Redesigned falcon Xbox 360 coming sooner rather than later

Word has escaped from Asian component manufacturers that Microsoft have accelerated the planning for the redesigned Xbox 360 mainboard. Project 'Falcon' as it's known internally aims to reduce the size of the main console components such as CPU & GPU from the standard 90-nanometer process down to 65-nanometer.

[Hayabusa 117]

Microsoft will deny it no doubt.

[Daewoodrow]

i'd say they're more likely to
*click* neither confirm nor deny rumours or speculation *click*

heh, no but seriously though, they don't have much of a choice. Announcing the exact date a better version of a console will be out would kill sales until then.

[coolmatrix]

Microsoft...rush out those new chips.

CUT CORNERS on testing!!!!!

Push these new boxes quickly out to market.

Save time and money where you can!!

CUSTOMER LOVE GETTING REFURBISHED BOXES FOR FULL PRICE....

EXTEND YOUR WARRANTY TO 5 YEARS

GIVE THOSE MARKS A NEW MACHINE IN three years.

REPEAT PROCESS....Ahhhhhh Rush, rush, rush...

MOTTO: We got games!!!!!!

[Daewoodrow]

Oh, nice touch coolmatrix. You're going to waste your last bubble spouting the same tired old nonsense, so you hijack someone else's first post in the hopes of getting more attention.

[dale1]

moore junk on the way so i have legged it

[Silver360]

I may upgrade to the elite when the new boards come out

[Bloodmask]

the only thing hindering Micro at the moment.

Once these new chips are the standard it will be smooth sailing for them.

[THE VIOLATOR]

Best Online experience, Best game selection (look @ their software sales!), a crushing Fall lineup of AAA games starting with BIOSHOCK next month, moving on to HALO 3 which is going to be HUGE by itself, then MASS EFFECT (OMG - can't wait !), & icing the cake with GRAND THEFT IV, COD4, ASSASSIN's CREED, ect. all before Christmas 2007 !

A price cut could be a staggering blow - Imagine if they get the core down to around $250 or less, seriously competing with the Wii's sweet pricepoint & cut the Elite back to $200 less than the PS3 with all of these brand new titles available to go with your new Xbox360 ... It's going to be an interesting Christmas that's for sure !

_____________________________ _______________________________ ___________

Another outcome from the redesign, and possibly a more important factor is a reduction in costs. Moving from 90 to 65 nanometer fabrication could in fact reduce component costs by a staggering 50%. A price cut from Microsoft later in 2007 is widely expected and should place the 360 in a good position as we move forward in to the festive season. I would expect to see a cut of around 20% of RRP sometime between September and November when the ‘Falcon’ 360’s are set to arrive on store shelves.

[30ROCK]

The damage to the image is done. The redesign won't have nearly as much publicity as the 1 billion loss due to ALL 360s being inherently prone to fault, therefore 360 will maintain this stigma until it's too late to make a turnaround.

[THE VIOLATOR]

I disagree, look at what Sony has done to consumers & you still support them. Console defects are nothing new, & M$ has stepped up to the plate. Sony didn't give a rat's ass when PS2's were clearly defective & did nothing for consumers but DENY. Sony has ALWAYS over promised and under delivered.

Let's take a brief look at how Sony treats consumers:

Paying people to advertise their PSP through graffiti, puting programs in music files that make systems at risk of viruses, exploding laptop batteries, claiming CG trailers are gameplay footage, now phasing out the 60gb model & denying it, all their games will be running at 1080p, the console race starts when they say it does, the cell processor, There will be 2 million PS3s at launch, the US launch date, the European launch date, Jack Trentton: The DS is trailing the PSP, ... Sony philosophy: wait for Nintendo to do it and then double it: Analog Stick? Dual Analogs! Rumble? Dual Shock!, Wii-mote ? Six Axis ! ... do I need to go on because this list is ENDLESS.

What is *TRULY* amazing is the blind Fanboyism that follows Sony & believes their crap after they lie to you over & over & over & over. Bottom line is:

SONY PWNS IT'S FANS

[MikeGdaGod]

MS, by far, as done more to decieve their customers about everything. Sony talks up their products but thats what you're suppose to do when you're in business.

