Earlier this morning, Microsoft's Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb revealed a bundle featuring the new Xbox One with a 1TB hard drive, the updated wireless controller, and a copy of Halo: The Master Chief Collection. This new bundle will ship to retailers on June 16, just in time for E3.

The updated controller–which we mentioned on The Beastcast a few weeks ago–actually offers a little more than what we first thought. On top of a standard 3.55mm audio jack (replacing the proprietary input on the previous controller), the new model has improved audio quality, a higher max volume, bumpers that have been "more finely tuned," and the ability to receive wireless firmware updates.

Hryb also noted that the company would be extending the promotional $349 price for the 500GB model indefinitely. You might remember that Microsoft debuted the price drop last holiday season, and then decided to continue the promotion after it proved successful.

Finally, Hryb announced the Xbox Wireless Adapter for Windows, available this fall for $24.99 (or bundled with a controller for $79.95). Hryb's post only mentions Windows 10, so who knows if it will work with previous versions of Windows. Given all the attention Microsoft's been giving the increased interactivity between Windows 10 and Xbox One, though, my guess is no, at least not out of the box.

With E3 only a few days away, we'll know sooner than exactly how enticing this new bundle really is. All the price cuts and hard drive space in the world doesn't mean much without a decent lineup of games. Here's hoping they deliver.

kash money

Looks pretty silly to me, nonetheless price cut and better controller is well overdue. Still not enough for me to bite in this console gen... no games yet...

Since I plan on getting MCC at some point for all the single-player alone (still a great value even without multiplayer for me) I can see myself picking up the 1TB option this holiday. I don't feel like going through the extra effort (and warranty voiding) process of upgrading my future Xbox's HDD the same way I did with my PS4.

austin_walker typo in the title

Now I just need PS4 to have a little bit of a price drop and I will gladly pick one up

No mention of kinect, are they just going to stop selling those things with the consoles? It wouldn't surprise me.

That controller is one of the few custom pieces of hardware that I've ever seen that I quite like.

Unfortunately, hardware is not what has me continually balking at an XBoxOne or PS4 purchase.

nice to know i still havent got a current gen console as my pc can play everything on ultra. but there are certain things i would like either of the consoles for. i.e. halo or uncharted. the low price plus a pack in make the Xbone look pretty dope

Windows 10 comes with a whole new input API which toooootally cannot be put into anything else, not even Windows 8.1. That's why it's the adapter Win10 only. An immensely hard push to get everybody everywhere into Win10 on all possible devices. Not recommended reading if sensitive to developing conspiracy theories.

I expect a $50 PS4 drop even though they do not need to do it for any reason but happier and more prospective customers, PS4 consoles still dominate sales in all but 1-2 countries of the world, and that Sony profit on each sold unit, with no need for buying anything with the console.

I didn't want this but now that it's the "Deus Ex UI" controller in my head I kind of do, Damnit Austin!

Nice deal

Text me when the Xbox Slim One is announced.

@wrecks: Dare i say...the Xbox One Half?

@austin_walker It should be noted that the controller still has the old proprietary connector of the first controller. The headphone jack is just in addition.

I don't mind downloading and redownloading games with some frequency, but the original 500GB is just too small. I haven't owned this thing a year, I shouldn't already have to be managing space with every download. It's super frustrating the steps they took to make consumers unable to upgrade the internal drive and then went ahead and released a version with a larger one. There's not even the potential for me to buy some overpriced proprietary drive in the future.

It's not ideal at all, but maybe I should just invest in an external drive for it. I guess that'd make it easier if I ever needed to carry my library with me. Has anybody done this? Does it cause any slowdown when running games from the external drive?

I should not be this excited for a controller, but I am. I've had the Xbox One since launch and still find myself fumbling around to make the bumpers work.

It seems like the important missing piece of info (for those of us weirdos who like to speculate about this stuff) is what kind of loss they'll be taking with this new model.

Their sales are behind the PS4 for sure, but not really that much, and MS isn't hurting for cash. But if they have to sell a game or 2 to break even on the console sale, it could definitely alter the trajectory of this console.

I kind of want one of the new controllers, but I bought the headphone adapter for the old controller so... it's probably not worth doing. Still, the improved audio would be nice.

Any word on how much the new controller will cost? If it's $60 I would expect to see a price drop on the old controllers fairly soon (Amazon has been selling the old ones for $50 for a while now). I'll be buying a new Xbox One controller soon but I am waiting to see if I should get a new one or an old (much cheaper) one.

Is it still an Xbox One?

So is no one saving announcements for E3 other than Nintendo?

