Where in the world is the Xbox 360 Elite?
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted February 1st 2008 10:48AM
posted February 1st 2008 10:48AM
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
posted February 1st 2008 10:48AM
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When I bought my Elite back around May or June, they were sold out then, too. I ended up buying one off some guy on craigslist. Typically I'm opposed to paying any markup whatsoever, especially since I'm not a big gamer, but I wanted the HDMI for my 1080p TV, and the 550 cash I paid for a new-in-unopened-box-with-receipt was hardly any more than I would have paid for a $480 elite + tax at a local store.
Recently? I haven't seen an Elite in central MA since 2 weeks before Christmas. I haven't seen many Pros recently, either. There seem to be plenty of Arcade versions though.
Out in eastern Iowa as well. I work for a best buy here, and we have been out for weeks, and it is still on backorder at every store. The Pro has been hard to come by as well, but has recently been showing up in stores.
Still in stock on Amazon UK.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-Xbox-360-Elite-Console/dp/B000PD0HQE/ref=pd_bbs_3?ie=UTF8&s=gateway&qid=1201890742&sr=8-3
...maybe they're hoping to force people to buy the cheap Arcade version and a bunch of accessories so they can dump that SKU, since most online games can't even be played without a harddrive, although you can add one later.
have a launch 360Premium, but am considering getting an Elite for the larger harddrive and HDMI output...but since I haven't even come close to filling my 20gigs I have a hard time justifying the expenditure...
Wow is that not accurate. Elites were released with the new falcon chip at the same time the other sku's were. I could give you lists of folks who have bought Elites with the new Falcon config over a mth ago.
Also- people are getting the lack of availability due to *demand* confused with lack of availability due to *supply*- ie you can't find'em cuz the stores aren't getting any... even the largest Circuit City / Best Buy locations haven't been shipped any for several weeks now- get it??
And folks throwing out garbage like "my local retailer has shelves and shelves of them" are either full of crap, don't know the difference between the Elite and the other sku's or mistakenly assume those 3 empty black Elite display boxes on the shelf at EB Games / Gamestop actually have a console in them!
Problem Solved
http://www.google.com/products?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:*&resnum=0&q=xbox+360+elite&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wf
I saw 3 of them at Wal-Mart last night in Wichita KS
Chad...If you click on the links you will see most of those stores are sold out...something is a brewing...
I had been looking for a 360 from Jan. 1 - 17 and finally bought one on Amazon but I still don't see any in the stores until now. They were readily available before Jan 24 but now ghost shelves.
I'm sure most of you know, but those of you that don't - beware when UPGRADING to and Elite from one of the lower models whether through a warranty exchange at a big box store or voluntarily - it doesn't matter. All of your previously downloaded content will need to be repurchased. It's clearly spelled out in MS policies. They will not transfer the licenses to your new box. Hell, they won't even transfer the licenses to the new box the sent me in exchange for my RRoD Pro, but that's another story.
I wonder if this has anything to do with the HD DVD Super Bowl commercial. Pretty unlikely, but that would be quite the announcement.
Try Sears.com! I purchased mine on thursday Jan 24 and got it on Tuesday Jan 29! I paid for expediated shipping. I had been looking forever for one and tried sears.
http://www.sears.com/shc/s/s_10153_12605_Computers+%26+Electronics_Video+Games_Video+Game+Hardware
Engadget, /another/ regression in your comment system. Now you're mixing slash directions and breaking comment forms.
As for my opinion on the article, the 360 is still completely worthless to me. The PS3 can be used productively, and the Wii niftily, but you don't so much as own a single core of the 360. Unless you're a soldering iron ninja who fears no loss.. but I'm not. So I just try to dissuade people from buying that garbage.
saw about 3 yesterday in best buy.
are you kidding me, i work at shopko and all we have are the elite versions, there have been so many people asking for the premium version that i have put up a sign that says we are currently out of them and that we only have the arcade and the elite versions. so my suggestion to those out there is to run on down to your local shopko and see of they have some.
Around X-mas time there were plenty of Elites at my local Best Buy (surprisingly). Every now and then they run low, but for the most part it's not hard to find an Elite, rather it's hard to find a Pro.
