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New Xbox 360 Elite holiday bundle and Wireless Controller Game Pack announced

by Nilay Patel posted Sep 29th 2009 at 11:05AM

We'd been hearing that Microsoft had a new Xbox 360 holiday bundle in the works, and here we go: $299 will nab you an Elite, Lego Batman, and Pure. Not a bad deal -- and if you already have a 360, you can score a new controller, Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2, Lumines LIVE!, Bomberman LIVE! and Ms Pac-Man for another $60. The new Elite pack should be shipping to retailers today, but you'll have to wait until November to snag the controller bundle. Now if only Microsoft would see fit to bundle in some freaking WiFi, we'd be all set.

Continue reading New Xbox 360 Elite holiday bundle and Wireless Controller Game Pack announced

Video: a brief history of game console teardowns

by Ross Miller posted Sep 25th 2009 at 7:42AM

Granted, none of these are teardowns we haven't already seen ad nauseam, but seeing every Sony and Microsoft console ripped to shreds and placed side-to-side in a series of glass cases is still a sight to behold. Peruse the display yourself, found at Tokyo Game Show and shown courtesy of the Museum of GAME Science, in a video tour after the break.

Continue reading Video: a brief history of game console teardowns

Xbox's Aaron Greenberg: Hulu on 360 like "asking out a really hot chick on a date"

by Nilay Patel posted Aug 28th 2009 at 9:22PM

Hey, our main dudes over at Joystiq sat down with Xbox's Aaron Greenberg recently, and there are some great bits of info in the interview. Aaron says the big Xbox price cut has been planned for months, so it's "just a coincidence" that it happened right on top of the PS3 Slim -- and he also says he's an avid Joystiq reader, so if Redmond had wanted to get the jump on Sony, they'd have been prepared. Other nuggets: the $99 WiFi adapter isn't coming down in price, the Netflix relationship is going well, and getting Hulu or Amazon Unbox on the 360 is like "asking out a really hot chick on a date, they don't all say yes." Yeah, it's a pretty great interview -- hit the read link for the whole thing.

Xbox 360 'Super Elite' with 250GB HDD glimpsed in South African retail ad

by Ross Miller posted Aug 28th 2009 at 7:13PM

So much for secrecy. South African Xbox 360 distributor Comztek has told local gaming news site XboxGaming.co.za that the a 250GB "Super Elite" model is due there in October. Additionally, the Forza 3 bundle we saw heading to Germany is also en route to SA, retailing for R4,999 (US $646), or around the same price as the Elite before its recent global price cut. South African retailer BT Games has apparently also posted a flier in honor of the launch (pictured), offering a R500 discount on the Super Elite (non-Forza 3 bundle, presumably) with the trade-in of a slimline PlayStation 2, totaling R4,199 (US $541) post-discount, or a 120GB Elite for R2,999 after the same trade-in rebate. Let's hope the folks in Redmond have as much of a sense of humor about leaks as Sony does.

[Via Joystiq]

New Xbox 360 Arcade and Elite boxes shot once again in the wild, spelling doom for the middle sibling

by Paul Miller posted Aug 25th 2009 at 10:05AM

Come on Microsoft, just fess up. We know you're killing off your middle Xbox SKU, you know you're killing off your middle SKU, so let's drop this pretense of secrecy, alright? The latest in this overwhelming heap of proof comes from tipster David R., whose local Best Buy had the two new Xbox 360 Arcade and Xbox 360 Elite SKUs in stock. He brought home the Arcade SKU and snapped some shots, while that new white-boxed Elite is still out there in his Reno store, confusing customers and blue shirts alike. Interestingly, Microsoft's announcement "pattern" was quite similar when the Arcade was originally introduced -- we actually had an unboxing of a store-bought system before it became official -- and most other 360 price cuts have been widely publicized before Microsoft gives in. At what point will this company just admit it's licked this time around and drop the official word on us already?

Gallery: New Xbox 360 Arcade and Elite boxes shot once again in the wild

Xbox 360 Pro and Elite price cuts confirmed in Target ad for next week

by Thomas Ricker posted Aug 25th 2009 at 2:26AM

We just received a pair of pics from "next week's" Target Ad. As has been heavily rumored, the Xbox 360 60GB Pro system will be cut to $250 while the 120GB Elite will drop to $300. Knowing that Target's weekly ads run from Sunday to Saturday we fully expect to see the new pricing go into effect on Sunday the 30th. One more image after the break.

