Slashdot Mirror
New Version of Xbox 360 Rumoured
Carlo Becchi writes "According to Engadget a new version of the Xbox 360 is on the way. The next version of the console is codenamed 'Zephyr', and sports a bigger disk (120 Gb), better manufacturing process (65nm) and HDMI digital out up to 1080p. From the article: 'The 120GB drive may or may not come bundled with the kit, we don't yet know, just as we also don't yet know how much a Zephyr 360 is going to run (we imagine it'll go for the same price as currently so they can keep up a little on their expanding margin).'" It should be pointed out at this point the whole story is a fairly convincing photo and leaks from 'a source'. Take with a grain of salt.
Will it come with a built-in HD-DVD drive, or will I still be expected to pay $200 for that add-on?
My Sysadmin Blog
I know they'll sell like hotcakes then. Especially if they smelled like hot cakes!
Future ruler of a small Asian-Pacific island
For the current Pro model? Maybe making it the core system... So everybody gets a HDD... I hope this happens soon...
Onward to the Aether Sphere!
I doubt MS would have a built-in HD-DVD drive. For one thing, I don't believe the transfer speeds of the HD-DVD (reading DVD discs) are as fast as the current DVD drive. Also, I believe MS has stated several times that they believe the future of movie distribution is over the internet and their movie download service has been doing pretty good and they benefit directly from those sales vs sales of a HD-DVD addon.
Now that 360 sales are relatively strong, let's announce a new update that won't be out for a while but be so much cooler (both figuratively and literally :) than the one sitting on shelves right now. Yeah, that's a good idea. This isn't a PC where updates happen so often you might as well bite the bullet as soon as you're ready. This is a console and people really will wait if they think something better is right around the corner.
Each of these features has been previously announced or strongly hinted at. Is it any surprise that we're getting evidence of it actually being implemented?
Well, that and the fact that I'm about to go back to university and won't have enough time to enjoy a 360 until the summer. Still, by then the number of AAA titles will be much higher, and I expected at least a model with a bigger HDD and maybe an HDMI cable as standard. Looks like my guesses were pretty much on the money (if this "leak" is true), but it didn't take much brains to guess that. With the PS3 arriving here in Europe sometime this year, MS need to reduce the number of hardware specifications they are "losing" on vs Sony's machine - if only so Joe Public doesn't look at the specs and think "hey the new PlayStation is much better than the Xbox, and no wonder since that's been in the shops for 18 months now". 120GB of storage is twice that of the premium PS3 model, and 1080p out of the box would satisfy a lot of the videophiles out there.
Fact is, the general public (and gamers who feel safe and familiar with the PlayStation brand) are under the impression that the PS3 will decimate the 360 right from Day 1, and MS need to show that their console is already running at full steam with high specs and an impressive catalogue of games.
This is all written from the perspective of a European gamer, so the battle is still to really start here.
They really have to compete with the PS3, because we all know how well it is doing right now... Right.
This new model will become the new 'premium' and the old premium the new 'core'; price for both will remain the same.
;p
And if MS really love me they would offer some kind of trade in plan for those that bought the 20GB drives
HDMI isn't a huge deal for me. It'd be nice, but I only have one HDMI input on my TV anyway and the cablebox is using it. Component 720p already looks quite good.
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
MS has not announced any new update other than they will be using the 65nm process for future 360's. This is all rumor so far. As for updates, these changes don't suddenly make the old 360's stop working nor does it make future games require these updates. So unlike PCs, these updates don't introduce any compatibility issues.
They're just trying to win Wired's 2007 Vaporware Awards. They figure if they leak it now they have a whole year to build it up. It's good marketing
There are many tongues to talk, and but few heads to think. -Victor Hugo
1) How is HDMI raising the bar? The 360 can already do 1080p now without it.
2) Blu-Ray support is equivilent to HD-DVD support. The 360 wins here since you have the option of buying it or not.
3) HD by default is also advantage-360. Many people buy consoles without the need of downloading large amounts of movies/music/demos.
4) PS3 games over Wifi are horrible. There is a noticable lag difference vs ethernet.
