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Microsoft Unveils Smaller Xbox 360 Model, Kinect Details
E3 kicked off today, and Microsoft took advantage of its early keynote presentation to show off a ton of new games and features for the Xbox 360. The biggest news for the very near future is that they're releasing a smaller, revamped version of the console, with immediate availability. It's black, it comes with a 250GB HDD and built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi support, and it's priced at $299. Microsoft also put a release date on Kinect, the motion control scheme formerly known as Project Natal: November 4 in the US. It will launch with 15 games, mostly casual-oriented, several of which were demonstrated on-stage. Many new Kinect features were shown as well, such as the dashboard interface, video chat (with support for playing movies both parties can watch), and a partnership with ESPN to provide live and on-demand sports, all controllable with hand gestures and voice commands. (It presently includes college football and basketball, soccer, the NBA, and MLB.) Also notable is a partnership with LucasArts for a Kinect Star Wars game, a fitness game from Ubisoft, and a Forza racing game that uses Kinect and allows players to inspect the cars with an impressive level of detail. Engadget's liveblog of the event has a bunch of pictures from the demonstrations, or you can read a more detailed play-by-play at Ars.
Where is Valve's big surprise?
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
Kinect is exciting and I'll get it but the biggest announcement had to be the ESPN agreement. That's a cable killer right there depending on how blackout/regional rules apply.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
It's awesome that they will have Wireless N built in, and I like the fact that the cooling has been changed around...but apparently the current external hard drives won't be compatible with it, and neither will memory cards.
How are we to transfer saved games and content? USB key and redownload arcade titles?
Living With a Nerd
Let's not turn the Xbox360 into the next Wii.... Hopefully developers don't feel a pressure of hype that forces them to try and squeeze motion control into games just to have that 'compatible with Kintec' label.
This is just embarrassing to watch. The Kinetic stuff looks is not only looks as un-fun as any gaming thing possibly could be, it is also getting torn apart by people closely watching the demos and seeing the horrendous lag and inaccuracy.
And five years after the Red Ring of Death plagued Xbox 360 launched they are releasing a 300 dollar smaller unit.
Let me guess Microsoft, you claim this one has finally fixed the worst console hardware design in history and in a smaller form factor. Yeah, right...
Custom kinect port = it uses some proprietary connector so you won't be able to use it with anything else, will it even be possible to connect it to an original 360?
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
I'm not a big XBL player but one thing I notice is how laggy a lot of gamers already are given a wired connection.
Will Wireless N make this better, worse or the same? Is this a big selling point for people?
crazy dynamite monkey
What could possibly go wrong?
Who couldn't use more RAM?
I'm very curious as to what CPU/GPU config this thing has. The original xbox360, while being quite dated now by chip standards, still has amazing graphics due to it's gpu capabilities. I wanna know what's under the hood. More cores? Radeon HD? Gimme specs!!!
What assurances can we have that this new slim 360 isn't going to be subject to the same quality problems the original 360 had? If I buy now, can I reasonably expect my 360 to be functioning in 5 years? 10?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
"Let's not turn the Xbox360 into the next Wii"
Are you serious? That is all Microsoft has been doing for the past two years. Over the past couple of years Microsoft has been:
1. Shutting down their first party studios
2. Making it clear to everyone that there is no new next gen Xbox coming out
3. Refocused their tiny 3 studio first party developers on casual Wii like titles
Microsoft is no longer willing to waste billions on the console market. They have gotten destroyed by Sony and Nintendo in Japan and Europe just like last gen. Their only 'bright spot' this gen is selling millions of duplicate replacement consoles to mostly US Xbox owners to help inflate their installed base a little compared to last gen. Graphically the Xbox 360 has been humiliated by the PS3 this gen due to its wimpy and gimped graphics hardware and smaller than DVD storage format. And there is nothing Microsoft can do to compete with Sony's massive 20+ first party development studios.
It is cheaper for Microsoft to lose to Nintendo than it is to Sony.
At the very least this laughably bad Microsoft jump onto the motion control bandwagon will ensure the hardcore Xbox owners keep wasting 50 bucks a year for the 'privilege' of playing games online.
or actually offer ANYTHING aside from Wifi?
let's face the facts, 5 years on, they never managed to fix the Xbox overheating problems, a smaller case is not going to help matters.... It's not even a slot load.
