Xbox Development Kit arrives with 'significantly reduced price,' Slim Sidecar

What's this, you ask? The next generation of Xbox 360 development, that's what. With a shockingly small amount of fanfare, Microsoft has ushered in a striking new Xbox Development Kit, which is purportedly designed to increase efficiency and reduce cost for Xbox 360 dev teams. Aside from boasting an undisclosed uptick in RAM, built-in flash memory, a more capacious hard drive and a slimmer form factor, this XDK will also be sold at a "significantly reduced price from its predecessor." 'Course, the folks in Redmond aren't saying what exactly that sticker will look like, but those interested in taking the plunge regardless will also have the option to license a Sidecar attachment that enables debugging and disc emulation. We're told that said accessory can be shared among multiple XDK consoles, and in turn, it should lower the overall price to create, test, debug, and release an Xbox 360 or Xbox Live Arcade game. It's still a guessing game when it comes to an actual launch date, but it'll become "the standard kit" when new orders are fulfilled in the future.