@urbanturban666: Sony's hardware is far more advanced; therefore, more expensive to make. Also if you consider the fact that once you buy an Elite, a WiFi adapter, and 1 year of XBL you are paying more than a PS3 out of the box with the same features AND Blu-Ray on top of that. If you look at it objectively the PS3 is best value (hardware wise). I own both and I play the 360 more than the PS3 on average but the PS3 is cathing up fast in the games department.

The point is you can't expect a company that makes higer end hardware to match a competitor's pricing that is using hardware that is last gen's tech.

Even with this pricing plan the Wii is still a better buy out of the box when compared to the Arcade. That bullshit $99 WiFi adapter is HALF the cost of a whole new system while one is BUILT INTO a $249 Wii?? Plus the cost of XBL. Cheaper than the Wii "out of the box" but not when all features are equal.

Mr.SithNinja

@nutbastard: According to the product chart, the Arcade doesn't seem to have BC capability. The Arcade doesn't have a headset, only has a standard AV cable and doesn't come with the HDMI cable. The Elite comes with it all on top of its 120GB hard drive, as opposed to the Arcade's 256MB.

@cobaltage: I dunno. If all I want is a wireless media hub for my TV, I'd just sooner get the ATV. Besides, I'd still have to buy the $99 adapter to get WiFi capability.

Kaiser-Machead on the Edge

@nutbastard: yeah, but this one goes to 11.

JBKing

Really, can someone explain why the elite is worth TWICE as much as the arcade?

They both play friggin' xb360 games, right?

What's the BFD?

nutbastard

now if only sony followed suit...

urbanturban666

Also, now competitive with Apple TV.

cobaltage

Very nice. I might trade my current 360 in and get an Elite for this price. The Arcade's $199 should do a good job of attracing new people to the 360 as well.

falandil

@Mr.SithNinja:
i just want a price drop...

as for wifi adapters, screw them!!! 3' of cat5 should reach the switch behind my tv...

urbanturban666

@Kaiser-Machead on the Edge: 120GB hdd = $180. Price of arcade system = $199. WTF kind of pricing is that from M$? I can buy a 1TB drive cheaper than that. I can buy a 250gb laptop drive for half of that! M$ is ROBBING mofos left and right and people are happy about it?? The Elite was the only package that makes sence to get if you factor in that a hdd is a must have.

Mr.SithNinja

@Mr.SithNinja: I completely forgot that the Wii has that thing built-in. That makes the XBox hardware look a wii bit shittier.

Kaiser-Machead on the Edge

People have to realize that though the Xbox 360 (20 GB) is $299, there are some downfalls because of it:
1) No rechargeable battery nor wire to charge it with.
2) No wireless, so for those with a two story house can either get a 100 ft Ethernet cable or pay 100 bones for the wireless adapter.
3) No Bluetooth so your headset options are limited
4) $50 a year to play online. If this was a year ago I'd say its worth the price because the PSN sucked in comparison. But its mid 2008, the PSN is now smooth and slick, Home is being released and online play is now better than ever (Warhawk, Resistance 2 can't waaait).

In Xbox 360's defense, they do come with the component wires and an Ethernet cable which partially compensates for its lack of rechargeable battery/wire, but I feel that they can easily just sell a 120 GB Xbox 360 for $199 and dominate the market.

Let's see what Sony does in response to this ($299 and $399 price points?)

daftrok

@Kaiser-Machead on the Edge:

well according to YOUR spec chart, you dont have redundancy filter

"the Arcade doesn't seem to have BC capability."

ouch i dont think i could live with basically NO hard drive.

nutbastard

"Now Cheaper Than a Wii"
Yet it will remain to sell LESS then a Wii...goes to show which is more fun to play with the average person.

JEmlay

@Mr.SithNinja: "Sony's hardware is far more advanced

No it isn't.

"you can't expect a company that makes higer end hardware...
no it isn't
"to match a competitor's pricing that is using hardware that is last gen's tech.
Yes you can, because it isn't.

MS have been making these things longer and revised the design multiple times to be cheaper. They have an advantage on manufacturing costs. Both MS and Sony take a large loss on every console sold. MS are further down the line of minimising it and because of outselling the PS3 on software to date may be more prepared to continue to take the same loss and lower the unit price while Sony use every manufacturing saving to recoup.

