Official Xbox 360 Specs Sheet!!!

[HorseShoe]

I have a quick question about Xbox Live, is that service free or do u have to pay a monthly fee to play on it?

And will we be seeing more rpgs on this console? Or is that too soon to tell?

 

[Generator]

I can't imagine Microsoft wanting to consume themselves in the PC market I wonder how PC like, MS is going to take this thing. I mean I'm practical person. You put a operating system on this bad boy. Let me surf the web, email, word proccesing and photoshop then thats all I need. I drop the PC like a bad habit. And for godsakes force the devolpers to code in a mouse and keyboard support. Console FPS controller simply don't get the job done.

I would have to buy a damn HDTV to get the most out of this new box. But I can see the price of these TV's coming down with MS corraling people to buy them.

 

[ZimZum]

Originally posted by: Insomniak

Originally posted by: ZimZum
Yes it is about the games. Of which a far greater number and variety are available on the consoles.

I fail to see a gametype, excluding maybe puzzles and fighting games, that is prevalent on a console and not the PC.

Puzzles are all well and good - as for fighting games, who the hell wants toplay that dreck?

As I already mentioned Sports, Racing, platformers etc. What little of those genres that are available on the PC are poorly done in comparison to what the consoles offer.

As for who wants to play fighting games. Apparently a lot of people. Thats what variety is all about. Your choices arent limited. Not everyone cares for RPGs or FPS.

Again, I fail to see how the PC is limited. I chose those titles because they huge, widely known franchises.

I could make the same rebuttal if you'd chosen GTA or Halo to represent consoles.

As for HL2 coming to the Xbox, so what? The big console games (again, Halo series/GTA series) all come to PC. The fact that there is crossover just strengthens my point. Remember the days of Unreal Tournament? I think the hottest shooters on consoles were Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. Not until Playstation 2 almost a year later did they port it, and even then with severely crippled visuals.

Hell, StarCraft STILL can't be done on consoles.

I could just as easily list a myriad of wildly popular console titles that have no equivalent on the PC. But they wouldn't be limited to just one or two genres.

First you say genres don't matter but now your hung up on shooters. Which I already stated was one of the areas that PCs are head and shoulders above the consoles.

Has nothing to do with sales - has to do qith quality of software titles. Hell, before the early 2000s, consoles hadn't even really seen any decent shooters, yet the PC had been solidly in the genre for 5+ years.

Don't forget to mention shooters.

Platformers have been around for over 20 years on consoles. Show me a halfway decent platformer for the PC.

Up until this generation, PCs have steadily led the consoles in both graphic ability AND versatility in gameplay. Now the consoles are catching up - and at the same time becoming more PC like in their construction and capabilities. I refuse to believe that is coincidence. I think the tech-heads saw the writing on the wall and knew what they had to do to make better games. The general populace, not knowing diddly squat, doesn't realize their gaming experience is becoming more PC like, and the same for their consoles...nor do they care. They're having fun for a very good cost, and that's all that matters to them.

Graphics yes, But if you'll remember even the 1st Xbox when it launched was more powerful than the PCs of the time.

Variety of game play, is not even close. Consoles have far more quality games, of far more variety. Plus Multi-player is virtually non existent on the PC. I'm not talking online play. I mean when there are other actual human beings in your house who you may want to play a game with. Its not an option on a PC. Unless you want to have everyone take turns and huddle around a computer desk.

This is like comparing a motorcycle to a pick-up truck. The Truck can do many more things and is more flexible of course. But the motorcycle is designed for one purpose. To get one person from point A to point B very fast. And in that regard it will outperform the truck any day of the week.

Similarly consoles are designed to perform a single task. And for an all around gaming experience they do it better and cheaper than the PC. This isn't to say that PCs aren't good for gaming or that there aren't great PC games. Hell, the main reason I have a PC is to use as a gaming rig. But my consoles see the majority of my playing time.

 

[Eug Wanker]

As others have already mentioned, Microsoft had the Xbox 360 game demos running on Power Macs.

