Xbox 360 prices to fall across the board?

Price cuts for all versions of the Xbox 360 should be coming in September, say reports. A source for Ars Technica has claimed that the price of the basic 360 console, the Arcade, will fall to $200 next month, with the recently-launched 60GB model slipping to $300, and the 120GB Elite dropping to $400. The new cost of the Arcade has allegedly been confirmed by a new photograph, showing an inventory screen with a price change marked for September 7th.

A cut could be especially advantageous for Microsoft, whose primary competitor is the Nintendo Wii, a system that sells for $250. It should also be affordable to the company, as a recent migration to 65nm architecture is expected to slice CPU manufacturing costs by 50 percent. It may further solve reliability problems with the 360, as thousands of launch-era models have failed due to overheating caused by inefficient circuitry.