New 360 Hitting at E3?

[MyNameDidntFit]

Well, well, well. I think "Italians" and I think "side swapping", "plumbers", "diving" and "pizza". Now, though, I think "monumental cock-up". What would bring about this massive change to my core theologies? This:

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/9/2010/06/500x_slim360.jpg

That's right. An Italian website made the utterly epic screw-up of putting up an advertisement for what appears to be the new 360. Ouch.

Anyway, that's not the interesting part. The interesting parts are the following:

It's not a 'slim' console: looking at the disc tray and power button we can guess that it might be a touch thinner than its predecessor but otherwise it's just blacker and angrier looking (so much for family friendly, eh MS?).
Built-in Wi-fi: This has been one of the big issues with the old 360 -- it had no Wi-fi support and the adaptor cost the equivalent of a small country.

Other than those two things there doesn't seem to be too much interesting about it. The cooling system seems to have been tweaked (note the larger vents) and it sports a 250GB HDD as standard which... well, isn't anything special. Oh, and, obviously, it's compatible with Kinect.

But what can we assume (having already assumed this is legit)? We can assume that MS haven't just hacked the rounded edges off the old 360, painted it black and thrown it out to the ever-hungry consumer. This means that we might see smaller, quieter, cheaper components leading to a price drop... but I wouldn't be expecting anything to change performance-wise. Beyond that we can wonder about two things:
1) Kinect/Natal was white previously. So, either this console comes in two colours, or Kinect will be going black.
2) The 360 controllers are quite clearly built to compliment the original 360 design. Will we get sharp, black controllers? Maybe. But that doesn't sound too great to me.

In short: I can't see anything to be excited about... so I'm not excited. Anyone else giddily jumping around about this like a schoolgirl after her first vodka?






Mm, and, should you care, Kotaku (http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/06/so-whats-inside-the-new-xbox-360/) have a video of the full advertisement that was on the website.

[JustaBitOutside]

Doesn't seem too special, I would like a large hard drive and wireless to be built in sure, but I already have one so it won't affect me any. The guy at Gamestop was telling me today that they were going to be for sale by the end of the week, yet they hadn't heard of it and there was no stock.

[Jason]

I'm not sure of the logic in this one. By now, about 90% of the people who want an Xbox 360 have one. As a 360 owner myself, I can assure you that I can see no practical reason for owning another one (the girlfriend would only steal it off me anyway...), hence I'm not entirely sure what the market is here. It's not even like it's all that far ahead of a fully souped-up 360 Elite (I believe you can purchase a 250GB HDD, and the wifi adapter has been on sale for a while).

Also, let's be completely honest here, Microsoft don't have the best track record with new hardware. The original Xbox was plagued with dodgy power supplies and disc drives that failed after about a year, and let's not even start with the 360's issues... god knows what'll be wrong with this one. It'll probably spout a ten-foot wall of flame from the disc drive and incinerate the family dog if you hold B while turning it on.

[Jason]

Some more news on this one, actually.

In addition to the new model, shipping at around the $300 mark, Microsoft are taking $50 off the price of existing 360 Elite and 360 Arcade models effective immediately, making the elite $250, and the Arcade a very reasonable $150.
However, if you're thinking of investing (at that price for the Arcade, I'd be seriously considering it if I didn't own one already), be quick, as Microsoft are discontinuing the older models, leaving the new model as the only version of the 360 on the market for the short term.
However, they are allegedly planning on releasing a second 'new' model, believed to be in a similar price range to the Arcade, although they apparently refused to speculate what features would be available and in what capacity on the cheaper model.

[Archangel]

Well, well, well. I think "Italians" and I think "side swapping", "plumbers", "diving" and "pizza". Now, though, I think "monumental cock-up". What would bring about this massive change to my core theologies? This:

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/9/2010/06/500x_slim360.jpg

That's right. An Italian website made the utterly epic screw-up of putting up an advertisement for what appears to be the new 360. Ouch.

Anyway, that's not the interesting part. The interesting parts are the following:

It's not a 'slim' console: looking at the disc tray and power button we can guess that it might be a touch thinner than its predecessor but otherwise it's just blacker and angrier looking (so much for family friendly, eh MS?).
Built-in Wi-fi: This has been one of the big issues with the old 360 -- it had no Wi-fi support and the adaptor cost the equivalent of a small country.

