I think the $400 is rediculous. Granted, a PC won't currently really at all play commercial original X-Box games....and a emulator for PC to play 360 games is wayyyyyy off....but I mean good grief......for $400 you could buy a new PC that would have twice the hardware power that the 360 is going to ship with.
It really makes me miss the days of the old Nintendo/Sega wars when you could go out and get a full system, with TWO gamepads included, plus a bundle of 2 or 3 free games in the package.
Video game companies are really sad to me in their behavior. They know its a big market, so they are milking gamers for all they are worth. I mean really, buy the system, then buy an extra gamepad, then buy a memory card or two, then buy special wiring adapters for your home theatre, then buy the DVD remote kit, then FINALLY buy actual games......it's insane.
I for one, will NOT be buying a 360 or a PS3 or a Revolution, until they are out long enough to be as cheap as X-Box/PS2's are now. I realize that will be a long wait, but gamers really need to start standing up to this insanity and refusing to pay such outrageously high prices. We need to send a message to MS, Sony and Nintendo that we refuse to be abused like this. All it is, is nothing more than price gouging to take advantage of holiday sales.
Sadly, it's something that nearly every company does. What most people don't realize is a lot of these so-called BIG holiday promotions or sales, aren't really saving them anything. Most big stores will go out on their sales floor and mark everything up 25% for every 50% discount that they advertise over the holidays, or something quite similar. I do all my Christmas shopping during the first few weeks AFTER christmas. Why? Because that is when all the stores make huge markdowns to get rid of their extra inventory.
Trust me, if M$ were to suffer a huge defeat over the holidays, i.e. selling 50% or fewer 360 systems than they expect to sell, you'd see the price of the "premium" package drop to less than the current projected retail of the basic system.