could the 360 elite...

Emlyn_Dewar · 31 Mar 2007 at 03:38

Sony got arrogant, however, I feel they've recently changed their attitude. It's MS I worry about now, they just seem to be going the completely wrong direction on their 360 model.
For christ's sake, no "Elite" just don't! Until you have an Elite option don't try to fool the market. What we've got is a "Premium Plus..." A Rubbish name, but in my eyes, an HD upgrade and an HDMI port is a rubbish reason to add a new SKU to the market.

Until MS releases a console based on a new revision CPU and with a built in Wireless module then they are going the wrong way. HDMI is pretty much a must to compete with the PS3, purely for marketing reasons imo, but as of now they should just stick with the cheaper Premium.

I do not agree that the HD DVD drive should be built in, MS would have done it with the "Elite" if they had any faith in the format, they clearly don't. They've said they could release a Blu-Ray drive, there we go, they would go whatever way... Since I buy my consoles to play games and not movies I really do not care.
A 120gb HD, yep... No thanks. HDMI port? Nah. The same hardware that has definite reliability issues, for a higher price? You've got to be smacked out your face MS... Pull the other one.

BTW, I'm a 360 owner and I would love MS to win this generation.

BobBrainy · 31 Mar 2007 at 03:49

M$ winning would be bad, it should be close between all companies, this means competitive business and better products. However I still maintain M$ will be behind by about 10-15million consoles at best, ps3 will blast off in a few years and go ahead. The wii, well its a fad but nintendo needs some love from the home console area.

AngeluiMorte · 31 Mar 2007 at 06:50

First of all I own a Xbox 360, for me it has had no reliability issues so far but only owned it for a year.

I like they idea of the elite but the price will determine everything for me, I dont care about blueray and I like the idea that you have it or dont its your choice, so the PS3 its outragously overpriced just to play games on. Now if the elite is stupidly overpriced without blueray whos going to buy it, would you have paid the price you did for a ps3 without blueray???

They should hold off this elite model till the end of the year and release it with WIFI (not that I care but many consumers do), have it running much quieter, include the HDMI and the bigger hardrive and then it makes it a console worth buying. If they rip out the guts of it and give it more power then it should be miles better than the ps3 but also carry a heafty pricetag which will put consumers off and wont really be an xbox 360 anymore.

IMO most people are buying the ps3 because it has blueray, thats why im not going to buy one. Why pay £400+ for a console if your not going to use one of its biggest features. On the same basis why pay £350 (supposed price) for an elite 360 just for HDMI and bigger HD if you dont need it.

If the elite is more reliable, quieter and runs cooler thats a good thing, but if its not ms are going to lose out to the ps3.

IMO too many people keep going on about how much better the ps3 is to the 360 when really they are the same level when it comes to gaming and thats what a games console is all about. Its the blueray, wifi and free internet that makes the difference but then thats why you pay more for the console. If you dont need wifi and dont want blueray there really is very little between the two consoles so stop harping on about it.

Want blueray player = buy ps3 = you pay more but get all you want
dont want blueray player = buy xbox 360 = you pay less just for what you want

Sweetloaf · 31 Mar 2007 at 07:52

Atari said:
Microsoft ideally need to do the same if people are going to adopt HD-DVD in the future.

The thing to remember there is that Sony will push Blu Ray because it has invested time and money into it's development, MS are not in competition with Blu Ray, they are in competition with Sony. It's an awkward one for MS but it would be an extra kick in the teeth for MS if they built in a HD DVD player and Blu Ray won a swift victory It would be like adding a modern day Betamax player. Sony make films, players and consoles so Blu Ray taking off is about much more than the PS3 for them. However, without a HD DVD drive the Elite really should be a lot less than £350.

james.miller said:
sod public perception. it IS a well built and powerful piece of kit. in all honestly lol

Yes but as far as a console war goes, public perception is vital, I doubt you'll hear MS or Sony saying "Sod public perception" any time soon

. If the Elite comes out at £350 Sony would be wise to drop the price of the PS3 60Gb to £399 making it an extra £50 for a Blu Ray player with WiFi which although not vital to me would make me fork out the extra cash, to then release a 20Gb version for £350 would ensure that they take MS to the cleaners again this generation. Storage on these players is hardly vital to a lot of users, for me it would be used for save games, the odd (deletable) demo and a few MP3s.

I don't want to see MS screw things up but I have a feeling that they are about to.

