Big Xbox 360 News

[kevinw]

News - Xbox 360 specs and next-gen Xbox Live details blowout!Posted by Josh Freund at 02:09:22 PM EST on 5.9.2005.

The controller, the camera, the headset, the camera, and even the console itself...there have been a lot of Xbox 360 leaks so far.

Now, it seems a full list of Xbox 360 specs and Xbox Live details has been leaked. This list comes from a thread on the Team Xbox forums (the thread has since been deleted), and the TXB poster originally got it from another un-named forum.


2 types of Xbox Live:
Xbox Live Silver (no subscription required)
Xbox Live Gold (subscription benefits)

Features for Gold service
(S) Also for Silver
(O) Also for Offline

- Seamless transition to Xbox Live account from Xbox to Xbox 360
- Access to MMOs (additional fees may apply) (S)
- Free Xbox Live weekends (S)
- Multiplayer online gameplay
- Avatar for gamer profile(S)(O)
- Motto for gamer profile (S)(O)
- Personalized look for Xbox System Guide (S)(O)
- Offline achievments (S)(O)
- Online achievements (S)
- Access to other players' Gamer cards via Live (S)
- Cumulative gamer score (S)(O)
- Location/language profile (S)(O)
- Reputation (S)
- Enahnced matchmaking using above
- Skill level matchmaking
- Gameplay style profile (casual, competitive, etc.)
- Recent players list (S)
- Free and premium download game content(S)
- Free and premium downloadable movies, music, tv (S)
- Downloadable demos/trailers (S)
- Microtransactions (S)
- Custom playlist in every game (S)(O)
- Play music from portable devices (S)(O)
- View images from digital camera (S)(O)
- Strem media from Windows XP (S)(O)
- Interactive screen savers (S)(O)
- Track info for CDs (S) (O)
- Communication with voice, video or text (S)

The Hardware:
1. Support for DVD-video, DVD-Rom, DVD-R/RW, CD-DA, CD-Rom, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 cd, JPEG photo CD
2. All games supported at 16:9, 720p and 1080i, anti-aliasing
3. Customizable face plates to change appearance
4. 3 USB 2.0 ports
5. Support for 4 wireless controllers
6. Detachable 20GB drive
7. Wi-Fi ready

Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU
- 3 symmetrical cores at 3.2 GHz each
- 2 hardware threads per core
- 1 VMX-128 vector unit per core
- 1 MB L2 cache

CPU Game Math Performance
- 9 billion dots per second

Custom ATI Graphics Processor
- 500 MNz
- 10 MB embedded DRAM
- 48-way parallel floating-point shader pipelines
- unified shader architecture

Memory
-512 MB GDDR3 RAM
- 700 MNz DDR

Memory Bandwidth
- 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
- 256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
- 21.6 GB/s frontside bus

Audio
- Mulitchannel surround sond output
- Supports 48khz 16-bit audio
- 320 independent decompression channels
- 32 bit processing
- 256+ audio channels


To sum up the important stuff regarding XBL:

There will be two versions of Xbox Live. Silver is free (everyone gets it), and Gold is a paid subscription, like the current XBL. It looks like Xbox Live will be free on the weekends for everyone; Gold members will get it all the time, obviously. Current Xbox Live accounts will carry over to the 360 and become Gold Xbox Live accounts. Both Gold and Silver members will be able to download demos, trailers, and other content through XBL.

This info seems pretty legit, and some insiders have confirmed that this is indeed a real leak. At this rate, you have to wonder if Microsoft will have anything left to reveal at the MTV unveiling on May 12. :p
rest of artricle-
http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=4844
PICTURES
http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=4827
http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=4828
http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=4836

[Matt27]

That sounds great, it looks like xbox live will have two services, one is free and one is'nt, pretty cool:)

[damob066]

I cant wait

But is it backwards compatable?

[kevinw]

I think the free one sucks... Live is already bad enough with 12 year old punks cussing you out,screaming and cheating. There is already server problems on weekends with the ampunt of paid users, Imagine adding even more...

I am still thinking not backward compatible.. Not really an issue anyway, If you currently own an Xbox use that for the old games till you get tired of them.. The new games will be so much better that you would not want to play the old ones..

[Matt27]

I heard that the hard drive will enable the backwards compatibility of the xbox games but i may be mistaken.

For the 2 xbox live services i think the only differences from what i read is that the free one you can playgames monday-friday, and the paid one will enable you to play online 7 days a week.

Is this true?

[sto22]

So you have to buy the "Gold" version to play multiplayer online?

sto22

[tcrews]

So you have to buy the "Gold" version to play multiplayer online?

sto22
Primarily yes but at the same time....no :)

Gold gives you online multiplay abilities and Silver does not, however there will be "special" weekends where silver members can play online multiplayer games. It's not every weekend though...

Tom Crews

[Brigadeer]

I think the free one sucks... Live is already bad enough with 12 year old punks cussing you out,screaming and cheating. There is already server problems on weekends with the ampunt of paid users, Imagine adding even more...

I am still thinking not backward compatible.. Not really an issue anyway, If you currently own an Xbox use that for the old games till you get tired of them.. The new games will be so much better that you would not want to play the old ones..


The 360 WILL BE backwards compatible, just not fully backwards compatible. Xbox games will be made backwards compatible with the 360 through emulation. They have already targeted all top selling Xbox games and they should all be compatible with the 360 straight out of the box. Microsoft will continue to work as time goes on to make as many Xbox games as possible compatible with the 360. This will happen through Xbox Live updates. The only question is, will it cost money to get updated patch's for compatibility?

As far as the sreaming and cussing 14 year olds, I hate it too, being 30 years old myself. One of the nice innovations that Microsoft is bringing with the 360 is the advent of the Gamer Card. Your Gamer Card will have all of the info and ranks of all the games you play along with some information about yourself, including age I believe, not too sure. What I do know for sure is that the advent of the Gamer Card will make it A LOT easier to weed out the abusive and annoying teenagers.

I for one am really looking forward to the 360. I cannot wait to see some 720p and 1080i games with full Anti-Aliasing on my Hitachi 51-S500.