Xbox 360 slim hardware thread

Xbox 360 "4GB" spotted. http://www.amazon.de/Xbox-360-Arcade-System-Bundle/dp/B003UOSMDU/

Writeup

Looks to be the slim arcade replacement, now with a 4GB USB drive included.

GREAT move I think, some are reticent to buy the 199 model despite it's low price due to lack of storage. Now it has a usable amount (enough to hold some XBLA games, demos etc). I think this will cause sales of the low end model to increase heartily.

And as flash prices fall, they can easily up that to 8 and 16GB as time goes on.
 
Xbox 360 "4GB" spotted. http://www.amazon.de/Xbox-360-Arcade-System-Bundle/dp/B003UOSMDU/

Writeup

Looks to be the slim arcade replacement, now with a 4GB USB drive included.

GREAT move I think, some are reticent to buy the 199 model despite it's low price due to lack of storage. Now it has a usable amount (enough to hold some XBLA games, demos etc). I think this will cause sales of the low end model to increase heartily.

And as flash prices fall, they can easily up that to 8 and 16GB as time goes on.

Well I did the mathematics and that comes down to $156 or so accounting for the 19% VAT fat in the Amazon.xxx price and around $120 pounds or SO. I guess that implies the Arcade revision will come in at a lower price than the current normal Arcade price. In addition to that it supports two ideas.

1. Microsoft is re-orientating their lineup to be Arcade centric rather than Premium centric which makes it quite a large effective price cut.

2. Kinect bundles could be between $199 and $249 with a strong tendency to be either/or between those two prices instead of say $229.
 
I'm not sure, but I think the old Arade retailed for around 150 euros in Europe.

I dont think this is necessarily a price change.
 
Xbox 360 "4GB" spotted. http://www.amazon.de/Xbox-360-Arcade-System-Bundle/dp/B003UOSMDU/

Writeup

Looks to be the slim arcade replacement, now with a 4GB USB drive included.

I'm yet not convinced it's a USB thumb drive. The economics pretty much solidify it, but there are cheap(<$300) netbooks I've seen come with 4gb SSD drives. So, there's nothing stopping Microsoft from putting one of those in their proprietary enclosures and putting it in the hard drive slot. The new slot uses a standard SATA connection. So they could use a 2.5" SATA SSD drive. Might explain why we haven't heard about MS plans for retail hard drive add-ons for the new Slim factor.

Tommy McClain
 
I'm yet not convinced it's a USB thumb drive. The economics pretty much solidify it, but there are cheap(<$300) netbooks I've seen come with 4gb SSD drives. So, there's nothing stopping Microsoft from putting one of those in their proprietary enclosures and putting it in the hard drive slot. The new slot uses a standard SATA connection. So they could use a 2.5" SATA SSD drive. Might explain why we haven't heard about MS plans for retail hard drive add-ons for the new Slim factor.

Tommy McClain

Would seem silly not to offer an upgrade path to arcade unit users. 4 gig flash drives are dirt cheap now. you can get them for $5 bucks so i don't see a problem
 
Well the current Xbox 360 system was produced on two production lines. The Arcade unit which was produced seperately had inbuilt flash memory so I don't see why this couldn't be the case again. The reason why they haven't released the Arcade units are selfish and logistical reasons. They know there are a lot of enthusiasts who have to have one RIGHT NOW so will pay full retail price on the now presumably good margin $299 Elite and they probably know that they need a ratio of 2:1 to 4:1 Arcade to Elites in stock for Christmas.
 
If they go with a USB thumb drive or even some kind USB flash drive mounted in their proprietary hard drive enclosure, then they at least wouldn't have to have 2 different motherboards. From the detailed pics we've seen of it, I don't think there is enough room to put 4gb onboard.

Tommy McClain
 
Surely just an external USB flash thumb drive chucked in. They used to include memory cards in the Arcade (or perhaps it was "core" at that time, as somebody corrected me) so it wouldn't be the first time they've included external memory.

It would also make a lot more sense to me because they can upgrade it more easily. The beauty of flash is I'd expect the "4GB" model to become the "8GB" and then "16GB" model over time. They're just choosing the amount which has nominal cost, currently 4GB.

I've heard of July 30 being some sort of big day for Xbox. Perhaps that's the day this 4GB model will be revealed, or it could be something else. Maybe they will do a small Euro price drop too (it's already been confirmed at 199 for US)
 
Microsoft never included a memory card with the Core SKU. It wasn't until the Arcade SKU was released did it come with one. Like I said earlier, economically a 4gb USB thumb drive makes perfect sense. Just not completely convinced that's how they will do it. Probably a 10% chance of something other than a USB thumb drive.

Tommy McClain
 
I don't think there is enough room to put 4gb onboard.
They could just solder in a larger capacity flash module than the one they use currently, it wouldn't take up any more mobo real estate than the current chip...
 
Ok, so every Xbox 360 has at least a 16MB NAND chip. The Arcade Jasper motherboards upgraded these to 2Gb(256MB) & 4Gb(512MB). So you're saying that they could replace the 16MB NAND on the current Slim with a single 32Gb(4GB) NAND chip? Looks like Hynix(source of the 16MB NAND on the Slim) also makes a 32GB NAND(4GB). In fact, it's the largest capacity they make at the moment. Anyway, that makes sense now. My original thought was that they needed extra PCB space in order to solder additional NAND modules since I didn't think they made single NAND chips that big. But evidently that's no longer the case. Learn something new every day! :)

Tommy McClain
 
I don't think they put 5 USB slots there for nothing, surely much easier to include a cheap 4GB drive.
The big question is whether it will have wifi.
 
Ok, so every Xbox 360 has at least a 16MB NAND chip. The Arcade Jasper motherboards upgraded these to 2Gb(256MB) & 4Gb(512MB). So you're saying that they could replace the 16MB NAND on the current Slim with a single 32Gb(4GB) NAND chip? Looks like Hynix(source of the 16MB NAND on the Slim) also makes a 32GB NAND(4GB). In fact, it's the largest capacity they make at the moment. Anyway, that makes sense now. My original thought was that they needed extra PCB space in order to solder additional NAND modules since I didn't think they made single NAND chips that big. But evidently that's no longer the case. Learn something new every day! :)

Tommy McClain

What would the cost difference be between 4Gb and 32Gb NAND? The cheapest USB drive on on Newegg is around $9 and the cheapest flash drive for cameras is $7.50, so maybe $5? In any case if it does cost more I suspect the cost/benefit of selling content on Live and maybe a few more subscriptions ought to cover the cost of both the wireless and the extra flash memory. (overall).
 
The largest capacity they make is unlikely be the cheapest one per GB, and the USB also has the advantage of portability, so I don't think it's soldered to the motherboard.
 
Evidently Microsoft decided against putting a different NAND on the motherboard for the 4gb model. In fact they added a daughterboard instead...

4gb-01-400.jpg


4gb-03-200.jpg


4gb-02-200.jpg


Looks like it connects here...



This makes so that every motherboard is now the same. They just add the daughterboard for 4gb or the hard drive for 250gb.

Also here's a pic of the different black Slim units...

4gb-vs-250gb-200.jpg


Source: Xbox-Scene.com

Tommy McClain
 
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