5) Dual layer DVD's can hold near 10 gigs. PC games have been outputting at "1080p" like resolutions for years without requiring 10 gigs. If Gears of War can fit on a 10 gig disc, then any game in this generation of consoles can.
so it IS surprising then?
MS presents the Xbox 361: The Do-Over Edition
as long as they offer a 120gb upgrade for older 360s that would be fine with me. there are currently hacks out that let you use any HD of any size, but the MS firmware drivers have hardcoded 20GB limits in them, so even if you hook up a 500GB hard drive, it only can use 20GB. with this coming update, you should then be able to use your own drive up to 120GB. (you can't put movies or demos on any media drives you connect, only the main drive)
If they really want to "embrace and extend" they'll have to include a WiiRemote.
Use some of that horsepower to include the new interface, and I'm in!!!
er, you are saying microsoft needs to catch up to the ps3? im sorry but sony has a LOOOONG way to go to catch up with the 360.
I swear the FAA calls me every time I turn on my 360 to play a game. A couple of times, seismologists have dropped in to see what was going on.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
I know Microsoft has said they will not allow games to be shipped on HD-DVD, but frankly that stance will change due to pressure from major game companies who want to make cross console ports as simple as possible. There were already a number of game developers complaining about space even at launch, and that voice will just become stronger until Microsoft can no longer resit it.
All it takes is EA saying "you know what, Madden is just a little too big this year to fit on the 360 so we're going to have to cut you out".
I predict the launch of Halo 3 will involve in some way HD-DVD - it may be anything from an extras disc that comes on HD-DVD, to a deluxe version of the game on HD-DVD with a DVD version available as well with reduced content or graphics. Given that they are going to be forced to move to greater HD-DVD support anyway, the marketing opportunity is too good to miss.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Could this be a hoax? Maybe a clever photoshop job?
So I bought the SXRD sony TV thinking the SVGA support actually supports 1080p. Picked up the xbox VGA cable and well, that was a waste of money. no dice didn't work at all.
The sony TV doesn't do 1080p through component so meh, I'm screwed. Now if they release an HDMI compliant 360, they sure as hell better release a cable as well for the existing owners! I"m not going to buy another 360 so I can have 1080p.
Hopefully they don't start releasing 1080p games because that is the only place I see a difference. Blu-ray 1080p, and the HD-DVD addon (1080i) I have yet to see any noticable difference. Now, gran turismo HD, when it was on my old 1080i HDTV didn't look all that great. Actually PGR3 looked better, BUT, in 1080p I noticed a huge difference..
MrJynx
Because HDMI is the standard for high definition TV. All televisions bearing an HD Ready logo in Europe require it (or DVI-D) and no doubt it's defacto standard in US and Japan, as well as the fact it offers better picture quality.
2) Blu-Ray support is equivilent to HD-DVD support. The 360 wins here since you have the option of buying it or not.
Yes, you have the option of buy some strap-on requiring its own power supply or not for a price which exceeds a PS3. Great choice.
3) HD by default is also advantage-360. Many people buy consoles without the need of downloading large amounts of movies/music/demos.
I don't even know what you are talking about here. Hobbling the 360 so that an harddrive may or may not be present does not do games or consumers any favours. Besides, not having an HD means you don't get any downloadable content, online gameplay, patches or backwards compatibility since software emulation requires a harddrive. Also note that the PS3 harddrive is a standard 2.5 inch SATA making it cheap and easy to expand if you wish unlike the ludicrously expensive 20Gb drive in a proprietary casing for the 360.
PS3 games over Wifi are horrible. There is a noticable lag difference vs ethernet.
Evidence for this? I expect that if you have an 801.11g router that the performance is perfectly acceptable. And if by some miracle you provide evidence that says otherwise, well... the PS3 has a gigabit ethernet support which is also another way it is better than a 360.
5) Dual layer DVD's can hold near 10 gigs. PC games have been outputting at "1080p" like resolutions for years without requiring 10 gigs. If Gears of War can fit on a 10 gig disc, then any game in this generation of consoles can.