"250GB of storage on a removable hard drive, although it's not a standard drive or same drive as the old console250GB of storage on a removable hard drive, although it's not a standard drive or same drive as the old console"
I'll keep waiting, thanks.
Actually I think it will be awesome for my 2 year old.
So yeah, it's pretty exciting.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
They have gotten destroyed by Sony and Nintendo in Japan and Europe just like last gen.
Except that in pretty much every European country the stats show the 360 always selling more than the PS3 and having higher attach rates.
Graphically the Xbox 360 has been humiliated by the PS3 this gen due to its wimpy and gimped graphics hardware and smaller than DVD storage format.
So then how do you explain all the examples one can find in a 2 second search that show this to be wrong in many cases?
No blu-ray, no new features, smaller, and positioned as a must-buy?
Gee, where have I seen this before? I know I have seen similar restylings that offered no real improvement.
Where is Blu-ray? I know, Ballmer, offering blu-ray would be admitting you were wrong, but getting Windows 7 out so quickly after the monstrosity known as "Vista" is a pretty loud admission that you do fuck up now and then. You're only compounding it by not embracing blu-ray while the rest of the world already has.
I'll admit, I do want an XBox 360, and while it's nice the power supply, wifi, and HDD are all now internal, what I am waiting on is blu-ray. I want it more as a media extender/STB more than anything else, primarily for Hulu and Netflix, and possibly for Rockband 3 once the "real" keyboard comes out.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
What a bunch of fucking losers! How long have you dipshits been sitting around in forums making that same stupid fucking claim?
Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I've been making that "same stupid fucking claim" since the falcons came out, and then the jaspers. No denying previous revisions had serious problems, though.
Let's just recap what you idiots have claimed over the years:
Slow your roll, shill. You don't know me, and I don't think you've been paid to insult people you don't know. Stick to your talking points.
No wonder the gaming worlds hates you retards.
Which worlds might those be?
Living With a Nerd
How the fuck can someone like you be that stupid?
PS3
Standard USB keyboards and mice
Standard Bluetooth devices
Standard off the shelf laptop drive upgrades and replacements
From now on shut the fuck up.
Microsoft spammer trying to call out others! Precious!
You're like the idiot who farts in a car and then tries to cover it up by yelling "Who farted!?"
At least the spammers Microsoft hired to troll boards like neogaf were more subtle before they were exposed. Thank your faggot ass you're far away in some shithole town or you'd get the shit beaten out of you.
I agree with everything you said except for the part about the PS3 having better graphics. The PS3 *should* have better graphics but most titles available for both consoles look better on 360.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Does anyone know if you'll be able to *somehow* connect this to a PC / get access as a normal hobby developer to the SDK's? I can think of a ton of great uses for this controller beyond games... Domotics stuff, adapted programs control, blabla... I would personally love to be able to clap my hands, say the name of song/artist/album and get it to play. And when i want the next song just wave to the camera :-)
The Kinect demonstration was the worst presentation I've seen in years. A bunch of insincere, over-rehearsed routines performed with the most poorly feigned enthusiasm a human being can muster. Direct line to the cringe button in my brain.
Unfortunately they didn't demonstrate the tech very well either - just a bunch of minigames and emulations of things we've all seen before. Some of them were really awful. It has potential but I don't think we say it implemented today.
The actual tech was interesting. They've certainly got the full-body tracking down well. That said, it appears to have substantial latency; I'd estimate >750ms from the video. Maybe it varies depending on the level of tracking being done? They were playing racing games on it, and that just wouldn't cut it for those.
I didn't hear mention of the price. I seem to remember that all the processing was supposed to be done on the 360's CPU, so it shouldn't be that much. Anybody know?
"I would suspect you of being a shill"
During the outbreak of the RRoD fiasco Microsoft was paying marketing companies to have guys like Pojut sit around in gaming forums making constant claims about how the RRoD wasn't that bad and the new models fixed the problems and on and on. One of the guys Microsoft was paying to do this finally admitted to it after he stopped working for the marketing/PR company responsible for the damage control spammers.
