Microsoft has officially announced that its Xbox 360 Pro version will have its price cut with $50, and will therefore start being sold at $299 effective today. What is more, the company has announced that it will introduce a new model of its gaming console that will feature a 60 GB hard disk. The new model will become available in August.

Microsoft will continue to sell its Xbox 360 Arcade model, and will not cut its price in anyway. The model, which has no hard disk, will be sold at $279. The Xbox 360 Elite console will also have the same price, and people who will want to benefit of its 120 GB storage space will have to pay $449 for it. The new model announced by Microsoft will be priced at $349.

The company hopes that the move will allow it to better compete with Sony’s PS3 and Nintendo’s Wii consoles, which have both constantly outsold the Xbox 360 during the last months.

While some people might think that the move might have determined Sony to cut the price of their product too, officials of the company have announced that they do not intend to do so, and that the fact that Sony is the most expensive console on the market doesn’t bother them at all.

PS3 made Sony lose about $3 billion because of the bad pricing strategy the company adopted. The initial price cut did help Sony get more market share in front of its rival Microsoft, but the product is still a long way to go before it will make some profit for Sony.