The '360 Arcade' Made Official

The Financial Times (via Gamespot) is reporting that (after having already been in stores for about a week), the Xbox 360 Arcade sku is now official. "The $279 Arcade will include a wireless controller and casual games including Pac-Man [Championship Edition], Uno and Luxor 2. Its launch has been widely rumoured but Mr Bach's comments were the first official confirmation. While Microsoft may hope to steal sales from the Wii with the Arcade, its Premium $349 Xbox 360 faces pressure from the $399 PS3, which has a bigger, 40-gigabyte hard drive, built-in wi-fi and a Blu-ray drive."

360 Pro and 40 GB PS3 now the same price in Canada

[Hamster Lover]

Another challenge for Microsoft is thanks to the high value of the Canadian dollar the 40 GB PS3 will be released in Canada at $399.99, the same price as in the United States (Sony also dropped the price of the 80 GB model here in Canada by an additional $60 above the already $100 price drop to reach parity). With the current price of the 360 Pro package sitting at $399.99 Canadian, the PS3 is finally the value leader between the two systems. With a larger hard drive, included wireless controller battery kit, a Blue-Ray drive and WI-FI functionality built in, the 360 Pro kit -- even with two games -- just doesn't have the value.

As retailers receive new bundles from Microsoft in the ramp up towards Christmas there is no excuse for the $50 price premium to remain in place, especially in light of Sony's move.

Re:Micro$oft

[Stalin]

I probably will. I have a 360 with a hard drive but no HDMI port. The price is low enough that I am considering buying the "Arcade" package, swapping it for my current base unit, and selling the old one. I figure I can get at least $100 for a brand new wireless controller, 256MB memory card, and old main unit.