The Xbox 360 is back in black

After more rumours (and denials) than you can shake a stick at, Microsoft have officially announced the new Xbox 360 Elite, and somehow managed to leave us with more questions than answers. What we can safely tell you is that it's got an HDMI port, comes with a 120GB HDD...and it's black.

There's no official word on which revision of HDMI was used, so we can't tell you anything more than 'it'll do 1080p.' Given how chuffed some PlayStation 3 owners are with the HDMI 1.3 port in their consoles, we'd be surprised if Microsoft dropped the ball on this one.

The 120GB hard drive finally gives users the space to store decent amounts of HD video content alongside the gigabytes of game demos and Live Arcade games that once fought for the prior 20GB. A cable will be included to transfer data from an existing 20GB drive to the new 120GB drive.

We've heard mixed reports regarding whether the Elite will be a permanent SKU, or a limited-edition run for the upgrade-junkies and collectors before the existing Premium console absorbs the HDMI port and larger HDD.

The Xbox 360 Elite will be released in the US on April 29th and will cost US$479. The 120GB HDD will be available seperately and cost $179.