Is that the Xbox 360's A/C adapter?

by James Ransom-Wiley { Oct 17th 2005 at 3:15PM }

Xbox 360 power adapter

We weren't able to verify this at the Xbox 360 event last week (cords & plugs were neatly concealed for aesthetic purposes), but rumors continue to pile up that the Xbox 360's power adapter is, well, what you see above. Of course, most (if not all) of the Xbox 360s that are out in the wild (and show up in these photos), are actually dev kits and don't reflect what the consumer is going to unwrap out of the retail box. We do know that Microsoft has cut down on the console's weight problem by externalizing the A/C adapter, but dag, you could so some serious damage with that thing!

More evidence:

Flickr.com
Opposable Thumbs (last line: "he did note that the power supply is external to the device, and apparently quite large")
Digg.com (see user comments… "Our testing unit has a much smaller power supply. So I think the shipping model will be even smaller.")

[Thanks, Anand]

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Maxx @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

lol.... yes we do now believe that Mr. Thomson was bludgened to death with the AC adapter for the X-Box 360... ;)

LC_ @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

looks like the 360 is getting "bricked" now too!

OTAM @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

Sweet jesus that thing is a beast!

I really hope that isnt the actual A/C adapter else i'm going to have to bury that thing under a floorboard.

Art Guy @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

As long as it fits in my entertainment center, I don't care how big it is.

Nick @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

I'm I the only one that could care less what the Power Supply looks like?? It's going to be behind my Entertainment Center and no one will ever see it .. so why are these stupid news stories making headlines now-a-days?? People are just dying to get any 360 news regardless of how mundane it is!!

Sceptre @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

What? A piece of XBox hardware being obscenely large and clunky??
Seems almost impossible to believe...

metal_gear_jello @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

"It's real, and they're faaaaantastic."

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24619

The retail ones will be in grey thogh.

Master misChief @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

That is a monster !! I guess MS had to make the PSU external so that they wouldn't need mammoth cooling fans in order to keep the PSU cool, and thereby making the console really silent.

But, dang!! This puts serioous dampeners on my plans to tote my 360 around when I travel !!

Princess Zelda @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

I read earlier today that this:

http://xbox360.1stgame.nl/20.html

Is the one shipping with the Xbox 360.

SickNic @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

Here is a picture of the production model's power supply. It looks to be the same size, only gray...

http://img13.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc28&image=b55_XBox360_PSU_copy.jpg

dankster @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

those are NOT final units. i read a post on xbox.com from majornelson saying that thsoe pictures are NOT the final PSU's

BXJoseff @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

"And in a coincendental string of accidents, many homes and apartments across the nation have gone up in flames, completely overwhelming the fire departments of many major cities. As fire wardens have completed preliminary investigations - one item has been found in the homes of all the victims; The extremly large power supply of the Xbox 360"

Can anyone say recall?

Fuzz @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

They should make faceplates for these things. Oh, and a glowing green ring, just to remind you how big and ugly it is.

Maxx @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

BTW What ever happened to that kid with the 360 that was his dads ???? Did his Dad get into trouble ? Did the kid get in trouble ? Did he move back to his mommy's house where there is furniture ?

jc @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

haha, looks like Sony has some competition for the "george forman grill" jokes now...

I bet you can cook half a cow on one of those.

Embassy @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

dam@ that grey one!it looks even bigger lol...i cud rob someone with that...

doogiestyle @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

i doubt this is the final design - i am currently working on a consumer product engineering team, and our prototypes use a large power supply (almost identical to the one MS is using) - they are cheaper (for the time being) when we ramp up our manufacturing, we will have a much smaller, semi-custom unit that will be about 1/2 the size of the "off the shelf" supply we are using now.

Twist @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

At least the brick is in the middle. I hate those brick on the plug ones with a passion. I have one that is so big it actually blocks two brick-spaced plugs on my power strip.

Leomar @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

Yup I believe that it is the Xbox 360 power supply because I saw it at Digital Life in New York City this weekend and the rep told me that's the power supply that it will ship with it.

J B Cougar @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

Silly Joystiq, that's the credit card reader so you can pay your monthly finance fee. MS had to install it so normal gamers (read: not hardcore) could afford the system, games, and extra controllers.

Think of it as a car payment, but this thing breaks after a year and there are no mechanics.

Jago @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

Anyone wanna grill some hot dogs? lol

weaszel @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

No, no, no... You guys have got it all wrong. It's just a shrunken-down Xbox. You hook it into the back and that's how you get backwards-compatibility.

Arch-360 @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

ok one thing.NO! i guarantee ALL of oyu that MS would not ship the 360 with THAT thing! i remember devs talking about how you can knock someone out with the power supply in the DEV kits.

arrakisman @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

I would bet its it. Newer graphic boards now require dedicated power, and the newest an upgraded power supply. The power supply for my Area 51 Laptop is even bigger than that.

ill trooper @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

Arch-360, once again, always out on some limb, eh?

It's what they had hooked up on every 360 at the press event. I'm guessing that's it. Does it really matter though?

To be honest, I was a bit surprised that the 360 console itself was pretty big - the total mass of this power adapter plus the console is MORE than the original XBox.