MS doesn't own up to anything. They still haven't even TRIED to explain the red lights. All they did was extend the warranty so simps like you can say, at least WHEN it fails I can go get a new one. Thats ok to you?

Everything you claimed Sony took from Nintendo, MS got from Sony. So they all copy if you gonna look at it like that.

I'm tired of hearing all this PS2 was a faulty system. I still have my original PS2 from 2000, never had any problems at all, and so do ALL of my friends. In fact, before joining this site, I never heard of anyone having problems with their PS2 and almost everyone I know has one. No BS........NEVER.

My 360 is another story, I'm currently on #3. Thats right, I've had it a little more than a year and had two different problems with each (red lights and the other wouldn't play anything I put in it). Its not just me either. Three of my friends that have a 360 have had different problems with theirs also. Its not just the red lights and thats the real scary part.

Get off MS d!ck actin like they can't do no wrong. I'm not saying Sony is perfect but seeing goofy @ss comments like the one you just wrote really gets me going. And the worst part is you probably believe that silly sh!t. Ok do this. Go compare the failure rate of the PS2 and 360. Its not even close.

[PS3n360]

nobody even knows about the problems other than the 10's of people on these game sites. General public knows nothing of these fanboy rants.

[SteinigerGE]

doesn't really inspire confidence. Maybe they should take some more time and actually make sure these boards don't melt down. Just because it's "finished earlier" doesn't mean they should be selling it. Or they could build two boards for every console sold and let owners replace defective boards themselves.

[JohnCarpenter]

Why project ‘Falcon’ and not 'phoenix' - return from overheat ashes? ;-)

Just kidding, my first 360 is still running well.

The changeover to 65 nanometer fabrication seems to be not so easy at all , the announcements are quite old now.

[SuperSaiyan4]

If the new ELITE for Europe indeed has the new 65nm process for both CPU and GPU then I might get an ELITE - only thing is I wish it was glossy black lol.

Also I noticed that faceplates dont seem to suit an Elite unless its a dark faceplate or the gears of war one...

If the new ELITE's for Europe do have the new 65nm process then looks like we will have a better version over any existing Elite owner in the USA LOL!!!

[Mr VideoGames]

cuz it's going to put Sony out of the Industry

[ElementX]

Blah blah blah, MS spent $1 billion. They'll never make that... I think you people are forgetting about Xbox Live.

$50/year x (say 5,000,000 paying people) = $250,000,000 so in 4 years they'll make that $1 billion. That's ONLY if there are 5 million subscribers in four years. People are always joining XBox live. That number is arbitrary. I've paid for Live for almost 2 years already on 360 and a couple years on my original Xbox.

As for rushing out a new motherboard, they know what the problem is. When you know what the problem is, then you can fix it. I'm sure they've known for a long time and have been working on a solution.

[MikeGdaGod]

u sure they know what the problem is? cus they still haven't said what it is. all they do is blame the components but the manufacturers blame the design itself. i hope this does solve the issues cus even with the problems i've had, i wouldn't mind gettin an Elite if i knew for a fact all problems where taken care of. till then, my ps3 will be good enough.

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

This is not good news for Sony and it's Droids, it means major price cuts. The kind of price cut Sony couldn't achieve because of it's high cost.

All the Droid comments above and the ones that come in b-low are nothing but frightend Sony fanboys scattering like cochroaches when the lights come on.

The PS2 won last round do to it's price and library of games and even did it with faulty consoles (oh yeah truth baby) Now the 360 has the price and library of games and is kicking the PS3s ass even with it's faulty launch consoles (it's just the launch consoles Droids no matter how you try and spin it)

The PS3 is a pwned console this round, enjoy that 3rd place Droids because your going to be living in it for a long time. Enjoy the waiting, hell you can always watch your movies untill a couple of third party devs throw the PS3 a few bones.

PS: I know I'm an asshole Droids, I just do it for fun I'm a smack talking gamer, to me it's all in good fun. Don't take my crap to serously, it's just jokes and fun.

For Star Wars fans I put this video up a few times already i'm just spreading the love.

[Lex Luthor]

that youtube vid was OVER sick!!

