xbox-360-slim
Latest
Microsoft exec says Xbox 360 still has three years of life in it
Even though Microsoft is gearing up to support the launch of its next console, the Xbox One, on November 22, the company plans to support the established Xbox 360 console for at least another three years. Speaking at the Citi Global Technology Conference, Xbox chief marketing and strategy officer Yusuf Mehdi confirmed the three year plan. He went on to call the Xbox 360 "incredibly profitable in the tall" which, translated from business speak, means "it's making impossible to believe amounts of money late in its life." The Xbox 360 will celebrate its eighth birthday in November. Outside of the Xbox 360 S remodel introduced in in 2010, Microsoft has expanded upon its Xbox 360 business with a subsidized console. Just last week, Microsoft converted its Xbox 360 funny money MS Points over to real-world currency.
New Xbox 360 torn down, shows we're all the same on the inside
A teardown of the new Xbox 360 announced at Microsoft's E3 press conference by iFixit showed some surprising non-changes to the redesigned system. Namely, the console still uses the storage, cooling fan and processing power from the current version of the system first announced in June 2010. Among the changes made to the system (referred to as the Xbox 360 E), iFixit noticed that Microsoft updated the RF module and that "the absence of the power button backlight found in the Xbox 360 S is easily noticed." The redesigned console is available now for the same price as the existing models. We got a good look at the system ourselves at E3, albeit from the outside.
Xbox 320GB hard drive to include NFS: Hot Pursuit, Ms. Splosion Man
The Xbox 360 S-compatible 320GB hard drive is getting a new batch of games, forcing out the formerly bundled-in Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars.As of sometime next month, the additional storage space includes downloadable copies of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Ms. Splosion Man, and Pinball FX 2 with the Sorcerer's Lair DLC. As for the price, that sticks at $129.99.
Captain America Xbox 360 mod inspired by The Avengers assembled, photographed
The Avengers-inspired Captain America Xbox 360 S mod above was created by Zachariah Cruse, a self-professed fan of the Cap. The design itself looks simple, yet elegant. It's also really shiny.Cruse put in a blue LED for the power button, mounted a shield on the side and adorned the opposite side with the famous A and wings that rest upon the brow of Captain America's mask. Sadly, Cruse doesn't go into much detail in his blog post on how intricate this mod really is – does the shield detach? Is the shield custom made or store-bought? Can we wear the shield as a hat? We have important questions that need answers!
320GB HDD available this month for Xbox 360, $130 ups your storage game
Since its introduction, Microsoft's second generation Xbox 360 has had nary a stand-alone HDD option aside from the company's proprietary 250GB drive, priced at a spendy $130 -- this despite those occasional limited edition consoles packing a massive 320GBs of space. That's soon to change, however, as Major Nelson's announced a new 320GB HDD for the 360, set to be available this month. Possibly in an attempt to sweeten the deal, this platter maintains the 250GB's $130 cost of adoption, and comes pre-loaded with Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars (sadly though, no Lego love for Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Slovakia or Japan, where the game won't be available). Notably, rather than dropping the 250GB drive's price, it's now curiously absent from the Xbox website (and we won't hold our breath waiting for it to pop up again either). Nothing like a good ol' fashioned pricing premium for official Xbox storage, right?
New Xbox 360 update incompatible with some models, MS offering replacements [update]
Microsoft has confirmed that some Xbox 360 consoles weren't happy with a recent firmware update upcoming, mandatory firmware update. The console manufacturer will replace consoles that have become unable to read retail game discs with a new Xbox 360 S with 250 GB hard drive. "Following a recent update to our system software, we have become aware of an issue that is preventing a very small number of Xbox 360 owners from playing retail game discs," a Microsoft statement reads. "This issue manifests itself a as a unique 'disc unreadable' or 'disc unsupported' error on the screen and is unrelated to our recent public beta (alteration from original Eurogamer statement). We are also able to detect this issue over Xbox Live and are proactively reaching out to customers that may be impacted to replace their console." The firmware update implements new anti-piracy measures (along with a 1GB bump in disc storage capacity) that apparently don't play nice with certain DVE drives. Given that the Xbox 360 has had several revisions to its guts over the years, this is the reason why only certain models will be affected. We've contacted Microsoft to find out what North American consumers should do if their console is incompatible with the update. European consumers have been told to go to Microsoft's general support page. Update: Altered text above with new information. Microsoft's official statement can be found after the break.
