Photo: Xbox One Call of Duty Advanced Warfare Bundle

Microsoft has come out swinging at Gamescom, announcing a slew of exclusives and a new Xbox One Call of Duty Advanced Warfare Bundle. The bundle news in particular is a shot at Sony’s exclusive Glacier White PS4 Destiny Bundle, though news of both bundles show just how strong Activision is among the major console manufacturers.

The Xbox One Call of Duty Advanced Warfare Bundle looks great, as you can see in the first photo above. Truth be told, the Advanced Warfare console’s design is much better than the Titanfall one released earlier this year. The bundle comes with a uniquely designed controller as well, which you can see here.

Yet the biggest news about the Xbox One Call of Duty Advanced Warfare Bundle isn’t really its appearance, but its hardware specs. The console will come equipped with a 1TB hard drive, providing gamers twice as much hard drive space as the existing 500GB Xbox One models.

The Xbox One Call of Duty Advanced Warfare Bundle is available only at select retailers. As of press time, pre-orders are still available at Amazon, though the bundle is available only in limited quantities, so you’ll want to place your pre-order soon if you want one. GameStop and the Microsoft Store also have the system available as of press time.

The bundle ships Nov. 3. and includes a digital Day Zero Edition copy of the game, complete with early access and double XP on November 3. In addition to the specially decorated Xbox One console and wireless controller, the bundle also includes a chat headset, special in-game sound effects and additional in-game content.

That additional content is the Digital Edition Personalization Pack, Limited Edition exoskeleton and the Advanced Arsenal, which includes a bullet brass exoskeleton and the EM1 Quantum directed energy custom weapon. In addition, the custom controller includes a bonus Supply Drop to unlock in-game content.

There’s one catch with the COD: Advanced Warfare bundle: it costs $499. The price specifically reflects the increased hard drive size, as there’s no Kinect sensor included in this one. It does include a copy of the game, of course, but so do the newly announced Sunset Overdrive Xbox One bundle ($399) and FIFA 15 Xbox One bundle ($349), both of which have the standard 500GB HDD.

The Xbox One recently dropped in price to accommodate the lack of a bundled Kinect sensor, with sales reportedly picking up. It will be interesting to see whether gamers are willing to re-pay that higher price with this new Advanced Warfare bundle, or whether that $499 price point is just too high. It’ll be particularly interesting to see how it fares against Sony’s Glacier White PS4 Destiny bundle, which is $50 less expensive at Amazon. What are your thoughts? Will that $50 make a difference to total sales? Let us know in the comments below.