Slim 360
- Thread starter thop
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The back of this is the most interesting.
I'm guessing that one of the pins could be a internal power connector and that the back has a seperate HDMI and AV output.
That means moving to internal power supply and no more annoying AV vs HDMI problems.
The front seems like 1 memory unit input, instead of two. cutting cost and since we do not need two port due to the internal memory.
On set of pins could be a connector for internal WiFi on a seperate small board like in laptops!
I'm guessing that one of the pins could be a internal power connector and that the back has a seperate HDMI and AV output.
That means moving to internal power supply and no more annoying AV vs HDMI problems.
The front seems like 1 memory unit input, instead of two. cutting cost and since we do not need two port due to the internal memory.
On set of pins could be a connector for internal WiFi on a seperate small board like in laptops!
There could be an internal PSU (and that would also be win IMO), but there's no sign of it on this PCB at least. There's what looks like a standard external 360 power connector soldered to the right-hand rear of the board (near the caps and power regulation circuitry for the big ASIC), and no heavy-duty internal power connector as found with the PS3/slim.
Well, you are not really basing your theories on the motherboard picture either. You are basing it on some assumptions you make about what a 360 slim will look like. You expect it to have a very different aestetic design.
If you are right in your assumptions, I think MS is abandoning one of the strengths of the XBox platform, which is a very easy upgrade path from the Arcade unit. Just buy a 360 HDD-pack and slide it in place. You can argue how much you want that people find it easy to upgrade the HDD of the PS3 or a PC, but I will never buy that argument for the average joe or soccer mum it is not easy. Hell even I with a MScCS degree thought it was awkward to backup and upgrade the PS3 (the fat more than the slim though).
I also find the HDD bulb of the 360 ugly, maybe they find a way to encapsulate and hide it in a new design if they still want to offer an easy upgrade path?
What is the release date of Halo Reach?
If they are doing pre-production tests now, we can expect it to go into mass-production within 1-2 months and that will leave them plenty of time to build sufficient inventory for a early fall release coupled to price drop. Compare it to the leaked PS3 Slim picture from May last year.
I haven't assumed anything about its aestethics. All I've said is if they again go with the external bathtub enclosure they're locked into a case design that by purely practical reasons can't be much smaller than what they already have right now. And one of the reasons of doing a full redesign of a console like this is to reduce its overall size and that of its packaging etc to bring down manufacturing costs.
To deny yourself taking full advantage of this possibility purely because of a stupid plastic bathtub that costs what, a buck at most to make would be shortsighted I think, and I believe MS would feel the same here.
Is that really such a great strength tho? How many people go through this upgrade? The HDD upgrades MS offers are terribly overpriced, I can't imagine a great many people paying a hundred greenbacks for what is today a tiny HDD. If you buy the arcade unit and that works for you, then it seems to me people would just keep on using it.
Since I never said anything of the sort I don't really see where you're coming from here...
Anyway, since every PS3 already has a HDD, most peeps would never have reason to upgrade it regardless of how hard/easy it is. Particulary not these days when the standard size is what, 120GB on the slims? That's 120GB more HDD space than a 360 arcade, why would you even need to think about upgrading?
I consider myself a fairly hardcore gamer, I've still not used up my 60GB HDD in my PS3, prolly a good 15-20 gigs left at the very least and I have a long list of PSN titles, a bunch of HD install games (MGS 4 health advice about smoking, lol!), burnout paradise downloaded edition etc.A slim 360 at some point or another is a forgone conclusion, so even if those pictures weren't related to the project, I think the thread would be valid almost by default. Anyway it will be interesting to see if the die is unified under that heatspreader or whether they have both simply been moved onto the same package.
Well I would put my bet on later, I pretty certain Ms will act ridiculously cautiously after the RroD disaster. On top of that they need to clear the channel first.
Why can't it besmaller than it is now ? They can put the external hardrive anywhere on the case. In fact if they keep it where it is , they can still cut the size down by almost half.
It would make it much smaller than the ps3 not so slim model they have which is not much smaller than the xbox 360 to begin with.
To deny yourself taking full advantage of this possibility purely because of a stupid plastic bathtub that costs what, a buck at most to make would be shortsighted I think, and I believe MS would feel the same here.
Yes because its short sighted to think some xbox 360 owners might want to grab a slim arcade and use their current hardrives on it.... Yes short sighted.
In fact i hope they keep an external power supply also. It will keep the unit smaller and I can put the power supply behind my tv unit
You think its a tiny hardrive. however the 120 gig holds alot of data for a 360. I believe its 114 gigs after partions and caching. You can fit 57 full sized xbox live games on it. You can fit 16 full sized 360 games on it and have room left over for DD.
THe drives are quite alright for the system. I'd keep my 60 gig hardrive because its all i need. I normaly keep 2 games installed at a time and have about 10 gigs of DD on my system.
Anyway, since every PS3 already has a HDD, most peeps would never have reason to upgrade it regardless of how hard/easy it is. Particulary not these days when the standard size is what, 120GB on the slims? That's 120GB more HDD space than a 360 arcade, why would you even need to think about upgrading?
So why would a 120 gig 360 owner need to upgrade thier hardrive if ps3 owners don't ? 360 owners don't even have mandatory installs like the ps3. In fact many who own 60 gig and 120 gig drives might just want an arcade slim and use thier existing hardrive.
