Getting in the bandwagon: more Xbox 360 Elite crystal-balling

The Mercury news’ gaming journo Dean Takahashi expects Microsoft is all but ready to print out the press release for the Xbox 360 Elite. Of course the rest from there is the same game everyone else has been playing: guessing what will come in the new Xbox.

The guesses are in line with, for example, Engadget or Game Informer: the black plastic, the HDMI, the 120GB HDD and the IPTV, the lack of an internal HD-DVD. That makes all the guesses unanimous, then – although even Dean says he could be wrong, and only the press release will say when.

The interesting thing he added was the emphasis on 65nm chips, and not only in the 360 Elite. “[Microsoft] is overdue for a shift from the 90-nanometer chips that it started with in 2005 to the 65-nm chips commonly in production elsewhere.” And not just for Elite production, too: the implication is that the current Core/Premium SKUs will also have 65-nm chips, “bringing costs down fairly dramatically” and improving performance. “That transition isn’t yet complete but it should be by the fall.”

That gives a potential timetable for the rumored “Elite will be the new Premium, Premium will be the new Core, and Core will (more or less) be kaput” rumor brought up elsewhere. If that rumor is true, probably by winter 2007-2008 or spring 2008, the Xbox 360 SKU lineup (and price markup) will shake up in that fashion.

The Mercury news’ gaming journo Dean Takahashi expects Microsoft is all but ready to print out the press release for the Xbox 360 Elite. Of course the rest from there is the same game everyone else has been playing: guessing what will come in the new Xbox.

The guesses are in line with, for example, Engadget or Game Informer: the black plastic, the HDMI, the 120GB HDD and the IPTV, the lack of an internal HD-DVD. That makes all the guesses unanimous, then – although even Dean says he could be wrong, and only the press release will say when.

The interesting thing he added was the emphasis on 65nm chips, and not only in the 360 Elite. “[Microsoft] is overdue for a shift from the 90-nanometer chips that it started with in 2005 to the 65-nm chips commonly in production elsewhere.” And not just for Elite production, too: the implication is that the current Core/Premium SKUs will also have 65-nm chips, “bringing costs down fairly dramatically” and improving performance. “That transition isn’t yet complete but it should be by the fall.”

That gives a potential timetable for the rumored “Elite will be the new Premium, Premium will be the new Core, and Core will (more or less) be kaput” rumor brought up elsewhere. If that rumor is true, probably by winter 2007-2008 or spring 2008, the Xbox 360 SKU lineup (and price markup) will shake up in that fashion.