Does anyone have a pic? Everyone knew about the Apple G5 development boxes, but I'd still like to see a pic of them actually running the demos.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Pr0digy

According to GameRankings the PC landed 9 of the top 50 games in the last twelve months. The XBox has 14 of them. Trim it down to the top ten and the PC has one while the XBox has four. Only rabid platform fanatics try to argue the PC has the best lineup of games- it isn't remotely close.

Eug-

24-bit audio would be a total waste of time in a console.

On the XBox360, not the PS3.

Insomniak-

I would like to point out that the reason consoles are becoming more appealing is BECAUSE THEY ARE BECOMING PCs. Wireless controllers, USB connectivity, a GUI, internet connection...HELLO?!? Consoles aren't killing the PC, they are JOINING THE CROWD.

You have that quite backwards actually. The 8bit NES was online(unfortunately only in Japan) gaming back in the 80s- Wireless controllers have been around since then also and the GUI has been a feature for over a decade(which the PC copied from Xerox workstations)- but those are just the points you brought up.

PCs have had to follow consoles leads for-

Every major design team from the IHVs worked on consoles prior to working on PCs. nVidia started out with the NV1 in the Sega Saturn, ATi was always a pathetic also tried to run until they picked up the ArtX team(N64, GC and now XB360 and Revolution). Every consumer IHV who didn't replace their lead team with, or started out on, consoles is dead now.

Standardized development tools- OpenGL and DirectX were nice ideas ripped from the console world. Building a standardized set of tools for developers to use to access hardware making games was the console's territory, PCs had to follow the leader.

Dedicated hardware to reduce load on the central processor- commonplace in consoles from the beginning. PCs are trying to catch up(still not quite there, consoles advance so much faster on that front).

I'm almost certain that if not this generation, then next generation console games will provide support for mice and keyboards -

Keyboard support in consoles has been around for a long time now, don't confuse the XBox with consoles in general

Trust me, the PC is not going anywhere soon. Every time new consoles launch, everyone proclaims the death of the PC, and lo and behold 12 to 18 months later the PC breaks from equality and into the lead. 24 months later it's firmly walloping the consoles.

This has never been less true then it is right now. Take the big three titles in PC gaming graphics- Doom3, HL2 and FarCry- all headed to the consoles. Scaled down a bit yes, but this is the first time that PCs top tier games can be run on consoles that are at the end of their life cycle. The LCD factor is an increasingly strong anchor around the neck of PC gaming.

Up until this generation, PCs have steadily led the consoles in both graphic ability AND versatility in gameplay. Now the consoles are catching up - and at the same time becoming more PC like in their construction and capabilities.

Laughable at best. Fighting games, racing games, action games, platformers, sports games and even RPGs have been significantly larger on the consoles since the original NES(don't believe me, check out the global sales for FF1 versus every single RPG to come out on the PC combined prior to 1995). PCs have shooters going from them, even in turns of strategy games the consoles have been in the game for decades, just that titles such as Nobunaga's Ambition didn't hit the broad reaching success that Blizzard's titles and the like did. Obvioulsy PCs have an advantage in those two genres, in almost everything else they are and always have been significantly outclassed by their console counterparts.

 

[0roo0roo]

kick ass fighting games and no, pc's don't have games like that.

now they can simulate the b00bie physics in doa games in 1080i or 720p!! w00t!

 

[sonoma1993]

is the xbox 360 going tobe backward compatilbe with the old xbox games? if not alot of xbox people will be pissed.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: sonoma1993
is the xbox 360 going tobe backward compatilbe with the old xbox games? if not alot of xbox people will be pissed.

So far I have seen no proof it's going to be backward compatible.

And to be quite frank, I don't think that would hurt Xbox 360's chances at success much at all.

 

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: ZimZum
As I already mentioned Sports, Racing, platformers etc. What little of those genres that are available on the PC are poorly done in comparison to what the consoles offer.

As for who wants to play fighting games. Apparently a lot of people. Thats what variety is all about. Your choices arent limited. Not everyone cares for RPGs or FPS.

