Slim 360

[Rangers]

Well, you can play movies and such from external drives on Xbox right now. That's how I watch movies on my Xbox in fact.

You just cant store Xbox stuff (Saves, DLC etc) on them until this update.

But one thing is Xbox (nor PS3) supports NTFS so it has to be fat which limits you to 4GB files, which can come into play for high def movies. Weirdly Xbox does support HFS for larger than 4GB files though, since it has iPhone compatability.

 

[Richard]

Yep, it won't work. No idea why, though. (Except to protect revenue stream from HDDs, and to clearly delineate SKUs, of course.)

Hmm... sneaky. OTOH, an external plug-and-play HDD would allow them to have a single SKU and still service arcade/elite. Perhaps the margins on retail HDDs more than make up for any potential benefits in consolidating the SKUs.

 

[thop]

Console laptop builder Ben Heckendorn ponders 360 slim.

 

[AzBat]

EDIT: The MU has been one of the most used items for my son because he takes it to the living room when we play FIFA together, he takes it to grandpas house, his aunts house and in a couple weeks will be taking it to his uncles house. He doesn't go to any 360 household without his MU. I haven't travelled with mine near as much as he has but I do have my gamertag profile on my MU, just for such occasions.

My son bought the an Arcade for Xmas. The built-in 512mb was plenty, but he saw real quick he needed a memory card if he wanted to use my 360 hooked up to the big screen in the living room. So he's done what your son has, bought a memory card and always keeps his main game saves & Live profile on it permanently. Which is nice since he can use it on his machine, mine or even grandpas.

I guess the idea will be that we can roll with portable usb hdds now...as long as the items on the hdd don't need a Live connection I guess thats cool but I don't want whatever items we might have on the drive to be in trial/"please download the optional media upate" mode.

Personally I don't see the new USB support removing the need for hard drives. The new ones will just be in a smaller but different enclosure. I could see MS making an adapter that would allow the slim HDDs to be used on the older systems though. So I don't think there will be anything different with how the DRM currently works.

Tommy McClain

 

[Kasersky]

rather simple solution to the hdd problem that people keep pointing out, which ppl think it prevents ms from making a new hdd enclosure.

all they need to do is discontinue the old large hdd, then have the new smaller hdd be packaged as normal WITH or sold separately a mounting frame.

(this is the idea) http://www.greenlyph.com/new/images/Kingston_micro_SD_2G.jpg
they could even get away with a simple plastic mount if designed a certain way.

 

[AzBat]

Interesting analysis for the 360 slim motherboard, the article is translated from French but most of it is understandable.

http://translate.google.com/transla...s-dit-tout-sur-xbox-360-slim.html&sl=fr&tl=en

Anybody think that might be similar in look to what Brier Dudley described for Natal?

Photos were prohibited, but the hardware is a smoother, larger version of the developer version that was released last year. The current iteration is about 10 inches long, in white plastic with tapered ends like a 2 x 2 with miter cuts, on a white base with the same design as the current Xbox Live Vision camera accessory.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ht...011224222_microsoft_techfest_natal_detai.html

Tommy McClain

 

[AzBat]

rather simple solution to the hdd problem that people keep pointing out, which ppl think it prevents ms from making a new hdd enclosure.

all they need to do is discontinue the old large hdd, then have the new smaller hdd be packaged as normal WITH or sold separately a mounting frame.

(this is the idea) http://www.greenlyph.com/new/images/Kingston_micro_SD_2G.jpg
they could even get away with a simple plastic mount if designed a certain way.

That's pretty much what I said earlier. You won't be to take your existing HDD to the slim, but you'll be able to take your slim HDD to the older system. Makes sense if MS wants people to keep buying accessories after basically discontinuing the memory card.

Tommy McClain

 

[Graham]

So... About this second SATA port thing.

If the current system only has one, how is the external HDD connected?

 

[AzBat]

So... About this second SATA port thing.

If the current system only has one, how is the external HDD connected?

Connects via the red circled port...

Tommy McClain

 

[Graham]

Thanks . I was more meaning is it SATA? (with a different layout?)

I'm just wondering if the actual connection has been taken off the motherboard...

Speculate, speculate...

 

[AzBat]

Thanks . I was more meaning is it SATA? (with a different layout?)

