One of my Microsoft Belgium sources has just sent me an email with some news about a future Xbox 360 rebranding revealed at a press event in Francorchamps, Belgium hours ago. (Earlier today? Late last night? Timezones confuse me.) According to him:

" The embargo just lifted on some news I got earlier. At an as of yet unknown date, the Core will be completely phased out and repackaged as the ' Xbox Arcade: Just Play' pack. It will come with 5 games (I assume Uno and Pac-Man are two since I believe I saw them on the box art shown), a 256 mb memory card, and will be priced at 279. I' m not 100% sure about this part, but my notes say it will have an HDMI exit, but no cable in the box."

I' m not sure if the price he gave is in Euros, dollars or some imaginary money I' ve never heard of, or if this will make it stateside at all, but I' m sure once we get towards more normal hours more information will start to trickle out. He' s also going to send us the slides from the presentation in a short while, so we' ll see if I can manage to be awake when those get here.

*UPDATE*

As promised, here' s an image from the slideshow showcasing the new Xbox Arcade, as well as the already-announced price cuts.

I' m not sure.... but I think that was done in Microsoft Paint.

My better judgement says no, of course... but... I dunno. The box art for the last one sports a higher level of quality than how it was pieced together with Photoshop. Somebody who was good enough to photoshop an entirely new box art certainly wouldn' t leave white jagged edges on their masterpiece would they?

Currently I say a little bit of truth in the rumor, but it still smells really really fishy.