75 profit per machine sold (still at $400 retail cost).  In late 2007 they lowered the cost by $50 to compete with the PS3 price-cut.  Still profitable and got the Falcon revision to lower production costs.  In late 2008 they finally dropped the prices down to $200/300/400 (just a $100 drop in 3 years) and released the Jasper revision which again lowered production costs.  So surely if MS was making $75 profit back in 2006 on the $400 Pro/Premium, they are still making decent profits on the current $300 Pro and have room to cut the price even further.

The way I see it, they are setting things up for a $149 Arcade and $249 "Elite" this fall. They may even offer limited edition bundles with a 250GB hard drive like the PS3 did with the 160GB or offer larger HDD's as an upgrade.

If they keep the black color of the Elite and drop it to $249, it will sell like hot cakes in the US where EVERYONE knows the 360 is the dominant HD console and the Elite is the best 360 SKU. The Arcade at $149 would remain at half the price of the PS3 to maintain that ratio and still outsell it well over the holidays.