Let's get this schedule straight: Xbox 360 hardware

(tags Xbox 360, hardware, purchase)

Over the last week, for some unknown reason, my motivation to get an Xbox 360 has jumped from "eventually" to "want to play it now". Maybe its because I can name 5 games I want to play on it consistently (unlike a Wii or a PS3), or maybe its because of Halo 3 fever. No its not because of BioShock fever, though I wanna play that eventually. It troubles me though that I haven't remembered the release dates of the newer Xbox models, Halo and Elite edition.

At first, I used Yodobashi Camera again to check the release dates, but Wikipedia has more information.

Xbox 360 Halo Special Edition : 2007-09-27 Thursday (open price but 44800 yen at Yodobashi Camera) 20GB HDD, essentially a regular ("Premium") system but with Halo colors and HDMI output.

Xbox 360 Elite Edition: 2007-10-11 Thursday (47800 yen) 120GB HDD and of course HDMI output.

One thing that is not certain is when Microsoft will hardware refresh it. I don't want my Xbox to fail and I don't want to deal with shipping it back for service. According to Engadget, 65 nm CPU have been in production since 2007-08-01, so I hope that it will be in the September refresh.

I think I'll get the Xbox 360 Halo Special Edition, though 20 GB (14 GB usable) doesn't seem like much storage.