GameStop Looking To Offload All Its Xbox 360 Elites?

Kotaku: "On Monday, we wondered where all the 120GB hard disk drives for the Xbox 360 had got to. This GameStop promotion may help explain what's going on.

It's offering a $50 GameStop gift voucher with every Xbox 360 Elite console sold. Out of the blue, not long after official price cuts and the holiday season. Considering almost everybody buys a few games or at least a second controller with their console, it's effectively a temporary $50 price cut.

Why the rush to get Elite consoles out the door? Well, if you look on GameStop's site, the regular Elite bundle is "Currently Not Available Online". It's not available at Best Buy, either (only the holiday bundle is). Same with Walmart.

Sounds to us like the previously limited edition, 250GB "Super Elite" Xbox 360 is about to replace the regular 120GB model of the Elite."

[JOLLY1]

I really want a 250 gig hard drive. I just don't like cod.

[Government Cheese]

And here I am still with my measly 20gig, with only 4.8GB left lol.

[Noob]

At the movement, I also have a 20gb HDD with no space at all(800mbs left) and no HDMI. This would be a good replacement.

[AAACE5]

I gotta be honest, I really want to get one of those with the 250 Gb in it because it eases my mind to have all of my games stored on my 120 Gb HDD so the system doesn't have to work so hard. Now I don't have to keep worrying about my 360 overheating. But I am not ready to spend $400 for another 360, especially when I think this is happening to make room for another version... probably 500 Gb!

[IdleLeeSiuLung]

I upgraded to the 120GB elite and the extra space is really nice now that game installs are possible. Love the option to install.

Most games load way faster and the machine is a tad quieter. Now, if MS would only put in a quiet fan!!!

[Bubbles_Kitty_Cat]

Yeah, I was able to get a like new factory 120GB hard drive (for $50! :D ) and I am now wondering how I got along for so long without one.

Money well spent.

[Anon1974]

My 20GB drive has almost zero room left on it, and it's purchased content, not demos or anything easy that I want to part with.

I buy most of my content on my PS3 now. It was just a cheaper option for me to upgrade my 60GB drive to a 250GB drive for only $50. I don't know why Microsoft won't allow 3rd parties to come in and make some cheaper storage. If there were a cheap alternative, I'd be more inclined to use my 360 because I wouldn't worry about the space future downloads would take up. Their loss, I guess.

[Bubbles_Kitty_Cat]

Where did you get a $50 250GB hard drive?

*I just did a quick Google search and see that they have come down quite a bit since I last priced them. Very cool.

[blue7xx7]

So its seems they are gonna replace the 120gb elite with the 250 gb elite.

[PandemicPrawn0]

Most probably making the 250gig the new standard.

But could we be seeing a redesigned 360 later in the year along side Natal?

After all Microsoft have been saying that 2010 will be the xbox's biggest year ever.

and it wouldn't come much bigger than that.

[trancefreak]

i have 60gb model I could always use more space but so far so good.

A redesigned xbox like u mentioned would be nice. Removing the larger power supply would make it that much better.

[jdigitalseven]

So they are only making the more expensive one available...how nice!! Wonder if they will lower the HDD prices for adding to the arcade version. They really need to because those things are incredibly over priced.

[SilverSlug]

The issue here is that they are not moving enough Elite units compared to their Arcades. Its hard for a consumer to justify spending 300 bucks when they can get a PS3 for the same price. My friend works at Wal-mart and says they sell 3x more Arcade units than they do Elites; I'm pretty floored, I didn't think anyone bought Arcade Units. I think the 199.99 price point is the 'sweet spot' for the mainstream consumer.

I think this is probably a factor of two things, lower sells for those units than expected and probably a 250gb SKU to replace the Elite.

In my opinion, introducing a new SKU will be dumb; especially since they will be introducing new SKUs this winter for Project Natal.

[rob6021]

Wonder if Sony will drop the 250gb model to 299 soon?

[mxrider2]

they are way ahead of ya buddy they have been talking about it and dropping the 120 to 250

[basicsameh514]

what if microsoft released a xbox 360 slim ? "just in sony has announced they are going to release a ps3 slimy slim it douse everything but play ps3 games"

[steve30x]

If they were to introduce an Xbox 360 slim then they would have to introduce parts that run cooler. At the moment the Xbox 360 is running too hot before its even slimmed down. They should have thought out the design better for more cooling.

Anyway my Xbox 360 (I have a PS3 and good PC also) is starting to die on me. Some games are starting to stutter on me where they did'nt before. If my Xbox 360 dies on mew I will replace it with an Elite.

[commodore64]

@ steve30x

Not sure where you are coming from with that statement, dude.

Fact is, MS have been actively redesigning the mainboard and chipset of the 360 for the last 4 years.

In that time, 360 heat output has gone down and reliability has increased by many orders of magnitude.