Cultivar

@Mr.SithNinja:

So I'm in the market for an xbox, and from what i've gathered, they three models should share same mobo and cooling solution.... Or no? Is there CORE hardware differences between arcade and elite (with HDD, wireless controllers, etc, being add-on features)?

monkichi

@Mr.SithNinja:

OUCH!

Cultivar got MODED!

monkichi

@nutbastard: Yeah the Elite is the only way to go for the 360. HDD, HDMI, sexy blackness, and a better cooling setup in it. It is ALMOST RROD proof.... (I havn't heard of any at least)....

Mr.SithNinja

@Cultivar: How about you say something to back up your "No it isn't" argument?

So you are saying that the PS3's cell processor is NOT more advanced than the 360's procs??

So you are saying that Blu-Ray is NOT more advanced than DVD??

So you are saying that these components AREN'T more expensive to make and therefore more difficult to take a greater loss on than they already are??

Do you have ANY CLUE where you are going with your rambling statement?

You even HELPED me with my point by saying that M$ has a production cost advantage....

Your response reminded of an old saying: " It is better to remain silent and be presumed a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. "

Mr.SithNinja

Why can't we all just be friends?!

aR-Tard

I have to agree with Mr.SithNinja on this one, the PS3 hardware is far more advanced, it has 7 cell processors (8 actually, god knows what the 8´ is reserved for..but it´s there).

The computing power in PS3 is "insane".
The computing power in a Xbox360 is good, kind of like an Quad processor in comparison, but you can´t compare the two - really.

Besides the 7-8 cell processor the PS3 has, it also have many specialized chips that are capable of some serious computing stunts, the GPU alone is capable of 1.8 Teraflops and the 8 SPE cpu is capable of 218 Gigaflops

For your ref:
[www.ps3power.com]

The Xbox 360 is capable of an overall 1 Teraflop floating point calculations

For your ref:
[xboxupdate.co.uk]

In some areas the pipelining of the Xbox and the PS3 is about the same, but the overall computing power of the PS3 is far superior - this has nothing to do with people being fanboys or so...just read the facts - spec sheets says it all.

The games however...thats an entirely
different story, here Nintendo wins hands down ;)

JoOngle

@Kaiser-Machead on the Edge: I have no real opinion at this point between any of these systems. I wouldn't want a house with an XBox 360 in every room with a TV, for instance. But I don't want to buy stuff from iTunes either. If Netflix were offering 720p content through the XBox 360, that might push it that way, just because it's a subscription service that can also send you DVDs for stuff that isn't in hi-def.

cobaltage

Why do I feel pwned, when I did nothing! :'(

Kaiser-Machead on the Edge

I'll buy when they add a Blu-Ray drive.
If I have to decide between the 360 or a blu-ray player the 360 loses unfortunately.
I don't want a ps3 ... unless they magically start to support halo and DOA.

Dillenger69

@daftrok: the $299 360 has a 60GB HDD now.

FancyShmancy

Everyone is wrong and i'm right... lol.
Both the PS3 and 360 are advanced but use different technologies to acheive it. Yes the cell processor is new, but so was a three core processor at the time the 360 was released. The GPU on the 360 is actually better than the GPU on the PS3, but the PS3's processor has more theoretical CPU power if developers can fully harness all of it.

The only thing overall superiour on the PS3 is Blu-ray. Its the reason I own a PS3 in addition to my 360.

LJKelley

Which is why this cheap bastard bought an Xbox Arcade last weekend (my local stores usually only have a couple in stock so I'll just take advantage of price matching this weekend.)

I haven't even got any games yet, but it's replacing the HTPC in my living room which has been scrapped for parts for my other two systems. For $200 for a Media Center Extender and a streaming Netflix box (which I'm already using thanks to vmcNetflix) it was just too good a deal to pass up. The fact that it plays games (and that I can get a lot of good games I've never played for cheap since they're 'old') is pure gravy.

Ron-Mexico

Wow, apparently none of the Sony fanboys here have heard of a GPU and how PS3's is inferior to the 360's. Anyone that has spent any time building and upgrading a computer should know that a GPU is far more important than a CPU. All the CPU processing power in the world won't save you from a lacking GPU. The PS3 overall may be a bit more powerful than the 360, taking the Cell into consideration and the non-graphics-related things it can do that the 360's dual can't, but it's no where near "far more powerful". When you get down to it, they're about equal. Please stop spouting crap you don't understand because it just makes your star status look bad.