Of course the console has genre strengths, as does the PC, but that's not the point - those genres are represented on the PC - NFS series does racing rather well - the games are there - yes, there may be games you can get on the console that you can't get on PC, but it works the same way vice versa. Again, where are all the MMORPGs and RTSes on the consoles?

So yes, consoles do some genres better, as PCs do some genres better. It's rough parity at the moment.

But again you've gotten us off topic. The point is they're intermarrying - big name titles like EA's Sport games, and platformers like Prince of Persia, etc are coming to the PC rather regularly.In the same vein, PC games are being moved over to the consoles - the PC games that can make the transition, anyway.

And I will agree that there are a lot of deluded people out there who believe the act of repetitiously punching someone in the face is entertainment. A lot of people also draw amusement from NASCAR. Nuff said.

Originally posted by: ZimZum
I could just as easily list a myriad of wildly popular console titles that have no equivalent on the PC. But they wouldn't be limited to just one or two genres.

Please do so. And by wildly popular, I mean on the same scale as WoW, Halo2, Half-Life 2 , Doom 3, etc. in terms of a percentage of their market. I'm talking BIG games...game launches that CNN covers...not just things that are known to be entertaining to the community. Stuff the layman knows about.

Originally posted by: ZimZum
First you say genres don't matter but now your hung up on shooters. Which I already stated was one of the areas that PCs are head and shoulders above the consoles.

Because you're missing the fact that a disproportionately large amount of quality games occur in the shooter segment.

That's why we keep ending up back there - that's where the big games are. What are the four games you heard the most about last year? Half-Life 2, Doom 3, and Halo 2, GTA San Andreas.

QED. GTA may technically be third person action, but that's still a 75% margin, and it still has plenty of shooting.

If you want the highest quality shooters, you go to PC. If you want the highest quality strategy, you go to PC. If you want the best RPGs, you go to PC.

If you want the best racing, you go to console. Platforming, console. Weird games from Nintendo, console.

Sports titles generally launch on both platforms within weeks of each other. Toss up, unless you have a control preference.


Again, rough parity. Pick your preference. I personally play on both platforms, because there are games in both places I want to play.

Originally posted by: ZimZum
Platformers have been around for over 20 years on consoles. Show me a halfway decent platformer for the PC.

They don't make them any more. Almost all the good platformers on PC are ports from consoles. Seeing as how console controls tend to be more forgiving for platformers, I don't have a problem with this.

Originally posted by: ZimZum
Graphics yes, But if you'll remember even the 1st Xbox when it launched was more powerful than the PCs of the time.

"More powerful" is a tricky term. If you mean it could render prettier things than the PC for about a 6-12 month period, yes, you'd be correct. That happens every time. It's nothing new.

Originally posted by: ZimZum
Variety of game play, is not even close. Consoles have far more quality games, of far more variety. Plus Multi-player is virtually non existent on the PC. I'm not talking online play. I mean when there are other actual human beings in your house who you may want to play a game with. Its not an option on a PC. Unless you want to have everyone take turns and huddle around a computer desk.

That statement about multi-player is ludicrous. Multi-player may involved haveing other people in the room, but MMORPGs also count. It's how many people you are PLAYING WITH, not where they are. The PC OWNS the multiplayer space.

I don't want anyone else around when I'm playing my games, making dumbass comments and killing the immersion for me. When people ask to watch I tell them no, if they're interested in the title, they're welcome to play it when I'm finished.

You list having others around while gaming like it's a feature. Heh, I spend plenty of time around real people every day when I'm not gaming - there's a reason it's called escapism.

Variety = roughly equal.
Quality Games = PC has the advantage.

You and I measure quality differently, which is to be expected as everyone will have their own opinion, but that just means you're mistaken because you disagree with me. As I already mentioned, there are games on both platforms that I want to play (a recent console conquest that comes to mind was God of War - it was particularly tasty, but there were times when the PS2 clearly couldn't handle the geometry), but when it comes to raw fun, I've had far more of it on PC.