Most games will fit on DVD, some won't, especially those of the GTA / Final Fantasy / Blue Dragon scale. Look forward to more and more that don't. Of course the 360 has one saving grace - its games are region locked so there is little reason to ship a single disc localised for many countries. Quite a double edged sword really.
Any network game depends on what other networking equipment you have...
And especially with wireless, you are subject to lots of factors including your routing equipment, other traffic on the network, interference from other sources, walls blocking the signals etc. At my parents house, wireless works terribly... You can browse the web and all seems normal, but anything interactive becomes unuseable, ssh sessions stall every few minutes.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
I picked up a cheapie refurb Netgear 'print server' for about $50 on ebay - one thing to fiddle with and gives me four physical network sockets.
I'd kill for a quieter drive - OR better still, caching to the 360 HD. I don't mind buying a bigger HD, leaving the disk in the drive, whatever it takes - but I'm damned if I'll sit looking at loading screens as my room vibrates when I bought the damn thing with an HD. PS3 can do it, it's only a firmware update, c'mon MS...
"The PS3 raised the bar by including HDMI, blu-ray support, a hard disk by default, wi-fi and some other bits and pieces."
While Nintendo did just the opposite by not including many of those features. Despite that, the Wii is doing extremely well, for a number of reasons, including:
a) Price. Wii is less than half the price of the PS3. A Dodge Neon is devoid of features compared to a Cadillac, yet the Neon sells extremely well. (Well, sold, I believe the Neon has now been replaced by the Caliber? I haven't looked at their offerings recently.) Not everyone wants a Cadillac, and so a manufacturer doesn't necessarily need to make Cadillacs.
b) Focus on gameplay rather than whiz-bang oooh-shiny features that don't necessarily improve gameplay at all.
How well compared to PS3 or 360 is currently impossible to tell, since the Wii is the only of the three systems still limited in sales by availability. (which, in and of itself, is a good sign for the Wii).
PS3 didn't raise the bar in any way with those features, since the Wii has proven that those features are not necessary in any way for a given console to succeed.
The Core will most likely always remain available, because it is always good to have an entry level system to offer those who don't have $12938921704123 to spend on their consoles or have the money but are not willing to spend it on such purchases. (Such as myself, I have yet to buy a console that cost more than $150 for the system, and yes, that means I'm usually playing the previous generation but I have no problem with that. Used games are cheap, and I have better things to spend my money on.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Okay.
HDMI=DRM! Sony has got to love it. DVI would be a better choice. Still I will give you that having HDMI is a nice option as long as long as it is just an option.
blue-ray=DRM! So does HD-DVD but I don't want to pay for them in a console. They are not yet needed for games and one or the other is going to fail in the market place. If not we will all end up with dual format players or both will fail.
I think Sony hasn't so much raised the bar as much as dug a hole.
Standard hard drive and wi-fi are both nice but not exactly mandatory for a game console. I still expect to see a 360 that is also a PVR and support for the Zune.
Of course part of me has a feeling that some people at Microsoft have looked long and hard at bit torrent and are going to include a secure P2P client in the 360 so that they can use them as a low cost file distribution network.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
are 360s starting to look more and more like computers, following the computer business model? consistent hardware upgrades, new versions, accessories, etc. etc.? Why buy a 360 when you can get high end gaming computer and do more things with your purchase?
You do realize that DVI-D can do HDCP just like HDMI, right? In fact the video portion of HDMI is signal-compatible with DVI-D. The only other bit that you get with HDMI is audio, but unless you have an HDMI-enabled receiver I'd stick with the TOSLink digital audio output instead.
Acting as a PVR would obviously require a hard drive. It would also require a TV tuner (or support for USB tuners), otherwise you end up with the same solution you have today -- the 360 as an extender for a PC running Media Center elsewhere. As for the Zune, are you saying you want the 360 to be able to fill it? Or to be able to pull data off of it? Not owning a Zune, I'd hope that the latter scenario already works today. The former scenario is a little silly unless the 360 becomes more than just an interface to other machines (via UPnP or Media Center).