[Bathyj]

Just about everyone i here has made a good point, (except VideoGames4Life , you fanboy douche, should it be M$ or BillGates4Life?)

Its a wise move to get the falcon out as soon as they can, because as I've stated before who in their right mind would buy an Xbox til its out, knowing it could be faulty.

And on the flipside I hope they are not rushing or skimping on the testing. Its not just the hardware that needs fixing, its the public perception that Xbox is built to a poor quality. This Falcon needs to be perfect with close to Zero defects. If it comes out and has even a 5% failure rate people may never trust Xbox hardware again and you'd have to say who could blames them?

[The Wood]

well done. MS are fixing the situation. The sooner they do the sooner people will start to trust MS again in terms of hardware.

[harpua]

Is having a reliable product out of the gate really that difficult?

[Lex Luthor]

Ask ps2

[Frulond]

1) Elite will fail miserably
2) Angry Elite buyers

so... what's going to be the price tag for this thing? $500+?

[tomfoolery]

how does defeat feel?
It must suck constantly getting ass beatings from Mr.360.
Welcome to the beginning of the end of Sonys lame ass video game reign!
EDIT:To 360 SHEEPFVCKER below,
How does it feel to waitbeyond?My console has been fine since launch
and will never die!All of my friends consoles have never died!So
you sir can take a flying PS3 no game/Blu-chunk playing fvck!

[360Sheep]

haha oh man that was good.. how does returning your broken console every 6 months feel? Seriously, I wanna know what goes through your mind when you see the blinking lights, when the game freezes up on you, when the 360 actually asks you to put the disc into a 360. Does it feel good being put on hold for a while, talking to someone with a heavy accent so they can send you a console coffin. How you get by those precious days waiting for the box, and then waiting for M$ to return a refurbished console that will just end up breaking in the next couple of months.. how does it feel man? Baaaaaaaaaaa Baaaaaaaaaaaaa

[Geewhizz]

4.1 - Yup, & a pricecut in the Fall will really hurt competitors
Best Online experience, Best game selection (look @ their software sales!), a crushing Fall lineup of AAA games starting with BIOSHOCK next month, moving on to HALO 3 which is going to be HUGE by itself, then MASS EFFECT (OMG - can't wait !), & icing the cake with GRAND THEFT IV, COD4, ASSASSIN's CREED, ect. all before Christmas 2007 !

XBOX360 HAS A GREAT LINE UP THIS YEAR, NO QUESTION BUT, WHAT IS COMING NEXT YEAR? Dont mean this as a dig, but have read NOTHING on 2008

[bootsielon]

You better hope this Xbox 360 is not red ring of death prone. If it is, what then? Casuals will never buy it.

Anyhow, I think Microsoft should use this falcon to save themselves, not to kill Sony. Microsoft, judging by current sales, doesn't need a price drop. By the time Halo, GTA4, other hardcore games like Mass Effect and Bioshock (which I doubt will spurr console sales unlike the former two, but will definitely sell millions of games; why? Because the gamers that want those are hardcore and already have a 360) and the holiday season hit, it'll sell a lot, regardless of the price tag. If they do launch the falcon on time before that, and don't price drop, the profit margins will be HUGE for them. They won't need it.

I once said that they might need it in 2008 to regain momentum and steal Wii's thunder... but I'm starting to think that the Wii might really die with all the hating it seems to get lately. In fact... I'm not really excited for the non-games that Wii is getting. WiiFit did seem interesting, but that's not enough for me, much less their less than hardcore games which are all sequels anyway, and have little or no technological updates. So I doubt Xbox 360 will need to drop its price. They could even let Sony reach their price, and if they do lose sales, drop it.

There's no hurry for price drops. After all, Microsoft said (ironically, peter moore) that they'll be looking to launch their next console somewhere between 2011 and 2012. I think we're looking at long console lifespans with PS3 and 360, and there's no hurry to drop the prices. Besides, it'll take exponentially more hardware to make a significant change in today's graphics, physics and AI; not to mention research.

Microsoft: Aim for profit now, not marketshare. After all, you're still market leader AND you'll get a huge boost next season (not to mention Wii shortages and lack of compelling content, as they say, for EVERYONE).