I was at Best Buy on Wednesday, looking to purchase a Xbox 360 Pro bundle with the two games, but noticed they didn't have *any* 360s in stock, other than 2 arcade units. I questioned an employee, who said they've been out of 360s for over a week.
I also noticed Rock Band was out of stock.
Just a couple of weeks ago, they had stacks of each.
Everyone please stop posting how many you've seen in local stores. That only means that some stores still have stock left over from Christmas, what's important are the reports that stores are not receiving *new* stock.
The GPU die-shrink is plausible, however we didn't see similar shortages associated with the CPU die-shrink, so it's unlikely.
The built-in HD DVD theory is plausible, especially if two stores removed the Elite SKU during Microsoft's CES keynote as Andy M suggested.
Will somebody please explain to me why when I press reply it goes to the main engadget.com page? That is, if you can reply to this post.
I live in Vancouver and work at London Drugs. We haven't had any elites in stock since early Dec. The MS rep was by this week and I asked him about it, he said that nowhere in the Lower mainland has been recieving elites, and he has no idea why.
My 360 just died this week after 2 years of heavy use. I went to take it back and get an elite and no one has any elites around me at all. I live within 2 hours of DC and I cannot find an elite and now I am w/o a 360
I work at a Woolworths store in the UK, at the moment we have no Xbox 360 Arcades, Cores, Premiums Its just the elite, we have about 30 for them we just cant shift, we're even shoving halo for £10 which people are liking. Weather its just a US epidemic or not i dont know, but just a heads up.
I've been trying to get one for 4 weeks now, they're gone long gone. tried Gamestop, BestBuy and Circuit City at N.Y. Yesterday @ BestBuy they told me. They just got a shipping on "PRO" but none of Elite. When i asked them, as usual the dudes at the store don't know anything about it.
@Dave: "i work at a best buy in Toronto Canada and we have quite a few actually...."
Can you get any back over the border? How big are your pants?
I work at a Best Buy outside of St. Louis and we haven't had an Elite since before Christmas either. I believe we've received (and sold) about 4 or so Pros in that time frame, and maybe 3 or 4 Arcades.
Was just in Austin, TX last week, couldn't find an elite at GameStops, EB Games', Best Buys or Walmarts. Tried calling a few San Antonio Best Buys and they didn't have any either.
Now I'm in South Korea and the country does not have any on sale. The used market over here is going ballistic.
:(
I received an Elite for Christmas along with several games. Just one week later the DVD player stopped recognizing disks so I took it back to Best Buy for an exchange. In the Houston area they were out of stock. At that time warehouse did not have any and it's been that way ever since.
So, since Jan. 1, 2008 to Feb. 2, 2008 the warehouses which supply all Houston Best Buy stores have been out of Elites and from talking with the Managers they have not been told anything and do not have the faintest idea about what is going on or when their warehouses will get any stock shipped to them from Microsoft.
I personally have the fun of playing the system for only one week and now I have nothing. I even have several games I never got around to opening before the Elite broke.
This has made it a pretty lousy Christmas for me (the Elite and games are they only thing I got) and I am definitly not feeling the "Microsoft Love" right now.
As of this posting they seem to be back at the online store, but not actually in any stores at Best Buy:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=pcat17080&type=page&qp=crootcategoryid%23%23-1%23%23-1~~q70726f63657373696e6774696d653a3e313930302d30312d3031~~cabcat0700000%23%230%23%2319r~~cabcat0701000%23%230%23%233z~~nf410%7C%7C2432303020616e64205570&list=y&nrp=15&sc=gameToySP&sp=-bestsellingsort+skuid&usc=abcat0700000
And now they are sold out online again. This is just friggin sad.
Does anyone know the real story ? It's getting close to two months now.
This sucks. I've been actively looking for about two weeks. I called 4 Wal-Marts in my area (I live in the South, lots of Wally worlds) and none have a single one. EBGames, same deal. They have one Halo version collecting dust.
I know as soon as I find one and buy it Microsoft is going to announce a new version or price drop.
Live in NJ, been trying to find an elite in BB as I have to many gift cards there. I've seen 1 elite in a EG games in the past 4 weeks. I don't want to settle on a pro cause I want the huge HDD. Hopfully a new sku or some elites start to roll around.
I think most of them are at the Microsoft Store here in Redmond, WA. That's where I got mine in December for about $400.