I can see that trend starting to shift, and here's why

TA DA: OUR ORIGINAL TOPIC:

CONSOLES ARE BECOMING PCS!

Originally posted by: ZimZum
This is like comparing a motorcycle to a pick-up truck. The Truck can do many more things and is more flexible of course. But the motorcycle is designed for one purpose. To get one person from point A to point B very fast. And in that regard it will outperform the truck any day of the week.

That would be a good point if it weren't an outdated analogy. Look at both XB360 and PS3. They both have graphical UIs and multimedia and networking functions. They're internet able now.

What Microsoft has done here is made a very fast truck. It's not as capable as a PC yet, but it's well on its way - hence why consoles are becoming PCs.

It's good that we're getting back on topic here.

Originally posted by: ZimZum
Similarly consoles are designed to perform a single task. And for an all around gaming experience they do it better and cheaper than the PC. This isn't to say that PCs aren't good for gaming or that there aren't great PC games. Hell, the main reason I have a PC is to use as a gaming rig. But my consoles see the majority of my playing time.

Cheaper, yes. Better? Ha! You get what you pay for.

Consoles have a chance at equaling the PC experience this time around. They are supporting high-def and surround sound, so the games won't look and sound mediocre like they do now/before. A good high def setup with theater surround will likely be able to toe to toe with a PC flat panel and 7.1 speakers. Also, these new consoles, on paper, appear to have enough power to push games around without making them chug.

Everyone likes to think that consoles last gen and before were ahead of PCs visually at launch, but they just don't get it - running at 640x480 with no AA and no AF is not impressive. Hell, even th upcoming XB360 only supports up to 4xAA IIRC.

The PC still wins on the control side in many cases. About the only genre where I think consoles have a decided control advantage is platforming/third person action.

I play on both platforms as well, and have enjoyed games on both platforms. But all I can say is if consoles see the majority of your playtime, you have my condolences.

 

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
You have that quite backwards actually. The 8bit NES was online(unfortunately only in Japan) gaming back in the 80s- Wireless controllers have been around since then also and the GUI has been a feature for over a decade(which the PC copied from Xerox workstations)- but those are just the points you brought up.

Fair enough, although I'd like to know what "online" meant back then.

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
Every major design team from the IHVs worked on consoles prior to working on PCs. nVidia started out with the NV1 in the Sega Saturn, ATi was always a pathetic also tried to run until they picked up the ArtX team(N64, GC and now XB360 and Revolution). Every consumer IHV who didn't replace their lead team with, or started out on, consoles is dead now.

Whats your point? They're hardware developers. Whether they develop for PC or console is immaterial here. They just make the chips to order.

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
This has never been less true then it is right now. Take the big three titles in PC gaming graphics- Doom3, HL2 and FarCry- all headed to the consoles. Scaled down a bit yes, but this is the first time that PCs top tier games can be run on consoles that are at the end of their life cycle. The LCD factor is an increasingly strong anchor around the neck of PC gaming.

I don't buy that. I point to the fact that the Xbox is basically a close-box PC as the reason those games are being scaled and ported there. Similar hardware, similar instruction sets...

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
Laughable at best. Fighting games, racing games, action games, platformers, sports games and even RPGs have been significantly larger on the consoles since the original NES(don't believe me, check out the global sales for FF1 versus every single RPG to come out on the PC combined prior to 1995). PCs have shooters going from them, even in turns of strategy games the consoles have been in the game for decades, just that titles such as Nobunaga's Ambition didn't hit the broad reaching success that Blizzard's titles and the like did. Obvioulsy PCs have an advantage in those two genres, in almost everything else they are and always have been significantly outclassed by their console counterparts.

I'm not going to argue that consoles will always outsell the PC - the cost difference alone will see to that. That is, in fact, a reason you don't see a lot of those genres you and Zim mentioned on PC - the market there for them is not large enough. The public is largely unaware that the PC is more than capable of playing games of that caliber.

