Xbox 360 European retail price cut to 199€ (for Arcade). Cheaper than AIDS!
 

Eurogamer reports that the retail price for the 360 Arcade goes down to 199€ on March 14, while Premium will be priced at around 269€.
Interesting. I was about to say that this was a "rather quick fall" but, considering the last generation that might not be true necessarily. I remember having bought my PS2 in 03 for 180€, the console being out on the market for about 3 years, so the price point is sort of approaching a similar level for the 360.

One of the interesting questions now is, how the rest of the big players will react to this. Will we see a corresponding move by Sony (which I'd sure wish for, not having a PS3 yet)? Probably the Wii will now also see a drop, but I guess that depends on how the sales develop...

I'm not up to date, what's the price of the 360 (and the others) in the US right now?

That's actually not a bad price. I didn't read the link, but I wonder if there's a corresponding price drop for the other 360 SKUs in the pipeline? I'm not going to buy a 360 without a hard drive, really. I'd be tempted if the Elite dropped by the same proportion of the current retail price. I don't really need a 360 right now, but I dare say Eternal Sonata might get a bump up the priority list if nothing else.

Elite will drop to 369€, or 259GBP.
Dammit. Now consoles have begun the trend of PC parts: Regret that you've bought it 3 months ago and not NOW. When I bought my 360Premium, it cost me MORE than the Elite would cost me now. :(

Yeah, but are the hours of gameplay that you have no doubt enjoyed over the past X amount of time since purchase worth the extra Y currency that it cost then as compared to now? That is the way that I tend to look at things. If you bought recently, you will have a genuine complaint, whereas if you bought it a year or three ago, not so much, am I right. The home entertainment/electronics industry has worked this way since the beginning really.

I don't complain. I've been in PC gaming for too long to start complaining about such a trend now. ;)
And yes, given that I've barely played anything BUT the 360 since I've got it speaks for itself.

Now we're talkin' business. Even assuming that Eternal Sonata gets ported to the PS3, there's got to be something I'm going to enjoy on the 360. I'd be a fool to myself to get any model other than the Elite, considering that I hear the new CPU process and cooling solution have pretty much licked the problem which led to red rings of death.

There's nothing to assume. Eternal Sonata is headed to PS3, with a small bit of extra content to boot.

Also, the Elite isn't the only model with the new, smaller chipset.

You are correct, of course. I meant to say assuming that it comes out in English on the PS3. I know the Japanese release is confirmed, but I don't know about an American and hopefully European release yet.

How exactly does one tell, before parting with a fistful of cash?

If only. I know of 2 people with the new chipset that have already had their 360s red-ring. There is really no way to avoid flirting with the possibility still. Just be prepared to deal with the warranty process which thankfully Microsoft has gotten really good at.

To effectively get rid of the RROD they'd probably have to completely redesign the whole console architecture, which would probably cost them more than dealing with the warranty cases... Really, there's not really another way I could explain this.
People still buy the console, and buy games, so it has to be still profitable even with this failure / warranty rate, so that a total overhaul of the hardware wouldn't be financially feasable.
I mean, the RROD certainly is a really huge pile of bad reputation, even if the X360 is a mighty good console apart from that (and some other minor flaws which I won't mention here and now).

I was all about to post a bit about the lot numbers on the consoles, saying that 736 and north were what you'd be looking for, but I honestly have no clue if the numbers are similar for Euroland. Or even if there is the same sticker on your boxes as are on ours.

Let's assume that, for the moment, they are. In that case, there would be a white sticker on the box that lists a manufacturing lot number. You'd want one that said 0736 or higher. Those would be the new boards.

But, again, I'm not sure if Europe has those box markings, or similar lot numbers, or what. I could not find much related info on that, I'm sorry.

My 360 from late last year has the new chips and all that fancy pants HDMI stuff, yet MS had stuffed it into an ancient launch-era box that made no mention of any of that. But I guess Europe's a bit more advanced than that. :( Also this is a pretty awesome time to finally drop the price, what with GTA IV ie; FUCK YEAAAAH launching next month.

Thanks Skills, it's something to go on at least.

I think all the current models with HDMI have the new chipset over here (could be wrong, but I recall reading that somewhere). And you'll know if the unit has HDMI output as there will be a small HDMI logo somewhere on the box.

Na, all of the HDMI models are using a 65nm CPU, but some of them are still using the 90nm GPU which is the main cause of the RROD issue. Lot number is the only way to go, however as already mentioned its unknown if the lot numbers in the US match the European models.

I know this post was a while ago, but I thought I'd respond since it's relevant. It would seem that maybe the lot numbers are consistent across regions, because my new 360 Elite was lot number 745, which is just a little bit above what Skills suggested would be the start of the new stock with the Falcon chipset.

I'd like to thank all those who gave me advice in this thread.

No problem. Be sure to post your GT in the thread, and/or mention what games you got with it.