Microsoft

The Xbox 360 Elite: more of the same?

The Xbox 360 Elite console goes on sale Sunday. It has a 120 gigabyte hard drive (six times that of the original Xbox 360), an HDMI port and cables and costs $480. And it's in matte black with a metallic sheen. Existing Xbox 360 owners who just want to buy the super-sized hard drive can do so for $180.

Engadget tested the Elite against the regular Xbox 360, which came out in November 2005, and found that there really isn't much difference between the two.

Do yourself a favor, just buy that 120GB drive if you need the space, the HDMI really just doesn't justify replacing your whole console for a new $480 unit.

CNET's Crave blog says the Elite is actually disappointing when compared with Sony's PlayStation 3. It doesn't have a next-generation disc player (there is an add-on HD-DVD player), a Wi-Fi adapter or a flash media reader, which come on every PS3.

The bottom line is that the Xbox 360 Elite isn't a must-have upgrade for existing 360 owners, and it doesn't bring the 360 feature set in line with that of the PlayStation 3.