games encoded onto blu ray are not compressed and dvd's are compressed therefore the game size will be exactly the same size and blu ray will not come into its own until at least 3 years by then microsoft will have seen what ps3 have done, and being microsoft will totally destroy sonys console, 360 is better for online, better controller, better looks, better games, equally as good graphics, now all these people that post on here( except me) blatently live in there mums basement and get 10$ a week pocket money, so what im gonna do is get a 360 premium which i already have, a 360 elite and ps3 a wii, hd surround sound.both consoles have there up and downs if i were you get them both ,then get a wii just so u can say u have one, and these will fit perfectly under my sharp 65" 28000 dollar tv that is the elite console set up, so get all 3 consoles and make up ur own choice

zander55

and

***WHY*** anyone is saying different is a puzzle to me.

Because if Microsoft switches to 1.3 you'll be happy and say that it "now" pwnz the PS3 for something it had all along *sigh*.

First of all, It's more than obvious that Microsoft is playing catch up with Sony. They are even considering putting sixaxis-like controls in their controllers.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3158465

So every day, Microsoft is just justifying Sony's decision on what they included in their hot little black box. If they announce Blu-Ray support, I can't say that I will be surprised.

And if you say the 1.2 vs. 1.3 isn't significant, you obviously didn't do your homework. To put it briefly:

1. HDMI 1.3 increases its single-link bandwidth from 165MHz (4.95 gigabits per second) to 340 MHz (10.2 Gbps). That means faster, Vern; Knowhatimean?

2. Your HDTV display crazy color depth (from your device) because it goes from million of colors to billions of colors. That ain't bad.

3. Gives your picture SMOOTH gradients, so no banding, and subtle shadowing; which means more true-to-life picture quality than ever, but better 'cause Spider-Man is there!

4. Has a built-in audio-video sync for accurate syncing. That may not be significant now, but when it does, the 1.3 will already be ready. And by the look of things, it may indeed become necessary. (see next main point)

5. there are many other features besides sound that are on the HDMI's official site, so take a gander

http://www.hdmi.org/learningcenter/overview.asp

So to say that it doesn't matter, means you didn't read the differences for whatever reason. INFORM yourself before posting, it makes me not type so much.

Okay, about the built-in audio-video sync: I have heard, yet not confirmed, that it dosen't matter because games can't play the true lossless Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD. Although I have searched and not seen evidence one way or another, if it's true, consider this:

Again the PS3 may already have the advantage, because it's playing it's games from *guess whutt?* Well, basically a FRIGGIN' BLU-RAY DRIVE, so the leap from playing a movie on a system with lossless audio and making a game that plays on a drive from a system with lossless audio is not much of a leap at all. Video cutscenes were already in games since games had CD drives, so to emulate game sounds to play lossless audio should be as simple as making sound for a movie. Wait a sec, the already can; Resistance: Fall of Man, for example, has uncompressed 7.1 PCM audio. Because all of the games are on Blu-Ray disc, they don't have to worry about space and heavily compressing the audio. The gap narrows.

So I suspect in the end Microsoft will release a "newer-er" version, then release a Wii-too like control, with the PS3's 1.3 HDMI and call it the "z00p3r-d00p3r 1337" with a SHINY black casing!

Not that I'm a fanboy, seeing that I own three different gaming consoles, but I like fighting for the underdog, and Sony is the most capable underdog I have fought for.

Whatever.

pixelsword

i own an xbox premium, and a ps3. i suggest to my friends to get xbox 360, most already have one, i like the community (but ps3's "Home" looks nice)

but, as an owner of both console's, i can undeniably name the ps3 as the winner. it is the better system. and like DNA says "You get what you pay for"

still i tell my friends to get a 360, but...
if want to jump to this price range, $30 more for a PS3 is a no brainer. if i wanted to get a elite xbox 360( and shamefully i do) i would still get the ps3 instead, and a month later,when i go back this time for an elite, i will then own three ps3's.

you would have to be slightly mental to get the elite, + the premium will now come with hdmi and hdd anway,

toon

and to everyone says sony is FORCING bluray down on ppl, ever stop to think that there are ppl who want a cheap bluray player ... that out performs most of the more expensive ones on the market? perish the thought that someone would WANT to watch movies in HD, and play games in HD! i have a Wii the thing is cool, its a novelty, i havent touched it in a month or so. the PS3 gets used a lot more, playing games or watching movies. i have run my system through my reciever over hdmi/component/optical(audio) and i enjoy being able to take advantage of the new "specs" these corporations throw out. I will be getting a TV that has x.v.YCC cuz frankly i want more color! 1.3 will provide that opportunity for me. The elite feels like a viral marketing campaign, from the jump there were corporate denials and then "leaks" on the internet, videos almost identical to the "son" who had his fathers x360 before it came out, and "got in trouble". its a means of generating buzz, cant knock them for it, but it is what it is. the fact that they named the console 360 instead of 2 to not sound inferior to the ps3 plays into this insecurity that is once again shown by the elite system.

