After months of disavowing rumors that a souped-up Xbox 360 was on its way, Microsoft officially unveiled what was already confirmed last week: a new black premium 360 dubbed Elite. The system hits stores on April 29 at an $80 increase to $480. Usually console manufactures either keep or drop prices while adding features later in a system’s life cycle. But console manufacturers usually don’t compete alongside the even higher priced $500-600 PS3.

Outside of the new black exterior, Xbox 360 Elite ships with a 120 GB hard drive and HDMI support. Microsoft also announced new video content deals with New Line Cinema, A&E Network, the National Geographic Channel, and TotalVid to further take advantage of the larger hard drive.

Though the third 360 SKU comes sans an internal HD-DVD drive, the company maintained its commitment to the HD platform. However, a lack of built-in wireless sours the news in addition to the higher price. We can’t help but feel the new edition has everything to do with what a major competitor is offering rather than something that bodes well for Microsoft’s existing strategy.

Furthermore, it’s difficult to see the real value in this new offering especially on a broad scale. For $20 more you can purchase a basic PS3. For $120 more you get the full-monty PS3 with built-in wireless. Granted, the 360 has a lot more going for it than just price, but why not continue to leverage the once hefty $100-200 price gap between it and the PS3 on all fronts?