[Thanks, Tyce]

Continue reading Xbox 360 Pro and Elite price cuts confirmed in Target ad for next week

Xbox 360 Elite in white package in the wild, Pro SKU missing on back-of-box chart

by Ross Miller posted Aug 23rd 2009 at 6:49PM

Can't say we're all that surprised given other sightings, but one anonymous tipster has sent us pics from a local Walmart of the 120GB Xbox 360 Elite in a shiny white package with a back-of-box chart that neglects to mention the Pro models, essentially striking it from the records. It's still scanning at $399 for now, but having seen multiple retailers' print flyers -- including Walmart's own -- quoting $299, the computers very well may be updating just after some official Microsoft announcement, which wouldn't surprise us at all if it happen sometime this week, just ahead of the PS3 Slim launch. Peruse the pics in higher-res format below.

Update: As several readers have pointed out, the back-of-box chart shows the Elite as having standard, presumably non-HD cables only, and there's no mention of bundled HDMI cables anywhere. Also of note is the wording for Xbox Live has changed from "Silver Membership" to "Free." Before you go thinking the premium Gold membership is going away, however, there's a superscript '4,' and if it's like the older box, it leads to a longer explanation on the Xbox Live's tiered plans -- not to mention there's an ad for buying into XBL Gold just under the chart.

Gallery: Xbox 360 Elite in white package in the wild, Pro SKU missing on back-of-box chart

Look out, Slim: Xbox 360 Elite showing $299 in new Walmart ad

by Paul Miller posted Aug 21st 2009 at 3:28PM

It was all but inevitable that Microsoft was going to hit back at the PS3 Slim with its own $299 120GB console, and while we're still waiting on official confirmation Microsoft, this purported Walmart ad clipping sure seems to know where the Xbox 360 Elite is headed. Watch out, folks, the video games aisle at your local big box retailer is about to get spicy.

[Thanks, Randall]

Leaked back-of-box chart shows Xbox line winnowing down to Arcade and Elite SKUs

by Paul Miller posted Aug 5th 2009 at 3:06PM

And then there were two? After Microsoft got all cute with us and introduced its current lineup of three concurrent Xbox versions, we thought we'd never get that portion of our limited brain matter back for storing more important things -- like the complicated political structures of Frank Herbert's Dune, for instance. Well, if this recently leaked photo of a revised Xbox 360 Arcade box is any indication, the regular "Xbox 360" SKU is on the outs, to make room for just the Arcade and Elite configurations on each end of the spectrum. Hopefully this means the Elite is also going to shuffle on down to the middle SKU's $300 pricepoint, but we'll have to wait and see. Naturally, Microsoft might just want that third slot for a Project Natal-packing Xbox edition next year, or perhaps this whole different box situation is just a Excel spreadsheet mishap that's gotten way out of hand.

[Via Electronista]

HP outs healthy slew of new Pavilion / Compaq Presario desktops

by Darren Murph posted Jun 25th 2009 at 11:11AM

Seems that HP got all the laptop love out of its system yesterday, as today were having a foursome of new desktops shoved down our throats. First up is the Pavilion Slimline s5000, which gets going at $289 and includes an AMD LE1600 CPU, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, a 320GB hard drive, 6-in-1 media card reader and a case that should be small enough for most dorm room corners. Next, there's the all-too-similar $269 Pavilion p6000, while the $599+ Pavilion Elite e9000 offers up a larger case along with an AMD Phenom II X2 545 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 memory, a 500GB HDD, 512MB NVIDIA GeForce G210 CPU and a 15-in-1 card reader. Finally, the $379 Compaq Presario CQ5000 ships with a 2.5GHz Athlon X2 7550 CPU, 3GB of DDR2 RAM, an NVIDIA GeForce 6150 SE GPU and a 320GB 7200RPM HDD. Tap the read link for all the nitty-gritty details, but only if you're really, really prepared for what's to come.

