Apparently, there is an additional redesigned 360 on shelves today... with a dark secret!
[UPDATE] After publishing this story, we were contacted by Microsoft representatives, who told us that the new Xbox 360 is only available in a 250GB configuration and that our story was in error. We have since returned to the Best Buy in hopes of getting a photo of the 120GB unit, but the store's stock has already been depleted, leaving us unable to firmly prove the existence of the alternate model. While we trust the two sets of eyes that saw that unit, Microsoft isn't exactly in the business of lying about its hardware SKUs, either. Giant Bomb regrets the confusion.
Planing on buying a newer, sleeker Xbox 360 today? A word of warning! There is more than one new 360 unit on store shelves today.
The fact sheet makes no mention of a 120 gig 360, but don't be fooled: We saw one! This morning, Tested.com's Will Smith and I took a trip down to the local Best Buy to purchase Microsoft's redesigned 360. As we waited at the register to purchase our hardware, Will and I noticed something strange; the 360 Will was purchasing had rang up for $279.99 after tax, a full $20 dollars cheaper than the $300 price point announced at the Microsoft conference. A quick look at the contents of the box revealed the reason for the price discretion: this new 360 had a 120 gig hard drive inside, instead of the 250 gig unit announced at the Microsoft Press Conference. That's right; you can cut the storage space of the new 360 in half, and get the unit for a few bucks cheaper and a whole lot less storage space.
There appears to be no other differences between the two units apart from the size of the hard drives; you'll still be getting the built-in wifi and the Kinect port on the back of the unit. The only difference in the two 360s is the size of the hard drive.
Did Microsoft slyly slip a slightly cheaper 360 with way less storage onto shelves without telling anyone? Because we here at Giant Bomb still cannot find any announcement that there was a new 360 with a 120 gig hard drive. No such hardware was announced at the Microsoft Press Conference. Most bizarre of all, we checked the listings of several game retails to see if they had listings of the redesigned 360 with the smaller hard drive; neither Best Buy (where we saw and purchased the consoles), Amazon, nor Gamestop have listings for an 120 gig new 360 in their systems. How weird is it that Microsoft built this less-expensive version of the hardware and not tell anyone?
I managed to grab myself the proper 250 gig 360, but just be aware if you're going to a retailer today to pick up a new 360 with a 250 gig hard drive, make sure you check the box! Check how big the hard drive is! You may not be buying the same 360 that was announced on the Microsoft stage earlier this week.
We'll have more on this exciting story as it develops, but, in the meantime, what do you guys think? Are you surprised these new 360s exist? Do you think it's a good deal to trade half the hard drive space for a 20 dollar saving on the console?
[UPDATE] After publishing this story, we were contacted by Microsoft representatives, who told us that the new Xbox 360 is only available in a 250GB configuration and that our story was in error. We have since returned to the Best Buy in hopes of getting a photo of the 120GB unit, but the store's stock has already been depleted, leaving us unable to firmly prove the existence of the alternate model. While we trust the two sets of eyes that saw that unit, Microsoft isn't exactly in the business of lying about its hardware SKUs, either. Giant Bomb regrets the confusion.
Planing on buying a newer, sleeker Xbox 360 today? A word of warning! There is more than one new 360 unit on store shelves today.
The fact sheet makes no mention of a 120 gig 360, but don't be fooled: We saw one! This morning, Tested.com's Will Smith and I took a trip down to the local Best Buy to purchase Microsoft's redesigned 360. As we waited at the register to purchase our hardware, Will and I noticed something strange; the 360 Will was purchasing had rang up for $279.99 after tax, a full $20 dollars cheaper than the $300 price point announced at the Microsoft conference. A quick look at the contents of the box revealed the reason for the price discretion: this new 360 had a 120 gig hard drive inside, instead of the 250 gig unit announced at the Microsoft Press Conference. That's right; you can cut the storage space of the new 360 in half, and get the unit for a few bucks cheaper and a whole lot less storage space.
There appears to be no other differences between the two units apart from the size of the hard drives; you'll still be getting the built-in wifi and the Kinect port on the back of the unit. The only difference in the two 360s is the size of the hard drive.
Did Microsoft slyly slip a slightly cheaper 360 with way less storage onto shelves without telling anyone? Because we here at Giant Bomb still cannot find any announcement that there was a new 360 with a 120 gig hard drive. No such hardware was announced at the Microsoft Press Conference. Most bizarre of all, we checked the listings of several game retails to see if they had listings of the redesigned 360 with the smaller hard drive; neither Best Buy (where we saw and purchased the consoles), Amazon, nor Gamestop have listings for an 120 gig new 360 in their systems. How weird is it that Microsoft built this less-expensive version of the hardware and not tell anyone?
