Looks like GameDaily Biz was right on the money. Microsoft today announced the Xbox 360 Elite, which will launch April 29 in the US for $479. The 120GB hard drive will retail for $179 and go on sale the same day.

Basically, everything that has been speculation is now true. There will be a 120GB hard drive, HDMI port, black everything, and it will include an HDMI cable. Even those pics of the box and such that people thought were fake turned out to be real.

There’s no official word as of yet on whether the current Core and Premium systems will get HDMI ports in the near future. Also, no official word on the 120GB hard drive including a data transfer cable. Looks like I might have to put my XSATA to work again after all.

[Update] Contacting Microsoft, we found that the data transfer cable will in fact be included with the Elite system and standalone 120GB hard drive.

The PS3 launched in PAL territories last Friday, and we’re not getting reports of sales numbers from Europe.

In the UK, we now have a new leader for the fasting selling launch console ever. The PS3 sold 165,000 units, trouncing the competition in it’s opening weekend. The Xbox 360 sold around 70,000 units in it’s opening weekend in the UK, with the Wii seeing around 105,000 units sold in it’s opening stint.

This is pretty surprising, given the media coverage for the PS3 launch in Europe. All reports were of slow sales, but this turns those reports around.

In the same breath, PS3 games are leading the UK sales charts, with Resistance and Motorstorm claimed the top two spots.

Maybe the PS3 isn’t so doomed after all…

Today was supposed to be the big day that the PS3 would try to topple the Xbox360 as the premier next gen system in the world. Today was Launch Day in both Europe and Australia. Remember when PS3 and the Xbox360 launched here? People were sleeping outside for a week, robbing each other in the parking lot and even putting the systems up on eBay for the price of a used Honda Civic. Imagine the same exact scene in Australia, but the complete opposite. Nobody gave a rat’s ass. It’s like having a birthday party and no one showing up. Kotaku has actual photos from the Australian fiesta that looked like a line for prostate exams. You could walk into any store right now and pick one up. A rather auspicious beginning while Xbox360 continues to flourish overseas. Maybe throwing a couple shrimps on the barbie might help. We need to get Ron Popeil on this.

The PS3 is launching in Europe this week, to little fanfare. A quick glimpse online will show that pre-orders for PS3 in the EU aren’t going as planned for Sony. It’s a couple days before launch, and retailers still have more consoles in stock than pre-orders. Doesn’t bode well for Sony.

Not to mention the fact that the PS3 is being outsold by the GBA in North America (according the February NPD sales numbers). Sony needs to step up their game. I don’t think Home is enough to boost sales of the console.

Even Sony’s head honcho, Howard Stringer, isn’t completely convinced the PS3 is gonna make it. In an interview with SmartHouse, he said:

And when asked about the popularity of Nintendo’s Wii vs. PS3 , Stringer said, “Wii is a wonderful device, but has a different target audience. If we fail, it is because we positioned PS3 as the Mercedes of the video game field. PS3 is after a different audience and it can be whatever it wants — a home server, game device, even a computer.”

Ummm… that’s not very convincing. You have Phil Harrison saying the PS3 is going to dominate the market, etc. etc. Then you have Stringer saying “If we fail…”. There’s some confidence for you. Not saying “If we aren’t number 1″, the man is preparing people for failure. Either he chose his words very poorly, or he sees the writing on the wall.

We’ll see how things go in the rest of the world later this week.