New Xbox Development Kit is cheaper, way cuter
Microsoft has begun offering developers great and small a new model of the Xbox 360 development kit, pictured above. The new hardware's got a lot to offer game studios -- it's got an undisclosed boost in RAM, larger hard drive, built-in flash memory and a less bulky frame than its predecessor. Its most appealing bonus? According to the kit's press release announcement, the new hardware will come at a "significantly reduced price from its predecessor." Wait, no, that's not its most appealing bonus. We're pretty sure the aspect that's gonna lead companies to snatch up as many of these new kits as they can is how darn adorable it is. Look at him! He's so tiny. And he's got an equally adorable, optional Sidecar attachment, which enables debugging and emulation! Oh, just look! It's like he's giving it a piggy-back ride.
Free Dance Central with 4GB Kinect Xbox purchase on Amazon
Dance Central is clearly stamped with a "Requires Kinect Sensor" label, but the opposite is also true: Kinect requires Dance Central. Amazon is proving this point -- for a limited time, while supplies last -- by offering Dance Central for free (along with a bonus 240 Microsoft Points -- hello Paula Abdul!) with purchase of the 4GB Xbox 360 system bundle with Kinect, which already includes Kinect Adventures. Check out Amazon's promotion page for more details. But here's the $130 question: What's missing from the picture? Ding-ding -- that's right! A hard drive. But Amazon has that on sale too, for just a dime under $91. So, buying the 4GB system bundle with Kinect and the 250GB hard drive separately is actually a shade cheaper than buying the 250GB bundle with Kinect -- plus Dance Central's tossed in there. That's a good deal.
Major Nelson: Xbox 360 sold out in Dec., supply tight now
According to Xbox 360 hype man Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb, Microsoft isn't expecting to "win" December's hardware sales battle, as depicted in the NPD's monthly report (to be released later today). "I found out we ran out of consoles at the end of the month," Hryb tweeted, with a follow-up that added, "Jan/Feb supply is tight as well." That said, he's anticipating "likely amazing YOY [year-over-year] growth numbers for Xbox." In non-business speak, that means he's expecting last month's Xbox 360 hardware sales to have surpassed the figure recorded in December 2009. While that would mean more than 1.31 million Xboxes were sold in the final month of 2010, if Hryb's prediction is correct, it would also mark the second year in a row that the Xbox was bested by Sony's PlayStation 3 in one of the year's most important sales months. Either way, coupled with the many millions of Kinect units sold last year, Microsoft likely enjoyed its holiday -- though anyone who got a Kinect without an Xbox 360 was probably feeling scrooged.
12 Days of Joyswag: Xbox 360 S plus 'Games for the Holidays,' A World of Keflings, Raskulls, and ilomilo
To celebrate the holidays, we're having twelve straight days of giveaways up through Christmas day. And while we say it's to celebrate, really ... we're simply getting rid of some of the larger packages around the ol' office. Remember when Microsoft promised everyone in the audience during its 2010 E3 keynote a brand-new Xbox 360 S, the just-announced redesigned console? We've got just one left and we're going to take this opportunity to unload it before the year's out. But instead of just a plain ol' 250GB Xbox 360 S console, we're going to spice matters up with codes for all three of this month's Xbox Live Arcade "Games for the Holidays," featuring A World of Keflings, Raskulls, and ilomilo. We've got nine other sets of codes which we'll be handing out on Twitter and Facebook over the course of the week but, for now, get in on our final piece of Joyswag in this series. Happy holidays!%Gallery-95140%
Kinect standalone power supply now available from Microsoft
So you bought a new Xbox 360 S console bundled with Kinect last week and, like many others, found your new camera doodad doesn't come with its own power supply -- clearly, Microsoft thought you intended to use your Kinect with this console and this console alone. You were up the proverbial creek, sans paddle ... until now. Microsoft's online store now has a listing for the power supply. No, you can't simply get one on the arm since you purchased the Xbox 360 S bundle -- no, instead you've got to reach into your wallet for $34.99 if you want one. That's almost one whole fifth of the cost of Kinect on its own but, hey, if you need one, now you know where to get it.
