With a little extra market research, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 could have set the bar higher for the PlayStation 3. While the Xbox 360 Core system was always a joke, $399.99 for the Xbox 360 Premium system was a bit of a sticker-shock but was sold as being relatively “future-proofed.” Yet with only a 20GB hard drive, that’s turning out not to be the case.

Microsoft itself has basically admitted as much recently when it announced the impending release of yet a third configuration, the Xbox 360 Elite system. The 360 Elite contains only two major upgrades: a larger hard drive, weighing in at 120GB, and an HDMI output that ought to have been included on all 360 systems to begin with. The Elite doesn’t even toss in an HD-DVD drive; that’s still an extra.

For these two minor upgrades, Microsoft is asking $479.99, only $20 shy of the price of Sony’s lower-end PlayStation 3 unit, which may have a smaller hard-drive at 20GB, but has HDMI and Blu-Ray DVD playback. What this waffling has come to demonstrate is that Sony’s marketing reps were correct all along: PlayStation 3 at $499.99 or $599.99 is actually not that bad a deal, for everything you get at those prices.

The funny thing is, a bit more market research could have prevented the debacle; anyone with half a brain could have told Microsoft that a 20GB hard drive would not have been enough to future-proof the 360, especially since the company has known for years they wanted to use Xbox Live to distribute music, TV shows and movies in digital format. Or that HDMI and 1080p output was essential to call their box a “true HD” unit.

With a bit more vision, the 360 could have looked far more visionary and beat Sony’s position on pricing. As it stands, those PS3 prices don’t look that inflated after all, anymore.