WOW! I was pretty much right on with these prices!

£30 whats the point?? make it at least £50. i was gona get one but how much is a ps3? exactly whats the point

The PS3 slim is 250 and the xbox is a far better machine with better game support. "Oh so its got a blu ray player"...by christmas this year you will be able to get a blu ray player from a supermarket for £50. Do yourself a favour and choose your game console for the games, not the crappy add ons that sony try to bamboozle you with to cover up a poorly constructed product. Oh and if you buy a 360 now you will be just in time for the second add on pack for GTA 4...You wont find that on the PS3 either!

So far M$ have got their pricing right but I think they've got this very wrong. What they actually needed to do is phase out the Arcade pack and reduce the price of the Pro and the Elite, or make the Arcade £99 as it could be found for in many places. M$ have just shot themselves in the foot.

Adam, as I recall the xbox has the largest failure rate of any console to date with many xbox owners complaining about the red ring of death and joking about having to buy two consoles, one as a backup.. what a joke..

The PS3 is currently available for £30 more than the xbox elite, so thats £20 cheaper than your xbox blue ray combo and reduced one more box in front of the tv..

Add in the fact you have to pay an extra £50 to join the xbox online service and microsofts shoddy constructed offering seems pretty bloody expensive to me.

Give me a PS3 (230) and a blu ray remote (15) and I've got a full blu ray home entertainment centre that plays games for less than 245 quid.. it's a no brainer and something the xbox can only dream to be.. if it's working that is..

Check out simplygames or shopto for the lowest prices on the PS3 consoles.

If I was choosing a console for games I would choose the PS3. There might be a new add on for GTAIV coming out of the 360, but GTAIV is old hat now. I will be looking forward to Uncharted 2 and Gran Turismo 5 this Xmas on the PS3.

PS. speaking of crappy add ons for consoles what about the HDDVD player on 360 - whatever happened to that then???

The ps3 is a fantastic piece of all round kit. I never got one largely for the price - I've always been a sony boy - I had a ps1 and a ps2, but I gave the ps3 a miss mainly due to the ridiculous price point.

Since then, I got myself a 360 - never had a problem with it and, despite owning 6 or 7 quality games (used) including cod4, I've only just spent IN TOTAL what the ps3 would've originally cost on its own.

Having spent years developing coordination on the sony control pads, I was concerned as I thought I would struggle with the microsoft offering, however, after having used it for a couple of days, it made a lot more sense where the analog pads were positioned and made the whole control system much easier and comfortable.

What I'm trying to say is - both a fantastic pieces of kit and you buy what you want or need. If you want something that does everything - get a ps3 and pay for it - if you want a games console - get the 360 all the way.

I consider myself a fan of both consoles but both have now made their mistakes - sony with PS3s confusion as to what they were offering - a games console or entertainment system - many have tried before and it failed (CD-i, 3DO...)and their pricing strategy. Microsoft with this pricing strategy - the cheaper arcade was probably the main reason the 360 had done so well this last year. - Listen to the people, MS - people WANT a cheap GAMES CONSOLE. the pricing of the "arcade" now makes it more beneficial to get the elite, which is far too close to the PS3 pricing.

...'M$'

I'm going to coin that now also...

...Finally someone who talks sense.. I applaud you Rich, these rest of these "fanboys" are ridiculous.

Surely the Blu Ray debate is an illogical one anyway? Discs are a short term play, with the future being remote storage or live streaming? I'd be making a bet on the future that Blue Ray is a 3 play, and will be a redundant technology. On this perspective, the PS3 is a non-starter....

pointless fanboy arguments again, just get the console that you want to play the games that you like the look of, if you like halo, gears, mass effect get 360, if you like gran turismo 5, uncharted 2, god of war get ps3, the prices are quite close now, im just glad MS got rid of one of their 3 SKUs should have been just one console with the option to upgrade thats it, great that they lowered the elite, shame they increased the price of 90% of their accessories and increased the arcade price, strange actions during a recession

"Add in the fact you have to pay an extra £50 to join the xbox online service and microsofts shoddy constructed offering seems pretty bloody expensive to me."

