Much like the Playstation 3, the XBOX 360 has seen its fair share of model revisions over the years. Although it’s been around longer, we didn’t see the first model change until April 2007, when the Elite Edition was introduced. After that, it gets a bit more confusing. They changed the name of the Premium to Pro somewhere along the way, but we’re not quite sure when. It may have been when the 20GB was switched to 60GB, and the price dropped. For a short time (about a month) both the 20GB and 60GB models were available in stores for a short time. Also, the Core Edition was upgraded a bit to include a memory unit, a wireless controller, and a headset when it became the Arcade Edition.
| Elite | Pro 60GB | Arcade | Halo Edition | Premium/Pro 20GB | Core | |
| Release Date | 04/2007 | 08/2008 | 10/2007 | 09/2007 | 11/2005 | 11/2005 |
| In Production Now | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Price2 | $399 | $299 | $199 | $399 | $249 | $279 |
| Hardware | ||||||
| Storage | 120 GB | 60 GB | 256 MB1 (Memory Unit)3 | 20 GB (black & orange) | 20GB | None1 |
| HDMI Output | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | After 07/2007 | After 07/2007 |
| Appearance | Black w/ chrome drive | White w/ chrome drive | White w/ matte drive | Green w/ orange drive | White w/ chrome drive | White w/ matte drive |
| Bundled Accessories | ||||||
| Controller | Wireless (black) | Wireless | Wireless | Wireless (green) w/ Play & Charge Kit | Wireless | Wired |
| Headset | Yes (black) | Yes | No | Yes (green) | Yes | No |
| Video Cables | Composite Component HDMI | Composite Component | Composite | Composite Component | Composite Component | Composite |
| Ethernet Cable | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| 1 month XBL Gold | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| 1 Owners of Core or Arcade systems with little or no memory can get a 512MB memory unit for free, or a 20GB hard drive for $20 directly from Microsoft by visiting this page 2 Discontinued model prices reflect latest MSRP 3 Versions sold after 12/2008 have 256 of internal memory rather than an external memory card | ||||||
Like the Playstation 3, the hard drive size is doubled for $100 when you buy the top-end model. In this case, you can choose between a 120GB or 60GB drive, rather than choosing between 160GB or 80GB. On the PS3, that’s where the differences end, but Microsoft goes a tiny bit further by spiffing up their top end model a little bit by making it available in an exclusive colour (black) with matching accessories. It’s unfortunate that neither Microsoft nor Sony go any further by offering extra features. At the very least, the Elite should come with Wi-Fi and a 1 year subscription to XBOX Live Gold. They do include an HDMI cable, which is nice because if you buy your own, a proprietary cable is required to use the optical audio output. This cable sells for about $50. That said, the Elite Edition certainly isn’t retarded as it was when it cost $479.99, and seems like a sensible purchase considering you can’t simply install a standard laptop hard drive on the XBOX 360. The drive space is even more valuable now that you can install games to it.
Just want to let you know that the Arcade comes with 1 month Gold 2.
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