The New York Times is reporting that the Xbox 360 Elite is in fact coming. Probably one of the worst kept secrets, the Elite will be black, have a larger 120Gb hard drive, a HDMI interface and cost $80 more. Further evidence towards my theory that all Microsoft rumors eventually come true.

"Microsoft is clearly hoping to fill what it sees as a hole at the top end of the market."

I am not so sure I agree with this statement. I don't think there is much of a top end to the market. The Wii has been flying off the shelves because it is an awesome value ( and a pretty fun system ). Microsoft needs to cut the price on it's excellent, if not slightly unreliable, console. Adding a black, upscale PS3 killer to the Xbox 360 line up seems kinda silly when the PS3 is kinda ... well ... if not dead, surely limping along. Most gamers who would be ready to plunk down nearly $500 for a new console probably already have an X360.

If you haven't bought a X360 would you get the Elite? If you already own a X360 would you consider replacing it with the Elite? How about just buying a 120 Gb hard drive replacement?

I can see why they want to have a bigger hard drive available to sell people on bigger downloads, but it seems it could be a psychologically bad thing. Consumers already vastly go for the Premium package over Core, presumably because they don't want to be missing features. Now they've just made it so that the $400 premium is no longer top-of-the-line. As someone who is yet to get an X360, I look at this and say both "$80 for 100 gigabytes and HDMI isn't bad.", but also "I don't want to pay $480 for the thing, or $400 for what's a worse deal."

Oh boy, now us rich gamers with loads of disposable income finally have a system that we can throw our money away for. You have no idea how bads its been for us high end gamers. We've had to throw away our money buying peripherals and PS3s. Looks like Sony might finally have some competition dominating the high end market.

I don't know, Nintendo must have their head stuck up their ass. They're never gonna reach out to us selling their systems that low. Poor marketing strategy if I ever heard of one.

Would I ever consider getting one? Sure, the same way I get all my video gaming products: Used, when it drops in price by half or more. *strokes his silver slim-form PStwo* Ah yes... Used...

I'll probably get a bigger harddrive. Mainly because I download at least the demo of all the games on XBLA, and usually end up getting thier respective full versions. And they've increased the download size limit from 50 MB to 150 MB, so that space will go even faster than it has been so far.

It just kills me that they are selling a 120 GB harddrive for the same price as I could get one that's twice as big for my PC. it sux, but what are you going to do.