I'm just wondering if the actual connection has been taken off the motherboard...

Speculate, speculate...

Yes, it's SATA with a different layout...

EDIT: Wrong photo...

Correct one...

For more info on other connectors on the 360 motherboard see this...

http://dwl.xbox-scene.com/tutorial/Xbox_360-HandC-V1_4.pdf

Tommy McClain

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Whoa, kinda glad I didn't pull the trigger on a FF XIII X360 bundle. Looks like this will be the prime time to replace my launch 360 whether it fails or not.

As to 16 GB USD drive not being enough. Nothing prevents someone from using as many 16 GB USB drives as they wanted for unlimited game storage. Granted that might get expensive after a while. But if thumb drives continue to drop in price, it shouldn't be all that much.

Interesting mockup's of the faceplate size for the proposed slim. Additionally it should have about the same back to front depth as the Wii, making it quite a bit smaller than the PS3 slim.

Just hope to god it's still flat top and bottom to make it stackable, since it looks like my Wii will still be on top (since it'll be smaller than a Slim 360.)

Regards,
SB

 

[Squilliam]

For those interested, you can get a USB stick with 16GB storage for $31+ on Newegg. That'll probably come down a little by the time this releases and its a good way to put the rear USB port to good use for those neat freaks out there.

@liolio I believe I saw a GloFo brochure which listed the Xbox 360 as using their HP process, the same as their 'future' GPUs essentially.

 

[Rangers]

It's pretty weird that according to the Ben Heck article ms is dropping memory cards altogether. But I guess it makes sense, with internal memory in the Arcade, few were sold. The only real use was as portable profile/save transfer. Which I guess role will now be played by USB devices.

But it's just odd for ms to give up any high margin accessory revenue, no matter how slim.

People give MS a lot of crap for high priced accessories, but it's probably a better business model to sell a low priced base unit/expensive accessories/pay online, than a higher priced base unit without those.

I think I see the endgame for the HDD's...yes internal, sell the carriage for old 360's separately as suggested.

You could even surmise MS would go PS3 and allow use of any HDD, but I dont see that.

For those interested, you can get a USB stick with 16GB storage for $31+ on Newegg.

And I bought a 16GB one at newegg I think almost two years ago for $25. Flash has not dropped in a long time. It's actually slightly increased.

 

[corduroygt]

Whoa, kinda glad I didn't pull the trigger on a FF XIII X360 bundle. Looks like this will be the prime time to replace my launch 360 whether it fails or not.

As to 16 GB USD drive not being enough. Nothing prevents someone from using as many 16 GB USB drives as they wanted for unlimited game storage. Granted that might get expensive after a while. But if thumb drives continue to drop in price, it shouldn't be all that much.

Regards,
SB

$2 Per GB for 16GB flash is more expensive than the proprietary 120GB HDD. There is still no really cheap solution for the 360 for large storage.

 

[JardeL]

X360 needs slim power brick more than a slim case. If this rumour is true then they better put the power supply in the case.

 

[PalmiNio]

16gb is just the limit in windows for FAT32, which is the only supported system (no NTSF).

But since you can use third party programs in windows to format FAT32 on larger drives the limit does not have to be 16gb. I use a external WD drive at 400gb with FAT32 for the 360 and such.

 

[liolio]

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...

I don't have much to add but thanks for your efforts

 

[AzBat]

As to 16 GB USD drive not being enough. Nothing prevents someone from using as many 16 GB USB drives as they wanted for unlimited game storage. Granted that might get expensive after a while. But if thumb drives continue to drop in price, it shouldn't be all that much.

Just be aware the rumor states that only 2 USB devices could be used at one time. So you'd have to swap for more.

Tommy McClain

 

[Rangers]

$2 Per GB for 16GB flash is more expensive than the proprietary 120GB HDD. There is still no really cheap solution for the 360 for large storage.

Buy the Elite in the first place for the same price as the competition with comparable space?

Anyways I think of it more as these days most (or at least many) people probably already have flash sticks laying around that they bought for other devices. I have 3-4. In this case there's no new cost to use them on 360.

16gb is just the limit in windows for FAT32, which is the only supported system (no NTSF).

Wait, what?

Did you mean on the Xbox?

Also HFS is supported on Xbox.