As reported earlier today, Microsoft finally got around to officially announcing the Xbox 360 Arcade. The Xbox 360 Arcade already showed up in some retail stores a week ago.

The Xbox 360 Arcade is now shipping from major online retailers. Wal-mart offers the Xbox 360 Arcade for $279.92.
Gamestop sells the cheapest Xbox 360 console for $279.99.

The Microsoft Xbox 360 Arcade console includes five family-friendly games (PAC-MAN Championship Edition" (NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc.), "Uno" (Carbonated Games), "Luxor 2" (MumboJumbo), "Boom Boom Rocket" (Electronic Arts Inc.) and "Feeding Frenzy" (Sprout Games)), a wireless controller, a high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) connection to enable high-definition output if desired and 256 MB of memory.

As said in my earlier coverage of the Xbox 360 Arcade, Microsoft should have set the price to $249.99 to compete heads-on with the Nintendo Wii. Nintendo can just lean back and can keep their pricing while Sony and Microsoft cut pricing of their consoles for the holiday shopping season.

On the other hand Nintendo seems to still struggle to get enough Wii consoles into the U.S. marketplace. It is still not in stock on Amazon.com every time I check.