Mother f****ers. Stupid Microsoft should get rid of the core system all together, anyone who would buy that is wasting their money anyway. The Elite should be at $399 just like that analyst predicted. Thats a good solid price. The premium should be at $349 or so, but should have a way to add HDMI later, and the Halo 3 edition should just go away and die.

When you are losing billions in this console war, and, to date, have never made a dime, it is difficult to justify lowering prices. That said, when you look at the Elite at $479 and the PS3 at $499, I am afraid the PS3 looks like a much better deal. It could well be that this is the point we look back on when Microsoft hands the high-end console crown back to Sony.

Actually, I think a core for $250 would have made a great media center extender... oh well.

@Monty: Yeah, only $20 more gets you a top-rated Blu-ray player and upscaling DVD player, built-in multimedia card readers, built-in wireless networking, and five free movies! It's easy to swap out the HDD. Don't worry, kick-ass games are en route.

IHMO not much seems to have changed, Sony is still selling two consoles, one for $500 and one for $600. Perhaps Microsoft isn't all that interested in putting Sony out of business but rather building their own. They know they will never be able to convert hard core fan boys any more than they can overcome the Japanese prejudices. Maybe they decided to not even try and just focus on their own business, hang in for the long haul. Putting Gears on the PC is very telling about their long term strategy.

pachter seems to keep making ridiculous, unsubstantiated claims, and them have them shot down.

"We're guessing Microsoft doesn't want to tempt Nintendo into price cuts for the current console champion Wii."

Just curious, why would you think this would be an issue? The Wii is still selling out rampantly, so cutting the price would be a massive negative move for Nintendo. The prices going down on the 360 and ps3 will not notably impact Wii sales, because price is not the primary reason people are buying it in droves.

It's kinda hard justifying a price drop after plunging 1.14 billion (or close to it, whatevs) into fixing the console. I don't know if dropping the price is the right answer. I'm not the biggest xbox fan, but they've got the games right now. It gives Sony a little more wiggle room, looks like they've got the better priced console now...but still, my system is WAITING for games. (Praying for MGS4)

...and I'd STILL buy another Wii for $250. It won't impact sales at all if they don't lower the price.

So we can choose the only Xbox 360 that includes a decent-sized hard drive and an HDMI port for about $480 plus the external-only HD DVD drive for about $200, totaling about $680 for a completed gaming console and HD movie player setup in two connected units that require two separate power supplies and risk falling victim to Microsoft's now notoriously high defect rates for its Xbox 360 (my Xbox 360 was defective *AND* my brother's Xbox 360 was defective) or we can choose the PlayStation 3 with a decent-sized hard drive, an HDMI port, a Blu-ray player built into the console itself, a single power supply, standard memory media ports, wireless networking, a significantly better quality record, and five Blu-ray movies all for about $500-that is, about $180 less than the Xbox 360 option? We can have a PS3 plus three full-price retail games and five movies of our choice (from a limited selection, but still) for the same price as a full Xbox 360 Elite with HD DVD rig with zero retail games at full-price or otherwise (unless you count the Hexic HD puzzle game pre-installed on the hard drive), one specific movie we may not even want, more power and data cables, more hassle, more risk, and fewer features? Wow.

Don't get me wrong; I like the Xbox 360 when it actually works properly, but the PlayStation 3 is looking like a much better deal now. If the PS3 library were not a year behind that of the Xbox 360, this would be no choice at all.

No surprise here. Pachter is a moron of Poguian proportions.

In his defense, however, I don't think anyone could predict that Microsoft would announce a Hale 3 XBox 360 that is sold without a copy of Halo 3

How come nobody ever mentions that the core 360 can't save without spending at least $40 for a memory card. That makes it $340 imho.
And nobody with a core is going to buy anything on live. Kill it please.
Also the I think the xbox has so many more and better games that as a gamer I would rather have a premium and a core instead of a ps3. This would let you keep playing when one dies. This obviously goes against everything that is holy but better games are better games.
I think I will get a ps3 when I can easily find Resistance for $20. Then there will be more games and the investment will be better. :)

I can imagine they wouldn't cut their prices until well after Halo 3 is out to make sure they get as much money out of the "Halo Nation"

Thing is, MS denied xbox rumors before that ended up being true. Remember before the elite came out? They tried pretty hard to make it seem like they weren't up to something, and then *poof* there it is exactly as the rumors had specified. I really don't think this will be any different. With "Falcon" coming, they're sure to recoup a good part of the losses from failing machines since it will be cheaper to produce. And in order to stay competitive, they'll eventually have to respond to Sony's price cuts. My guess is they'll release Falcon and drop the price in time for the holiday shopping period.

All these people griping about a Halo XBox with no copy of Halo in it really haven't thought about it from a marketing standpoint.

There are going to be 3 versions of Halo 3 available. If they included the basic version, it would cut sales of the higher end versions. If they included the high end version, then it would push the sale price of the console up by $50.

Just think about it. It's all about choice, just like when they didn't include wireless or HD-DVD, which would have forced a needlessly higher price for people who didn't want those features.

DUH!

I'm surprised they could make a system with a 3-core 3.2 Ghz processor $400. I'd be surprised they could cut the Xbox 360 price down any lower.