Xbox 360 Elite to raid Europe next month
At last...
Millions of European gamers have sat patiently beside their old standard Xbox 360s ever since the first official mention of the all-black Elite version waiting for word on when they'll be able to get their hands on one. Now they know - the European launch date is 24 August 2007.
Xbox 360 Elite: invading Europe in August
While American gamers may well be excused a little snigger - they've had the Elite since 29 April - at least European gamers will get their mitts on the machine before Japanese players do - they will have to wait until 11 October.
The stylish black Elite has a 120GB hard drive, an HDMI 1.2 port through which it is capable of pumping out 1080p HD images. It will also upscale DVDs too.
Sadly Microsoft remained tight-lipped about European pricing, leaving gamers to make their own rough estimates on the European Elite's price based on its US cost, which is currently around $480 (£237/€350).
It has been rumoured though that Microsoft is about to reduce the cost of all three Xbox 360 models in the US, in an effort to keep its pricing well ahead of the PS3's, which was cut by $100 earlier this week.
Microsoft said the Elite will descend upon the UK, Ireland, Germany and France first, with a wider European roll-out coming "as soon as we can", Shane Kim, VP at Microsoft Game Studios added.
COMMENTS
Title
Most of those Xbox units that have failed probably wouldn't have if people had left the recommended amount of room around the unit for cooling purposes. I have several friends who had their units fail but they had them shoved in the corner of an enclosed space.
No air flow equals heat build up which causes failure.
Skirting around the important bits
So have they sorted the stupid failure rate??? I cannot believe they have or else they would surely be shouting from the rooftops about how great the new version is.... Seems like this one will be hit by the same failure rate to me. Previously I had read that the new 65nm chips would be delayed until late in the year. I wonder if that is why the Japanese are getting theirs later, beause M$ don't need any issues in that part of the world. Come M$ tell us if the issues have been resolved. I had read one interview that hinted at an improvement in that dept, but I need more.
X Crox
Think MS need to man up and re-engineer this thing completely. Okay, they rushed it to get a head start on PS3, fairly understandable ploy, but the failure rates recently revealed are truly shocking. I would not want to risk the hassle of getting a nice new shiny toy that turns out to have all the entertainment value of a plastic brick (with three little red lights on it), even if it is an "elite" dead brick.
Expensive
I was expecting it to come out as the same price as the premium (and the other versions to drop price a little). But it's ~ £50 more expensive at £329.99 on play.
My tv has plenty of HDMI sockets but only one set of components which are already in use so was looking forward to the Elite. Far too expensive though so will have to stick to my Xbox 1 and Wii
'It's just a skin, honey!'
Des, if your wife asks, just tell her you got a skin or a case mod for it. Besides, if she's clued in enough to know about it (ie, that won't fool her), then I'm sure she'll be able to appreciate the new features!
