Microsoft has just announced the pricing scheme of the Xbox 360 Slim + Kinect bundle. It costs an appropriate-but-still-slightly-expensive $399 in the United States and £300 in the UK.

Modding the Xbox 360 firmware has been around for quite some time now which enables you to download images of games from different sources, burn them onto a DVD and run them on your console. Of course this is useful if you want to backup your discs but this is something Microsoft doesn’t want you to do for obvious reasons. The all new Xbox 360 Slim (or S) which was released in June 2010 at E3 had a new protection installed on the drive which made all the previous mods useless. But if this video is to be believed, hackers have managed to hack Xbox 360 S / Slim to run writable discs. Video after the break.

Last week at E3, Microsoft refreshed its Xbox 360 lineup by releasing the all new super quiet Xbox 360 S. This is basically a 250GB model with refreshed design; includes built-in WiFi-N, a dedicated port for Kinect (formerly Project Natal), and more. This is by far the sexiest Xbox to date! And now, Microsoft has confirmed a new SKU for Xbox 360 S, along with Kinect bundles which will have Kinect motion sensor included as part of the whole package.