Analyst: Xbox 360 Elite Sentiment FlaggingAnalyst: Xbox 360 Elite Sentiment Flagging

Toronto-headquartered research firm BrandIntel has released the findings of its latest study, showing that sentiment toward Microsoft's Xbox 360 Elite hasn't gone over quite as well as hoped across internet forums, currently tracking lower than the Wii, PS3, and the standard Xbox 360 itself. According to the firm's metrics, the sampling of 600 posts from 328 gamers spread across 25 gaming forums show a '2.6' level sentiment for the newly announced upgraded Xbox console on a highly-negative to highly-positive scale of 1 to 5. This is in contrast to the sentiment of the standard model of the Xbox 360 itself, which is currently tracking at 3.9, and the Wii and PlayStation 3, currently tracking at 3.8 and 2.8, respectively. Analysts point out, though, that though the overall perception of the system trends toward the negative, purchase intent still ranks fairly high, with 48 percent of gamers looked at saying they planned on buying the system. Looking specifically at the breakdown of Elite's features, the additional hard drive capacity -- raised to 120 GB -- and new HDMI features only generated 7 percent of overall discussions, which came out evenly split for and against the feature. More often the discussions trended toward the perceived value of the machine, with 18 percent of the discussions revolving around its $479 price tag, most of whom did not feel the new features made up for the cost of the machine. Finally, analysts found there was some frustration from forum communities, specifically current Xbox 360 owners, over the timing of the product's announcement and launch -- likely recent purchasers now finding themselves needing to purchase the $179 separately marketed 120 gig hard drive to keep pace with the latest machine.