Even though I said I wasn’t going to, I picked up a Xbox 360 Elite today. The black beast is better than I anticipated.

The first thing I noticed was the Elite is very quiet. Much more so than my older Premium console. This is when idle, playing movies (both standard DVD and HD-DVD), as well as playing games. It’s a treat to not have to hear the fans spinning like crazy. The new Hitachi drive helps too.

The HDMI video connection looks fantastic. There is a noticeable difference in colors and black level on my 50″ Samsung 1080p over component video. Don’t take this to mean the HDMI connection produces a much better picture… it’s a known thing with my model of HDTV that HDMI looks way better than component.

I’m waiting on my transfer cable, so I can’t comment on using the 120GB hard drive yet.

Overall, it’s the best 360 console I’ve had. Is it worth the upgrade for most users? I don’t think so. But if you’re looking to replace a broken console and you don’t have warranty, or you just want to pick up a 360 for the first time, definitely take a look at the Elite.

We’ve had numerous reports coming in of users getting 3 red lights on their brand new Elite consoles this morning. While this is a daily occurrence with 360 Premium and Core systems, we thought Microsoft would have had a better handle on the situation with the Elite.

We’ve all seen the pictures of the motherboard changes. I assumed that these would protect the console better from heat and such to make sure less consoles would die. But alas, no. Microsoft has introduced another new product that is failing at a higher than normal rate.

To top it all off, the disc scratching issue is back. Seriously Microsoft, what the hell? Did you completely get rid of your QA department?

I just took a trip around to all my local stores that sell video games. After a trip at 1:30pm to Target, Walmart, Best Buy, Gamestop, EB Games, and Circuit City, I found that they ALL still have Elite systems in stock.

I know some of these stores got as little as 4 units, and they all have systems in stock. Is the demand not there? I would have expected the stores with the smaller quantities to at least sell out, but it doesn’t look that way.

A quick trip to Ebay shows systems selling for a premium over the retail value. Could my market just be an anomaly?

Let us know in the comments if you find Elite’s on the shelves.

In case you’ve been living in a bubble the past month or so, the Xbox 360 Elite is coming in a mere couple of hours. Word is most Best Buy stores will have around 20 units each, and the same with Target. Gamestop will have much lower allocations.

So, are you upgrading to the new system? Maybe just getting a 120GB hard drive? Let us know what you’re going to do with your 360.

I’ll be out at Best Buy tomorrow morning checking things out.

So you’re buying an Xbox 360 Elite this coming Sunday. I’m sure you’ve already heard the Elite doesn’t come with a transfer kit to move all of your data from your old 360 hard drive to the new 120GB hard drive on the Elite.

Luckily, Microsoft is providing FREE transfer kits to those who are upgrading. Details were released today on Xbox.com, with a linked PDF that must be filled out and mailed to Microsoft. Upon receiving the letter, Microsoft will mail you a transfer kit. Expect this process to take 4-6 weeks. In the meantime, you’re stuck using your current 20GB hard drive, which means you can’t go selling your old 360 just yet.

My advice, spend a bit of cash and get the XSATA so you can migrate all the data yourself. It’ll save you a lot of time waiting for a transfer cable from Microsoft.

Remember how we told you the Xbox 360 Elite doesn’t come with a HDD transfer cable? Well, Microsoft decided it didn’t want to royally screw it’s current hardcore customer base (this time), and will be giving away HDD transfer cables if you ask for them.

The news comes in a self Q&A on GamerscoreBlog.

Q. Got it, thanks for the advice on which item to buy, but I am pretty set on upgrading to the Xbox 360 Elite, how can I do this?
A. We realize that around the launch of the Xbox 360 Elite that some folks may in fact want to upgrade from their current console. For those consumers interested in doing this, we will be providing a solution to obtain a migration kit from Xbox.com completely free of charge. You can get more information about obtaining one of these kits from a URL that will be live tomorrow.

Note that there are some differences between migration data from one hard drive to another using the same console and doing this migration to a completely new console. See the differences outlined in more detail below.

The URL has not gone live yet and has not yet been provided by Microsoft. This is good news though for users looking to upgrade. Hopefully it doesn’t take Microsoft 6-8 weeks to send it to you…

On the heels of the new Elite 360 comes rumors of the next iteration of MS consoles already. Many are skeptical if the Elite will catch on and wonder when MS will drop their real “Elite” system.

Some speculate that this machine will have functionality to link up your Windows Mobile phone, MS Zune, your laptop and even your existing 360 to a master console at the heart of the network, allowing them to share all their files. Perhaps this magical machine will be the much rumored 720.

The current 360 Elite can’t handle 5.1 – 7.1 channel uncompressed Linear PCM audio, reallistically it can only handle 2 channel. This is REQUIREMENT for all hd-dvd movies, unless you don’t value quality. You need hdmi for linear pcm audio, and not including it in the Elite is a mistake by MS. I believe it’s a hardware issue and the 360 doesn’t have enough audio pipes to handle it, while the ps3 does it out of the box with both games and blu-ray movies. Resistence is true 7.1 channel linear pcm. 360 needs to step up their game and skip this silly Elite system and move on to bigger and better things like the 720!

If you don’t mind giving your money to Gamestop, and have a need for the (not so) Elite Xbox 360, you can sign up tomorrow on their website to preorder the console. No word if the console will be offered by itself or with a bundle, but it’s Gamestop, so expect to shell out some cash for accessories you don’t need.

If you are looking to get one of these on Sunday, it might be a good idea to look into this. Word on the streets is that supplies with be very limited for the initial release.

Just a note, if you’re upgrading from a current Xbox 360, there’s no transfer cable included with the Elite, only with the stand-alone 120GB hard drive.

Here is a video that goes over all the Xbox 360 Elite will offer. I won’t lie and say that I don’t like the look, but it just doesn’t offer anything new to anyone that already has a Xbox 360 premium system. I think in order to call this system Elite there should be some hardware upgrades, not just an expanded HDD and a sexy black finish. The Elite offers nothing unique except the HDMI support that it should have originally came with originally and some pre-loaded software (demos and movies) on the 120 Gb HDD.

Everyone’s favorite gaming retailer, Gamestop/EB Games, will be offering a trade-up program for the Xbox 360 Elite. You get trade-in credit for an Xbox 360 Core or Premium as well as an original Xbox.

For the Core 360, you get $200 trade-in credit. For the Premium, you get $250. You’d think all the extra premium stuff would be worth more than an extra $50. Anyway, you will also get $50 for trading in your original Xbox. Personally, I’d say keep that original Xbox and mod it to run Xbox Media Center.

If you’re looking to get rid of your current 360 for the new, more powerful model, this isn’t too bad of a deal. I’m going to wait it out and see if Microsoft fixes the VGA output issues on the 360.

More pics after the jump.

Hit the jump for more…