A large part of it probably has to do with the social stigma that PCs held for so many years, and still do to an extent today. Like Halo/2 and your frat buddies will jump in with you. Prefer Battlefield, and suddenly you're a nerd.

Consoles are more palatable to the public, and thus gain a larger reach - they can cross demographics more easily.

You may well have a good point that PC gaming took many ideas from consoles, but over the past 15 years it advanced them far quicker than the consoles could - now the technology is starting to reach its apex. Before too long, say 5-10 years or so, the tech will be able to render anything anyone can imagine in realtime, photorealism. So what happens then? Consolidation.

Microsoft envisions the Xbox 360 as an entertainment and media hub - a role commonly filled by the HTPC today. Microsoft's EVENTUAL goal is to have a single unit in the house used for everything - it's your cable box, your internet machine, your gaming machine, your music player, your DVD player, if need be you can render content and media edit with it...

Eventually, they'll all converge. PCs had the multifunction ability first, and now consoles are starting to adopt it. They're becoming more PC like, and by next generation, I doubt the term "console" will still be accurate.

Truth be told, the direction they're heading has more in common with Mac than PC. Who'da thunk? Jobs was right after all, just about the wrong segment

 

[T9D]

A few people said it's $299 and everyone followed but I havn't seen a single link about the price. I'm betting is starts at $399.

 

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: tk109
A few people said it's $299 and everyone followed but I havn't seen a single link about the price. I'm betting is starts at $399.

I'd be surprised if it launched much higher than previous console systems have. Personally, if it's released at a bargain low price, I have no problem with that.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Originally posted by: Skotos

^^^ that shows how stupid you are

Just because you can't afford a real machine, and you want to convince yourself that a $300 toy will PWN a $5000 PC, and I'm not buying into your fantacy I'm stupid:roll:.

Step away from the XBOX!! go clean your room, and think about what you want to do when you grow up.

 

[thraxes]

Time to put the performance of this "beast" into perspective. The resident CPU expert of the highly respected german "C'T" magazine has posted his view of the beast. In essence th numbers sound impressive but are way off from any real-life performance.

CPU:
The Tri-core 64bit-PPC CPU which runs at 3.2 GHz. The 9 billion dot-produkt operations a second can easily be converted to FLOPS as a dot-product op corresponds to 5 floating point ops (3 multiplications and 2 additions). This gives us 45 GFLOPS, which is very impressive when compared to a 3.8GHZ P4 (15.2 GFLOPS) or even a 2.7GHz G5 (21.1 GFLOPS). Unfortunately there is this little thing called Cell which could spoil the party: With its 8 parallel SPE units it can reach a throughput of 256 GFLOPS at 4 GHz. But even when cloced to a more friendly 2GHZ it still is 3 times as potent as the XBox 360 CPU.

Also don't fall for the 1 Terraflop marketing hype: This value can only be attained when the CPU AND the GPU's shaders are all running at their theoretical maximums. A state that NEVER can be reached in real life. Oh yes, and even then an X-Box wouldn't make the top 500 of the supercomputer scale because Microsoft specifies 1 TFLOP at single precision, the Top 500 is based on double Precision.

GPU:
What Microsoft likes to shout about is the huge 256 GB/s trnasfer rate from the embedded DRAM to the GPU. Unfortunately this will not help the GPU that much: The DRAM is designed as a frame buffer to hold the images before they are output to the screen. For 1080i HDTV this means an image 1920x1080 has to stored in this Buffer, at 32bits color depth this will already consume 8MB. So no 4xAA in 1080i as this would need 32MB, similarly when running 720p (1280x720 3.4MB needs 14MB for 4xAA). So 4xAA is only possible in Standard Def. and not in HDTV.