I know hardcore gamers who are still fine on a 20 gig hardrive unit.
The hardrive will just take more internal room , limit upgrades for those who already have larger drives , and just create more heat and dead space in the system.
Yeah I'm not sold on an internal PSU just yet. Xbox has obviously had heat issues in it's life for one. Also, any size you take out for PSU is just less size in your main unit. For example, PS3 slim with it's internal PSU is still pretty large, almost as large as a standard 360. By leaving out the PSU, MS can make the main unit that much smaller.
I'd be happy if they just make the power brick that much smaller. I was surprised when I replaced my launch unit with a newer Elite some time ago, the power brick while still a brick, is much smaller and lighter than on the old unit. I'd guess it's 1/2 the weight.
So yeah I'd be happy if they just continued down that road, maybe halved the size (and width) of the power brick from Jaspers or something, that would leave not too much of a brick at all, while still maintaining benefits of an external PSU.
Internal would be better but I dont see it. Just hope for a small brick.
Edit: Found a picture with a brick size comparo http://img.skitch.com/20091005-ftgyxdnir8u87k8wkcr23ksmah.jpg. As I say the weight difference is the real biggie though, "new" brick feels positively flimsy vs old.
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I'm pretty sure this is 32nm/28nm chips and has been around since the holidays. They will most likely go into production in june to build up enough inventory for a sept launch.
$150 core , $250 pro both slim style. I believe that we will start to see shortages of the 360 fat in the summer as most of the stock is cleared out. Whatever is left in sept will see steep price cuts. Most likely $100 for the arcade and $200 for the pro.
Somehow I still think you make some assumptions, but it´s not worth arguing about. I get your point and my point is that I don´t find the HDD bathtub that stupid even if I also find it ugly.I haven't assumed anything about its aestethics. All I've said is if they again go with the external bathtub enclosure they're locked into a case design that by purely practical reasons can't be much smaller than what they already have right now. And one of the reasons of doing a full redesign of a console like this is to reduce its overall size and that of its packaging etc to bring down manufacturing costs.
To deny yourself taking full advantage of this possibility purely because of a stupid plastic bathtub that costs what, a buck at most to make would be shortsighted I think, and I believe MS would feel the same here.
I don´t have any numbers of how many people that actually do a HDD upgrade. Even with rip-off prices the HDD is still cheaper than a new console. Whatmore is that people love to have the options of an easy upgrade even if they will never take advantage of it. It is a great selling point.
It was a pre-emptive strike
to defuse the "easy upgrade internal drive" argument.Can´t argue with that as long as you don´t store loads of trailers, pictures, MP3s and movies on your a HDD, even a hardcore gamer will be quite a happy with a 40 GB drive.Anyway, since every PS3 already has a HDD, most peeps would never have reason to upgrade it regardless of how hard/easy it is. Particulary not these days when the standard size is what, 120GB on the slims? That's 120GB more HDD space than a 360 arcade, why would you even need to think about upgrading?
Sep 14 I believe is the latest credible rumor.
But I have a feeling unfortunately that the slim 360 would be tied much more closely to Natal. To go with that "console relaunch" and all. I even think we may only see slim's packaged with Natal.
For the most part...the one exception is the 360's optional installs...
I was fine with 20GB, just practicing delete what you're not using, until the 360 optional installs came along. Then I installed Gears 2, that takes ~7GB of space on a 20GB HDD that is really 13GB free..I liked it and wanted to install all my games, and suddenly I needed a much bigger HDD.
That said, once I got the 120 HDD, I dont think I've even used install that much, heh.
I would not put a dime on 28 and 32nm chips, TSMC 40nm process still looks like in its infancy.
You can try with the Xbox 360 logo'd chip as well as the flash memory chip. It works. A hypothetical 360 case (placed vertically on end) would be significantly shorter vertically and a bit shorter in depth. I haven't worked out things exactly, but the reduction in height vs depth is ~4:1.
And.......... I can't be bugger all to do more with that.
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Interesting that there are more headers for cables.
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/4/2008/11/f3c460fe.jpg
On the left side there's the external interface for the HDD and the internal SATA header for the DVD drive.
On the new board they've got two actual SATA ports in the top left along with those three headers...
They could indeed, but most spots would either look weird or be impractical.
It's simply a needlessly large and impractically shaped enclosure for a rather tiny 2.5" HDD.
Reading comprehension fail.
That may be the case, however my point was that it's a tiny unit
. Thus making it questionable value. If it'd been realistically priced instead of having a sticker price from Planet Surrealism, it'd represented better value.
???
Comprehension fail again. That was Crossbar's train of thought, not mine. Go talk to him about it...
You're inventing problems that don't exist for reasons I can't even comprehend.
A 2.5" drive probably isn't even half a deck of ordinary playing cards in overall volume. How that could create "dead space" inside the case is beyond me. As for power draw, well if the ~3W at most these units pull creates a cooling problem then you got more important things to worry about. Why don't you write up some irrelevant non-issues about noise too, or the difficulty of matching the look of an internal HDD with the color and patterns of your favorite partying outfit?
Sure, but I'm wondering about the white headers on the mobo that are in addition to those two sata ports. The two that are to the left of HANA and the one to it's bottom right. I suppose they possibly be for plugging in diagnostic cables, but three? :s
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