For that to work they'd need much larger hard drives. As it is, the 20GB doesn't allow you to keep around too many demos or videos. Two HD movies at 5-6MB each and you've filled the drive. How can I share out bits of a movie if I have to delete it in order to have space for other videos, demos, save games, etc?
The PS3 certainly raises the technical bar. And its far, far too early to decide how all these new consoles will pan out, sales-wise. Wii is a superstar right now for sure, but Xbox360 is doing great also, and the PS3 is not even on sale in the UK yet.
Man, I envy you. I really do. You spend a lot less than I do to be happy with your games. But obviously you are not the target market of the Xbox or PS teams. You are part of an emerging market that Nintendo has uncovered, the Casual Gamer. I think its great that they have cracked this group - and it bodes well for the overall market expansion of video games in general. But understand that Nintendo will have a completely different dynamic to work with as well - by your own admission you (and casual gamers like yourself) spend very little money on gaming. That might be a challenge for them down the line, time will tell.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
I am not a fanboy, I been gaming all my life (29 now), and have no real bias towards any platform.
With that said, can they please do something about the noise levels? Sometimes playing Oblivion I feel the 360 is about to take off or something. Don't get me wrong, the HDD upgrade would be nice as would the 1080P, etc. But in terms of enjoyment, I would be so much happier if it was just quiet!
I guess asking to copy the CD to the HDD the first time you play and let you play without the disc is asking too much right? (Yeah, I realize the pirates would be on that in a second.)
Just curious, how many of the moves are pre-rendered cgi?
You mad
I'll give you one really good example to blow this out of the water...
My younger brother purchased the cheaper version of the PS3. My parent's house is several miles outside of town and is hooked up to this extended range DSL from the local telco. (Pioneer Telephone @ Kingfisher, OK) It is supposed to be a 1.5Mbit line, and as you can imagine it never achieves that kind of bandwidth. This is hooked up to a Netgear 802.11g wireless router.
As I said, he got the cheap PS3 without wireless, and instead of running a cable down the hall from the router to the living room where he hooked up the PS3 he did the following:
Attach wireless equipped laptop to the household wireless network.
Connect PS3 to computer's ethernet port via crossover cable.
Share wireless network connection using windows internet connection sharing.
And voila! His PS3 is on the Internets. He also claims to me that the setup worked really well for playing Resistance online and he really didn't notice much horrible lag.
So you sir are full of shit. There is no way that this setup can provide any better performance than the PS3's own wireless card ever could.
I didn't know DVI could do HDCP! Damm them too hell!
Yes I can see putting a CableCard interface on to the next 360. That way you could record not just SDTV but HDTV as well. And yes you would need a bigger hard drive or an NAS. Same for the P2P, I am shocked that Sony or Microsoft didn't do this already. It seems like a great idea.
As to the ZUNE. From everything I have read you can not fill it from your XBox! DUMB! DUMB! DUMB!
of course you can not fill it from the wifi interface.
It also doesn't have any understanding of free content. Even free podcasts in MP3 format are wrapped in DRM if you share them over WiFi!!!! DUMB DUMB DUMB!!!!!
Frankly I would have let you stream over wifi to you Zune from your 360.
I swear that for a company that is supposed to be big into integration they seem to be be clueless!
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I cannot imagine any legal or technical reason they cannot let people put downloaded demos
and videos to an external HD. Its all DRMed, and if its a demo, who cares. Please MS. Why have these
stupid restrictions, note to you the gaming managers/engineers, you're too quiet, make some noise
or else you're just a typical monkey at MS. No balls at all. Be more vocal, get a clue from Steve Jobs.
As in the arstechnica article, stop giving excuses that 20gig is enough, tell the business analysts to F-OFF.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
That "number of game developers" was really just one.
Oh really?
Quoting:
"According to Game Informer, nearly every developer they talked to at X05 expressed difficulties fitting their launch titles onto a single disc."
To which Microsoft can reply, "Just use your Wii graphic assets, since you're still going to ship there on a DVD-9
To which EA will reply, have you not noticed that the games and control schemes going for the Wii are generally different? Or simply reply "fine then we're pulling Madden like we said". Microsoft is not the one in a position of strength here to make demands.
