i would rather said that ps3 had never a real pricecut since every time Sony cuts the price they introduce new model of ps3 with less features.

whoa...whoa whoa...im not agreein with that 360 elite didnt get a price cut...i still stand by my original statement and microsofts official statement...i jus found "the dollar thingie funny"...and yes, a limited edition version of the 360, with a game, and an extra controller, an a pretty sweet paint jobs, costs $399...but, the xbox 360 elite still is $100 cheaper than it was las yea...i dnt c wats so hard 2 c about that...$399 - $299 = $100 price drop on the xbox 360 elite...

nice try guy, with the biggest hard drive thingie..."360 elite" is $100 cheaper...

Technically yes the Elite dropped $100.
As for anything that would change sales. Nothing really happened.

In some ways MS was giving less this fall when you purchase an Arcade or Elite.

Last year Arcade included a game for the same price.
Last year Elite included a better bundle and HD Video Cables including HDMI cable. This year you only get the composite cable.

There appears to be an agenda at work here because what people mean is really obvious and easy to follow.

MS has consolidated the top two XBox models into one new model with different features then either previous model. MS has chosen to retain the brand of the high end model by using the color and name but the new Elite and the old Elite are not the same product from a feature perspective (HDMI and component cables are gone). In addition the $299 Pro model included component cables but the $299 Elite only comes with composite so you actually traded 60GB HD for component cables at the same price point, for many this is actually a loss of features for the same price.

So to make it simple for you, anyone that says "The Elite did not get a price cut" means that the $299 Elite is not the same product features wise as the $399 was. Anyone that says "The Elite had a price cut" is saying that the model branded Elite is now priced $100 less then it was.

Both points of view are valid and the distinction is purely in marketing.

Does this remind anyone of the endless debates around the various PS3 model changes?

I would suggest that a "real" price cut is a price cut that makes a permanent change to the way people buy a product. This would be opposed to, for example, a fire-sale where a discontinued model temporarily drops in price to clear inventory, but over the long term the way people buy the product does not change. For example, the fire-sale of the 20G PS3s back in 2007 was not a real price cut, but the 2009 price cut was.

Where does the Elite fit into this? It's tough to say, because Microsoft has blurred the lines a bit. In 2010 you can buy something called an "XBox 360 Elite" for less than you could buy something called an "XBox 360 Elite" in early 2009, and so from that aspect it could be called a price cut. However, as noted above, the models also changed; one was discontinued, and a new model was introduced at a lower price. In that sense, it could be said that the old Elite did not get a price cut at all: it was simply killed, and something new with the same name put up in its place.

My personal opinion is that it's correct to say that the Elite got a price cut. Microsoft did indeed pull some disingenuous tricks to drive down the price, but the basic ways you can buy a 360 have in fact become cheaper, and the brand name was preserved across the move.

They only pretend to have price cuts. They are naughty. Lucky for us, Sony and Nintendo have real price cuts so they aren't as bad teases as Microsoft are. Naught naughty Microsoft, always teasing us in Vgchartz. Since this bad tease worked, they will probably tease us again by making the Xbox 360 the same price with some birth defect device called Natal. I aint never seen an uglier baby than Natal.

is it the same model though?  The Elite model that was 399 came with an HDMI cable, component cable, and the audio/hdmi cable.  The Elite model now doesn't come with any of those things.  What Microsoft actually did was stripped the old elite model of a lot of its extras and created a cheaper model, but it isn't the same model if you aren't getting the same things.  

That is why people don't call it a real pricecut, because microsoft created a new sku at the 299 price, they didn't drop the old model's price.  They just called it the same name.  

For the OP I think understand what you are talking about with price cuts . As far as I'm concerned The 360 cut the price of the elite from $399 to $299, but the base entry level for a 360 remained $199 so the entry level price has not changed, and that of course is the type of price cut that generates large sales, like the Sony dropping it's entry level price from $399 to $299 this year and MS dropping it's entry level price from $299 to $199 last year.

When someone says no "real" price cut they are referring to the lack of entry level price cutting by MS this year. I think we should ask MS if they thought the price drop this year for the elite from $399 to $299 was a price cut, becuase I'm pretty sure they would classify it as such, I'm sure Ms would have been happy to keep the Elite at $399, that thing was a cash cow.

Theoritically the Elite was a cash cow at $399. Yet in reality all indications were that it didnt sell much.  You also had the problem that the best selling SKU was the Pro and it had a HDD that cost more than the Elites HDD. So the thing was that Sony was about to release the slim with 120GB and to compete MS couldnt have a similiar unit cost $100 more.  So since the Elite cost less to produce than the Pro they dropped the Pro and replaced it with the Elite.  Since most consumers were ignoring the Elite anyway this was a phantom price reduction.