Apart from the fact that Live Gold is an "optional" supplementary "service" which you can't add into the cost of the console (your sky TV subscription doesn't add £600+ to the cost of your TV does it?), I paid £27 for 13 months, you can get almost 2 and a half years for £50. So seeing as my PS3 cost me £150 extra, I can absord 6 years worth of online costs and still break even with a 360. Plus there is a free online service if you're not bothered about online gaming.

Also, how come you didn't "add in" the cost of a bluetooth headset, or HD cables when you were being picky? Or the extra £40 (x2 for offline multiplayer gaming) for a Dualshock 3, after Sony refused to add rumble from the off because it was "a last gen feature nobody wanted". Perhaps you want to consider the additional £100+ on top of that £425 when you are talking about machines being "bloody expensive". Around £550 or more for a games console!!!

My £275 launch 360 is still working, my £425!! launch PS3 crashes and freezes on a regular basis. Sorry, you obviously don't remember the PS1 or PS2 very well.

Oh, and good luck playing a game whilst the rest of the family watches a Blu-Ray movie with your one machine. I can never see the point of something that does 2 things, when it can still only do one of them at once... hardly a selling point really is it?

Sorry Rich, almost a good point, but I wanted a PS3 to play games, but I "had to pay" for the fact that it plays movies I never watch. And that was precisely the complaint against Sony, why should a gamer have to pay for something that is no benefit to them? Well, that as well as, why does the alleged "TrueHD" console only come with SD cables in the box?

lol, i knew this would turn into an argument between the 360 and ps3 its everyones own opinion and everyone is entitled to it, and it was my birthday yesterday so im gettin 360 wooh! none of my friends have a ps3 so i want a 360 so i can talk to people i know :)

Regardless of systems you like it always comes down to the games, multiformat or not, 99 percent of the time they are better on 360.
Yes PS3 has great exclusives like Uncharted, God Of War ect, and I love my PS3 but everything else is multiformat and poor in comparison to the 360 versions.
I'm not trying to turn this into a Fanboy war or anything but 360 leads the way in the games department period.
And thats what matters.
And just to clear things up Live is £40 a year not £50, I have been on Live since day 1 and its price has never changed, and I thinks its a decent price, and If you've played on Live and compared it to Playstation network you would see why Live users pay for the Premium service.

I would have to disagree, the 360 falls short in the quality game department and I will tell you why.

After playing exclusive games on consoles it starts to make you demand quality from a game (in the graphics, story, gameplay) I now only own a couple of multiplat games (COD, GTAIV, ...) because they are really really good games, but the majority of games I own are exclusive simply because they are the best around.

So, with a few expections you could say that regardless of which console they are all, all multiplat games are poor when compared to exclusives. And I feel that the PS3 exclusives as a whole are better than what the 360 offers.

Remote storage and live streaming is the future? .... hmmm, when the UK's net infrastructure is up to standandard, along with ISP pricing.

@Adam: what crappy add-ons for the PS3? I've certainly not bought any yet.

Maybe you're getting confused with Natal? ;-)

Oh dear. This argument could (and probably will) go on until it starts afresh for the next console generation. Both machines play great games and both have a respectable selection of platform exclusives that stand out as real selling points for the machine. Go for whichever you like or better than that - buy both!

Not casting any aspersions on anyone's console of choice, does anyone else feel this looks much more like a price increase for the 360, rather than a cut? The Arcade has gone up £30 and the £160 Pro has been dropped to make way for at £200 Elite which now no longer comes with an HDMI cable...

If you consider the new Elite as being just the old Pro with a 120GB HDD instead of 60GB (which, lets face it must make a negligible difference to Microsoft in terms of cost), then this is actually a pretty shoddy treatment of consumers.

Now if I want an Xbox I either buy the entry level, HDD-less system which is £30 more than it used to be, or I buy the full HDD-equipped system which is £40 more than it used to be...

Come on, this really isn't good news for consumers, is it?

