On the first of the month, Ars Technica's mole reported that the entire Xbox 360 lineup would undergo substantial price cuts -- substantial enough that despite the mole's earlier spot-on reveal of the 60-gigger, we doubted his words. No longer.
Joystiq reports that a leaked Radio Shack ad (above) prominently displays two of those very same price cuts.
Xbox 360 Arcade = $199
Xbox 360 Elite 120GB = $399
While it's possible the systems could merely be on sale --after all, Radio Shack said the exact same thing about the 20GB Xbox 360 in late June -- we're optimistic that Microsoft has made a permanent decision after seeing the lack of impact its 60GB announcement had on the market.
Either way, these prices would seem to be good from September 7th through 20th.
One last note: At $200, the Xbox 360 Arcade would indeed be cheaper than the perennially understocked Nintendo Wii -- but you won't find GameCyte giving it our wholehearted recommendation. Just as the true price of the Nintendo Wii experience quickly climbs to that of its high-def competitors when you throw in extra controllers, component cables and the like, so too does the true Xbox 360 experience require significant purchases on top of that $200.
While those without HDTVs can get by with the Arcade's standard composite cables, the utter lack of dedicated storage had crippled the media-friendly console even before the days of optionally installing games to speed load times. Rumored 60GB Starter Kit notwithstanding, at Microsoft's current ridiculous price for a decent-sized hard drive, you'd be better off just buying the 60GB Pro console for $100 more.
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