Other than those two things there doesn't seem to be too much interesting about it. The cooling system seems to have been tweaked (note the larger vents) and it sports a 250GB HDD as standard which... well, isn't anything special. Oh, and, obviously, it's compatible with Kinect.

But what can we assume (having already assumed this is legit)? We can assume that MS haven't just hacked the rounded edges off the old 360, painted it black and thrown it out to the ever-hungry consumer. This means that we might see smaller, quieter, cheaper components leading to a price drop... but I wouldn't be expecting anything to change performance-wise. Beyond that we can wonder about two things:
1) Kinect/Natal was white previously. So, either this console comes in two colours, or Kinect will be going black.
2) The 360 controllers are quite clearly built to compliment the original 360 design. Will we get sharp, black controllers? Maybe. But that doesn't sound too great to me.

In short: I can't see anything to be excited about... so I'm not excited. Anyone else giddily jumping around about this like a schoolgirl after her first vodka?


Mm, and, should you care, Kotaku (http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/06/so-whats-inside-the-new-xbox-360/) have a video of the full advertisement that was on the website.

I'm not sure of the logic in this one. By now, about 90% of the people who want an Xbox 360 have one. As a 360 owner myself, I can assure you that I can see no practical reason for owning another one (the girlfriend would only steal it off me anyway...), hence I'm not entirely sure what the market is here. It's not even like it's all that far ahead of a fully souped-up 360 Elite (I believe you can purchase a 250GB HDD, and the wifi adapter has been on sale for a while).

Also, let's be completely honest here, Microsoft don't have the best track record with new hardware. The original Xbox was plagued with dodgy power supplies and disc drives that failed after about a year, and let's not even start with the 360's issues... god knows what'll be wrong with this one. It'll probably spout a ten-foot wall of flame from the disc drive and incinerate the family dog if you hold B while turning it on.

It'll be just like all the other different 360 variants that no one knows exist except the smart tech-head people. Like me. OR it's just Microsoft finally getting around to putting Jasper's out in stores. See, there've already been 5 incarnations of the 360, all doing exactly what this one probably is (minus the black and blockiness). The original make was a Xenon, had a 203W Power Supply and 90nM "Xenos" GPU and 90nM "Xenon" CPU components.
There was also the Zephyr, which pretty much just added a HDMI port. Pretty fail not to have one.

After have of everyone's 360 red-ringed, there was the Opus which was what people got as a replacement for having red-ringed Xenon's (Provided the stores they went through weren't dicks with too many old Xenon revisions they needed to get rid of). It had A 65nM CPU instead of 90nM, and needed only a 175W PSU, so it was a bit better. Still pretty meh.
There was the Falcon, with 65nM CPU, 80nM GPU, 175W PSU and it was reasonably dandy, but still it was just improving a defunct model.

And then there's the Jasper, with 65nM CPU, 65nM GPU and 150W CPU + on-board flash memory. So far, Jaspers have been ridiculously rare to find in stores, if they've even been in any at all. So, seeing as how microsoft haven't released any tech specs or the like for a new 360 (Which, considering the Jasper's specs have existed for quite a few months now, but the thing's barely been glimpsed), I'm saying it's fair bet this one is just them finally introducing the Jasper model as THE XBox 360. Discontinued manufacturing on all the other ones and all that (hence cheaper Elites and such, 'cos they've probably stopped manufacturing them.)

So, hate to say you couldn't be wronger than Hitler attacking the commies, Jase, but you're you're pretty damn wrong. The logic is that this is cheaper to manufacture, cheaper to sell, more efficient to run by the end-user, and will in fact be far less prone to overheating.

Hell, considering that Microsoft have pumped out 5 different variants of the things and barely any one is any the wiser, the only thing you have to complain about this is that it's a different colour. They've manufactured new models before, and no one gave a damn; this is pretty much the same deal.

Some more news on this one, actually.

In addition to the new model, shipping at around the $300 mark, Microsoft are taking $50 off the price of existing 360 Elite and 360 Arcade models effective immediately, making the elite $250, and the Arcade a very reasonable $150.
However, if you're thinking of investing (at that price for the Arcade, I'd be seriously considering it if I didn't own one already), be quick, as Microsoft are discontinuing the older models, leaving the new model as the only version of the 360 on the market for the short term.
However, they are allegedly planning on releasing a second 'new' model, believed to be in a similar price range to the Arcade, although they apparently refused to speculate what features would be available and in what capacity on the cheaper model.

