The second Xbox 360 (with HDMI): introducing "Zephyr"

Well, my TV only goes up to 1080i, so I'm not overly concerned about the HDMI. I've never had an overheating issue, so the 65nm process isn't a big deal for me. Since the 360 uses USB, I can just use a compatible, inexpensive external hdd, or, at worst, buy the XSATA add-on and use my computer's hard drive, so I'm not overly concerned about that. I'm curious as to whether MS would replace the processor in old boxes for either free or cheap? They've been fairly good in the past about fixing their mistakes for free.

At any rate, this isn't all that much of a backstab, at least not for me, especially considering that this is just a rumor. As far as the built-in HD-DVD speculation? Totally not gonna happen, for reasons already stated here. I'm good.

You know, it's because of all you apologists that the industry feels it can pull this sort of crap and get away with it.

"Oh gee, Big Chad had non-consensual relations with me in the showers again, but that's to be expected when you go to prison! It's the way the system works."

I love this. Day 1 - MS announces it sold over 10 million Xboxes. Day 2 - MS announces to all those new owners that they just bought an outdated system. But don't worry! They'll send you a free bottle of vasoline.

Anyway you look at it, you're going to have 10 million really pissed off customers.

I see a lot of people comparing this to buying a car and the auto industry in general.

It's a flawed analogy.

First, because year-to-year the differences in car models are usually very neglible, save ever 4 years when a model gets upgrade (did you notice that number there? *4 years* for major upgrades? Never just one year).

Second, BECAUSE THE CUSTOMER IS AWARE THIS HAPPENS. How much do you want to bet that all those people who bought the system before Christmas would have still done so if they'd known an upgraded console was going to be available a few months after? When buying cars, the customer has their eyes open ahead of time to the fact that new models come out yearly. Only gaming nerds who read sites like this would have any idea that this sort of thing is happening in the gaming industry too. It's about expectations and I (and probably the majority of consumers) would expect a gaming PC to be outdated in 6 months. Not a new "next-gen" console.

That 500 dollar hole in my wallet isn't feeling very forgiving right now.

Well congratulations, now all the people that have been pining away for HDMI can now spend another $100 on a cable to get a picture quality they already had over component. Yes, yes, 1080p, blah blah, enjoy your 52" monument to your consumer debt.

My only real concern with the new model is if, in fact, they do add a 120GB HDD to it and keep the same price point; if that happens, I think the 10 million "early adopters" are going to feel a little slighted. Consoles, as one poster inarticulately mentioned earlier, go through hardware revisions throughout their lifespan, but the point I would argue is that there generally aren't major fundamental feature changes. I think upgrading features on the base unit will be tolerable, so long as they make these features available to the rest of us at a nominal cost difference.

The 20GB HDD already costs a laughable $99, how much will the 120GB HDD cost us? I hope they don't follow Nintendo's trend of selling us the same product, repackaged, every few years.

well I have a problem with this leak and it's on the HDMI port. 360 decodes 5.1 and sends it via optic cable. With the PS2 and 3 it was built into the box. But on the 360 it was built into the cable. If the 360 is going HDMI how are they going to do that? since HDMI carries both.

THIS PICTURE IS FAKE PEOPLE!!!!!!!
Why am I the only one noticing this really bad Photoshopped "holes" picture. Man you people are suckers.

Okay..

As far as Xbox releasing thier product too early (which I believe they did, but for a good reason) you have to look a few marketing factors. All Sony, Ninetndo, and Microsoft care about is money. They want to make money, as does everyone else. They DON'T want to screw over gamers in any way because if they did they would inturn lose money down the road.

Okay, I believe I read somewhere that there are close to 10 million Xbox 360s already sold. Even if their aren't lets assume so. Out of 10 Million Xbox 360s they did not split up 50-50 and make 5mil Cores and 5mil premium. Like most companies, thier top of the line is where they have the highest profit margin but they also want to cater to people who won't pay $400 or $600(in the case of the PS3) for a console. The %s would be more like 65% Premium and 35% core.(lets assume they are) So, at sale price 2.6 billion dollars of premiums have been sold and 1.05 billion of the corse. Totaling 3.65 billion dollars in sales, lets assume thier profit margin is 15% (which is somewhat standard for a commidity) thier total profit since November 2005 when they were released is $547,500,000. Now I also remember reading somewhere that console system makers lose money the first year they are out due to technology upgrades to them not yet readly available. This is where microsoft made money, they did not release the xbox 360 with as high a level of tech as the PS3; which they are now offering through upgrades IF, IF, you want to pay for it.

Microsoft made money in thier first year, Sony won't. Having to grow Market share at 500 or 600 a pop will be hard for Sony when there happen to be other systems that are actually AVAILABLE for cheaper, and there are close to 10,000,000 360s out there. The 360s will soon be able to compete with the PS3 on a tech level but I am not a tech expert or anything so I really don't know what they lack. What I do know, and know a lot of, are how big companies work and why they do what sometimes seems silly or dumb to others. It's not so much about the tech as it is making the initial $$$ when there is no competition.

Like the saying that is much older than myself: "The early bird gets the worm."

-Tyler

This hardware upgrade talk is reminding of the whole fiasco with Halo 2 not playing certain maps on older revisions of the XBox.

I'm typically in the Nintendo camp on things, but even hate their tendancy to put out a rushed first version, and then make a new version a year or so later that fixes the problems of the original. I don't like seeing this trend seep into the competition as well.

Whatever happend to getting things right the first time?

What's with all this talk about being screwed over because some people own an Xbox360 already? Because Microsoft is going to add some cords to it? You're right, wow, I feel so damn screwed over now, how dare they add cords. And what's this cord do, it adds picture clarity to your HDTV. Maybe if I owned one I would care, but even then probably not. I'm not about to drop $5,000 in products to slightly enhance my tv picture clarity. I've been using Standard television for a little over two decades now and still don't feel the need to abandon it in such a hurry, it works fine, I can see what's going on. I'm going to go out and buy an antique tv that still has knobs on it and use that to play my xbox on live and still beat you HDTV users. And if you want to point fingers at Microsoft for updating their units to match their competitors units and ridicule them for it then let's use that logic for other scenarios such as: an automobile manufacturer decides to feature breaks for their vehicles for the first time ever, thus now all the other automobile manufacturers decide to feature breaks as well...should we ridicule all these later manufacturers for wanting to keep up with the market to provide a better product for the consumer? And for you hardcore sony people, you act like the playstation has never been updated to compare with the Xbox, I remember you could buy an external hard drive for the playstation2 that cost about $100 which came with a Final Fantasy game which happened to be the only game for the hard drive's existence, because then the hard drive was dropped and that is why we had slimmer playstation2's. I'm sure the reason sony made the external hard drive was to compete with the xbox's existing internal one.