You don't need a crystal ball or the predictive powers of Nostra-flipping-damus to guess that Microsoft might have a price-cutting tactic or two up its gaping corporate sleeve. Their biggest competitor in the console game, Sony, has just dropped the price of the PlayStation 3 and introduced the wallet-friendly PS3 Slim, after all.

Nevertheless a games analyst – yes, one of those – has just put a figure on a new price for the Xbox 360 Elite, has foreseen the death of the Xbox 360 ‘Pro’ model and states boldly that it’ll all be announced within seven short days.

EEDAR’s Jesse Divinch is the chap (or possibly chapesse) with this semi-startling news, announcing to all and sundry:

“We expect Microsoft to make an official announcement, in the next week, regarding the elimination of the Xbox 360 Pro SKU and the reduction in the Elite SKU pricing to $299.”

“We do not know the full extent of the upcoming Xbox 360 promotion. There is a possibility that one of the systems could have a larger hard-drive at the $299 price. EEDAR, however, does not believe any disparity in hard-drive size will make a noticeable difference in how consumers value each product.”

Well, most of that tallies with the various mutterings that have been threatening to spin the rumour-mill off its axis recently – another popular story is an imminent price increase for the no-frills Xbox 360 ‘Arcade’ model. Either way, if Divinch is right that’d put the Elite under the £200 barrier and well clear of the new £245 PS3 Slim.

Timing-wise it seems a bit odd that Microsoft should choose not to use GamesCom as a platform to make such a momentous announcement. But maybe they just want a bit of clear space to themselves, and to avoid any accusations of me-tooism with Sony.

An ‘SKU’ is a Stock Keeping Unit, by the way – a distinct retail product, in other words. Here endeth your first lesson in the dark art of inventory management. As for Divinch’s predictions, well, let’s just wait and see...