Xbox Elite Trade-Up Rumours

While rumours abound that the Xbox Elite won’t be in the UK (or the rest of Europe) until November this year, a poster to Qj.net calling himself Kaiser_911 – and purportedly a manager at US EB Games store – claims that his company is already prepared for an exchange program for the 120Gb, HDMI uber Xbox in the US.

The deal does not apply to pre-orders because, according to the Kaiser's fascinatingly broken posting:



Two to four units per store and a trade-in deal in the United States? This is a figure that might be acceptable for mom'n'pop store in mountains of Virginia, but for one of that country's primary specialist outlets, it is just not believable. Imagine launch day, with only three units available, Microsoft would look bad, EB Games would look incompetent, and a whole bunch of Wiis and PS3s would sell to annoyed consumers.

Maybe Microsoft and EB have learnt from the recent 'debates' over the 'unsuccessful' PS3 launch that saw plenty of stock available in Europe? Perhaps Microsoft has looked at the great PR developed by Nintendo due to stock shortages and came up with logic that states "fewer is better. So, near as damn it none at all will be brilliant!"

Or maybe the information is plain wrong.

With that in mind, the trade-in details from the Kaiser are as follows:



We’ve already reported that the expected price for the Elite is $479.99 (£245) with a US launch expected this month, so the fact that one of the major specialist retailers is already prepping its deals makes some kind of sense.

Nothing official has been announced by EB Games – and especially nothing from Microsoft itself.

So, we’ve once again contacted Microsoft in the UK to plead with it to release something official regarding a European launch. Frankly, it appears nonsensical to hold off until November for a launch of hardware that has already been confirmed.

For your info', current US EB Game pricing has the relevant platforms as:

Xbox 360 Pro - $399.99 (£200)
Xbox 360 Core - $299.99 (£150)
Xbox – you’ve got to be kidding, right?

^{Source: qj.net}