sidenote: if i pay for live why should i have advertisements, anyway you break the cost down, i dont get dedicated servers and i do get ads, so free is free, if they give me ads i didnt pay for it, why not defray the cost? but if im paying for a service i fully expect NOT to be bombarded with ads. also why should i pay for demos, when the competition gives a few good ones away for nothing but the time it takes to DL?

i dont know, the fact that ppl who own a 360 that are considering reupping with the new version, just seems irrational, if sony came out with hdmi 1.4 and 300gb hdd, i dont know if i could see myself even contemplating it. i have spent a lot of money but not much more than the 360 when it all boils down. its just all up front or over the (considering ms previous history supporting their hardware) short lifespan, they are about equal.

if the elite had the smaller die (65nm) and did away with the tray system, and had quieter fans, didnt put restrictions on how many hdds i can copy to the 120, and gave me wireless that would be elite but a bigger hdd and hdmi is not worth $80, esp if for $20 i can watch BRD!

shadymilkman

The HDD alone is going to cost $179. Considering that fact, I can buy the $479 system, transfer all of my crap from the 20Gb to the 120GB, then sell the Premium for ~$250 - $300. Now, say I only aet $250 out of it....I'm buying a $179 HDD and spending another $50 on the HDMI upgrade....I can deal with that. Count me in on this simply because I want the lager drive. All of the rest, I don't care. HDMI will be nice, but, even MS guys are saying that it's a minimal upgrade and not knocking socks off of anyone (check the Ozzymandias blog).

hysonmb

richillion

DeadPlasmaCell

When I play resistance I can hear sound via HDMI (HDCP) 1.3 because my console isn't the main noise in the room!

I'm surprised M$ didn't go the full hog and call it the XBOX360 1337 to make the kids happy!

I'm also surprised more people don't feel like M$ has given them the big reach around with all this HDMI and IPTV bull shit anyway!

All I can say is enjoy......sucker

stenk

R4ytown

"I just don't get the xbox 360 fanboys... they probably use Firefox because they 'hate Microsoft'... but then gladly pay them $10/month like Lemmings..."

$50 / 13 months = $3.85 per month for Xbox Live Gold. That's roughly the price of one medium Creamice at Starbucks. That's less than a value meal at McDonalds. I can handle that kind of monthly payment.

On the subject of the Elite; It's a better deal than a Premium IMO, but I already have a 360 and the Elite doesn't give me enough reason to upgrade.

I don't even care about the lack of HD-DVD. I'm still waiting for a winner to the format war.

M e d i a d d i c t

It's a joke that the hdmi isn't 1.3 spec. It's the same crap over on the engadget posts about this topic. "You don't need 1.3, no one has the equipment to run it, it's only for audiophiles." THATS EXACTLY THE POINT!!! It's for audiophiles who want cutting edge stuff. Don't tell me that i should just go get and hd-a2. There's no need. This is a great chance If you think that hdmi 1.3 isn't important, THAN THE ELITE IS NOT FOR YOU!!! If you are that person that says "hey its a video game system, who cares" THE ELITE IS NOT FOR YOU. Be happy with your premium unless you really think that black plastic covers are worth 480 bucks. No none of the games have it, thats because its for the hd dvd movies, of which i have plenty. Yes i want my future 2000 dollar denon receiver handling my audio, yes i want 36 or 48 bit color depth possibilities when, 6 months or a year from now, i purchase a display that has that ability. The big thing to realize is not whether or not you think its stupid that M$ didn't include it, but that there is absolutely no reason they shouldn't have. There would have been almost no more manufacturing cost and the whole idea of the word "elite" is that its supposed to be the best. 9 OUT OF 10 PEOPLE THAT KEEP COMMENTING ON HOW THIS DOESN'T MATTER ARE THE SAME 90 PERCENT OF THE MARKETSHARE THAT M$ IS AIMING FOR W/ THE CORE AND PREMIUM, THIS ISN'T FOR YOU SO STOP COMMENTING!!! This whole thing just comes off as lazy in my opinion and, as i said on engadget, the big compelling reason for buying this system, other than black plastic, is now gone.

RedlineRonin

dfn_doe

noneother

Ixero

word of the day is Progression which is something MS has been doing half baked lately.

yxan

charman

DeadPlasmaCell

I'm also sick of everyone bashing the PS3, but love everything the 360 does, even when Microsoft continually screw their users over, time and time again.