It is hilarious that you wrote that because the site for the new Mirrors Edge just went up (and it's a reboot), news PR rolling out. If we get any proper surprises at E3 I'll be so happy

Interesting deal. Not going to pull the trigger yet but definitely made it more enticing for me.

Err, shouldn't the wireless adapter be in the box? I mean a Blutooth adpatod is what $5? Oh, forgot MS likes it proprietary signals...still $5 at most- no need for 500% markup to sell it to me for $25

50 bucks for 500 GB more. Yeah, that's fine, I guess. Still a bit expensive considering this is 2015.

But much better than $100 for 48/64 GB of flash memory (looking at you, Apple). You know, the stuff you can get in stick or SD form for under $20.

I'd suggest people buy the 500GB and an external hard drive.

Still don't want one but the increased size in hard drive space is definitely a plus

Maybe there'll be a reason to get one after E3. But I doubt it.

I personally would love it to become a trend where hardware and financial announcements like this are made in the weeks leading up to E3 leaving the conference open for eye-blasting software and feature business :)

A console with a reasonably sized hard drive? What a world we live in.

More like Xbox One Terabyte.

I'm guessing E3 will actually have no announcements to make any more.

Yea. I would rather all of this over suffering Sony and their 30 minutes of tragedy that happens at almost every E3.

Though it got fairly thoroughly derided and disagreed with when I posted the idea, the vast amount of pre-e3 announcements of new content would jive with my idea that, at the very least, this is the e3 we should be, ideally, expecting to see a larger then normal number of completely new, not announced before now, games.

If all of this stuff is done in part because "We have so much to show, we don't want it all over shadowing itself" that is nothing but good news. If on the other hand they are just showing all their cards before the event..then the overwhelming "E3 is a joke/not at all important" my earlier thoughts elicited from many might well be proven true.

Still no ssd? i lul'd

I was shocked when I heard the Xbox One controller with wireless adapter for PC was $79.95. I mean...really, Microsoft? Really? The Xbox 360 Wireless Controller for Windows with the wireless adapter included always retailed for $59.95, and was usually available for $40-$45. You can get a wired 360 controller on Amazon right now for $27.50!

$80 for a wireless controller...absurd.

The promotional price cut...thats been in place for almost a year anyway.

Last paragraph says it all. I have both Xbox One and PS4 and my Xbox is mostly sitting there.

I payed £60 for a 2 TB passport HDD, 1 just isn't enough if you want to even try and download any retail games and the additions to the controller annoy me more than anything else; why did they think the propitiatory input was a good idea in the first place? It all just smacks of desperation and pointlessness.

I've heard that if you say "Xbox One Special Edition Covert Forces Wireless Controller" in front of a mirror 3 times, Phil Spencer will appear and chant satanic ritual verses backwards.

Makes all kinds of sense.

I'm all over that wireless adapter. Maybe I should get another controller because I love the built in headphone jack on the PS4 controller

I totally want to buy one of these. Someday. maybe after another revision. Still waiting on that killer app.

I was planning on waiting for the 1TB of each console anyway.

Looks like I'll still be using my XBox 360 wireless controller for my PC until the price drops on the XBox One controller for PC. $80 is just way too much considering my (now 6 years old) current controller works just fine.

I am ready to purchase this wireless adapter right now... can't wait.

Might go for the bundle and get one of these new controllers too.

Once there are some games I want to play, I will be picking up the 1TB model.

I'm curious what MS has lined up for their press conference. Seems like something they would announce there.

I hope this reads as: "Lets get this out of the way so we can focus on games."

@gamb1t: ...it doesn't really surprise me that a $200 500GB SSD that would only match current capacity let alone upwards of a $1,000 1TB SSD doesn't come in a system that is only priced at $349 - $399 for competitive mass market retail reasons.

If anything, given the SATA II specs for both Xbox and PS4 systems maybe a more realistic internal upgrade would simply be 7200rpm HDD that are relatively much cheaper than SSD and given SATA II transfer speed limitations of 3 Gbit/s anyway there is little advantage of SSD vs 7200 in that configuration (at least when comparing internal 7200rpm HDD to SSD in PS4 for instance since it is still capped at that SATA II 3Gbit/s transfer rate) this is fully dependent on software optimization and how info is loaded into RAM of course.

Ironically, it seems as though the fastest option between either system is installing games on an external HDD (which you can only use to install and play games on Xbox One as PS4 doesn't seem to allow this) with USB 3.0 standard directly loading into memory as it allows transfer speed limits of 5Gbit/s vs. the internal SATA II limits of 3GBit/s. You also still have free market control of what brand/capacity drive you want to use in that case as well, use as a backup, store reliably and take with you if needed, etc.