In preparation for the holidays (and also the impending release of nerd boner Halo 3 in September) Microsoft announced that it’s finally cutting the price of the Xbox 360 by about 13%.

The price of the Xbox 360 Core, which does not include a hard drive, will fall $20 to $280 while the Elite model, which features a 120-gigabyte drive, six times the size of the Premium’s, will fall $30 to $450. The cuts will take effect from August 8, Microsoft said.

Launched in November 2005, the Xbox 360 has gone 20 months without a price cut, the longest of any console in history. Sony’s PlayStation 2 held its $300 price for 18 months after launching in the United States in 2000.

“It surprised me a little bit because there’s not a whole lot of market pressure on them to lower the price,” said Van Baker, an analyst with market research firm Gartner.

“Is it going to make an enormous difference? No, because when it comes to consoles, it’s not the price that sells the console, it’s the games that sells the console and from that perspective, Microsoft’s in pretty good shape,” Baker said.

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