Microsoft announced yesterday that it will be replacing its 20GB Xbox 360 Premium with a new model this August. Giving consumers more bang for their buck, or gigabytes in this case, the new 60GB Xbox 360 Premium will be available for the same price as the currently available 20GB model ($349.99 USD/CAD). Aside from the bundled hard drive, nothing in the new model will really be different, unless Microsoft also includes the new Jasper chipset inside the console. This is certainly a possibility as the new chipset was speculated for an August release quite a few months ago.

“ We know consumers need more and more space to store the amazing digital content Xbox 360 offers, and we’re giving it to them at no extra charge,” said Albert Penello, Xbox director of product management at Microsoft. “No one device offers the depth and breadth of entertainment that Xbox 360 can deliver, and now you’ll have three times the storage to manage all that great content.”

Consumers who, for whatever reason, can't wait the extra month to get their hands on an Xbox 360 should be happy to know that, in preparation for the 60GB Premium's upcoming release, Microsoft has dropped the price of the 20GB Xbox 360 Premium by $50 to $299.99 USD/CAD. That's certainly a good deal if you were only considering getting the Xbox 360 Arcade, which only comes with a 256MB memory card instead of a hard drive, no component cables, Ethernet cable or headset, and is priced at $279.99 USD/CAD. For the extra $20, you get the 20GB hard drive, and all of the other accessories mentioned above. Not bad.