HMV points to Elite in summer

By Robert Purchese Published 28 March, 2007

Expects confirmation soon.

High street retailer HMV has told Eurogamer this morning that the Xbox 360 Elite will probably launch in late summer in Europe.

"All we understand is that it's at some point perhaps around the late summer, but we don't know anything beyond that," a spokesperson for HMV told us.

"We're expecting the product to be sold in sooner rather than later, and obviously at that point we'll have a fuller idea of all their launch plans, precise timings, pricing and everything else from a retail point of view we're likely to know."

The comments support those made by Albert Penello, director of global platform marketing for Xbox, who expects the unit to ship outside of America in the late summer.

Microsoft told Eurogamer this morning that it was still waiting for confirmation on a European launch date, clearly awaiting word from the big cheeses in America.

If you've not caught up yet, Microsoft finally confirmed the existence of the black Xbox 360 Elite this morning, which will sport an HDMI port and 120GB hard drive.

It's launching in the US on 29th April for US$ 479, and will include HDMI, component and DS cables in the box, as well as black peripherals to suit your styling needs.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (25) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • morriss #1 5 years ago

    The Premium will be £200 at Christamas, yoo erd it ear first.

  • morriss #2 5 years ago

    Most places bundle it with a couple of games for £250-£279

  • richardiox #3 5 years ago

    Whatever happened to global launches?

  • morriss #4 5 years ago

    The Core has been as little as £150 in some shops too. That'll probably drop again by Christmas: a 360 for around a ton, is a great deal by anyone's standards.

  • moggsy #5 5 years ago

    Knowing HMV they'll force you to buy a copy of Windows Vista or something in order to guarantee getting a 360 Elite on release day...

  • BadBoyBonner #6 5 years ago

    Now if it had been the 65nm chip which overclocked (above original spec) when in 1080p mode - I might have considered it.

    As it is, it just seems to be undermining itself as a format and bolstering the PS3 , so I'd guess the plan has backfired horrendously.

    In addition I can not imagine the hdmi port and modest increase in drive size(compared to the rest of the Hardrive community) are really worth anything other than to MS as revenue from it's TV/film shenanigans and/or to tempt the market into ever increasing add-on packs (which, while the odd one will be stellar - most will feel like skanky pocket robbing, for content that was (probably) already complete and could have been included but wasn't to extract more cash.

    Perhaps great business sense short term (maybe even long term) but an old cynic like me just feels that Microsoft and tv/film industry wanted this update far more than any of the consumers.

  • JYM60 #7 5 years ago

    Has there ever been a worse time to launch a console? SUMMER?????

  • AtomicBanana #8 5 years ago

    'Now if it had been the 65nm chip which overclocked (above original spec) when in 1080p mode - I might have considered it.'

    What on earth? I don't ever want to see consoles doing this, ever. One of their big strengths is being feature locked in terms of performance.

  • moggsy #9 5 years ago

    As it is, it just seems to be undermining itself as a format and bolstering the PS3 , so I'd guess the plan has backfired horrendously.

    Nah, it's just a way of MS reducing the price of the Premium without devaluing the 360 product as a whole. They'll sell shit loads of Premiums once the price comes down to around the £200 mark in time for xmas.

  • BadBoyBonner #10 5 years ago

    Moggsy - I certainly agree about the sub £200 price being a massive catalyst to sales - and will be very mainstream at that price.

    Just for me, the changes and benefits do not seem great value. And taking value away from the product while increasing the price makes unfavourable comparison with PS3 even easier.

    With MS knowing this I am sure they have realised that any detractions that may result from it will be massively offset by the revenues in America and are releasing it in the rest of the world just so people are not pissed off with somethign to moan about.

  • BadBoyBonner #11 5 years ago

    AtomicBanana - taking your argument to the logical conclusion the 360 would never have ever offered 1080p.

    It does now, and it didn't at launch.

    If they build something that can run faster, I think that Backwards Compatibility and/or running at 1080p are legitimate uses of that power.

    EDIT - Forgot the last "na" - very bad etiquette spelling someone's "name" wrong.
    Edited by 1 at 28/03/07 @ 12:39

  • kissthestick #12 5 years ago

    late summer?

    early August confirmed :(

  • HMAN #13 5 years ago

    Is the 120GB HD going to be released at the same time as the elite or will we see it earlier?

  • rhinoxious #14 5 years ago

    Tweak the hardware spec in the way you're suggesting and you 'll run into problems later as the libraries are pushed to the nth degree to squeeze the remaining power out of machine.

    It works on PCs becasue they are so inefficient anyway and the hardware is massively divorced from the code that's running on it. This isn't a criticism of PCs, its just the way directx has to be to incorporate all the different PC specs.

  • JimJam #15 5 years ago

    That's too late IMO. They've obviously been planning it for a while, why the hell can't they launch globally in April ?

  • BadBoyBonner #16 5 years ago

    Rhinoxious - perhaps in games there could be problems (so server they can not be sorted when people already know of the existence? And is patching not the new black of the console world allowing changes such as this?)

    But as for BC issue's - as it is already running on an emulator I fail to see how extra cpu cylces being available would make it prone to failure.

    The games have been made to run independent of matching the originals frame rate (as the choppy cut scenes in Halo 2 which were done in a 50/50 video split on Gamespot can attest to - or simply playing Forza, Ninja Gaiden et al).

    I think we'd all agree it's hardly a killer app, running a bit smoother at higher res - but more along the lines of what an aficionado may wish to purchase - as indicated by the old double clocked double memory Xbox that had been modded for sale. Rather than a HDMI port an bigger HD.

  • rudedudejude #17 5 years ago

    hahah some pikey is dancing in the advert hahaha

    what a lame ad

  • Carlo #18 5 years ago

    Late summer? Might as well release it for Christmas

  • _Price_ #19 5 years ago

    Damn it, when I saw this headline I thought it was news of the long awaited Elite re-make coming to the next gen! You God-damn teases EG! :)

  • FWB #20 5 years ago

    Bollocks. Read that as a new Elite game.

    EDIT: Beaten to it.
    Edited by 1 at 28/03/07 @ 14:15

  • Skooch #21 5 years ago

    "their attempting making it sound like a whole new console and a whole new experience."

    Not really. They are merely providing for those who favour HDMI and who download a lot - and those who may prefer black. I haven't seen them claim it is a whole new experience.

  • Carrybagma #22 5 years ago

    So, is the film download thing already running, or does that launch around the same time? Halo3 is hardly a good reason for a bigger HDD, is it?

  • prettyboytim #23 5 years ago

    My guess in a UK price of £335 - £350

  • bonker #24 5 years ago

    "Has there ever been a worse time to launch a console? SUMMER?????"

    Yeah, March.

  • cyber_nicco #25 5 years ago

    @BadBoyBonner

    "As it is, it just seems to be undermining itself as a format and bolstering the PS3 , so I'd guess the plan has backfired horrendously."

    That's a bit idiotic. First of all, you don't even attempt to explain why you feel it "undermines" itself or "bolsters" the PS3. Secondly, it was just announced, and you think it has "backfired horrendously"?

    "Just for me, the changes and benefits do not seem great value. And taking value away from the product while increasing the price makes unfavourable comparison with PS3 even easier. "

    So, now sextupling the HD capacity and adding HDMI connectivity is actually "taking value away"?? What is going on in your brain?

    I have been reading silly comments from silly people on this website for quite a long time now, but you are the first in a long time to actually piss me off. Maybe you were drunk when you wrote these comments, and are actually a decent fellow. Maybe...