This Just In: People Don't Like the 360 Elite

This Just In: People Don’t Like the 360 Elite

Submitted by George Walker on April 2, 2007 – 11:17 am12 Comments

Xbox-scene.com posted an article on Gamepro.com hilariously pointing out what should be obvious by this point.

Most people, according to the internet, hate the XBox 360 Elite.

A message sent to [Gamepro.com] by BrandIntel, a research company focused on “online market intelligence solutions”, has reported that “the Elite is landing with more questions and frustration than excitement.”

Overall sentiment for the Elite is negative, and is currently below the positive sentiment garnered by the Wii and the Playstation 3. Although perception of the system is negative, the intent to purchase an Elite is still positive, with 48 percent of gamers who made statements regarding purchasing, suggesting that they would purchase a system.

Many gamers do not perceive value in purchasing an Elite, and do not feel the addition of HD capabilities and a 120 GB hard drive is worth the new price tag. This lack of value generated 18 percent of Elite-based discussion.

There is a good deal of frustration from current 360 owners regarding the timing of the product.

The Elite’s HD features and additional hard drive capacity only generated 7 percent of the discussion each, with that discussion being very evenly split in favor or against the features.

BrandIntel claims that much of their analysis has been derived from online, consumer-published content found in the “online gaming world”. This includes the myriad of gaming-related bloggers, forums, and web sites that speckle the internet landscape.

That first bullet point reads like a cross between a legal brief and press release, but it sounds like, according to “internet research,” the negative feedback for the Xbox 360 Elite places it below the positive buzz around the PS3 and Wii. Otherwise, it sounds like people are so busy being pissed off about the price, lack of value, and getting shafted, they aren’t noticing the HDMI (which is v1.2, not v1.3) or the 120 GB hard drive (which you can only copy data to ONCE).

Gee, that’s too bad Microsoft. This can’t be good for your stock value…

JimboJonez

I feel like we’re shafted, really. If they want to release improvements, make them addons and not forcing you to buy a whole new bloody console.
James

Where’s the shaft, exactly? What are 360 Premium owners missing out on here?

If you want to download a lot of shows and movies, then buy the larger hard drive. To be honest, I’m glad this came as a separate SKU because I sure as hell wouldn’t want to pay for it.

“and is currently below the positive sentiment garnered by the Wii and the Playstation 3.” Positive sentiment garnered by the PS3? Where is the positive PS3 sentiment??
Richard (Aeropause)

I don’t buy the negativity thing. This is always the knee jerk reaction from gamers when redone hardware comes out. I remember when they announced the DS lite. Nintendo fanboys were pissed, but that didn’t stop the thing from selling a bazillion units.

The elite is something that people don’t have to buy but if they want to they can save up for since its still early in the console cycle. If they would have made the elite 4 years from now then I think the aggression would have been justified.
http://www.aeropause.com George

I have to disagree. If the Elite had come out 4 years from now, there would be no need for anger. That’s kind of been the whole point. You can’t release new and improved hardware 18 months after launch without expecting some people to be upset.

And I’m not sure why Nintendo “fanboys” would be upset about the DS Lite… doesn’t the term “fanboy” imply dogmatic support of Nintendo (or Microsoft) regardless of what they do?
Joe Haygood

I have to admit that I am indifferent to the Elite. The hard drive is what I want, but not at that price. Does Microsoft not realize how much a 120GB drive actually costs. I can tell you that it doesn’t cost $179.00
Bill

The shaft comes from microsoft releasing a “better” version of their game system less then 2 years after it got released, and its way over priced. for $20 more you might as well get a blu-ray player…i thikn thats whats tickign people off the most.
James

I’m sorry Bill, if you’re saying HDMI makes the Elite a “better” system, you’re a little off base. I could understand your point if they added built-in wireless LAN support or an HD-DVD drive but HDMI is hardly worth a gripe.

I think the new Elite at $479 is worthless to the average gamer. This is similar to how I feel about a PS3 at this very moment (hopefully that will change with a few games). While the Elite should prove to be a financial bloodbath for Microsoft, as far as I’m concerned, they could stand to lose a few pennies and take one on the chin.

As far as I’m concerned, this is just a Premium in a black case. My home console is a gaming machine and these new “features” do not improve that experience one bit.
Willey

They had me until they increased the price. Just make it $399. Take the hit microsoft. Until the current gen starts dropping prices, i’ll sit on the sidelines.
sifer2400

well it be good for Microsoft to feel some pain and not forget about Not screwing over 2 many gamers maby we will see an early price drop to repent for this.
Ps stupid 180$ gig HD
exkon

Are gamers really idiots here?

My god folks its just like a car, theres are lots of options and models so consumers have a choice to choose from!

It’s not like MS is forcing this option on anyone. If you don’t like the expensive price, go with core or the premium. I swear people are always @#$@# complaining about the price of a console. But damn the iPhone is coming out soon, and I hear jack squat about people complaing about the price of $600+ PHONE!!!

When did gamers expect consoles to get cheaper in price as the technology increased?
lothar

I dont get why people are pissed. Its been over a year since the original SKUs came out.

Go to Dell and tell them that you want that bigger drive in your PC because the one you purchased last year was smaller.
hoosierdaddy812

Yes, every person has a choice to not buy the elite if they do not want to, it just seems like Microsoft didn’t add enough new features to justify a $500 price tag. I personally along with many others, I believe, are satisfied with their current premium 360 although it is getting slow and time for an upgrade but at an additional $100 from the original price and about $200 from the current price of the premium package it seems like Microsoft is reaching for that extra buck.

Even so, I think it is fair for the extras included I would have just liked to see the hard drive to sell seperately for a little less than $180. That’s the price right, I didn’t double check it, but with all the additional content $180 seems a bit high priced as well. Although, it could of been priced much higher seeing as the 20 GB HD is selling for $100.

Anyways, I think Microsoft could of made the price a bit less steep or at least offer some decent trade-in values for our premium systems so an upgrade wouldn’t be so costly.