Europe finally granted Xbox price cut
About time too
Microsoft has finally treated European gamers to a slice of American-style price-cutting on its Xbox range. European gamers should be able to get their hands on the ‘standard’ model for £30 less and save £20 on the cost of the Core model, when the cuts kick in later this week.
The price-cuts will take effect on 24 August, cunningly the same day that Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Elite launches in the UK, Ireland, Germany and France. The ‘standard’ £250 model includes a 20GB hard drive and a single wireless controller, while the Core model will retail for around £180.
Microsoft’s marketeers clearly don’t want to waste too much time talking about the cheaper models, and its release devoted several paragraphs to the Elite's impending launch. However, the company did claim the price cuts would give all Xbox models a unique position to take the UK market by storm this Christmas.
The first UK retail prices for the Elite began appearing last month, with some retailers pricing it at around £50 more than the Premium model predecessor and around £95 cheaper than the Sony PS3.
If you want to stand out from the Elite crowd though or aren’t convinced by the new price-cuts, then you could swayed by the special edition Halo 3 console. Trussed-up in post-apocalyptic green with a matching controller, the console is set to hit the shops in September, around the same time as the game.
COMMENTS
Old news now, but...
I collected my pre-ordered 360 Elite; having ordered at £329.99 from Gamestation; the actual price was £299.99 with one free game (Blue Dragon, marked at £44.95 rrp but not a title I was aware of) plus any other game for £20 (naturally, I chose Bioshock).
Haven't taken it out of the box yet, but the serial number flap shows a build date of June 26th; I'm not sure if it's possible to tell if you have the revised heatsink layout by peering though cooling slots or such.
However, if this little serial number door is on all Xbox 360 boxes, perhaps people could be made aware of the build date the revised heatsinks apply from, and look for machines from that date when buying...
All upcoming X360s have a HDMI ports
The only difference is that it has a larger hard drive. And it looks cool in black.
I'm thinking of selling my white to get a black one as it goes with my black samsung screen better.
The only thing that concerns me now is using HDMI port...
For those of us that have surround systems working via the optical lead... with an HDMI lead plugged in does that stop the component av dongle functioning as it has an optical out in there too.
I wub my console, it has pwetty red lights!
ive recently had the three red lights problem... had it repaired, got it back, played it for five minutes then... had to send it back again, i dont think the prospect of microsoft paying me to have a console would really tempt me right now, IM JUST SO DISAPPOINTED IN MICROSOFT! even vista is more stable...
65nm And new heat sinks
I'd give it a couple of months to buy a core or premium (about the time the ones with HDMI appear) as the ones that are on the shelves atm are likely to have the older heatsink layout... Not that the new one is more than a bandaid.
What about a new cooling architecture...
as long as these red lights keep poping out i wont be considering getting my self a new xbox even if they cut like 50(where the heck is the pound symbol -_-;)
I sold my 360 a couple of months ago and the poor buyer after like a couple of weeks had the red lights problem...
