It's unlikely that Microsoft would announce any such price drops more than a few days in advance. Otherwise, you can just watch sales figures plummet between the time of the announcement and the price drop becoming effective.
If they were going to drop the price, I would expect it to happen around the Thanksgiving time period. It also depends on if Sony drops the price on the PS3. That would put pressure on Microsoft to lower the price of the Xbox 360, since the 360 Elite might end up being more expensive than the PS3.
If Sony lowers the price of the PS3, I would expect Microsoft to respond in kind in very short order. Otherwise, I wouldn't really hold out a lot of hope. So long as sales are fairly strong at the higher price point, there's little incentive for Microsoft to lower the price.
Since they sell the consoles at a loss, hoping to make it up on software (games), price drops really depend on something in the manufacturing process getting cheaper. Or they could raise the price of games and Xbox Live subscriptions to finance it, though I doubt that would go over well.
Best course of action is to proceed as if there's not going to be a price drop for a good while.
Does anyone think that there is going to be a price drop for the xbox 360 anytime soon? By soon I mean by the end of the summer or by the end of this year. I want to buy one and I don't know if I should wait or not.
Also, do you think that it is safe to buy a refurbished one?

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