Standard operating procedures for Microsoft.
This is the same company that resorted to sending out 900 dollar 'gift bag'/bribes to 'game reviewers' to ensure they got their silly little guy in shiny dayglow green armor decent reviews.
I charge my smartphone all the time when my PC is OFF (completely, not just stand-by or sleep). It's a BIOS feature maybe? If you use a powered USB hub, it would proably also work?
I can't wait until a team member "lags out" of Halo. And by "lags out," I mean, "Is having a heart attack because his 350 lb. Cheetoh-laden body couldn't bunny hop across his living room anymore."
This smaller console should have been released 2 or 3 years ago, it would have helped with the problems of reliability if it runs cooler. This is nearly a five year old console now, consoles have a 5-6 year lifespan typically.
The next gen model should have been announced.
How about some cricket, rugby, darts, lawn bowling or even snooker? Football (soccer) is ok, but there are a lot of other sports that people follow around the world. Considering how popular 'Red Dead Redemption' is, I would have thought that an equestrian game would be quite successful!
I wish companies would stop being so US-centric when selling their consoles worldwide - 350 million people is quite a small number compared to the rest of the world. :-)
1) This is a strategic move on MSs part. For example, Ensemble wasn't part of MSs current vision. I doubt they were overly profitable and the studio is full of senior developers. MS knew they would be fine on their own, so they cut them. That allows them to divert money to the current vision...building games that will sell on the 360, not the PC.
2) No one wants a new 360 (or PS3) right now. Tons of people still don't have HDTVs and these current games are hard to play on them. Also, developers have just not gotten to the point where their tools are developed and they can become profitable and take chances on titles. This isn't like game industry of the past. These consoles are expensive slow to develop for.
3) Come on, MS is pushing Natal...they had some of their studios create Natal titles. And they have a lot more than 3 inhouse studios.
Microsoft is very willing to dump cash into the game market and they're doing it! They're kicking butt in the US and Europe. The 360 has been a total success, save hardware issues.
The Xbox has not been graphically humiliated by the PS3. It just hasn't happened. The PS3 is slightly more capable, but this is a dramatic untruth.
I've never paid more than $35 for my live subscription...wait for a sale. I own a PS3 and an Xbox and I have to say, I do get value out of the subscription. Do I wish it were free? Yes. But the network is stable as hell. I never get any of the issues I do with my PS3 titles. Microsoft does a good job of providing perks for users too, such as discless Netflix, free games like 1 vs. 100, weekly sales, fun events, etc. They're not taking your money and running, they're providing a good service. If Sony stepped up their online game, I'd start buying all my online titles for PS3 in a heartbeat. I like the controller a lot better. But PS3 online games are ghostships compared to the 360 counterparts and there's a reason why.
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
buy now its redesign is only 300$
ok people its a 5+ year old game console, it should be in the 129$ bin now
oh wait you added a what 39$ hard drive, thats worth 200 bucks
still too expensive
Why the fuck are 7th generation consoles vertical ? What useful purpose does it serve? Is it the inherent instability, or the inability to stack them with other set top boxes? Or maybe the added difficulty to insert the media (that should be intangible, or at least solid state, not 1999 era disks by the way). Or the impossibility to fit them in a small cupboard under the TV?
I imagine they want this one to last longer than has been the norm. They make more money from games and upgrades than the actual console. They haven't got much of an incentive to replace it now that they've finally got a design that won't fail in under a year.
I'll admit, I was really impressed with the linked video. Until I watched it again and realized that it's faked. The person "controlling" the action isn't quite in sync with what's on screen. Sometimes the actor is slightly ahead of the "game" (could be lag, I thought) and other times isn't keeping up with what's on screen.
Even the linked video comments that the video is likely a scripted demo. But I'm not convinced it's real yet. (I'm sure it works, but clearly not ready for prime-time, nor even E3.)
We get it -- Micro$oft sucks, Linux rules -- blah, blah, blah. There's no point arguing with an anti-Microsoft fanboy. The 360/Kinect could cure disease, bring about world peace, and give you blowjobs from here to eternity, but it doesn't matter because it's Microsoft's product. That's OK though -- that means that we can go play on Live without assholes like you, while you run off and play something on your Wii.
