Ok there's a million different sources and tid bits of info floating around all over the place... I took the liberty of sifting through it and creating a sort of spec sheet. Some of this is directly quoted from whatever Source I was looking at some of this is based on my personal speculation from a combination of 10 or so different sources...
We'll know for sure on thrusday night but as of now here is what I suspect we'll see
I should note that it seems MS has essentially taken a look at what people liked about the Xbox, what people liked about the PS2 but then they looked at cell phones. A lot of the ideas present in the Xbox 360 is taken from cell phones, so keep that in mind as you read through this.
General:Name: Xbox360
Price: $299 (-/+ $50 if they make different versions for sale)
Release date: early to mid November
Color: Smooth white with dark gray accents and green lighting.
Features:-Support for 4 wireless controllers
-3 USB2.0 ports
-The DVD drive will be a 'simple' DVD9-drive, with support for: DVD-video, DVD-Rom, DVD-R/RW, CD-DA, CD-Rom, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 CD, JPEG photo CD
-A detachable 40GB HDD (included)
-Wi-Fi 802.11 A, B and G support
- 10/100 Ethernet
-IR port
-Detachable/changeable face plates to customize the appearance
Games:All games will be required to have full support for...
-the 16:9 widescreen format
-720p and 1080i HDTV
-full screen anti-aliasing
-Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound
-Custom Sound Tracks
-Xbox Live
Hardware:-IBM CPU (based off of the Power PC architecture) with 3 symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each with 1 MB L2 cache.
-The ATI GPU will run at 500MHz with 10 MB embedded DRAM
-System memory will be 512MB of GDDR3 RAM at 700 MHz and 21.6GB/s front-side bus bandwidth.
-The system as a whole "will deliver over a Tera-FLOP" of processing power
Controllers:-Similar in shape to the current "S Type" controller
-Black and white buttons have been removed in favor of shoulder buttons above the triggers
-Back and Start Buttons have been re located to the center of the controller
-All controllers are wireless
-a lit 3D Xbox360 logo will be on the controller itself and indicate which "player" is assigned to that controller
-(speculative) a "Live" button will be available that allows players to enter the Xbox Live "Dashboard" at anytime during a game to check stats, messages, and other Xbox Live features.
-expansion slots on the controllers have been been removed in place of a single hybrid USB port (who's function is unknown)
-memory cards will be 64MB and will fill one of 2 slots on the console itself.
-A (probably optional) web-cam type device will be available (unclear how it will connect, most likely through the USB Ports on the console)
-Xbox Live Headsets will be available (unclear how it will connect, either though the hybrid port on the bottom of the controller or wirelessly to the Xbox360 itself)
-A Media remote will be available (optional) and allow for standard DVD-remote type functions as well as buttons for eject, power, record, Xbox Live, and "Windows" (unsure what that button does but it's on the remote)
Xbox Live (online service):There will be 3 versions of live Silver, Gold, Platinum
Silver: Free for everyone, allows online play on the weekends, downloads of added content, game demos, etc.
Gold: $50 a year, allows online play all the time as well as all of the download features of the Silver package.
Platinum (speculative): $30 a month, allows for complete access to all current Xbox titles as well as all Xbox360 titles that are over a year old through a "games on demand" type of service. If you sign up for a 2 year contract you can purchase the Xbox360 for $99
Also here are some "leaked" photos:
The New Logo
The New Controller
The New Remote
Face Plate Pattern Samples
The New Xbox 360, headset, camera, and controller
IMO I'm very pleased overall with my only disappointments being in the supported media formats. I understand it would be difficult to include HD-DVD especially with Toshiba and Sony in talks over a universal format, undoubtedly pushing it back. But no WM9 support? No DVD-A or SACD support?
And for those of you complaining about the look/color/etc... get a fucking life... it's nit picking at best, you can never please everyone, especially in something so subjective such as looks. And if that's your biggest complaint, well then you're just looking for something to complain about because no console EVER has been so good looking that everyone liked it.
And those complaining about new wireless technologies need to embrace change, change is good, change is your friend, we can't all go around using archaic technologies forever... don't knock it until you try it (and no one has ever tried Xbox360 wireless yet so don't compare it to some old N64 IR wireless POS you tried back in the day, people used to drive model Ts too it doesn't mean todays Corvettes are the same).
THAT IS ALL
This post has been edited by twistedsymphony: May 10 2005, 06:44 PM