Xbox 360 4GB bundle deal featured on Microsoft Store
The Microsoft Store has launched a decent deal on an Xbox 360 S 4GB bundle. For $250, the bundle includes the 4GB system, two wireless controllers, a year of Xbox Live Gold and 4000 Microsoft Points (a.k.a. $50 worth of Xbox bucks). All of these items purchased separately would normally cost $350, so you're technically saving $100. However, we'd be remiss not to point out that if you ever want a hard drive, it'll run you another $130. Of course, you could stave off the inevitable with a liberal dose of flash drives, or, if you're feeling particularly adventurous, you could always mod that old Xbox hard drive.
Halo: Reach co-op requires hard drive, 4GB Xbox 360 Slims have to go solo [update: MS responds]
Bad news for some of you who wanted to Remember Reach with some of your closest pals: Halo Reach's excellent co-op functionality requires an Xbox 360 hard drive. While that's unfortunate for all non-hard drive owning Xbox 360 gamers, it's especially worrisome for those of you who recently jumped into a 4GB Xbox 360 S. While they finally (quietly) released a hard drive for the new console, the $130 asking price is a hefty barrier to entry if you're looking for some co-op fun. Microsoft's official Halo: Reach FAQ page confirms the shortcoming: Q1: The error "One or more players do not have an Xbox 360 Hard Drive. An Xbox 360 Hard Drive is required to play co-op on Xbox LIVE or system link" occurs when I try to play. Why? A1: One or more players do not have a certified Xbox 360 hard drive attached to their Xbox 360 console. Some multiplayer aspects of Halo: Reach require an Xbox 360 certified hard drive.Nukezilla further confirms that USB memory sticks can't fill in for the absent storage and UK gamers will have to wait until later this month to get the £80 hard drive. Evidently, this limitation was present in Halo 3: ODST as well. Anyone affected by this issue? Update: Microsoft has informed Eurogamer that the issue is "temporary" and that the company is "working to resolve it." [Thanks, Arafat!]
How would you change Microsoft's new Xbox 360?
So, you didn't wait for those forthcoming Kinect bundles to ship before picking up a new Xbox 360, huh? Good on you. Now that you've had all summer to break 'er in, we're keenly interested in knowing how exactly you -- the dear consumer -- would change Microsoft's slimmer, edgier Xbox 360. Would you have crafted a more stackable case? Thrown in a Blu-ray drive for obvious reasons? Included four controllers and a game for a nominal fee? Packed more than 250GB of hard drive space? Retooled the controller at the time of launch, rather than... say, last week? Go ahead and get real in comments below. Just keep it halfway sane down there.
Origin PC's Big O desktop: half gaming PC, half Xbox 360, all muscle
Oh, sure -- we've seen an Xbox 360 enclosure stuffed with x86 innards, but we can't say we've ever seen anything quite like this. Gaming upstart Origin PC has just shattered every preconceived notion about its potential with the Big O, an appropriately titled luxury machine that combines a liquid-cooled gaming PC with a liquid-cooled Xbox 360 Slim. In one box. A pair of base configurations are available (though customizations are limitless), with both of 'em rigged up to run the PC and Xbox concurrently. In other words, these bad boys can actually crunch SETI@home data while you explore the vastness of Halo: Reach. The $7,669 build includes an overclocked 4.0GHz Core i7-930 CPU, Rampage III Extreme mobo, twin NVIDIA GTX480 graphics cards, 6GB of Corsair memory, a 1,500 watt power support, 12x Pioneer Blu-ray burner, two 50GB OCZ SSDs wired up as a boot drive, Windows 7 Home Premium, a liquid-cooled Xbox 360 and bragging rights the size of Texas Alaska. For those still unsatisfied, there's a $16,999 version that's frankly too lust-worthy to spell out here (but is in the gallery below). Hit the source link if you're feeling ambitious, but don't blame us for blowing your kid's college fund in one fell swoop. %Gallery-101543%
Xbox 360 slimster made over in white, just for the hell of it
Missing your oldie Xbox 360's bright and airy white finish? Well, Microsoft's still not willing to sell you a slimmified 360 in any color other than black (excepting the limited edition Halo gear), but at least you can gaze upon the singular example of what a white one may look like above. This seemingly repainted Xbox 360 250GB (to give it its official, and ridiculous, name) has been lovingly put together over in China and really makes us wonder why Microsoft is depriving us of such snowy good looks. Perhaps it wanted to draw a clear line between the old and the new? Either way, hit the source for the cheapest way to peek an all-white slim 360 without giving the Colorware crew a call. [Thanks, Anthony] Update: We've tracked down the talented modder to one Craig Manders, or Mandark, and have linked his Photobucket profile below for more imagery of the blanched Xbox 360.