Hah, there you go, I was right. Discontinued support on the Elite and Arcade. Damn I'm good.

[MyNameDidntFit]

It'll be just like all the other different 360 variants that no one knows exist except the smart tech-head people.
Damn, son, even I knew about those and, well, all the tech I know is stuff I've leached off you over the years... 'course I can't claim to have known (nor cared about) the nitty-gritty tech specs ;)

The thing that makes this worth talking about over the previous ones is that 1) they didn't change anything that the average consumer notices, 2) there was no price change, and 3) they weren't being passed off as a 'new console'.

[Archangel]

Well, to be fair, I've probably mentioned them once or twice before. And, any 'people' I tend to discuss it with are the folks 'round here, so perhaps it's a location-specific incident.

[Jason]

So, hate to say you couldn't be wronger than Hitler attacking the commies, Jase, but you're you're pretty damn wrong. The logic is that this is cheaper to manufacture, cheaper to sell, more efficient to run by the end-user, and will in fact be far less prone to overheating.

Aaaaaaaactually... :p

If you scan back through these very forums there's a couple of posts where I'm discussing the new Jasper chipset with someone whose identity escapes me right now. I've also followed the issues with the various incarnations of the 360, and have been somewhat confused regards the availability of the Jasper considering how it's supposed to be the 'definitive' fix for the RROD.

The logic is that this is cheaper to manufacture, cheaper to sell, more efficient to run by the end-user, and will in fact be far less prone to overheating.

That's all marvellous, but that still doesn't mean I'm paying $300 for one when I have a perfectly functional Xbox already, and with anyone who ever wanted an Xbox most likely having one already, I can't really see who's going to buy enough of these to make the R&D costs money well spent. That's where I'm confused.

[Archangel]

...

Touche.

[MyNameDidntFit]

Basically we can say this: the new 360 is a black, sharp 360 Elite with built in Wi-fi... :/

[Archangel]

... And is probably not a Jasper, but a Valhalla, seeing as how Microsoft has provided some specs on it. 45nM CPU, 45nM GPU and 135W PSU.

Not bad.

[Jason]

It looks like a very nice piece of hardware, that's for sure. As many people have suggested, it looks like Microsoft's response to the PS3 slim, and whilst I have my reservations about the market for such a console, it looks like an excellent purchase for those that don't own a current generation console, and might just be enough to help Microsoft keep Sony at bay in this generation's console war.

Here's hoping there's no catastrophic hardware issues this time round.

[Archangel]

It's still just doing the same die-shrinks as the last revisions have done, so no issues there. They might see some issues from putting the CPU and the GPU on a single integrated chip, though. But nothing that will hit the end-user. All that does is make the manufacturing process a touch more complex, resulting in more potential fails during manufacturing, but the ones that do work will still run more efficiently than previous incarnations.

[dimples]

Nothing sounds that appealing to me. And Xbox is supposed to be white! Tho the black ones do look fancy. I have the lamest xbox there is :D 60GB. Or something like that.

[Lance]

I had a good looking one - the Halo edition.

I'm thinking I may buy a new one (maybe not the new style, but a newer version at least), gut the Halo box and merge them for all-round greatness....

[CemeteryGates]

Nothing sounds that appealing to me. And Xbox is supposed to be white! Tho the black ones do look fancy. I have the lamest xbox there is :D 60GB. Or something like that.


Pfft, mine's got like a 12GB HDD.

[Jason]

Yeah, I've got a 20GB drive. I've technically got a 360 Arcade, so I picked up a second-hand 20GB hard drive from Amazon. Does the job for what I need it to do. :)

[dimples]

I need much more space than what I have now. I'm a real space hogger. I was thinking when I got a laptop that 360GB is enough. Now I'm always running out of space. Same with xbox. Got like 8GB left. And that is almost gone with installing a new demo

[Jason]

Heh, are you one of those people that never deletes anything ever? :D

[CemeteryGates]

Ah, I have the same problem. I reckon if I deleted my music from ym 360's HDD, I'd free at least 3-4 GB's. :p

[MyNameDidntFit]

That's all? :p

[Steph]

Well ... I'm disappointed to be honest. I expected something more than that.

[CemeteryGates]

That's all? :p

From the 360? Yes. :p
But I have 60+ GBs in this computer. :)
I had 100+ before I decided to format it, so I still have a lot of music to get in here...
I mainly just have some of my absolute favorites on the 360. Ah, but if I only had a 250 GB HDD...