MS is just about to release the 'Valhalla' chipset, as outlined in this excellent forum post:
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk...

Valhalla would:
- reduce power requirement
- reduce heat
- reduce size
- increase reliability

Given Natal is coming, and Valhalla is almost upon us, your point is somewhat moot, stevex30.
I would imagine a slim 360 is entirely possible, right now, and likely in production to be relaucnhed as the 'Natal 360'.
Given the evidence of Valhalla, and the current time frame, this is a logical deduction.

Let's wait and see, however...
2010 will be very interesting.

[mastiffchild]

Commodore-I don't think he was having a pop and was only saying his own(we dunno how ancient or new it might be, is getting fragile),and we've all been there with one 360 or another, is getting cotchety-nothing more than that.

Plus, he said he'd get another and I can't see MS announcing another design before they shift nearly all their existing stock of the 120 and 250gig SKUs anyway so it might be a long wait if his console dies in the meantime.

I have to agree that my personal experience is that the 360 has improved incredibly from the earlier chipsets and weld/heatsink issues-I'd say mine, atm, is a lot cooler, uses less juice AND is a lot quieter too! It's still undeniable, though, that a lot of people's confidence in MS hardware has been damaged by the fiascos of E74 and RROD and that's something MS will just have to overcome by making all their equipment as near to fireproof as possible from, now on in as they don't have a long history of manufacturing electronics to fall back on in people's minds where even the Vista mes in their key area is very fresh so a little skepticism over their ability to produce a reliable slim 360 when it's taken so long to get what should have been right for launch right on their current 360 models. It isn't people being funny but more a normal reaction to what was a real mess they caused in their,sensible, rush to beat Sony out of the gate with the 360.

Personally, I can't see them failing to test their next hardware iterations to death pre release but you can't blame people for being a little "once bitten,twice shy" about their 360 failures-and our mate here wasn't even suggesting he wouldn't be getting another sould the worst happen. There's even an argument that it might be wise to stick with the current models as they've finally, after a lot of work, gotten them under control so they might represent a far safer bet than something untried in the home market, no?

Whatever, your view of their revisions is pretty fair even if it's undeniable that the 360 has had terrible issues and had them far, far longer thamn was in any way acceptable in this day and age. FYI, my launch day UKC64 is still in mint working order even now with never having had anything a all go wrong with it-I was playing a little Jet Set Willy with the kids the other day who wouldn't accept that the C64 was what passed for both aPC and a console when I was young! They were quite impressed with the follow up to Manic Miner, bw, even if they thought it was way too difficult.

[steve30x]

That may be but my current (and second) Xbox 360 is 18 months old now. It was built 15th august 2008 and is getting worse by the day. Now when I try to play time trial in Forza 3 it freezes just after I select what track I want to race on. My first Xbox 360 only lasted 11 months on me. When I buy another Xbox 360 it will be an elite and hopefully it will last longer than the last Xbox 360 and current Xbox 360. I wasnt having a go at anybody about the xbox either.

It may be true that they are making a new chipset but what guarantee do you have it will run better or last longer? Also this chipset revision should have been in the original 360 instead of M$ trying to correct their errors along the way.

Two 60mm fans aint enough to disipate the heat the Xbox 360 creates either. They should have made the console slightly taller and put at least one more fan at a slight angle on the front bottom of the console blowing air into the console so that the air would flow right through better. They would only have made it a few mm taller and put the fan at a 10 degree angle underneath and to the front of the console which would help a lot.

PS> That forum post is over a year old so there is no prooof of that new chipset. Also it says the chipset will be released late 2009. Where is it then?

[etownone]

If the 250 elite goes down to. $299

then the arcade needs to be at $149

and drop the damn prices of those hard drives already!

[rmedtx888]

Super Elite? Microsoft has very creative ways to get money out of their users. That sounds to me like their Windows software, Home edition, Professional Edition... etc.

[outlawlife]

I have a 250 gig and find it completely unnecessary, I was fine with the 20

unless you install every single game I don't see the point

[AnotherGamerUser]

I would buy a bigger hard drive if I actually had something decent to fill it with.

[DJ]

If PS3 offers 250GB, why not put out a 250GB 360?

[JokesOnYou]

Wasn't it sony's Phil Harrison who said prior to launch they would not "confuse" consumers by offering different sku's like microsoft did?
http://www.gamesindustry.bi...

oooh, so who's following who by releasing different sku's in the first place DJ? I also seem to remember folks like you saying different sku's are a "bad idea" because at the time many of you believed sony was right it would confuse consumers and sony wouldn't do it because the consumer can buy their own HDD from other sources anytime they want to upgrade, hmmm and yet here we are today with many different sku's have been offered by sony.

lol, DJ learn your history before you stealth troll. Let's not even get into sony's brilliant ideas like introducing trophies, we know sony invented air for all us undeserving humans to breathe so why bother saying otherwise? lmfao=

JOY