Amazon and Circuit City might have that new 60GB Xbox 360 SKU up for pre-order with delivery in August, but Microsoft's game console has always tended to pop up in Targets first, and this time out's no exception -- yep, there it is, hanging out in NYC. Anyone seen one poking around the dish towels and cheap-chic furniture at their local? Let us know in comments!

Word on the street was that the $299 price slash we've been hearing about wasn't about carving out a new pricepoint but instead making room for a new 60GB Xbox 360 in its place. Turns out the Mr. Word on the Street nailed this one, with Microsoft finally fessing up to the price drop, and announcing a new fancy 60GB Xbox 360 to fill in at that $349 pricepoint, which will be available in "early August." You can pick up a 20GB "while supplies last," but the $279 Arcade and $449 Elite aren't budging price wise. Oh, and can we just say that this couldn't come at any better a time? We just had to delete August Rush to make room for National Treasure 2, which we'll probably have to drop tomorrow for Fool's Gold. Such is life when you've only got 20GB to work with.

Update: Now up for an Amazon pre-order with an August 4th delivery.

[Thanks, Sean H. and Chris]

E3 is set to roll next month from July 15th to the 17th. With it comes the annual deluge of gaming rumors. Today we've got a pair for Microsoft. No, not another Blu-ray Xbox 360 whisper. Rather, we've got a resurrection of the 60GB Xbox 360 courtesy of Trusted Reviews as well as a US hardware price cut (and a nod towards a new SKU) according to EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich. Trusted Reviews' source claims that the 60GB rig will drop sometime in the first 10-days of August after an E3 announce. Hear that Sony, care to respond?

Read -- Price cuts
Read -- 60GB Xbox 360

We're all for bulking up the storage in our notebooks and portable gear, so naturally we're quite thrilled that Toshiba has developed a quintet of new 1.8-inch PATA hard drives that promise higher capacity and better performance for the gadgets we hold so dear. Three of the drives offer up 60GB on a single platter: the 4,200 RPM MK6028GAL for laptops and UMPCs, along with the 4,200 RPM MK6014GAL with 2MB buffer and 3,200 RPM MK6015GAA with 160KB buffer, both of which employ so-called "long data sector" technology to bring "format efficiency, improved error correction capability and enhanced storage capacity" to portable consumer electronics devices, according to ol' Tosh. Also destined for lightweight PCs are the dual-platter 120GB MK1214GAH and single-platter 80GB MK8025GAL, both 4,200 RPM drives with 2MB and 8MB buffers, respectively. Expect the new models to start appearing in consumer products sometime early next year. [Warning: PDF link]

[Via Slashgear]

It seems the unnecessary confusion surrounding the future of Sony's 60GB PlayStation 3 is finally ceasing, as Sony has now stated that it "no longer has any inventory in SCEA warehouses." Moreover, it was noted that all of the 60GB units "had been purchased and shipped to retailers," and while Sony doesn't know how many of those are on store shelves or waiting somewhere else in the supply channel, the firm estimates that there is still "ample supply left." So, we guess that settles it (hopefully for good, this time).

Hey, we can't blame the folks at Sony for not wanting to write up the obvious on a Friday afternoon, but the firm has stormed back fresh today and doled out the official details regarding the pricing and availability of the 80GB PlayStation 3. As we all expected knew, the 80GB iteration is available en masse for $599 (or $659 CND for those to the north) and comes bundled with MotorStorm. It's also noted that this higher-end edition joins the recently reduced 60GB model, and while Sony didn't mention the deals you could get on any remaining 20GB units, they're certainly out there.

Adding a negligible amount of fuel to a fire which should probably just burn out already, industry analyst Michael Pachter predicts that the 80GB PS3 will drop in price to $499 once the remaining stocks of the 60GB version have sold through. Of course, Sony has flip-flopped so much on this issue that it's hard to take this sort of "news" with anything other than a massive grain of salt. Regardless, according to Mr. Pachter, "the Sony entry level price of USD 499 is here to stay." So frugal PS3 fans, take heart... or don't take heart. Honestly, it's just really tough to say right now.