Andy298 · 31 Mar 2007 at 09:18

Bossy papa said:
i beg to differ ,i think getting the 360 out first was a big factor in the ms v sony race ,even though the 360 seems poorly built , ms has achieved what it wanted to do
this is the best time to release elite and hdmi is very important in the long run

No sorry you're wrong.
HDMI and a bigger HDD does not warrant a new new console revison IMO. They should have thrown everything in to this, WiFi, HD DVD etc, as people already have 2 other packs to choose from if they don't want/need the above.

From MS'es point of view it's all about choice, and I agree with this, but we already have this with the Core and Premium packs. The Elite should live up to it's name but it just doesn't!

Scrutinize · 31 Mar 2007 at 09:18

NorthstaNder said:
...lose MS the current generation console war?

Who cares tbh as long as we get all the great games comming out then which ever console sells more is a moot point. Developers develop cross platfom now as it makes business sense for them. Very few exclusives left.

personally, i don't think they'll "win" as such anyway. PS3 will most likely outsell the 360 eventually.

They need to sell an additional 8 1/2 million units to catch the 360. The wii has sold so many as it is a different market. The PS3 and 360 share the same market sector. That in business is a long climb especially due to the cost of the machine.

Lets assume the average initial spend globally of a PS3 purchase is $750 inc a game or two..may be more may be less.

They need to get 700*8,500,000 = $6375,000,000 out of consumers to even catch MS. That is a lot of money. At the same time people are spening money on MS products.

however, i can't help but think the so called "elite" console could be one step too far. especially as MS don't seem to have made any attempts to rectify the current reliability problems.

Reliability and performance of the 360s has vastly improved, The new ones are also a lot quieter. The problem comes with people who had earlier consoles and got stuck in the MS replacement with referb program so they never got a new working machine.

PS3 has got problems too.

The Elite is nothing short of a console to steal some of the Sony PS3 thunder and dampen their launch. Hence why it is priced closer to the PS3 yet significantly cheaper than it.

Premium and core will be where it is at. Majority of 14 year old gamers won't even have a HD tv to play on.

also while i'm talking about the reliability issues, is it me or does it seem that those who have had 360's replaced with refurbs then get into a vicious cycle? it seems as though folks are either still on their original machine or they've had about 4 replacements!

Its partly the consumers own fault in the UK since they are covered by consumer law and could take it up with the retailer, if they end up in this loop especially outside the 12 month warranty but instead most of them don't. Not enough people are clued up on what they are entitled to.

If more people started taking some firmer action against the retailers, and assuming a fair few were purchased on credit (fair assumption going off national debt/spending habbits) then they could hold their finance company/CC company responsible long after they bought the item, paid it off etc.

Gaming/PC technology keeps taking jumps and esentially shortening the life of the consoles. Both the PS3 and 360 are last gen to what the PC offers and it will be interesting to see if MS have a strategy to follow this i.e a 3 year cycle.

Sell enough of the 360 to break even or turn profit then just simply launch a completely new model.

The PS2 was a bit of a unique situataion, since it had no real competiton for a long time especially off the back of the PS1. It also held onto a lot of exclusives for a long time.

And it still sells so well due to the fact for its price now $120 or £100 it is the ideal present for kids. It also has loads of kiddy type games to support this so it is the great 6 year old kid and upwards xmas gift etc etc.

afraser2k · 31 Mar 2007 at 10:20

Sweetloaf said:
I was actually planning on getting a 360 premium a few days ago, however I decided to hang on and see what people thought of the PS3, MS then announced the Elite so I have pretty much decided to hold off on my premium purchase and see how both console fare over the coming months. If the Elit is priced right I will go for that, or indeed if the Premium drops in price I will stick with my original plan.

That's the situation I'm in now as well. I was going to buy a premium 360 before Christmas until I started to hear about the rumours of the new model with the larger hard disk so waited to see what the result would be.

Now that the PS3 is out it's also looking very nice and with the rumours of a ~£130 price cut coming in the next few weeks are true it's now even more tempting.

Sweetloaf · 31 Mar 2007 at 10:45

afraser2k said:
Now that the PS3 is out it's also looking very nice and with the rumours of a ~£130 price cut coming in the next few weeks are true it's now even more tempting.

What?..... where? when? how?...WOW :eek:

Someone please confirm that this is a real rumour

I hate false rumours

lordrobs · 31 Mar 2007 at 10:51

Bossy papa said:
there is to much anti-sony bias.sony cannot recover which is a shame because their console is very good piece of hardware

Only in enthusiast circles, even that has dwindled since the release over here. The general buying public doesn't follow the ins and outs of press conferences etc.

