Date:
Thursday , May 12, 2005
Author:
Kyle Bennett
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Xbox 360 Sneak Peek

We all know that the Xbox 360 will be a gaming console, but did you know its abilities are going to reach far beyond playing games? The Xbox 360 has changed the Xbox from a gaming console into a lifestyle device.

Edited for cotent by Clifford Murphy

Introduction

Microsoft has come a long way since 1999 and their first dreams of entering the game console market. In fact, when comparing hardware and philosophies behind the Xbox and Xbox 360, there are few similarities. The Xbox 360 in fact marks the beginning of a new era in gaming, but even better it marks a new era in lifestyle devices that can penetrate far beyond the hardcore console gamer.

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Assuredly the gamer is still very much at the center of Microsoft’s new Xbox philosophies, but Microsoft knows that if they intend to reach goal of one hundred million Xbox 360 owners in the console market, they must reinvent the market and that is exactly what they are striving for with Xbox 360.

Xbox Hardware Now and Then

To give you a little background on my personal Xbox experiences, I simply hate the things. Oh I loved gaming on them (4x4 EVO rocked), but my DVD drives kept bursting into flame just after the warranty would expire. So I gave my last busted Xbox to an editor and sent him to a retailer to exchange it for a new one. Was that wrong? Yes. Had I spent $1500 on Xbox, Xbox refurbs, and Xbox accessories and gotten nothing but problems? Yes.

Anyway, my point here is that all of this is coming from a person that is not an Xbox fanboy. In fact, you might say I am a bit anti-Xbox. After seeing the Xbox 360 inside and out, I have to admit it….I want one. And if Microsoft can win me over to give them another try, they might just be able to reach that 100 million customers they are targeting.

Still at the heart of all my Xbox problems was hardware. The Xbox and Xbox 360 are not even distant cousins in terms of hardware. The original Xbox was “thrown together” in comparison to the Xbox 360 hardware. An in-house Microsoft engineering team 10X larger than the last has been working on Xbox 360 in order to make it everything it should be. Certainly Microsoft has taken some lumps in the last few years in terms of their Xbox hardware and it seems to me that they surely learned from those mistakes.

Xbox 360 Console

Gone are the bad boy days of the big black bulging box. In terms of aesthetic design, the Xbox 360 is the opposite of its predecessor. Today’s Xbox is sleek, iconic, and pearly white.

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The Xbox 360 is capable of standing in a tower position as shown or it can also lay sideways. Either orientation works well and allows easy access to everything you need to access.

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The new Xbox 360 controller is built in the same vein in that it is a bit sleeker than the last behemoth of a controller. Also, the native controller will be a wireless unit. The lacking cord in the picture above is not the work of handy photo editing.

In terms of size and considering the hardware packed into it, the Xbox 360 is amazingly small at roughly 1 foot tall and only a few inches wide.

What’s on the Front

· The first big standout is the illuminated power button. I have to admit this thing is pretty nifty in terms of power buttons. The ring of light that is illuminated around it is actually broken up into four separate areas as in NW, NE, SW, and SE quadrants. This ring of light is a HUGE THEME throughout the Xbox 360 hardware and software. It will notify you of which controller you have and also give you messages throughout gameplay using your quadrant to identify you by controller. Very slick stuff.

· Obviously you can see the DVD drive slot with a chrome facing. The DVD-ROM will be a 12X dual-layer standard.

· The two small slots bordering the DVD drive are slots for Memory Unit cards. The doors are spring loaded so they open and close automatically as the doors toward the bottom edge.

· Right above the MU slots is a infrared controller window for the controller that will come with your Xbox 360. It is very much like any other CE controller you might see except with the big Xbox Guide Button on it, the same as is on the top middle of the wireless game controller, again with the ring of lights.

· At the bottom is a door containing two high speed USB2.0 ports. Gone is the proprietary form factor of the original Xbox controller. These can be used to plug wired controllers into if that is your preference, along with just about any other USB multimedia device, but more on that later.

What’s on the Controller

While the controller looks much different than the old at first glance, a little closer inspection will show you that the Xbox 360 controller layout has not changed hardly any since last generation. This time however, we do have the addition of the Xbox Guide Button with the directive ring of lights. For instance, if you have three people playing on your Xbox 360 and a message comes up on the screen for one of the players. An icon might be displayed that shows one of the corners of the ring of light lit. This would correspond to the same light pattern on one of the controllers. That way you could easily identify who exactly the message was intended for. Again this theme runs throughout the Xbox 360 hardware and software.

What’s in the Box

Surely many of you want to know what will be in the package when you buy an Xbox 360. Currently it looks as if the base system will have the following.

· Xbox 360 Console

· 20GB Detachable and Upgradeable Hard Drive

· 1 Wireless Controller

· RGB/HD & Composite TV Hookups (unsure on S-Video)

How Much $$$

Microsoft is currently not releasing any pricing specifications. Sorry. But surely you can figure that it will be in the “normal” console range at the upper end at launch.