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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.
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
The Falcon's ran quite stable, and the Jasper units are nearly 100% stable. My own Jasper runs perfectly fine, despite the fact that it is kept in an enclosed space (inside my tv stand with glass doors, next to my PS3 Slim...sometimes with both on at the same time.) The red ring problems were a very huge issue for a long time, but with the Falcon revision they were vastly reduced, and with the Jasper release they are pretty much entirely fixed. This smaller unit is only going to increase the stability even more.
I smell a shill.
Living With a Nerd
Who couldn't use more RAM?
Wanna see something you can't unsee? Play Uno on your XBox online.
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!
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"
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
Microsoft already has control over a large majority of the cameras on the internet. They could probably get the laptop webcam to turn on without the light beside it turning on and we have yet to hear about them trying anything there.
I smell a shill.
Not all of us are up on the production cycles regarding the different versions of the Xbox 360 as such it is not an unusual question to ask about it's reliability.
I would suspect you of being a shill vs the parent considering your extremely informed post.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
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!!!
I can tell that you don't understand hardware very well (which just makes the fact that you're asking for hardware specs that much funnier). With any console revamp like this, the specs are the exact same, just done with a reduced die for lower power consumption and less heat dissipation. There might be other tweaks to the board design (possibly slightly different controller chips, etc), but as far as speed and polygon count, etc, they're essentially the same. That's the entire point of having "locked in" hardware designs for things like consoles.
I would suspect you of being a shill vs the parent considering your extremely informed post.
That's right, I'm a paid shill posting under my real account, which I use nearly every day on here. ::eyeroll::
Living With a Nerd
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 :-)
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?
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.
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.
What does this mean? Translator please.
I'd try to help, but I really have no idea what it is you don't understand about that post; they're saying Kinetik doesn't look very fun, and if you looked closely at the demonstrations, it appears to suffer from lag and be rather inaccurate. What do you need translating?
True, but the original poster is correct that IBM integrated the CPU and GPU on the same die for them this time around, which is pretty nifty, I guess.
Same function and performance all around, but It helps MS save some money at ye old fabbe.
FUNK!
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."
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.)
What about an old west style dueling game? Ten paces, turn FIRE!
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Don't be silly, a lot of online users who like the Xbox 360 are fully aware of the Jasper units. He's hardly a paid shill.
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?
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.
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!?"
The article is about the 360, so that's what I'm talking about. I own game consoles from many different companies, from Atari to Nintendo to Sega to Sony to Microsoft. Why would I limit what games I could play due to fanboyism? I'm a fan of any machine that plays games...
Thank your faggot ass you're far away in some shithole town or you'd get the shit beaten out of you.
Actually, I live just outside of DC. A shithole, yes...but hardly a town :-)
Living With a Nerd
I smell a shill.
There needs to be a Godwin's Law for this kind of comment, at least on Slashdot.
Why not? It would make you a better shill. And yet you accuse some AC's with pitiful arguments of being shills.
It had nothing to do with "pitiful arguments"...it's a standard list of talking points similar to many others. Nintendo does it, and so does Sony...and all three of the big ones have the same basic list of talking points. Personally, I own most of the major systems to be released in the last 30 years, whether they are from Atari, Sega, Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft.
Also, for what it's worth, I've had a full-time job since a month after I graduated high school nearly a decade ago. Spent time as a mechanic, and now I'm a mail merge programmer.
Living With a Nerd
What are talking about? This is just a new revision of the Xbox 360, so it has the same specs as the old one.
Mada mada dane.
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.
At no point did I think that you were a shill, paid or otherwise, but I also did not think those you accused of being shills neither. There was equal possibility of any of you being shills, pretty much none.
I just thought it was pretty much like calling someone an asshole, it hurts your arguments.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
I can't be the only one that noticed how the Star Wars video showed the guy moving AFTER the "in game" character.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
True...good point. I'll attempt to restrain the stupidity next time :-)
Living With a Nerd
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.
The above was my post, if this isn't obvious (a misclick on "Post anonymously"), and in case someone feels the urge to mod me down ~
And concentrate all of the unit's cooling focus onto one area instead of two, which should reduce the noise comparatively.
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.
No, it isn't fixed. They probably work fine in the US and other temperate countries, where half of the year it's cold and the other half the AC is on; but in a warm country (like here in Brazil) the problem is still very much alive. My cousin went through three 360s; the newest, a Jasper, didn't get the RRoD but is showing Error E74 even after replacing the whole cooling solution and adding huge heat spreaders to the NAND and other hot chips.
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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Heck I have two Falcons, one modded one not, and they have been flawless despite being played for 20+ hours a week in a small enclosed area. The fans get a bit loud, considering my ears are about 6 inches away from the console, but the only times I've experienced crashes were due to that disasterpiece of paper-maché-code they call Modern Warfare 2 - nothing a hop back to the dashboard couldn't fix.
Now looking at this new "slim" 360, I really don't see much of an improvement. I'm assuming they've slightly reworked the Jasper board, but the whole thing doesn't look noticeably smaller. I do find it looks very awkward with its random angles that remind me of 1996 "avant-garde" web sites. I know design was never MS' strength but they really need to fire every single artist they have. Home entertainment devices aren't supposed to look like they've been whacked in the midriff with a Volvo - they are supposed to blend in with their surroundings and not detract from the actual media experience.
I'm just pulling this out of my ass, but my impression upon seeing this "new and improved" box is that they started out with the goal of shrinking it, hit some engineering or organisational roadblocks, and released what little they had achieved to save face and justify the fruitless expenses.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
i dont believe i'm actually replying to this, but here goes:
The problem with your shill theory is that it allows you to yell "SHILL!!!!!" at pretty much everyone who doesnt share your views of microsoft/xbox 360. For instance, my first 360 died, but MS very gracefully replaced it, all in all i was out of a machine (which was 3 years old at the time) for barely a week. Furthermore, i enjoy gaming on it, and i can honestly say it is the best console i've had in terms of fun (better then the Wii for sure, also beats out my gamecube, xbox and dreamcast).
Now you will just claim i'm a shill, for saying that the RRoD thing wasnt a big deal for me, and MS handled it very gracefully, even though this is just me, not a MS paid marketeer, but a critical consumer with a passionate hate for other branches of MS (seriously, why can you not by default change the language on windows 7 home premium? fuckers!)
Also, claiming Pojut is a shill is just ignorant, the guy is a valuable member of the /. community, with lots of insightfull and good posts on various subjects.
People, what a bunch of bastards
Hell regarding the RROD's and a smaller form factor I had the same question. No shilling involved.
From the looks of it, the new design has a much better thermal design, loads more vents and stuff. The powerbrick also looks tiny compared to the original. Also the CPU/GPU chips have been shrunk to 45nm, compared to 90nm in the original, which would drasticly lower the heat dissipation.
I havent seen any specifics on power usage, but i would be highly surprised if MS screwed up the thermals again, especially when doing a complete re-design such as this
People, what a bunch of bastards
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.
Unfortunately it seems the 360 was not designed for having dozens of small games on the HDD, if you try to open your games library it takes a long time to load the list. IMO the Wii has a vastly superior interface for that, just turn the system on and it shows you the list right away with twelve entries per page, much faster for getting to the game you want.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
No, my job is pulling a fairly large amount of info (demographics, insurance information, therapy information) from a large Siebel database. Still just as easy, but it's not quite just "name and address", as there is some basic math required when pulling in some of the data.
All that aside, it's still fairly easy...but it pays well, so ::shrug::.
Living With a Nerd
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
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.