Mod at your own risk: How to put an old Xbox 360 HDD into Xbox 360 S
We're no good with screwdrivers -- OK, well, some of us are -- so we'd probably never attempt to mod our shiny new 4GB Xbox 360 S by fitting an old hard drive in it. If you're braver than us (very likely), feel free to check out the step-by-step guide past the break, which pulls back the curtain on the magical process of techno-wizardy fueling this hybrid of form and frugality.
Vejle bares all: Xbox 360 Slim's system-on-chip exposed
Technophiles have no doubt been anxious to traverse that final frontier of Xbox 360 S technology: the shared CPU/GPU, dubbed Vejle after the city in Denmark. This 45nm system-on-chip (SoC) trims much of the fat of its predecessor, slimming down to 372 million transistors (it is summer -- gotta look your best out there!), requiring a mere 40 percent of the power and less than 50 percent of the die space used by the original Xbox 360 chipset. It's actually the first desktop-class processor to combine a CPU, GPU, memory and I/O logic onto a single slice of silicon, which cuts down manufacturing costs dramatically. But perhaps one of its best features is how the chip will actually self-induce lag so as not to run faster than the previous chip -- a necessity of the architecture of the Xbox 360, since the new console must perform exactly as the previous hardware has. The rest of it is probably too technical for us to try and explain, so hit up the source links below for additional info. If you need help breaking it all down, call up Tom, that smart friend of yours -- he's probably just sitting around, watching Star Trek or something.
4GB Xbox 360 arrives in Japan on Sept. 9
Microsoft is launching its cheaper 4GB XBox 360 S in Japan on September 9. It'll sell for the same ¥19,800 ($235) price as the original Arcade system, and will come packed with a wireless controller, AV cables and an AC adapter. No big surprises. It makes even more sense to have a cheaper Xbox bundle in Japan than it does here, since Microsoft has to do something to try to sell some of these. What is a bit more surprising, considering the stealth launch of the accessory in America, is that Microsoft officially announced a separate 250GB hard drive for Japan at the same time. The ¥15,540 ($184) price is a good indicator that people should seriously just buy the 250GB Xbox 360 bundle.
Microsoft details Vejle, the new Xbox 360's system-on-chip architecture
There aren't many unresolved mysteries with Microsoft's new console by this point -- apart from perhaps why it wasn't named the Stealthbox, like we were suggesting -- but one thing that hasn't been covered in excruciating detail yet is the new 360's splicing of the CPU and GPU into the same chip. Microsoft has remedied that today, informing us that the 45nm system-on-chip (codenamed Vejle; sorry, Valhalla fans) inside the refreshed Xbox makes do with a relatively minimal 372 million transistors, requiring only 40 percent of the power and less than 50 percent of the die space of its 2005 ancestor. A somewhat bemusing addition, noted by Ars, is the FSB Replacement sector you see in the image above. It's designed to induce lag in the system so that the Vejle chip doesn't run faster than the old stuff, something Microsoft couldn't allow to happen. Facepalm away, good people, facepalm away.