Arlips

Wow... serious sony fanbois in here. The PS3 and 360 are on fairly equal terms with power. If you want to talk advanced, I sure the 360's cores are more 'advanced' than the SPUs on the ps3. There are just lot of them.

I think what people are really missing here, is now for less than the price of a wii you can get a fully functioning game system that's capable of HD graphics. Not that last gen crap that's in a Wii. Yah, its not the ideal system configuration, and may not have the bells and whistles you want, but it *works*

1roll20s

To everyone foaming at the mouth about the power of the 360 vs. the PS3, please: Stop. It is not anywhere near as simple as all these mindless discussions make it out to be, and it is not something that is even truly comparable from a hardware perspective.

This is a well-written article on the power of each console and why each one has its advantages and disadvantages.

This is an article about a 360 price cut, which is nothing but good news. Let's not troll this entire thread with nonsense about which console is more "powerful."

regnez

@Mr.SithNinja: The cell is an advanced chip... if not all together the most suited to gaming applications. Sure there are eight SPU's, but they all have to communicate back to the single core; which apparently means coding has to be SUPER tight, or performance TRULY suffers. Blu-ray does hold more data than DVD. The big bottleneck on the PS3 however will always be the last gen vid card, and the fact that the vid card only has access to 256 meg of RAM. Gears of War is not even playable on only 256 meg of vid RAM. Don't get me wrong.... I love my PS3. It's a GREAT blu-ray player. But if I want to play games, or stream media, or watch and record live television; I power up one of my 360's.

As for wi-fi, if it's that big of a deal to you; you can always get a bridge for $50 and supply multiple ethernet devices with it. I personally would never use wi-fi for gaming, and it still doesn't do a great job with streaming HD content. I ran ethernet through my attic to four different rooms in my house in about two hours one saturday afternoon. Ethernet is just so much less of a hassle. This weekend Gustav knocked my power out a few times which apparently reset my router to fac specs. It took me over an hour just to get my router and the few wi-fi devices that I do use (like my wii and my wife's laptop) back on speaking terms. Of course all of my ethernet devices were just fine.

robinandtami

hooray on my b-day!!! i wonder what im getting =)

Glavan27

I have both systems now...

My ELITE RROD on me 2 weeks ago. after a year and a half

Both are good systems graphics are about the same.

I don't like the installs on the PS3 or the menu system.
But it's nice and quiet but the controls feel like they're cheap plastic knockoff shit . but are holding up just fine..

360 is pretty much as noisy as my microwave...the menu system still needs work ...... and the games seem to load faster....... did I mention it's noisy as fuck.

.............WORD OF WARNING .................
I had my 360 horizontal from day one.... I bought a new tv (40 inch Samsung 1080 P) where I had to put the 360 It had to be vertical.. 3 weeks later it was dead.....coincidence........ maybe ........or maybe not....... and no it wasn't in a confined space it actually seemed cooler vertically .....when i get it back gonna ad a shelf and keep it horizontal...

later

Zatoichi666

Some games require a hard drive to play on xbox live

ChunkAhoy

@JoOngle: The 8th SPU is for production yields and (if it's even working) is disabled from the factory. You get higher yields when you only need 7 of 8 cores working rather than 8 of 8.

@monkichi: The core hardware is identical between the three models. In all reality, though, the $299 model is the best one to get since you get all the necessary cables for HD (albeit not HDMI, but one of those costs, what, $7?), a wireless controller, a headset, and a hard drive (which are unreasonably expensive if purchased separately). I got an Elite when they came out, and of the 120 GB, I still have around half available, and I have never deleted anything from it (including demos and a couple HD movies), so the 60 GB in the middle model should be sufficient for most people.

EndlessMike

PSA: You can easily get live for $40 for 13 months (that's a latte a month!) if you shop around for about 30 seconds. You can get it for even less (I've got 26 months worth for $50 total) if you try harder.

Considering that come November the 360 will function as a Netflix STB as well, it's a nice choice for a media box. I probably watch 3x as much video as I do play games on it.

