While it was announced back in April that the new phantasy star universe expansion - Ambition of the Illuminus - would be download-only on the Xbox 360 cynics like myself assumed that Sega would charge full price for the download. I'm pleased to say that 1UP has confirmed that that is not the case:

Sega's Phantasy Star Universe: Ambition of the Illuminus...will be released in North America on November 20th. The Xbox 360 version will be released exclusively as a download via the Xbox Live Marketplace, while the PlayStation 2 and PC iterations will be sold at retail.

Ambition of the Illuminus will retail for $39.95 on the PlayStation 2 and PC, while the Xbox Live Marketplace download will sell for just 1600 Microsoft points ($20). No word yet on a disc-based version for the Xbox 360, but it seems unlikely considering the ease (and affordability) of a downloadable expansion.

Half price is about as much as a boy could ask for, really. I'm glad to see that someone is passing the savings from ditching all that cardboard and plastic on to the customer. Let's hope Sega's starting a trend.