Proof of a new Xbox 360 iteration — codenamed Zephyr — leaked through the intertubes this morning courtesy of Engadget. Zephyr features an HDMI port, smaller core processor, and may OR MAY NOT come with a 120GB HDD. The article doesn’t mention it explicitly, but I know what you’re thinking and the answer is no: The HD-DVD drive won’t be built into the system. Just trust me on that one.

So, there you have it. Encouraging news for those of you with A/V hardware on the bleeding edge, but hardly surprising. After all the effort and money they’ve put into the Xbox platform, there was no way that Microsoft was going to concede something like this, even if it is essentially just a bullet point on a feature list. Since I love making predictions so much, I’d guess they’ll announce this new unit along with a variety of new, larger hard drives sizes and concurrently with a price drop on the original units. The Zephyr’s 120GB HDD will be used to justify the increased cost over an original 360, masking the marginal increased cost of adding HDMI.

I was initially moderately outraged at the idea of having to buy a $400 device twice if I wanted something simple like HDMI output. However, that outrage subsided pretty quickly when I remembered how many times I have personally purchased a slightly newer version of the Game Boy from Nintendo. The fact of the matter is that many of us are into them for a hell of a lot more than $400.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 5th, 2007 at 2:59 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.