I feel that Microsoft's current situation can be traced back to their decision to do away with the Pro model of the console.

Since the release of the PS3's latest model, Microsoft has only been promoting the 360 Elite as being $100.00 cheaper than it used to be in their marketing campaigns for the system.  I feel that this has had two negative consequences.  It has made it look to many customers that the very best model of 360 is only equal to the cheapest PS3 model.  And since they have seemingly done no advertising stressing the price advantage of the Arcade, then no one is interested in a weak Arcade model which is at the same price as Nintendo's Wii.

I feel that bringing back the Pro model at $250.00 (with maybe an 80 gig harddrive included) would work in Microsoft's favor.  They would have a console on the market  comparable to PS3 Slim, but $50.00 cheaper, then they could move the Elite back $50.00, so that it wouldn't appear that the Elite was only equivalent to PS3 Slim. 

Do you think bringing back the Pro model would improve Microsoft's current weekly standings on the console charts?

in the uk, they advertise the 360 starting price of £159.99. This may be due to the Elite only dropping by £30.

Yes and No.

I think the price drop of the elite was pretty big.

However, I can say yes in a way because a $250 XBox with Hard Drive might push some people to buy a 360 rather then $300. But I think the holiday bundle and Dell.com deals ($270 for an elite shipped with the holiday bundled games) really add to the big No.

However if you look into accessorie sales for the 360 I think It's apparent that selling a Arcade for $199 is not a bad idea. MS basically has people pay $100ish or more down the road for a hard drive and gets away with it. In return they get some nice profit out of that.

Unless they say Natal for less then what it costs to make I think MS is gonna be swimming in profit till the 720 is out, unless they do something drastic like drop the Arcade to $100.

no, in the end you are getting a higher product for cheaper.

it's most like 299$ 360 vs 299$ Ps3 slimmer, smaller and more efficient that actually does more and doesn't have to pay for online.

other reason may be most sales are arcade, unless it drops the arcade 100-150$ we won't see a bump, if really elite 360 are getting the pwned by ps3 slim

I think MS should made the Pro the Aracde.

This.

They should just throw in a hard drive and call it a day, I bet sales would rise significantly.

Limiting consumers to 2 cut and dry choices is better than creating confusion with 3 separate models (IMO). As others have stated, in the long run it looks like the good decision.

^^ THIS

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EDIT: I meant:

sega4life said:

I think MS should made the Pro the Aracde.

THIS!
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They should've dropped the arcade. Anyway, I'm an elite type of person myself.

@Sega4life

Thats there secret weapon, if PS3 really does stat out selling them by alot, they can make the Arcade the Pro and market the hell out of it. This would increase sales alot.

Most sales are the Pro/Elite.  Arcade only has the most sales during the holiday months where price is a bigger factor.

The Pro/Elite are nearly identical in manufacturing costs.  That is why they removed the Pro when in reality all they did was bump up the Pro's hard drive to the size that is the most price efficient now.  They also boosted the value at this price because everyone who wants a 360 knows the Elite is the best model.  By dropping the Elite to the "Pro" price point it looks like the better deal rather than just bumping up the Pro's hard drive and removing the Elite SKU.

Basically if MS wants, they can afford to drop the Elite to $250 at any time.  Arcade drop to $149 may be harder to do, but $179 or something like that would be a decent price point to go along with the $249 Elite.