More important is the 22.4 GB/s connection to the GDDR3 main memory, and this lies only in the mid range of current PC graphics cards. Pixel fillrate is 16 billion samples/s in 4xAA. In AA 4 samples are used for one pixel so you get 4 Gigapixels/s. Now you can compare this with the datasheets of other ATI cores which also list the fillrates in Pixels/s. With a Polygon fillrate of 500 million triangles a second, the XBox GPU is about as powerful as a midrange X700 pro (3.4 GPixel/s & 637,5 MPolygons/s). Getting 1080i with high framerates will be hard to do with this GPU, even without AA.

MEDIA:
With only a 12x DVD this machine will not be able to play the up and coming Blu-Ray HDTV CDs. It can play WMV-HD DVDs but this is only a stop-gap solution witht major studios waiting for Blu-Ray or HD-DVD.

Cliff Notes
Very powerfull CPU @ 45 GFLOPS compared to: 3.8GHZ P4 (15.2 GFLOPS) or 2.7GHz G5 (21.1 GFLOPS). BUT: Cell is 3x faster with only 2GHZ, Sony say they are aiming for 4GHz (256 GFLOPs).
Mediocre GPU. Compareable to a X700pro in terms of Pixel-throughput. May not be enough for 1080i in many games. Not enough Framebuffer RAM for 4xAA in HDTV resolutions.
No Blu-Ray or HD-DVD support, WMV-HD is just a stop-gap solution.

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/59548

 

[Venomous]

Originally posted by: thraxes
Time to put the performance of this "beast" into perspective. The resident CPU expert of the highly respected german "C'T" magazine has posted his view of the beast. In essence th numbers sound impressive but are way off from any real-life performance.

CPU:
The Tri-core 64bit-PPC CPU which runs at 3.2 GHz. The 9 billion dot-produkt operations a second can easily be converted to FLOPS as a dot-product op corresponds to 5 floating point ops (3 multiplications and 2 additions). This gives us 45 GFLOPS, which is very impressive when compared to a 3.8GHZ P4 (15.2 GFLOPS) or even a 2.7GHz G5 (21.1 GFLOPS). Unfortunately there is this little thing called Cell which could spoil the party: With its 8 parallel SPE units it can reach a throughput of 256 GFLOPS at 4 GHz. But even when cloced to a more friendly 2GHZ it still is 3 times as potent as the XBox 360 CPU.

Also don't fall for the 1 Terraflop marketing hype: This value can only be attained when the CPU AND the GPU's shaders are all running at their theoretical maximums. A state that NEVER can be reached in real life. Oh yes, and even then an X-Box wouldn't make the top 500 of the supercomputer scale because Microsoft specifies 1 TFLOP at single precision, the Top 500 is based on double Precision.

GPU:
What Microsoft likes to shout about is the huge 256 GB/s trnasfer rate from the embedded DRAM to the GPU. Unfortunately this will not help the GPU that much: The DRAM is designed as a frame buffer to hold the images before they are output to the screen. For 1080i HDTV this means an image 1920x1080 has to stored in this Buffer, at 32bits color depth this will already consume 8MB. So no 4xAA in 1080i as this would need 32MB, similarly when running 720p (1280x720 3.4MB needs 14MB for 4xAA). So 4xAA is only possible in Standard Def. and not in HDTV.

More important is the 22.4 GB/s connection to the GDDR3 main memory, and this lies only in the mid range of current PC graphics cards. Pixel fillrate is 16 billion samples/s in 4xAA. In AA 4 samples are used for one pixel so you get 4 Gigapixels/s. Now you can compare this with the datasheets of other ATI cores which also list the fillrates in Pixels/s. With a Polygon fillrate of 500 million triangles a second, the XBox GPU is about as powerful as a midrange X700 pro (3.4 GPixel/s & 637,5 MPolygons/s). Getting 1080i with high framerates will be hard to do with this GPU, even without AA.

MEDIA:
With only a 12x DVD this machine will not be able to play the up and coming Blu-Ray HDTV CDs. It can play WMV-HD DVDs but this is only a stop-gap solution witht major studios waiting for Blu-Ray or HD-DVD.