I wont enter the arguement of which console is better largely because its pointless. but more the price point working within retail by far the most popular model was the 360 premium at £170 so this isn't a price drop its a price increase. An extra £30 for a 60gb hard drive and they have painted it black. Considering you can buy a 500gb hard drive for £36 (check ebuyer if you don't believe me) and a can of black paint ain't over a tenner the customers aren't really getting value for money.

This series of blunders by the two biggest console makers of this generation (wii's rrp increase to £200 as well for a gamecube with motion controls that wont even play dvd's) may well not only let sony back into the race (I know this will anger sony fanboys but read their financial statements for the last year if you dispute this) but see them dominate this xmas.

I love the 360 as much as the ps3 but anybody think about it if you didn't have a games console would you pay an extra £50 for wireless free internet gaming, a proper internet browser and a blu-ray player??

I totally agree with you KB.
Microsoft are trying to paint this as a price cut but I'm not really seeing it that way. I personally think a new 80GB 360 Pro SKU at £180 would have been been more competitive to Sonys PS3 Slim than the newly announced 120GB Elite.

What it does do though is allow Microsoft to lower the price again in the future. Sounds stupid but consumers generally have short product memories. If you see a sign in stores next year saying "New lower price on 360 Arcade - reduced from £160 to £130" your probably going to think that sounds like a pretty good deal.

Its nice to see a little more competion in the market. Certainly for on line gaming I play on my Xbox 360 and PC most of the time. I just don't like many of the PS3 games on line, free on line services are no good if for a couple of quid a month a competitor provides a smooth excellent service.

The biggest thing on my PS3 is the dust it seems to collect, bloody thing seems to be almost electrostatically charged.

And for the rabbid mindless fanbois, I had my 360 die, got another one 7 days later by warranty, never had a problem since. My PS3 is fine, I just wish there were some really good games on it that wern't better on the 360. So get over yourselves and be happy that if it wasn't for the 360 all we would have to play is the latest EA rehash of the previous year's release which would then lock out on line play of naught but the newest release (which EA would love to do for a nice perpetuating revenue stream).

Metal gear solid is just too camp for me and killzone 2, although very good, just feels like they wanted to make Gears of War 3 (even some of the levels feel like GoW 1 rip offs).

Roll on some decent PS3 games to justify its purchase.

Oh and as for the Blu ray player, yeah nice toy, but unless you are spending a lot on a decent 1080p TV regular DVDs upscaled look near as good anyway & certainly at 5 or so quid for a few months old DVD its hard to justify the cost of a blu ray movie nearer 20.

I'll stick to the DSi thanks. Loads of games, some free download games - some pay but you get free credit with the machine, free web browser, built in WiFi, touch screen, mp4 player, all in the box.

PS3 and 360 still have a long way to match this kind of value. PSPgo is getting there though - just need to see what the batteries are like.

I'm absolutely disgusted by the increase in price of the xbox 360 Arcade. My 2006 xbox 360 died this month and I've been counting the days until payday (tomorrow) so that I can go and buy a replacement.

I already have a hard drive so don't need a top-end elite. I'd have been seriously annoyed come Saturday, when I made my way to the shops, to find a £30 mark-up on the Arcade.

I'm just thankful that I saw this article tonight before the changes take effect - I've managed to reserve one at £135 from Argos.

@Mark: You could have got a 60GB Premium 360 form Sainsburys 3 days ago.(Hazel Grove)

Shop around.

@Mark: You could have got a 60GB Premium 360 from Sainsburys 3 days ago.(Hazel Grove)

. . . For 100 Quid. . . .

Shop around.

There's an article published at slashgear claiming over 54% failure rate for the xbox 360, pretty woeful!

We know sony make no money on the console, I wonder if ms do?

@Joe: The article also said the PS3 had a failure rate of over 10%, and the Wii was around 6% (if i remember correctly).

All these figures seem very high. The real figures are probably half of these. Although 25% for 360 is still over the top.

xbox 360 is the daddy " )

BRADY&RYAN :) AND ME

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