I managed to grab myself the proper 250 gig 360, but just be aware if you're going to a retailer today to pick up a new 360 with a 250 gig hard drive, make sure you check the box! Check how big the hard drive is! You may not be buying the same 360 that was announced on the Microsoft stage earlier this week.
We'll have more on this exciting story as it develops, but, in the meantime, what do you guys think? Are you surprised these new 360s exist? Do you think it's a good deal to trade half the hard drive space for a 20 dollar saving on the console?
I guess the main point of the article is that for only 20 dollars more, you get over double the space. I definitely don't think I would ever fill 120GB, much less 250, but if the difference in price is only 20 bucks for an extra 130GB of space? I'll play the extra 20.
I think this was just a sly trick on Mico$ofts part to trick people into getting the 279 dollar 360, which they probably make a way bigger profit on.
Maybe it is an error from the manufacturing side or maybe MS trying to get rid of their stock and shipping out the new models with lesser hard drive space than they previously promised.
I bet there are alot of people that don't need a 250GB hd. Once they get rid of all the older model 360's at $250, they will probably drop the price of this to $250.
Creating 2 $250+ SKUs separated by $20 makes absolutely no sense. It seems to me, they have a different price structure planned for the near future but they need to clear out all the old units before they can implement it properly.
I'm guessing an arcade type unit will also appear when the old units are virtually sold out.
that sounds downright evil, there seems to be no reason to put out a slightly cheaper xbox with a way smaller hard drive other than to dupe people who don't pay close attention,and what if a dumbass clerk goes and gets the box, he could pickup the wrong one and you won't know till you open it up.
Yeah, $20 price break is nothing for that amount of storage. Don't forget that storage now is used for game installs, video, music, avatars, arcade games (size limit grows) and xbox/xb360 down loadable games.
I don't see why I would buy this. I don't need 250gb of hard drive space. I like the redesign but if I have the money for it I'm probably going to buy a PS3 instead of replacing my 360.
250 is the way to go obviously. Why must microsoft do things like this? I am sure there is some business reason for this but still it seems so obvious to just spend the extra 20 for the more than double storage space. Maybe it is so MS can say that the new 360 starts* at 279.99 or something similar to that.
I'm guessing they had a bunch of 120 gig harddrives laying around that they couldn't really sell, so they've just repurposed them for these Xboxes while supplies last.
Anyways, while $20 is far too small a drop in proportion to the retail price of these drives and the amount of space lost, I doubt the average gamer would even notice. Heck, I've been surviving with my 20 (read: 13) gig HDD for three years now. So while I wish the price cut was more significant, any cut at all is worth it if the tradeoff is space I don't need.
I don't think it is that surprising, I mean they had the Elite which had 120 gigs of memory so this seems pretty logical. It's an Elite package with an upgraded console nothing more.
I would take the 20 bucks because I dont even need 120 gigs. If I could pay like 240 and get only like 80 gs I probably would, not that I'm actually going to buy one though.
Probably MS just clearing out the 120 drives at a cheaper price. I'd imagine the addon drives for the Chill model are probably less now as well, along with the memory units and old wifi bits. If you absolutely don't want a new model, you can probably kit out an old model for peanuts.
I got mine this morning. The Gamestop I went to received 6 of them and I was the first person to pick one up an hour after they opened. Only cost me $185 after trading in my 4 year old Xbox and the 20gb hard drive for it, not bad if you ask me. The disk drive was dying on it anyway.
" Probably MS just clearing out the 120 drives at a cheaper price. I'd imagine the addon drives for the Chill model are probably less now as well, along with the memory units and old wifi bits. If you absolutely don't want a new model, you can probably kit out an old model for peanuts. "
The 120 GB HDD's of old are not compatible with the 360 redesign. The new HDD's are much smaller in size, so this has to be a 120GB HDD designed specifically for the new redesigned consoles.
Thats Microsoft for you, always finding a way for us to have HDD memory problems!!! I would be all for the 120gb if it knocked off at least $50, but only $20??? Thats just not right. Thanks Microsoft for nothing!!!
Wow, glad I read this. I just bought the new 360 on Best Buy's website with in-store pickup. When I go over there later I'll make sure to check the box now.
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