Microsoft are obviously fearing the onslaught of the PS3, but the Elite, with it's elite pricetag, and not very elite features (90nm process, same as regular overheating 360, HDMI 1.2 and a small propiterry 120GB HDD) is not going to help.

mgillespie

Imahottguy

Mercuttio

wldchld22

mikail511

Rather than forcing you to buy a bunch of goodies you may, but probably don't, need (blu-ray, hdmi, etc) ala PS3, this move keeps prices down and again allows the consumer choice - have a killer setup? Get the elite and HD-DVD add on or a PS3. If not, you can still game without going broke with a 360 core. Sounds good to me.

Judd

Also about PS3 "Curing cancer" don't forget about this:

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/default.htm

DeadPlasmaCell

Then you better go with PS2. It has much more games then 360. Sure, it inferior to 360. But 360 also inferior to PS3. Sony will finish of Xbox the same way they kill HD-DVD.
Peoples just refuse to understand, 30+gigs GTA4 for PS3 will be different from 8 gigs GTA4 for 360. Same will apply to mostly all future HD games. And there is no way MS XBL will update your "RIP" with 25gig extra content. Even for extra $$. Think about it.

Sorry for my English.

akm74

Really, MS should have just stuck with the $400 Premium pack only, and left out the $480 Elite just to keep a price buffer between the PS3.

Scaramanga

ytrameel

"The only real reason Microsoft is releasing this "Elite" XBox is clear. They fear the PS3.

Or they could just be taking feed back from their customers and updating the system to reflect what people may want.. Like they've done from the start?

The PS3 is black. So is the XBox "elite"

Great observation.. So is every other console that has been made.. It's a great color choice. PS3 isn't the first console to be black..

The PS3 has an "elite" price tag. (XBox wants to be special, too.)

It's (360) still cheaper than a PS3.

The PS3 has full HDMI support... XBox "elite" tries, but fails.

Is "Full HDMI" the new "Full HD" now? Ne who, between the two, big deal.

The PS3 has free online service... does the "elite" come with free service as well?

Yea, Xbox Live is free for everyone.. and if you feel like playing against people and other stuff, you can pay the $4 a month extra, it's worth it.

The PS3 runs nice and quiet, how about the "Elite?" Have they been able to reduce the noise the Xsux360 puts out with this latest release?

I'll give you that, The 360 can be a bit loud at times, but it isn't constant and every 360 doesn't sound like a "jet". If you've ever used a PC with a decent CD/DVD drive then it isn't anything new.

Sure, XBox360 has at least 360 more games than the PS3... but can it cure cancer? I don't think so.

The PS3 hasn't cured anything yet. So big deal, it can run folding@home, you could do that way before the PS3 could, and why would you potentially diminish the life span of your console?

Can it stream photo's, videos, MP3's and video games to a Microsoft portable gaming system? Oh... no, it can't. Microsoft doesn't have a portable gamingsystem.

Good job their Capitan obvious.. but to be fair you can stream all that stuff from your computer to your 360.. enjoying your customizable soundtracks yet?

Does it do your HD set justice by playing flawless looking BluRay's with digital precision? Nope, can't do that either.

No, but why would you want it to? If I want to check out HD movies I can buy the HD-DVD player or download HD content from the Xbox Marketplace, or actually get a PS3 (Which I will once the price goes down 360+Wii+PS3= Winner). Again, Choice is a good thing.

Is it cheaper? Oh, yeah... it's cheaper. I wonder why.

Because there isn't a forced HD media player built in.

p.s. Have any of you PS3 owners seen the opening cover adjacent to the PS3's hard drive? That sucker is removable, which means when Sony comes out with a bigger hard drive, you won't need to buy an entirely new system. What a concept.

What a concept indeed..A little research could have stopped you from looking like a jackass right about now.

Lesson of the day: "You get what you pay for.""

Amen to that.

DeadPlasmaCell

rfayed

Hopefully the rise of multiplatform games will help reduce this. Maybe an ISO-standard console gaming OS would help too, game vendors would love it, though I can't see hardware vendors agreeing.

Namarrgon

HD-DVD doesn't output TrueHD/DTS-MA, and probably never will. (Yes, discs are encoded in TrueHD, but the player MUST have a TrueHD decoder in it, so that it can do mixing of multiple audio streams (menu sounds, commentary). And once the player's decoded it, it can send it as uncompressed multi-channel digital audio over any version of HDMI without any degradation at all. There's no reason at all for it to recompress to TrueHD at that point.)

