Montezuma:
quit wasting money on cosmetic changes
By making the unit smaller, they are SAVING money by making it cheaper. Less materials, less weight. This also means less fuel and effort in freight. So lets say you have a container (A cargo box, that you may see a truck pulling) that would hold 10,000 Xbox 360s, but the 360-Slim means that 14,000 more can fit in the same container *IS* a savings. It also means smaller packaging and easier to protect from damage during shipment.
The first 24" LCD ($3000) monitor box was HUGE in 2004. It was about 10x the weight of a modern 24~23" display (Nobody makes 24" 1920x1200 displays ugh). When I bought my 24" 2 years ago ($450), 4 of my monitor boxes can fit into the 2004. Todays (2010) monitors ($200), the packaging is HALF the size... and makes my monitor feel heavy.
You are right thou, the change in the 360 DOESN'T warrant pissing in your pants excitement. Even SONY's PS3-mini wasn't that big of a deal - it was expected.... but funny thou, the PS3 came out a year after the 360, which gave MS their head start, yet SONY was able to SHRINK their console a year before MS. Shows that SONY knows hardware better than MS, be we already KNEW that.
Sony has tried to play this game, only to see their customer base shrink, when it comes to new hardware purchases.
Whaaaaaaat? Hmmmm, you must know something that 35+ million PS3 owners don't know. Gap between the two is less than 5 million... keep in mind that PS3 came out about 15 months after the 360. The 360 was hurried, which is a big reason for its high failure rates. Sure the PS3 isn't quite at 360 sales numbers, but it is selling very good and still has MORE value than the 360. Go back about two years when there were 25m 360s vs 18m PS3s... was the PS3 or 360 a failure? Some fan boys called the PS3 a failure because of the 7m unit difference... but here we are today with almost 40million PS3s. Hmmmmm. The PS3 is doing fine.
The new 360 is a better unit than the OLD and gives more values to its user. But still, it doesn't have Blu-Ray. And its doubtful the 360-slim is HD upgradable.
PS3-slim = $300, can be user upgrade to 500GB or larger. 500GB is best.
360-slim = $300 + $100 for a cheap Blu-Ray player.