The second Xbox 360 revealed: codename Zephyr

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: Robor
Ah, okay, that's not great news but not the worst either because it would give those of us in my position 3 years to upgrade their TV's. Considering I've only had mine 2 years it's kinda unfair but I guess we're all gonna have to deal with this DRM crap at some point. At least it's not enabled now though. It would really suck for everyone out there who's got an HD compatible player & TV but doesn't have the secure HDMI connection.

Thanks for the info! 🙂

That's the primary motivation for delaying ICT usage until 2010. The studios realized that the early adopters of HD-DVD and BluRay are probably the same people who bought first- and second-generation HDTVs, none of which are HDMI-capable. If you don't appeal to those consumers, you're not going to find much success in the market.

 

[Staples]

I don't think they will announce this system until they are ready to ship them. So expect an announcement and then a week later for them to hit stores.

 

[jlmadyson]

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle
Nothing announced at CES beyond IPTV but with shots of a new scalar (HANA) floating around it's almost a certainty that an HDMI Xbox will be introduced sometime in the near future (spring announcement, summer availability perhaps?).

Agree, either that with E3 being the announcement time or perhaps depending on the manufacturing time table, the Tokyo game show and a fall rollout.

 

[zephyrprime]

Originally posted by: mugs
The only thing I find fishy about this is the hard drive. 120 GB notebook drives are pretty expensive. A 120 GB add-on drive might be likely, but I'm not so sure about a 360 shipping with a 120 GB drive.

A 120gb notebook drive at newegg costs $80. A 20gb costs $50. All 20gb notebook drives currently made are probably actually 40gb drives that have been set to 20gb via firmware.

 

[g0dMAn]

great, and i just got a 360 about 2 weeks ago, lol.

still, my TV is 720p and 1080i compatible, so it's not like i'll really need the HDMI port.

so does anyone know if there's a way to hack a laptop hard drive to my 360 premium? this 20gb is rather embarrasing.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: g0dMAn
so does anyone know if there's a way to hack a laptop hard drive to my 360 premium? this 20gb is rather embarrasing.

None yet.

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: g0dMAn
so does anyone know if there's a way to hack a laptop hard drive to my 360 premium? this 20gb is rather embarrasing.

None yet.

I thought there were claims that you could simply open up the casing for the XBOX HDD and swap them out? No one will answer (who says they have done the mod) that it continues to work with XBOX Live. They've said you also have to use a program like Ghost to image the drive onto the new one.

 

[g0dMAn]

Originally posted by: Aikouka

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: g0dMAn
so does anyone know if there's a way to hack a laptop hard drive to my 360 premium? this 20gb is rather embarrasing.

None yet.

I thought there were claims that you could simply open up the casing for the XBOX HDD and swap them out? No one will answer (who says they have done the mod) that it continues to work with XBOX Live. They've said you also have to use a program like Ghost to image the drive onto the new one.

i've seen stuff like this:
http://www.hackaday.com/2006/03/05/xbox-360-hard-drive-adapter/

 

[AoshichanX]

I *think* this is how you do it

1. Format the drive in FAT32
2. Back up existing profile from drive following this guide

 

[BabaBooey]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
The most important thing about the zephyr is 65nm.

You wont need to buy extra cooling to stop the POS's from freezing up every hour or so periodically.

I have personally owned 4 different 360's since launch and never once had a freeze or any issues,but then again I do not put any craptastic 3rd party "fans" on my units either as they worthless and only hamper the original design.


Now I assume the zephyr will come with the HD DVD DRIVE ...

 

[skace]

I've been holding out for something like this, glad my gut reaction paid off.

 

[spyordie007]

sweet!

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: bababooey
Now I assume the zephyr will come with the HD DVD DRIVE ...

I'm almost 99.9% sure that you assume wrong. MS has stated multiple times that an HD DVD drive will not be built-in. The read times aren't there for gaming. Too slow.

 

[Kaido]

How much better will the picture look on DVI/HDMI over VGA?

 

[zerocool84]

so is this finally an official thing or is it still just rumor?

 

[darkswordsman17]

Originally posted by: zerocool84
so is this finally an official thing or is it still just rumor?

