Xbox 360 Elite, What it is and what it isn't

As with any new product, it comes with a lot of questions and a bit of confusion as people get adjusted to the new information.

Microsoft finally confirmed their worst kept secret yet, the Xbox 360 Elite. Rumors have been going on about the Elite for almost a year now and Albert one of the project managers says he’s been working on the idea of the Elite for about that long.

The Elite brings to the table a solution for the two biggest complaints Microsoft receives about the Xbox 360 Premium package, lack of HDMI and lack of hard drive space. During the design phase of Xbox 360, Microsoft also had to make a decision on color and going white won out over black, so the Elite lets Microsoft offer another color option which may fit in better to the living room home theater color scheme which is typically black.

So to sum up, here is what Microsoft has put into the Xbox 360 Elite SKU :

- Larger 120gb HDD
- HDMI v1.2
- Black casing

Of course people who own a Core or Premium now are asking themselves if they should upgrade. Some may feel like they’re getting screwed over because they were early adopters. It is true that in the past, consoles didn’t change much between launch and end of life in their cycle and that constant is no doubt one reason why PC gamers convert to console gamers. So it’s understandable to see some early adopter annoyance there, Microsoft is kind of bucking the trend and may set a new trend in motion that isn’t something console gamers will appreciate. After all, if you have to buy a new console very year, you may as well be a PC gamer.

The Elite thankfully doesn’t provide anything that can’t be added to your Premium except the HDMI port. If you want a black case, there are after market warranty voiding options for you. If you’d like the 120 gb HDD, Microsoft will sell that to you as well for your Core and Premium system. In fact the Elite is pretty much the same inside as the Premium except for the built in HDMI port, so if you don’t need HDMI (which you don’t if you’ve been using your 360 on a TV now) then you don’t need to upgrade.

To sum up what the Elite is not :

- It is not HDMI v1.3
- It does not have built in HD-DVD
- It does not have a newer super quiet DVD drive
- It does not have a new quieter cooling system
- It is not IPTV ready out of the box, no more than Premium is
- It is not sporting the new 65nm processors
- It is not a limited edition product

So what should you do if you’re a Premium owner? Chances are most people just need the bigger hard drive. In fact if you have a Premium system now, your upgrade path is very easy to the 120gb HDD. You simply use the provided cable and software and your data gets MOVED from your 20gb hdd to your 120gb hdd. It’s a data move, not a copy, your 20gb hdd will be completely erased/formatted and ready to be sold or used on a different system once you finish this upgrade. If you opt to replace your Premium with an Elite, your upgrade path is more complicated. Since the data on your system is tied to your system via serial number, DRM and copy protection will mess up data migration. Microsoft is working on but currently doesn’t have a data migration path from Premium to Elite. They have promised to have some type of work around by April 29th though.

So the question is, how many Premium owners will actually upgrade to the Elite given it doesn’t have the new processors, IPTV or even HDMI 1.3 ? Unless you really need HDMI, it seems like buying the $180 120gb HDD is the way to go for current owners.