Let's see, it's black and "connect" is spelled with a K(i). What is it with the whole "let's spell things with a K" and make sure it's black - my god, it's -so- rebellious! It's like Korporate Koolness on Koolaid gone Krazy! Kinda like iApple putting an iI before iEverything.
Nice to see people thinking outside the box. Creativity folks, get some. Argh!
MS solves this problem by making the case smaller and putting another heat source inside the case. Now, that's engineering!
Yes, of course. Only the reason this was possible is because of the fact that it *had* so many problems in the past. Case in point: When Sony released Playstation, it was great and yet they made a slimmer version for it for all three iterations! That doesn't happen out of the blue, you make something and then see what could change. Mind you, the issues regarding both parts of this argument, Xbox had issues with manufacturing vs. PS made them smaller just because...are completely different. This is the way of technology. Stuff gets better and smaller each time. YOU try to do this! Have you? Well, then...and by the way, please join us now in the next decade of the new Millenium, where the old rules don't typically apply anymore. Where's *your* next gen model, hot shot?
Regarding the New 360
I've toyed with these things for months; the new HDD is removeable, comes out smoothly, goes in smoothly. You can visually identify a SATA interface on the drive, which is in a black casing. I am uncertain if you can simply pop the casing open and swap out any 2.5" drive you would like, but the casing is about the right size for it, and the SATA connector appears to be pretty standard. I suspect upgrading your HDD size will be trivially easy.
I just had a new roommate move in and he has a PS3, so I finally got to see one. Having seen it play Blu-rays, I have to say I'm not impressed. The interface is not nearly as nice as my LG Blu-ray player. Also my remote can't control it, I'd need to buy an adapter since the PS3 speaks Bluetooth and all the other devices speak IR. Also while the PS3 can handle online things like Netflix, you have to put in a special DVD for it. My Blu-ray player has them built in, and apparently can get more via updates (a new one appeared after the last firmware update).
So while I'm sure it is fine as a game console, it really loses out to my Blu-ray player, not in the least of which because the Blu-ray player was under $150.
Only way I see needing your Blu-ray player combined with your game console is if you live in an extremely space cramped situation and you can only afford to have one device in addition to your TV. I just do not see that being the case in the US and Canada at least.
LANs do not have a significant amount of latency compared to an Internet connection. While wireless does have a bit more latency than wired, you are talking differences in microseconds. If you have DSL or cable, your very first hop probably has a latency in the 10-40 millisecond range.
So if you've got lag, it is a net issue, not a LAN issue.
"The PS3 *should* have better graphics but most titles available for both consoles look better on 360."
That was hilarious! Fucking fanboy goggles...
What a delusional fucking faggot.
Go away loser.
Fiasco? Not at all. It seems to work well enough.
Overpriced? Abso-freakin'-lutely. Natal shouldn't cost over $99, and even that would be pushing it.
Living With a Nerd
Really? MW2, Fallout3, Red Dead Redemption, GTAIV, all look better on the PS3 to me. The 360 looks like it's rendering everything in 16-bit color.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I don't know about the rest, but Red Dead Redemption runs at a lower resolution on PS3 than it does on XBOX. Rockstar has done this on all their games so far.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
“Imitate, not innovate”
1. Never come up with something yourself but just blindly react to whatever innovator creates a “trend”. ... (to *the sound of a herd of cattle starting to move*)
2. Find something to distinguish yourself from what you are actually just trying to make a copy of, no matter how crappy or pointless it is. (Kinect)
3. Market it as if you invented all of it, as if it would change the world, and as if it were the greatest thing since sliced bread. “Use Panzerfaust” if required.
4.
5. PROFIT (Or rather not so much anymore.)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
When the 65nm-based "falcon" chipset 360's came out I was excited because they supposedly produced less heat and hence the fan would run quieter. However, it turns out the majority of the noise comes from the DVD drive. When you cache a game to the HD it's noticeably quieter (..but still louder than my wii & ps3).
So, I'd be curious if they managed to make the drive itself quieter.
