well, they are pretty much the same thing EXCEPT that the elite has a hardrive with 120 gigs of memory and the arcade doesnt have anything. get the elite ifm your gona get xbox live because you can download free game demos , or download movies into it
the elite comes with a large harddrive so that you can save games and download content, music, demos, etc. I would prefer this one.
The arcade has no hard drive, so you would have to buy a memory card, which is around 25$+. Also, I dont know if the arcade one has the cords needed to hook it up to an hdtv, you would have to check.
I'd say to get the elite unless you only plan on playing a few games and/or already have a 360 memory card
