It's always good to see rumors coalescing into neat little bundles, which in Microsoft's case means that its
expected 360 hardware refresh and
Natal re-introduction will coincide at E3 this year. Surfer Girl, one of the gaming industry's more notorious rumor hounds, is telling us that Microsoft is about to unveil a slimmer Xbox 360 at the upcoming E3 in June, together with Natal hardware bundles. She describes the new system design as "pretty neat" and suggests there'll be a shift to black as the console's primary color, to go along with Natal's darker hue, which in turn was dictated by the fact it'd have to sit alongside dark and moody HDTV sets. Very
feng shui of Microsoft indeed. For the final, and most unbelievable of her predictions, she tells us -- while highlighting the initials M.G.S. -- that we'll be "very surprised and very pleased" by one of the Natal games revealed at the show. Seriously,
Metal Gear Natal?
[Thanks, Lander]
Update: Looks like this was all a
hilarious hoax perpetrated by someone pretending to be Surfer Girl. Yeah, we've heard plenty of "real" rumors about a slimmer Xbox and Natal bundles, but it looks like there's no weight to this one.
posted April 26th 2010 3:35AM
Microsoft Game Studios
@Natal Or that! :)
@Natal
or just metal gear solid.
they all fit.
hopefully it has wifi installed.. doubt it though
@Vlad Savov
I dunno dude! Raiden does some sick shit with his sword!! Either would be insane if the technology can handle it!
@artstate Then the Star Wars Kid will be vindicated as the true visionary that he was.
@Natal
I've kept my mouth shut on the Natal hype until I see what's coming.
I know they'll deliver at least 2-3 decent launch games, lets not lie, Microsoft is killing this year.
@Natal
Leave it to Engadget to make anything Microsoft look hideous. What's up with that photoshop Natal/xBox 360 combo?
Majors (Nelson) Gay Spectacular!
Uhm, duhhhhhhhhhhhh.....Didn't we already know this? Microsoft plans a "reboot" of the XBOX360 brand with the new slim+Natal bundle. This will be the new $299 SKU.
I can definitely see the slim coming in at $249 by itself. $199 seems to cheap for Microsoft. But I wouldn't not be surprised at a $199 price.
@FrankTheCrank
If they did 199 that would rock the boat something serious. The arcade would go to 120-150.
@Mofetti
The arcade would likely be dead.
@ytilanigiroon I kinda hope so. I'd like to see more developers being able to create titles with built-in hard drive capability rather than the (current?) system of assuming the user only has a Memory Card on hand.
just hoping that it works as advertised.
@incrediBull
The console itself you mean =P? I hope they worked out the ventilation issues with the new iteration. I'm sick of reflowing the gpu.
I wonder how the pricing will be. Bargain basement ala Arcade, or premium ala Elite. Probably somewhere in between with a view to dropping to near PS2 prices within 12 months. Now that would be interesting.
A little bigger than 8 DVD cases (2 stacks of 4)
No MU ports (thanks, latest system update!)
Internal storage; no snap-on drive
Touch eject and power controls
@dramallama
An optical audio output -no adaptor required- would be nice as well.
And ¿may I ask for another USB port to replace my MU's without having to wonder where to plug my charge&play?
@dramallama
You forgot built-in WiFi. That's a must.
@KarlW
I'd much rather have 10/100/1000 Ethernet built in before wi-fi, of which neither will happen...
I'd really like to see them let the end user upgrade the hard drive - without voiding warranties or violating the TOS.
Hope it delivers. I want to see this tech succeed.
WOAH THAT THING IS HUGE!!!
THAT'S WHAT SHE......
@Wesscoast
no
this is minority report in real life. Anyone who belittles this technological advancement is completely misinformed.
@Natal
How is this different from the EyeToy?
I'm not trolling -- I loved the eyetoy; I just want to know how this is different.
@Natal
excuse me if i just wait until it is released. You know, trying it out myself before saying how great it is. Maybe i'm too misinformed to KNOW just yet.
Just hope is half as good as it looks, though.
@KarlW
the eyetoy cant recognize objects in a 3d space. this thing isnt just "a camera that sees motion"
@KarlW
The EyeToy didn't recognize anything. just detected the difference of the pixels between the subject and the background, but it couldn't tell an arm from an armchair.
Natal actually recognizes what's in front of it. the recognition software is much, much more sophisticated that what's in eyetoy. And the recognition is done with the IR image, not the video one, so you don't need to care about the lighting.
so the difference is, if you just stand with your left arm up, Eyetoy will "see" just something L shaped, while Natal will actually "see" a guy with his left arm up. Hell, it will even tell who the guy is.
MGS probably = Microsoft Game Studios... Halo: Natal ? Or if they're talking in house, Conker: Natal.
@parabola
Conker's Bad Fur Day with natal gameplay... That would be awesome.
@kitsune
hehe, conkers bad fur day was funny. "I am the great mighty poo and im going to through my sh!t at you, a huge supply of tish comes from chocolate starfish, how about you scat you little tw@t"
I don't care how thin or what color it is. Just please use better cooling and ditch the jumbo fan. I'm sick of turning up my amp to deafening levels to drown it out.
Woohoo!!! Bring it On!!! MS!!!
I am SO getting one of these when it comes out. Hopefully the hardware can last longer than 2 years, unlike my last 360...
@kirbyatemytoothbrush
You are lucky it lasted that long. Mine failed 3 times in 2 years so I strapped a massive extra fan to the new one I bought.
@DougieBear
I've had two. One was a launch console. Never died. I gave it away when I bought the 60GB 360 currently sitting in my living room. The OG console just started overheating for its new owner. Nearly a good year since I handed it over.
This endemic problem, I think, has more to do with how the consoles are treated than with bad thermal engineering. That's not to say the design couldn't have been better, because it obviously could have, but it's not really something that people should be calling the waaambulance about either.
e3 is still around? lol
@OC Technophile
e3 is the biggest game event. its where all the consoles have launched since forever. So yea, its still around and will be for a while.
PS3 Slim ftw!
Melinda Gates Stripshow
Buhahahahha..........imature I know
Black already is the Xbox 360's primary color. It comes in white Arcade or black Elite
@ChrisSsk yea well that means they will drop the Arcade, make the black Elite standard. and make another Slim one as the higher priced one with the natal bundle
@deepen03 Now we know that was a baseless rumor, but in all possibility, MS is going to create a new xbox with smaller chips and all.
Once that happens, why wouldn't MS use the new chips across the board, after all new chips will be cheaper to make and are cooler and consume less juice. It makes no sense to keep the elite around the way it is.
Thousand will be dissapointed when they buy natal and get a personal feeling of the lag in natal. It might be a small lag but people cry out and return the product.
If natal fails it will be because of this, lag.
I would rather this get delayed another 8-14 months and MS work on reducing lag than see it fail
@Savage3006
again. i love seeing how people precognizes the fate of devices that are not to be released for another 6 months.
because you do know this thing won't be released until december, ¿right?
plenty of time, if you ask me.
@Savage3006
all lag issues with one single person have been removed.
@Savage3006 We will have to wait and see on the final release I would think they are constantly working on the software. To be honest though I thought they would put more processing in the device to keep the 360 as free as possible. It could have been a custom chip designed specifically for handling the type of processing.
@petebob796
they have haven't they?
microsoft gimme gloss black!!!!!!!!!!! Like the wii!!!!!!!!
@(Unverified)
please. no.
i don't want to have to dust my 360 every day.
keep it matte.