With Rockstar games, they start with the 360 and port to PS3, IIRC.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
What extra heat source would that be? They removed one by combining it with the other and then using 45nm fabrication processes to cut down on the power requirements... Protip: that's less heat, not more.
Putting the power supply back in the console itself instead of a brick outside it. That's adding a heat source.
roomer is that NHL may come back to epsn ratings this year when up BIG TIME.
Awww come on now! Look at the history of overpriced peripherals and how well they take off. I'm sure this one will do just as good as all the others have in the past. The SEGA CD was a huge success (don't look it up, just trust me) The 32x breathed new life (**cough**) into cartridge games. Sony's EyeToy (a.k.a. a freaking web cam) changed the world with it's "interactive, you're in the game" fun, at least Sony and the 15 people that bought it did. overpriced peripherals do one thing, and one thing only. Fracture a market. Is it sad to say I'm more excited to see what the hacking community comes up with once they've got drivers for the Kinect running on a PC.
Hey look, one of Bill Gates personal unpaid blow job givers.
Nope, there is still a brick: http://www.engadget.com/photos/xbox-360-250gb-first-unboxing-0/#3077004
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Biggest no-no I still have with xbox 360 is that it has that crappy HD-DVD drive. I'd hate to buy a separate bluray player.
MS woke up to the fact that Nintendo's approach is vastly more profitable than fighting over an expensive and shrinking market with Sony. Doesn't mean MS has any chance at competing with Nintendo though.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Something to drown out the iPad hype. This is something that really tickles my neophillia and I'm suprised the reaction in the press is so underwhelming. Lately we've been seeing the same things we've been buying for a while, repackaged, enveloped in a reality distortion field and re-sold as something revolutionary which seems to be what Apple thinks is innovation.
But this is Microsoft actually doing something we haven't seen before in a consumer product. Just when I was going to post a blog about how there is nothing new under the sun in IT, I'm foiled.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Many developers do, hence 360 versions of multiplatform games tend to look better. But this is pointless fanboy dickwagging anyway, you can refer to Digital Foundry if you really need a breakdown on the differences but usually they are too small for a regular user to worry about.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
http://video.destructoid.com/#165121
Video and everything. Move it while it's on, and you ruin the disc. Not much of a surprise, but they could have fixed that.
It depends on the game. Final Fantasy XIII has 1080p graphics for both cut-scenes and in-game, where the Xbox360 version only has 576p cutscenes and 720p gameplay. The reason? Square-Enix couldn't fit full resolution videos and textures on the measly 8GB available on a standard DVD drive, but the PS3 version has Blu-Ray.
The difference is pretty dramatic. I'm enjoying cut-scenes rendered in full 1080p while the Xbox360 version is getting half that.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
A roomer? About EPSN? No way!
I think we're forgetting about some slightly different capabilities of the cards in use.
For example, ATi has always had better draw distance and maintaining texture appearance over those distances. nVidia has rather sucked at it while maintaining better shadowing capability. I've tested and found this to be true since the old ATi Rage versus the TNT2, and it still holds true today (My ATi HD4200 does better at draw distance compared to the 9800GTX+)
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
In all fairness, you left off the wii board and the guitar hero/rockband instrument peripherals. Those have done well a peripheral sales. It's not completely unheard of for a peripheral to succeed nowadays.
The problem with console accessories, even if they're pretty cool, is they seldom sell nearly as well as the base system. This results in a lack of games, which further depresses accessory sales.
There are some signs that this has changed, with dance pads and guitar hero/rock band, but history is still on Nintendo's side (putting out a new console with the accessory integrated) on this one. Dance pads aren't really comparable, as they are really cheap, so the only really close example is musical instruments. The difference with musical instruments is that the third party developer is making money on the instruments themselves, and not giving that up to the console maker and relying purely on game sales.
If Microsoft really wanted to sell Kinect, they would drop all Xbox models except for an Xbox 360/Kinect model selling for $299. That would really get these into the market, AND probably increase the number of people buying the new Xbox 360. I'm still not sure if that would be enough to bring in the developers.
Actually, I meant for video games, not horribly written interactive movies written by Japanese schoolgirls on ecstasy. So Final Fantasy isn't exactly germane to this conversation.