But for the umpteenth time: damn what it's shape is, it really only matters what the box puts on the SCREEN, as long as it doesn't burst into flames.

Like the first one.

PickyPants @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

Wow, well if you guarantee it Arch, it must be true!

Erin @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

Is Microsoft over-compensating for something? -cough-

Seriously though, is an adaptor that large really necessary?

metal_gear_jello @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

Due to its size I think it won't burst into flames. Ironically, the bigger the better.

boinko @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

That looks like a 500,000 "power supply unit recall" just waiting to happen.

Rare Hare @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

if the xbox 360 ends up sucking i'll just use it as an anchor or something.. no biggy.

Jesse Boland @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

I apreciate that these scenes are all from Dev systems, but I have a more pressing question:

So I have been patiently waiting to hear more about the IM that will be availible to Live Silver users right out of the box. I would like to know if this is true. More of a question for me is why there has been no browser availibility announced. This is after all the DreamCast 3, and since the first one we have not had a browser. So really how does Microsoft think we are going to do all of this downloading of content? Is it all supposed to take place within the Live environment?

Badison @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

LoL that's hilarious.

BlackYoshi @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

So, why would the size make it catch fire? Or are you just failing at trying to be funny?

haskly @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

Yes, that is the power source... but you have to look at it like this... it's basically a high end PC, they all need a power source, but you cant have it connected to the actual console if you want it to look pretty.

Martez @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

That thing looks like it'll double my electricity bill.

OTAM @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

If that is the actual A/C adapter it really wouldnt bother me because i'm going to chuck the thing behind my entertainment center anyway. The Gamecube's adapter is a pretty good size and I didnt hear anyone complain about that. It's not like the console actually GOES anywhere and if it does you just toss it in a bookbag.

Jacob @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

Personally, I LIKE that the 360 is going to have an external PSU.

When the PSU died in my Xbox last year, Microsoft wanted $150 (CDN) just to FIX it. With an external PSU, you can just chuck the old one out and buy a new one at the store for $30.

Martez @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

If the PSU is in the AC adapter, Microsoft will just want more money for them and probably charge $100. I mean, the 360's wireless adapter is $100; that's just ridiculous.

Hugh Jass @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

Jeez louise. It's like Microsoft WANTS this thing to fail. I'm a huge XBOX fan, but this abortion of a console is sounding worse all the time. I really, really, really want to like it, and they keep on giving me reasons to keep my money in my pocket. :-(

Can't we just have the Neon lightsynth and an upgraded XBOX Live dashboard on the old black box, please?

ORaGge @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

i wonder what that would cost to get it replaced... cause i know there anrn't any universal adapters that would fit with that

renderfarmer @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

Actually, you can sorta make out these under some of the tables in pictures of this loft party thing. I was looking at Major Nelson's flickr, check it out.

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=51217819&context=photostream&size=l

Notice the green LED under the closest to the cameras table?

JPRacer @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

Like Nick said, what's the point of this? Are you playing with the PSU or the console? Even if it were 2 times bigger I wouldn't care.

Also, I read about how you need at least a 600W PSU (some even say 800W) for the new ATI X1800. Considering that the Xenos is a generation above, I can understand the need for a beefy PSU.

Neko Tsukimi @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

Crikey. That's just plain scary. It looks like it could electrocute small children and pets instantly.

LaughingTarget @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

I guess this will make it a more effective anchor, thus being a true successor to the XBox.

MDpro @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

I don't give a shit about the way the power supply or whatever looks like, the power supply isn't suppose to look sexy. I don't think it matter because I already have alot of cords and things in my room and my entertainment center still looks good. All you have to do is put the damn thing in the back and it looks like a normal system.

Oh yeah, and I smell Sony fanboys in here and no I'm not a Microsoft fanboy.

pERfec Dark @ Dec 18th 2005 10:00PM

the ps2 and ps3 are crap they both suck they have no hard drive crappy online gameplay the ps2 only has 2 controller ports crappy games for sony ps2 the xbox 360 is better than the ugly ps3 the ps3 design is so ugly and so is the controller wich both are big wich it use to be that the xbox controller was big but they stop making those controllers a long time ago now its the crappy ps3 that is big wat now sony **** fans i use to have a ps2 but i sold it cuz ps2 is so crappy i give my ps2 to the poor cuz the ps2 aint worth any money cuz the technalogy for the ps2 is so crap i wonder how could people still play the ps2 the xbox 360 is better the controller and everything so is the design the xbox 360 is more slick looking meaning cool design the xbox 360 controller is 100x better than the ps3 cuz the ps3 controller does nothing but suck in the other hand the xbox 360 controller is better cuz u could turn ur xbox 360 from ur conroller u could aslo do more stuff.... and xbox has better games that why at the g4 tv game show awards thing the xbox games got more awards than the ps2 the ps2 only got one award for there crappy game so yea xbox and xbox 360 are better than the crappy ps2 and ps3 but soon when the ps3 comes out or before there going to change there controller and copy off microsoft and other stuff so yea sony fans just get the xbox 360 dont waste your money on the crap **** of sony ps3