Technically still just a rumor, but there's a very good chance that we'll see all of this at some point.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Originally posted by: Kaido
How much better will the picture look on DVI/HDMI over VGA?

Really its not the input you use but rather how good your display is at handling which input. For some, the VGA might look better, and for others the DVI/HDMI would. Also quite a few people are hooking them up to their PC monitors, and they'd rather have their PC on the DVI port and the 360 on VGA anyways.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: bababooey
Now I assume the zephyr will come with the HD DVD DRIVE ...

I'm almost 99.9% sure that you assume wrong. MS has stated multiple times that an HD DVD drive will not be built-in. The read times aren't there for gaming. Too slow.

Well of course not for gaming (as they've said time and time again it would never be there for gaming). I would not be surprised to see a hi-def format drive integrated at some point. I personally think that they're waiting to see which format wins and then will adopt it (despite their supposed hardline for HD-DVD, more than one of their higher ups has said they will support whoever wins).

 

[QED]

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17

Originally posted by: Kaido
How much better will the picture look on DVI/HDMI over VGA?

Really its not the input you use but rather how good your display is at handling which input. For some, the VGA might look better, and for others the DVI/HDMI would. Also quite a few people are hooking them up to their PC monitors, and they'd rather have their PC on the DVI port and the 360 on VGA anyways.

Exactly.

Plus, VGA offers you a few more resolutions than HDMI does. On a lot of displays with a physical panel resolution of 768 lines, you can get a finer picture using VGA than HDMI, if your panel supports it.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: QED

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17

Originally posted by: Kaido
How much better will the picture look on DVI/HDMI over VGA?

Really its not the input you use but rather how good your display is at handling which input. For some, the VGA might look better, and for others the DVI/HDMI would. Also quite a few people are hooking them up to their PC monitors, and they'd rather have their PC on the DVI port and the 360 on VGA anyways.

Exactly.

Plus, VGA offers you a few more resolutions than HDMI does. On a lot of displays with a physical panel resolution of 768 lines, you can get a finer picture using VGA than HDMI, if your panel supports it.

My next home theater upgrade with be a 720p projector, probably the Panasonic PT-AE900u. I'm just wondering if it'd be worth the upgrade to have HDMI on it.

 

[jlmadyson]

This just in;

120GiG Black Xbox360 With HDMI Official!?

Just yesterday our inside source gave us a tip that Microsoft Australia has told a store named Myer to prepare the store for a Black 360 with a 120GB hard drive in April. Well day 2 of product knowledge today (Brisbane, Australia) featured Microsoft themselves and it's now 100% official that the Black 360, (with black controller), 120gb hard drive and HDMI is due out in Australia for $749 AU in April. They will try to push this forward to late March to deter buyers from the March 23 PS3 launch. Hopefully we see this good news sometime in Europe and USA. Should you take it as a grain of salt or not, whats your thoughts?

*Update: Apparently, our source claims that there are photos of this unit floating around. We will try to procure them.

 

[blurredvision]

A black 360??? Hell yes, I'm in for one. If it is black, has the larger hard drive, HDMI, cooler-running chipset (die shrink), and anything else, I'll definitely pony up for another one. I'll stick my current 360 in the bedroom and use it as a Media Center extender. I never thought I'd actually consider purchasing two of the same console, but Microsoft has done well with this one.....

 

[Dacalo]

Originally posted by: blurredvision
A black 360??? Hell yes, I'm in for one. If it is black, has the larger hard drive, HDMI, cooler-running chipset (die shrink), and anything else, I'll definitely pony up for another one. I'll stick my current 360 in the bedroom and use it as a Media Center extender. I never thought I'd actually consider purchasing two of the same console, but Microsoft has done well with this one.....

You don't feel you got screwed? This is a good news for me since I don't own a 360, but I would think some owners would feel some kind of resentment since their less-than-a-year-and-three-month-old system is so much inferior. HDMI and larger HD? Hell yes!

 

[waggy]

heh glad i have put off getting a 360. guess i will wait. woot!

 

[James Bond]

Wow I can't wait!

My last 360 broke, but I still had my warranty at Target... I'll probably just return the one I have now in a month or two, then replace it for the black one.