HDMI 1.3 on the 360 -- or on the PS3 -- adds nothing but a marketing point.

mkozlows

bulletmagnet

DeadPlasmaCell

wolters.randolph

chelsel

So the 360's got TrueHD and DD+ on the disks, and no way to output it, while the PS3 has the ability to output TrueHD and DD+, but no disks to provide it!

Sockatume

Why didn't Microsoft make XBOX360s with removable HDDs? That would have pushed me to buy one and stick a 500gig in there somewhere..

Ah well.. <3 PC

aR-Tard

All HD disc players have to be able to decode these fancy audio standards (required for interactive feature support) - and, once decoded, output them over the 8 channels of uncompressed digital 192KHz/24bit audio that ordinary old HDMI 1.0 supports. So what exactly is the point of passing the encoded audio over HDMI and having your receiver decode it instead? Being all-digital, you don't lose any quality.

Namarrgon

timsuha

That's what I was thinking...

@dna: "p.s. Have any of you PS3 owners seen the opening cover adjacent to the PS3's hard drive? That sucker is removeable, which means when Sony comes out with a bigger hard drive, you won't need to buy an entirely new system. What a concept."

Um... You can replace the Xbox HDD too...

Webpheret

I went with the Xbox 360 because the games look better. Supposedly PS3 is a more powerful computer, but from what I've seen at the display models in stores the Xbox 360 games look a lot better. Maybe it's just me, but I trust my eyes.

Kobe_No_Means_No

DeathKat

yoshi

jgs9455

The real reason why they are releasing the Xbox 360 Elite that way, is probaly because the next gen Xbox will be super better, and include all the capabilities of HDMI and other great features. This is probaly the last 360 they'll make in production, so they're at least giving 360 a boost before they move on. It's just version 2, before they move on to the next one. You might say that the next gen Xbox is already the PS3 if you like to compare it the way DNA says it, but Microsoft can be surprising sometimes. The 360 Elite is just a small step towards the next gen Xbox.

quikboy

afroabdul

The PS3 is black. So is the XBox "elite"

The PS3 has an "elite" pricetag. (XBox wants to be special, too.)

The PS3 has full HDMI support... XBox "elite" tries, but fails.

The PS3 has free online service... does the "elite" come with free service as well?

The PS3 runs nice and quiet, how about the "Elite?" Have they been able to reduce the noise the Xsux360 puts out with this latest release?

Sure, XBox360 has atleast 360 more games than the PS3... but can it cure cancer? I don't think so.

Can it stream photo's, videos, MP3's and video games to a Microsoft portable gaming system? Oh... no, it can't. Microsoft doesn't have a portable gaming system.

Does it do your HD set justice by playing flawless looking BluRay's with digital precision? Nope, can't do that either.

Is it cheaper? Oh, yeah... it's cheaper. I wonder why.

p.s. Have any of you PS3 owners seen the opening cover adjacent to the PS3's hard drive? That sucker is removeable, which means when Sony comes out with a bigger hard drive, you won't need to buy an entirely new system. What a concept.

Lesson of the day:

"You get what you pay for."

dna

Resnais

That's over $90 worth of value for $80 more than the Premium system.

The Elite is a good deal in my book if you don't currently own an Xbox 360. If you have a Premium just stick with that. I'm not upgrading from my Premium. But people who are buying Xbox 360 and don't currently own one should get the Elite. For $80 more its highly worth it if you plan to download lots of game demos, TV shows, movies, trailers, etc. I have an HD episode of South Park that takes up 1GB by itself. And most demos are 1GB +/-. That all adds up.

waterdrop

The Elite is crap. I'm pretty sure that until it gets lowered to a price point that's closer to the current price of the Premium model, it won't sell as well. That having been said, it's only 80 bucks more, 20 bucks less than the low end PS3 and has the feature set of that model sans the HD drive. It also has an HD 100 GB larger than the base PS3's (say 'who cares, PS3 can use any HDD' all you want, doesn't change the fact that you have to buy that HDD)

This really isn't going to change much of anything - it doesn't affect the whole 'PS3 is overpriced and not worth the money!' debate at all because the Premium is still available at 100 bucks less. This is just for people who want to play 360 games on their HDMI compatible TVs (which is a small percentage of people to begin with) The only thing this does is allow MS to further their claim that they provide a much wider range of choices than Sony does without forcing consumers to pay for components they don't want.

And I'm not saying PS3 sucks. I'm saying it's not awesome, which was what I was promised it would be. And as of right now and the near future, it's not worth the money.

grieverxiii

If that's the case, then it could be upgraded to 1.3 with a simple firmware update via Xbox Live.

Rhainor

djdare

And, no, I don't own an Xbox.

Hugh Jass

Audy

afroabdul

theelk801

djdare