StartingAces

PS3 FTW , you get what you pay for with xbox 360 a red ring from when you got XXXXed up the Xss by microsoft.

ichi1

@monkichi: With the new packaging and the $299 model coming with a 60gb hdd and HDMI connection the only REAL difference now is the the extra 60gb of spece you get with the Elite. I bought mine just beofre the Halo 3 launch and the 60gb model wasn't available and they hadn't yet updated the mobos on all the models yet. If I didn't have one already, I would stay away from the Core system all together and either get Pro (60gb) or Elite (120gb). For me the 120gb is definatley worth it considering the fact that you will soon be able to rip games to your hdd and load them from there instead of the disc. For me mo' space = mo' better.

@JoOngle: I was right there with you until that Nintendo line. :-) It all comes down to developers and programming. If devs knew how to harness the power of the Cell they wouldn't have to lean on the GPU. I am sure this is what Sony was thinking when designing the system. What they didn't take into account was that game companies aren't going to spend the extra time and money to dev a game on a new system they know nothing about when they can use a familiar format and port it over. In ALMOST all multi-platform games the 360 version turns out "looking" better because the games are being developed on a 360 or PC platform and being ported to the PS3. Last night I played the demo for Force Unleashed on the PS3 and the 360 back to back. The 360 looked A LOT better. The PS3 seemed to have a lower frame rate and even the text in the subtitles weren't as sharp. If you look at the games that are MADE FOR the PS3 it is a different story. Games like MGS4, GT4 Prologue and Uncharted (beautiful game!) show what the PS3 can do but even those game mearly scratch the surface of what it is truely capable of. (Accourding to Naughty Dog who is working on the Uncharted sequel)

@Zatoichi666: Thanks for the warning. I have the same t.v. and my Elite has also been horizontal form day 1 and will now stay that way. :-)

Mr.SithNinja

@ichi1: I have a PS3. Its an awesome blu-ray player. If I want to have a quality GAMING experience? I turn on my 360.

robinandtami

I have a new Pioneer Elite PRO 150D 60" Kuro television, and Pioneer Elite Digital Receiver. I just bought a new PS3 and it rocks for 1080p DVD upconversion and audio through digital cable.

I also own an XBox 360 for the past 3 years with component cable and digital audio output, and the analog output plugs into my wireless headphones. I use the XBOX for games and the PS3 for DVD's and little else. I find little for the PS3 to offer for gaming, even interaction with others. It's menu is far from easy, and it doesn't connect to my computer wirelessly, so other than a cheap BD player, PS3 is not much to offer. XBOX is not worth replacing for the Elite and HDMI. What I would like is a way to save and record all of my HD movies for my home theatre, XBOX can't do it, and PS3 doesn't do it either.

burnsds

This price drop still not enough to get me to buy a 360. Microsoft lost a customer with the Red-Ring fiasco.

nitromic

I have a 360 that I bought the day it came out. I love it, but I wonder what all these people are doing using it as a Media Center Extender.

You can't play any HD video on it, what's the point? I have 720P and 1080P H.264 encoded files that I would like to play! I can't play them in an MKV container, and I would need to convert to the (crappy) WMVHD codec to play them. Or, instead of doing that, I can put the H.264 files in a different container, but even still I can't do Dolby Digital/DTS surround sound. The H.264 profile only supports AAC audio!

Not to mention that I can't even play Xvid/DivX files using the Media Center Extender portion of the 360, so everything would need to be converted to WMV.

And no, I do not want to use the "blade" interface, I want to use the beautiful Media Center interface.

Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE to use my 360 as a Media Center Extender. But, until I can play basically any kind of file, I'm going to need to stick with my Media Center PC that I build out of random parts laying around the house and a $75 video card.

KStrike155

@robinandtami: I beg to differ I only have to pick up the awkward shaped excuse for a controller before I have to vomit. And thats before I launch into a tirade about how if Xbox 360 had a blu ray drive that GTA IV would be better.

Anyone name the movie quote

Zoe: We fit together.
Zed: All men and women fit together. Even some men fit together.

ichi1

Remember when people used to play video games rather than fight over which system was better?

Yeah, me neither. Stupid Intellivision fanbois with their Intellivoice. Think they're so smart.

Bruce_A