Bonjour · 31 Mar 2007 at 11:58

If the Elite pack came bundled with a 360 version of 'Elite', then I would buy it.

afraser2k · 31 Mar 2007 at 22:52

Sweetloaf said:
What?..... where? when? how?...WOW

Someone please confirm that this is a real rumour I hate false rumours

Probably is a false rumour from a friend who "knew someone on a forum who knew a shop manager that told him"....

McManicMan · 31 Mar 2007 at 23:01

i find it shocking TBH that a console thats been on the market for 2 years will actually go up in price (according to rumours of £350 that are going around), and even then it doesn't really add anything over the current premium. They should make the core £149, the premium £199 and this elite £250 if anything

AngeluiMorte · 1 Apr 2007 at 06:31

Deffinitly like the sound of those prices

NokkonWud · 1 Apr 2007 at 15:42

Microsoft are putting another option out there to the public, how is that a bad thing?
It worked with the Silver Playstation, the Green Xbox360, the several colours of Nintendo64.

At least there is a technical improvement with HDMI and HDD support too.

Sweetloaf · 1 Apr 2007 at 16:04

NokkonWud said:
Microsoft are putting another option out there to the public, how is that a bad thing?
It worked with the Silver Playstation, the Green Xbox360, the several colours of Nintendo64.

At least there is a technical improvement with HDMI and HDD support too.

I personally don't have a problem with a new addition, it's the price point I am baffled by, with 1 years live (ok maybe 2 depending on where from) it comes in at around £30 less than the PS3 so for that extra £30 you also get a Blu Ray player (around £400 on their own?) and WiFi which is an extra £50-£60 on the price of a 360.

I don't understand how MS expect people to pay £450 for a WiFi enabled 360 with a year or two of Live when a PS3 is in fact less and offers Blu Ray.

NokkonWud · 1 Apr 2007 at 16:06

Microsoft should have undoubtedly added Wi-Fi, why they never is anyone's guess. I guess they are banking on a larger HDD with the ability to download HD-Movies on demand via Live and a larger games catalogue.

fini · 1 Apr 2007 at 16:09

Is the elite even coming out in the UK? My understanding is that the reason for all the extra HDD space is for the video services with netflix - but that's only available in the US so I can see strong reasons for them not bothering to bring it out elsewhere.

fini

Sweetloaf · 1 Apr 2007 at 16:19

NokkonWud said:
I guess they are banking on a larger HDD with the ability to download HD-Movies on demand via Live and a larger games catalogue.

Maybe, I don't really understand the appeal of doing this on a console though, the 120Gb will soon fill up with HD movie content with no way of burning it. So you either delete it or stream it to your PC for burning, if that's the case then you might as well DL it on the PC. Unless it works like a rental and you can only watch it for a few days for a low price.

Anyone know how this will work?

NokkonWud · 1 Apr 2007 at 16:22

I believe it works like a Sky Box Office movie, it's saved for around a week-2 weeks and then self-deletes.

The movies are cheap anyway, seems like a good way to do things to watch a HD movie without needing to shell out £130 for a HD-DVD player or £425 for the Blu-Ray player, then more money for the actual movies.

Of course, this cost appears to be inclusive of the new cost, but for this reason 120gb HDD could be very useful. If you are into renting and not owning films it's certainly a lot cheaper way to watch HD content.

Caustic · 1 Apr 2007 at 16:23

People here seem to be getting worked up over nothing. What is wrong with having a third option? Is it too much choice for you to cope with? They are still going to have the normal two versions and each version is clearly separate from each other.

This is a limited edition version like the green and translucent Xbox 1 and from it, they can decide which people prefer, colour wise. By this Christmas, the whole range will have HDMI and they will then have two colour choices. How is them fixing one of the cons of the 360, a bad thing?

As for the whole "They should have included HD-DVD" or "Where is the WiFi" they are the most obvious question ever:

- HD-DVD might not win, so why bundle it in the pack? It would make it even more expensive and games can't even use it! How dumb would that be?

- Including wireless is a poor idea. It seems nice except wireless tech changes so fast. How many people here use wireless but run something faster than the bog standard 54Mbps 11g, as thats all it would support. Loads of people use ethernet because it is miles faster (essential for streaming HD content) or you can by a wireless bridge that matches your setup (great if you have a pre-N or similar wireless system) for £40 tops.

Why do people keep asking those obvious questions?

EDIT: LOL at the PS3 price drop rumours. Drop the price less than a month after release? Only the GameCube can top that! (Price drop before release)