Sure the X-Men game was similar. But for every one of those you have games like SSX Blur that looks quite different, there are a number of upcoming games that take that approach since the system and controls are so different.
Besides, do you (or more specifically Microsoft) really want the head to head reviews where the XBox 360 graphics are on par with the Wii and the PS3 is scoring far higher visually? This is another aspect of the lower storage capacity I have been predicting, that after some time in head to head the 360 will look weaker graphically than the PS3 (even though it is not) exactly because textures are simplified, eliminated, or more greatly compressed. Why should the 360 developer and user suffer with a limitation on storage that is needless?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No, that just makes sense with the 360's current approach to media. It's an endpoint, not a provider. If you want to fill your Zune, do it from the PC where the Xbox is getting its info as well (you're not ripping CDs or vids directly to your 360, are you? That'd be dumb!). While it would be neat to be able to move Xbox Marketplace bits directly over to a Zune, that's a rather small scenario since the marketplace is more about games (XBLA), downloads for games, and demos. In fact the only thing I could see you moving to your Zune from Xbox Marketplace would be trailers (full TV shows and videos I'd expect to be DRMed to prevent that). Then again, trailers are in 480p or 720p format which means you'd either have to transcode them to put them on the Zune or Microsoft would have to offer lower resolution trailers.
Maybe future updates to 360 and Zune will make them work better. In the meantime, the 360's "normal" mode of connectivity with any media player (iPod, PlaysForSure devices, and I assume Zune) is read-only, which makes since given the lack of storage capacity on the 360.
At least the PS3 offers Wifi. To do the same on the 360 requires a $80-100 "gaming router". By the time you get the 360 anything remotely approaching a 60Gb you'd have spent a lot more.
Will it come with REAL downloadable content?
Um, all PC games are highly compressed and important information that is needed constantly is put on the HDD.
No this isn't a link to a joke. This is a video of the new build, running.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcACuy4x8nA
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
How long before this Xbox becomes fully expandable, except it will now be called the XPC and run Vista, and to run any software on it, you'll need to use software that has received a Microsoft license. At about this time, there won't be many new games for a "normal" PC and other software apps will be well-on-their-way to being "ported" to the new platform.
Is that true? I have noticed a big difference in sound, between the 2, but is it strictly the DVD drive? or do these DVD based games require more of the system, thus it has to crank the fans also to keep it cool?
"In fact the only thing I could see you moving to your Zune from Xbox Marketplace would be trailers (full TV shows and videos I'd expect to be DRMed to prevent that)."
Dumb dumb dumb dumb.
Right now Microsoft has Three incompatible sources for music and video. You have the the XBOX marketplace, Playforsure "yea right", and the Zune market place.
If I give you that the XBox360 should be treated as a peripheral to the your Windows PC then why limit it.
Why not allow me to rip music on the my 360 and store it on my PC across the network? Why not allow me to fill my Zune from my 360 in my living room across the network?
Why no allow me to use my Zune media, my playforsure, and my XBOX media on all my Microsoft devices?
The 360 is going to be hooked up to a TV in a living room. The idea is that it should be the hub of your entertainment system. It is only logical to give it access to all your media and to even use it as a PVR even if you store the files on your Windows Media center PC or on some type of NAS. It also makes sense to allow you to store the media on your Zune and yes even fill it from your 360.
Just as it makes sense to allow your ZUNE to squirt to your 360 so your buddy can bring his Zune over and show this cool movie/video/sone he got on your stereo system.
Over all I would say Microsoft in this case lacks vison as far as the Zune/360/MediaCenter goes.
The big missing product is the Microsoft MediaServer. A simple NAS device that acts as a central storage area for all media in the home. No need to keep your pc running all the time to watch your recorded shows.
Frankly it could be as simple as an external hard drive for the 360. Or an external hard drive and video capture device for the 360.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Play any demo game you can download without a DVD in the drive. No jet engines. It isn't the fans, it's the DVD.