Microsoft have sent through word the all-new 60gb Xbox 360 Pro Bundle is now available Australia-wide, and for the same price as the previous 20gb model, coming in at a digestible SRP of $499.

You can now pick up the aforementioned model, the Xbox 360 Arcade bundle for an SRP of $349 or the Xbox 360 Elite package for $649.

These prices and bundles put the machine in direct competition with the Wii, and at a much cheaper position than the PS3 heading into the all-important holiday season.

Sssshhh! Don't say holiday season too loud or I'll have to battle tinsel when I go to the supermarket today.

oh crap
does that mean there's a hint of christmas coming up
f*** i hate the presentmania that is christmas

i wish they'd make the damn hard drives cheaper. i mean SERIOSULSYLY.

Yeah the drives must be a massive cash cow for them, more than double the retail price of a standard 2.5" drive :/

I don't find drive space to be a huge issue yet, 20GB has been fine for the content I've been using. But once that option to install games to HDD comes in with the big dash overhaul, it's going to really suck.

so you cant buy any hdd and stick it in? lame.

Where the hell are they even finding 60GB drives anymore?

Probably as they refresh their desktop fleet they're converting the drives over to Xbox drives :p

K, anyone modded a Hard Drive (larger than 60gb) to thier xbox before?
just curious...

Quick google search

http://www.xbox360hdd.com/
http://www.llamma.com/xbox360/mods/USB%20Hard%20Drive%20Mod.htm

unfortunately, x360 hdd modding is pointless because you need the cert key from a signed hdd of the same capacity.

ie: you can buy a specific model western digital 2.5" drive and hack substitute it for your existing 20GB drive, but you can't substitute it as 120GB drive unless you already have an official 120GB one to get the key from. Even then, you can't use both drives at the same time on different boxes on live without it being detectable.

It's nutty how secure they are, meanwhile the PS3 lets you swap a new drive in without even voiding your warranty.

Yeah, not really a fan of how Xbox has handled a lot of things. It's terribly restricting for the owner. Granted consoles never had as much freedom as a PC, but still - common sense goes a long way.

Good for new buyers but.

SP.

60? pretty lame. one of the only features ps3 has that im jealous of as a 360 owner is the ability to put your own hdd in. 84 bucks for 640gb. yes please.

200 for 120gb .... not so much.

Any word on Bluray for the 360?:(

Any word on Bluray for the 360?:(

Nah, they've repeatedly bleated that it's not going to happen. They are really trying to push their online movie/tv distribution. Too bad those services are completely useless to us in Australia and the puny HDDs are too small to fit a decent amount of their DRM ladden media on anyway.

from my point of view, PS3 is a good neck ahead of x360 in the home mediaplayer game. Now if they'd just add Matroska support with 1080p decoding and 5.1 audio, they'd be able to compete with media PCs.

Yeah, not really a fan of how Xbox has handled a lot of things.

In their defense, the heightened security is their response to the hackers of the last gen xbox. They've closed everything up so tight to stop the halo cheats, and the homebrew modders that just buy the console and no games. One little oversight on the dvd firmware already let the pirates in so they're not likely to loosen up on anything else.

Now if they'd just add Matroska support with 1080p decoding and 5.1 audio, they'd be able to compete with media PCs.

Re-mux the mkv into a .m2ts file and you can play 1080p 5.1 Dolby Digital files no worries. Only takes 5 minutes or so, unless the audio is in DTS, in which case you'll need to convert it to Dolby.

But yes, I too would like to see Matroska support.

Yep, already all over that shiz. Tversity works ok for streaming and copying files for that matter, but it doesn't recognise m2ts, so you have to rename it (to something it's not) after remuxing. Far from the painless process that playing a media file should be. :/

What would be awesome is an xbmc linux port for ps3. You can supposedly kinda get it running atm but raw, unoptimised and unwatchable. Needs an optimised build that takes advantage of the ps3's uber processing power, all xbmc builds are cpu driven afterall.

Yeah, you need to rename the m2ts files to m2t. Pretty silly.

Yeah, I think an XMBC port for PS3 would be the way to go, but I don't know if the homebrew community really knows how to properly use the cell architecture. I really hope they do, because it'd save me from having to buy a HTPC, but I'm not holding my breath for it any time soon.

isn't the linux support on ps3 really gimped? like it doesnt have access to the full powers of the cell.

surprising no one has actually made an official xbmc style port for xbox 360, i mean even if it was a store bought $80 dollar job which allowed support for all files.

thats one extra title for XBOX over PS3, and many many many happy xbox360 owners.

my original xbox died recently, and i have resorted to (with fairly good success)
use an old laptop (p4 2ghz/wifi etc) running XBMC under windows, with the Xbox controller using XBCD and a program to bind controller keys to keyboard keys.

works a treat and it gives xbmc the ability to play h264 due to the beefier processor/video/memory. w00t.

For those asking for MKV support: you're in luck. The next DivX major version revision is using matroska as it's container format instead of avi. Sony is probably going to keep their DivX support up so at some point early next year we should have direct mkv support on the ps3. yay.