Gallery: HP outs healthy slew of new Pavilion / Compaq Presario desktops

$400 Xbox 360 Elite Games of the Year bundle with Halo 3 and Fable 2 gets official

by Nilay Patel posted Apr 20th 2009 at 12:52PM

Those of you guessing that our mystery Xbox 360 birthday prize was that rumored new Elite bundle with Halo 3 and Fable 2 were exactly right -- and now that Microsoft's gotten official with it we can share the full details. $400 gets you a 120GB Elite 360 with the two games, a free Netflix trial, ~~a 12-month Live Gold subscription and tokens for the Halo 3 "Mythic Map" and Fable 2 "Knothole Island" downloads~~. Not a bad deal at all, especially if you're looking to upgrade to a Jasper unit -- anyone going to pony up?

Update: Microsoft pinged us to let us know that the free Live subscription and DLC tokens were just for the giveaway bundles they made up for us -- the regular GOTY bundles just have the games and the Netflix trial. Lame, we know.

Xbox 360 Elite bundle rumored to include Halo 3 and Fable 2 for $400

by Darren Murph posted Apr 10th 2009 at 4:40PM

Don't get all loony just yet -- this one's still a long, long way from panning out -- but ArsTechnica has it from a reliable mole that Microsoft is gearing up to ship an even more attractive Xbox 360 Elite. One that comes bundled with hits Halo 3 and Fable 2 for the same $400 that the console alone runs you now. We already heard last month that Microsoft was considering phasing out the standard Elite in favor of bundled "limited edition" models, so that certainly jibes. Though, we will caution you that the last time Ars's mole spoke of console price drops, he / she didn't completely nail it. While said mole did accurately suggest that a $400 PS3 would hit America before the 2007 holiday rush (it happened in late October of that year), the whole "$100 PS2" thing took a full two years to come to fruition. Then again, E3 is just around the bend...

[Via Joystiq]

Red Xbox 360 mentioned in PR, is probably real

by Laura June posted Feb 19th 2009 at 11:44AM

So it looks like that red Xbox 360 Elite that we heard might be on its way is, in fact, on its way. A press release for Halo Wars in New Zealand makes mention of the phantom console -- the deal is that anyone buying a new Xbox 360 will get a free copy of the game, but the fine print excludes the doesn't-yet-exist red model, because it's "exclusive to EB Games." So this is the Resident Evil 5 one? It's all so unclear. We haven't picked up on any context clues as to a time frame for release or price. Yet.

[Via Joystiq]

Pioneer intros BDP-120 / BDP-320 / Elite BDP-23FD Blu-ray players

by Darren Murph posted Jan 8th 2009 at 9:00AM

Pioneer has put a few new BD-related products of late in other regions of the world, but America has been longing for a fresh line of Blu-ray decks from the outfit for months. At long last, we're being treated to a shiny new Profile 2.0 trio: the BDP-120, BDP-320 and the RS-232C-packin' Elite BDP-23FD (pictured above). From the top, the 120 features HDMI 1.3a, Dolby TrueHD / DTS-HD bitstreaming, 1080p24 output, BD-Live with no internal memory (1GB flash drive is included), TrueHD / DTS-HD Master Audio decoding and an Ethernet jack. The 320 steps it up with 48-bit Deep Color support, three noise reduction circuits, KURO Link, 7.1-channel analog audio outs, 1GB of internal memory and a "jitter free audio transmission for CD playback." The Elite deck adds an aluminum front panel, RS-232C control port and little else. The trifecta is expected to hit in April for undetermined prices, though you can find the ultraslim DV-420 upscaling DVD player in June for just $90. The finer details are just past the break.

Continue reading Pioneer intros BDP-120 / BDP-320 / Elite BDP-23FD Blu-ray players

Microsoft officially slashes Xbox 360 prices in Europe

by Thomas Ricker posted Sep 16th 2008 at 3:35AM

We're getting reports that the rumored Xbox 360 price cuts for the UK have gone official. After our exclusive peak (pictured above) at the Woolworth's catalog, Microsoft has stepped up and slashed prices across the board for the Queen's own population of punters, boffins, and geezers. Starting Friday, the pricing drops to £130 for the Arcade, £170 for the 60GB Premium console, and £230 for the 120GB Elite.

Update: The rest of Europe too: Arcade (€180), Premium (€240), and Elite (€300).

[Via Gadgetoid]