After some turbulent hours of confusion over this story, Sony finally got its facts straight and let the world know that it is in fact not going to discontinue its 60GB PS3 in US once current stock runs out. According to SCEA's Dave Karraker, "As announced this week, SCEA's product offering in North America consists of a 80GB PS3 available in August at $599 and a 60GB PS3 available now for $499. We have will have ample supplies of both models to meet the needs of our consumers for the foreseeable future." Apparently the confusion arose from Sony Europe's David Reeves explaining that if they cut the 60GB price in Europe, they'd run out of stock in Europe by the end of July. So, false alarm people, please resume buying / not buying your $499 60GB PS3s in an orderly manner.

Update: This has been semi-contradicted once again, with Sony now saying that they have enough stock to sell 60GB consoles for the next few months, but it doesn't sound like they'll be making any more after that. According to Karraker, "We won't be making any further announcements regarding our PS3 model hardware strategy in North America until the 60GB model is exhausted and market conditions are evaluated."

Despite denials, Sony has made official the new $499 price point for the PlayStation 3 that we've started to see appear in retailers across the US. The 60GB model's new price point will indeed be $499, with a new 80GB model going on sale for $599 in the US and Canada in August. As a small bonus, the 80GB version will include a "free" copy of MotorStorm. So there ya' have it kids: in one quick swoop, Sony has made the PS3's price a whole lot more competitive.

Update: Looks like the cat's out of the bag. Here's the release.

In the consumer electronics' quest to push thin 'till it snaps, Creative just announced new slimmer versions of their 60GB Zen Vision W and M players. We'll have to wait for the ritualistic splaying to see if these are sporting the newest 60GB slimsters from Samsung, Seagate, or perhaps Toshiba. Regardless, Creative managed to peel back enough pudge to bring the 60GB fatties in line with the 30GB models. In other words, the 4.3-inch Vision W drops from 26.4-mm to 22-mm while the Vision M with 2.5-inch display drops from 22.1-mm to 19-mm. Slim is nice and all, but where are the 80GB and 100GB models Creative?

[Via Impress]

While everyone is waiting for the price of 128GB SSDs or hell, the 32GB variety to bottom-out, Samsung and others have been quietly beefing up their slim, 1.8-inch N-Series hard drives from 20 to 30 to 40 and now... 60GB using perpendicular recording techniques. Better yet, Sammy's drives are just 5-mm thin, spin at 4,200rpm, and feature a (relatively) quick 7.14-millisecond average seek time and a 2MB data buffer. It's not silent like an SSD but they do squeeze the noise down to 1.8 dB -- just above the human threshold for healthy ears (read: not yours). Of course, Sammy calls it a world's first even though Seagate began shipping their 5-mm, 60GB, single platter 1.8-inch hard drive more than two weeks ago. Ah well, so goes the hyperbole. While we're waiting for Tosh's chubby (8-mm thick) 100GB cousin to get an iPod fitting, the skids are now greased for a 60GB PSP on the quick... or not.

Hard to imagine, but it's been over two years since Sony unleashed the PSP (at least in Japan), so it stands to reason that we're due for a little upgrade, right? Well, it's difficult to tell precisely what's going on due to the machine translation, but Samsung introduced its new N-Series line of 1.8-inch hard drives today and there's some indication that a 60GB version of the drive may end up in a future PSP. With any luck we may see a proper announcement at CES next month -- we definitely would not kick a 60GB PSP out of bed -- but for right now we're just trying to figure out exactly what Samsung announced today.

While everyone was focused on the hubbub surrounding the launch of the Zen Vision W and settlement with Apple, Creative quietly went ahead and gave the Zen Vision:M a bump in disk like we've been expecting. The new 60GB player is available in either black and white (only) and appears identical to its 30GB sib albeit with the inclusion of a USB hosting capability -- a slick, convenient way to quickly transfer data off USB-enabled devices (think your digital cameras snaps) without a PC. Unfortunately, while the Creative website has plenty of deets on the 60 gigger, the Creative store makes no mention of the new player at all. Fubar. Anyway, expect this to get sorted in hours or days with the price to mirror that other 60GB player pretty closely at around $399.

[Thanks, John]