With the release of the 120GB PS3 slim and associated price drop plus the price drop of the 120GB Xbox 360 Elite, both Sony and Microsoft have made room for new top end machines.
We've seen evidence of a new 250GB Xbox 360 "Super Elite" in the works and it seems Sony is also getting in on the action, with FCC filings and now reports of a 250GB PS3 coming in the near future.
As far as pricing goes in Europe, the 250GB PS3 is expected to hit at £299/€350 (the previous 80GB price point), and bundled some of Sony's holiday big hitters, namely Uncharted 2 late October and Gran Turismo 5 later in Q4. The 250GB Xbox 360 is expected to hit at €280 and bundled with Forza Motorsport 3 and a second controller.
The PS3 is easy and inexpensive for customers to upgrade themselves (a screwdriver and a standard laptop hard drive being the only requirements), so owners could always upgrade to higher capacities as and when their needs grew. However as the Xbox 360 uses proprietary hard drives, removing the ability for DIY upgrades, owners wanting higher capacities had to wait for Microsoft to release official add-ons, the largest of which currently available is 120GB and sells for a whopping £90-100 (compared to £40 for a standard 320GB PS3 compatible drive).
With Microsoft's expanding Games on Demand service and Sony's announced video store for Europe (due for launch in November, already released in the US), coupled with ever increasing capacities and decreasing costs of hard drives, more capacious consoles are just a matter of time - and from the evidence, it looks like that time is going to be October or November. So look out for announcements at the Tokyo Game Show later this month.
