You forgot the other SKU: $499 + Tax = ~$540 + ~$65 = ~$605 For comparison, the 360 Premium: $399 + Tax = ~$432 + ~$65 = ~$497 And if you want to play games online for at least a year (hey, might as well since we're including tax and the cost of a game): ~$497 + $50 (IIRC) = ~$547 The price of a game (or about 2 if you don't want to play games online) is what separates the two in total price. That's assuming that you don't want to play games online for 4-5 years, or that MS makes online play free/cheaper. And that HD-DVD/Blu-ray is of absolutely no interest to you whatsoever (in that case, the 360 would be the more expensive of the 2). The $500 SKU is arguably the better SKU for those who want to play games (basically a 360 Premium + Blu-ray). If people want to get the $600 SKU, then I don't know why they'd question the extra $100 or so it costs compared to the $500 SKU (40GB more space, WiFi, HDMI, SD/CF/MS ports, etc). Even then, I don't really see $713 as being nearly a grand...it is closer to $500 than $1000 (I'd say $899< x <$1000 is almost a grand FWIW...at least $750+). You might be able to get a Wii and a PS3 for under a grand (though it would certainly be close to a grand...much closer than just a PS3). Of course, prices will be inflated during launch (not to mention there will probably be more $600 PS3s than $500 PS3s), but that won't be anything new (both the 360 and PS2 went for more than $1000 on eBay).
Not that this means a lot since it seems pretty obvious, but one of the mods/admins at NeoGAF seems to think that this guy does know quite a bit (once you look past his biases): http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4175698&postcount=527 http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4176340&postcount=574 Of course, once the guy said that he was authorized to say this stuff (no broken NDAs), Jim then said he stopped believing him: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4179141&postcount=783 BTW, the guy has posted a little more in that thread, but nothing that big (assuming you read the first post and follow-up post...which I didn't link to BTW).
i am sure you guys all know this already but a sony developer who I talked with about 4 months ago who was working on ps3 development basically told me that the lower end model is total crap and not worth buying at all because by the time you purchase the extra add ons or modifiers you will need in the future you will have exceeded the cost for the higher ps3 model. either way it seems like a lot of money for either system i miss the days of sega genesis for 149 and then 129. but then again i dropped 600 bucks alone on two graphics cards for my pc. but they serve for other purposes too. RC do you know if any games will be done at 1080p?
In your opinion, will future games on the XBox 360 be produced for HD DVD to support their external HD DVD add-on player? Somehow, I doubt it unless they sell a hell of a lot of players. That's a damn shame if it doesn't eventually happen. I'll probably buy a PS3 just for the Blu Ray drive capability. No sense in just having one console and contributing to fanboy-ism when you can have both.
The $600 SKU is the better value; if you replace the 20GB HDD with a 60GB HDD (assuming you don't already have one, or that Sony doesn't let you use any 2.5" SATA HDD), get the WiFi adapter, get the CF/SD/MS adapter, etc., then you'll end up paying way more than $100. If you want that kind of stuff, there's no question that the $600 SKU is the way to go. The thing is that not that many people will probably end up needing those for playing games. For comparison, with the 360 $300 SKU, you'll need to spend at least $40 (IIRC) on a memory card to play games, and getting a HDD (from the Premium SKU or even as an accessory) would allow for BC to Xbox games, downloadable content (XBLA/demos/microtransactions/etc.), and better performance in games (some even require the HDD IIRC). So most gamers would probably prefer to get the premium 360 SKU rather than the Core SKU; I don't think that is the case with the PS3 though. The SKU setup for the PS3 is much like another Playstation: the PSP. When it launched in Japan, you could get the PSP by itself for like $200, or you could get the value pack for like $250. All the stuff in the value pack would probably cost you more than $50 separately (especially at the time when Pro Duos were pretty expensive), but 90% of it was pretty useless (headphones, carrying case, cloth for the screen, etc.). It made more since to buy the Core PSP and spend ~$50 or so on a Memory Stick larger than 32MB since the MS would have a larger impact on how you used your PSP (more storage for music, movies, games, etc.) Insomniac is aiming for 1080p with Resistance. Since it seems like GT:HD will indeed be a game (and not just a tech demo), that will be 1080p (not really that difficult to do). It is too early to say whether any other titles will be though. Developers are probably more concerned about a number of other things right now. Once they can come to grips with the hardware, they might make more of an effort to have their games support 1080p (assuming it is worth it). At this point, it would be great if we could get a game with next-gen graphics (models and textures), next-gen animation/physics, decent AA (4x or at least 2x), and 60 FPS (plus maybe a few other things like motion blur, anisotropic filtering, DOF, etc...bunch of buzzwords that make things pretty basically). Once we start getting those things in games, then maybe it might be time to start looking at supporting 1080p. Too early to say for sure. If they do put games out on HD-DVD, I don't think it will be to support their add-on player (as in, increase sales of the add-on). They'll be doing it because they'll have to (games will need >7GB). The sales of HD-DVD players might impact that decision, but not by much IMO.