Cliff Notes
Very powerfull CPU @ 45 GFLOPS compared to: 3.8GHZ P4 (15.2 GFLOPS) or 2.7GHz G5 (21.1 GFLOPS). BUT: Cell is 3x faster with only 2GHZ, Sony say they are aiming for 4GHz (256 GFLOPs).
Mediocre GPU. Compareable to a X700pro in terms of Pixel-throughput. May not be enough for 1080i in many games. Not enough Framebuffer RAM for 4xAA in HDTV resolutions.
No Blu-Ray or HD-DVD support, WMV-HD is just a stop-gap solution.

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/59548

He has an interesting way of breaking it down. However, i dont agree with his video breakdown. The Embedded DRAM is signficant as a CACHE so to speak. Remember, this sucker has 512 megs of GDDR3 onboard running 700 mhz. I dont think a 1080i signal with 4AA will be a problem. He is really smoking something while comparing the GPU to a X700. Seems like he has a very negative view.

 

[Mildlyamused]

I think it sucks because of the fact it will only have Dual layer DVD support instead of any high capacity disc format like Blu-ray or HDdvd (HD DVD sucks anys but this is worse).

 

[BenSkywalker]

I'm going to limit my comment on the errr, 'experts' comments to those aimed at the GPU of the XB360-

GPU:
What Microsoft likes to shout about is the huge 256 GB/s trnasfer rate from the embedded DRAM to the GPU. Unfortunately this will not help the GPU that much: The DRAM is designed as a frame buffer to hold the images before they are output to the screen. For 1080i HDTV this means an image 1920x1080 has to stored in this Buffer, at 32bits color depth this will already consume 8MB. So no 4xAA in 1080i as this would need 32MB, similarly when running 720p (1280x720 3.4MB needs 14MB for 4xAA). So 4xAA is only possible in Standard Def. and not in HDTV.

A 1080i image @32bits consumes 7.9MB of on die space- obviously not enough to handle AA as the author points out(at least, not in his mind). What he fails to point out is that consoles are not outputting to monitors sitting in very close proximity to our faces, they are outputting to TVs sitting quite some ways away. The need for AA in consoles is considerably lower on consoles then it is on TVs. Ignoring that though, if they used multi frame(jittered) rendering to achieve AA and blended on scan out they would have more then enough RAM even running 1080i to utilize 4x AA. The author is rather foolish in assuming that the GPU will render any given particular way, particularly with the level of programmability it has.

More important is the 22.4 GB/s connection to the GDDR3 main memory, and this lies only in the mid range of current PC graphics cards.

No, that isn't more important. With multiple MBs of on die cache and the level or paralellism that GPUs have it isn't nearly as important as the on die cache. In essence, using eDRAM on a GPU brings a lot of the benefits of a TBR to an IMR architecture in terms of memory bandwidth.

Pixel fillrate is 16 billion samples/s in 4xAA. In AA 4 samples are used for one pixel so you get 4 Gigapixels/s. Now you can compare this with the datasheets of other ATI cores which also list the fillrates in Pixels/s. With a Polygon fillrate of 500 million triangles a second, the XBox GPU is about as powerful as a midrange X700 pro (3.4 GPixel/s & 637,5 MPolygons/s). Getting 1080i with high framerates will be hard to do with this GPU, even without AA.

HDTVs at their highest possible setting only output ~62.2MPixels running 1080i or ~55.3MPixels running 720p. That is maximum at their highest framerate- why should they shoot for more exactly? Why not use valueable die space adding shader hardware or eDRAM instead of relatively speaking useless fill? At 4GPixel the R500 in the XB360 has enough fill to draw each pixel 64 times per frame- can someone explain wtf good would more be? Given the level of shader support the game should be able to handle nigh any effect reasonable inside of a few passes(and even taking that much would be more a matter of unique stencil type drawing techniques akin to D3). You could have an OD factor of 12 with five passes required and have pixel fill to spare.

With only a 12x DVD this machine will not be able to play the up and coming Blu-Ray HDTV CDs.

And exactly why does this need to be stated? Without plugging the machine in it won't work.....