New 360 in US this week, July in Europe

By Tom Bramwell Published 14 June, 2010

£199 model has 250GB disk, Wi-Fi N.

Microsoft has confirmed reports that it plans to launch a new Xbox 360 model - and revealed that it will begin shipping to retailers in the US this week.

The new Xbox 360 will feature a removable but internal 250GB hard disk, an internal 802.11n Wi-Fi adapter and the same price point as the current top-end 360 - $299 in the US. Apparently it's "whisper quiet" too. Uhuh.

Microsoft has said that it will be released in Europe on 16th July, where it cost £199 / €249 and come with a wireless controller and 360 headset.

Check out the first photographs of it elsewhere on Eurogamer.

We also have a hands-on preview of the slim 360, and news that it has a specific slot for Kinect link-up.

The new Xbox 360 in detail.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (75) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Rubakai #1 2 years ago

    awesome

  • INSOMANiAC #2 2 years ago

    How very generous.

  • stevetuck #3 2 years ago

    $299 sooooo £299 and 299 euros then?

  • dupplawt #4 2 years ago

    same price as the elite in the US, hopefully the same price here so £199ish!

  • metalmonk #5 2 years ago

    nice

  • RandomHero #6 2 years ago

    July 16th in Europe according to the Xbox twitter account. :)

  • TheBiGW #7 2 years ago

    16th July for Europe

  • smelly #8 2 years ago

    Bit worried that making something smaller would mean even more overheating...

    But i've already decided that if mine dies for a twelfth time - i'm ditching it, selling my games and getting a ps3.

  • Widge #9 2 years ago

    THAT could very well be my media box for my bedroom.

  • Gregolution #10 2 years ago

    12th time!???! You stood by them for 11?! I ditched after the second failure and have never looked back

  • Retroid #11 2 years ago

    I'm sure spending a fortune on shipping consoles to and from repair centres for free repair was the furthest thing from their minds when designing this revision.

    OR

    It was a major concern. Yes. Pretty sure it was a major concern for them.

  • drumbaby #12 2 years ago

    No Blu-ray?

  • flaming.carrot #13 2 years ago

    Looks nice enough, but I thought the idea of making a slim would be to reduce manufacturing costs and so reduce the price to customers? The price drop was pretty much what gave the PS3 momentum these days - not the redesign.

  • BlinxHDD #14 2 years ago

    Is it PS3 slim - slim?

  • prettyboytim #15 2 years ago

    Are there any comparison pics with the current xbox?

  • Vanmunt #16 2 years ago

    hmm, good point carrot... guess the land fill site is going to be busy, who the hell is going to buy the old 360 now.

  • higganos #17 2 years ago

    Did anyone know if the HDD is internal/external?
    Edited by 1 at 14/06/10 @ 20:38

  • Twiggins #18 2 years ago

    Its internal, they showed it on gametrailers- theres a little flap on the bottom that you open to remove the HDD

  • jesperj5 #19 2 years ago

    It looks a bit like a Gamer PC Tower to me. Probably not something I would want in my living room. Though built in wireless and "whisper quiet" sounds nice.

  • GamesConnoisseur #20 2 years ago

    Still on my 2nd X360 after 1st launch one RROD on me, got no need to upgrade unless that died on me, if so the slim one looks nice. Pretty certain that hardware issues featured very large in designers mind and knowing there ll be people anxious to post on YouTube another example of failures.

    So the ball in their court to prove that the latest hardware revision is going to be more than just up to the job, still to come up with a major revision in the 5th year of x360 and we know Sony was pretty quick.

  • rayscoota #21 2 years ago

    pity we have to wait till July, was hoping to get one of these this week, oh well...

  • marshaal5 #22 2 years ago

    micro$oft.
    They put the "copy" in copyright !!
    Edited by 1 at 14/06/10 @ 20:55

  • makeamazing #23 2 years ago

    Looks pretty nice. Alittle PC boxy... but then its better than if they had gone into video player type living room mode. Wireless... well its about time really....

  • Mnia786 #24 2 years ago

    Shiny black... hmm, rings a bell.
    Integrated wifi... hmm, rings a bell.
    Integrated removable HDD... hmm, rings a bell.

    Great work MS, 4 years after the original and 3 years after the PS3, you manage to make a decent bit of hardware after millions of digruntled customers paying through the arse for proprietary HDDs, 50 quid WLAN adapters and having to suffer from 120dB dvd-drives. Great work(!)

  • CASE #25 2 years ago

    You can preorder on play.com now.

    Will wait till Christmas and see what Kinect bundle/prices are like...
    Edited by 1 at 14/06/10 @ 21:21

  • busboy33 #26 2 years ago

    @carrot:
    I suppose you could argue that the re-design/additions (quieter allegedly, more reliability, wireless n) at the same price equate to a cost reduction.
    Frankly though, I'd rather see a lower price than more bells-n-whistles. Wireless is worthless to me, so while its a nice addition it adds zero value to me personally. Greater reliability shouldn't be a "plus" -- it should be a given.
    I agree with you that I would expect a price cut to move more hardware than a cosmetic change, but then again I'm flabergasted every time Nintendo paint the DS a new color and sales go through the roof so what do I know.

    Now that this replaces the top-end 360, are there still going to be more bare-bones models? Is the Arcade being phased out, or will there be a re-design for that too?

  • Ryze #27 2 years ago

    Internal power brick.

    ...sadly not.
    Edited by 1 at 14/06/10 @ 22:54

  • peterfll #28 2 years ago

    It looks a bit like an AlienWare PC? I don't know if I like it yet....

  • warbo #29 2 years ago

    Don't worry smelly, the 360 overheating problems were solved a while back. This will no doubt run ever cooler still, it's quieter at least.

  • Masaroth #30 2 years ago

    Looks good, hopefully they have some decent trade-up deals going around, although it is coming a lot sooner than i thought. id have guessed it was going to be a dual release of Kinect bundled with it but im happy to get it sooner rather than later.

  • alimokrane #31 2 years ago

    What about the PSU ??? is it now part of the console??

  • ronuds #32 2 years ago

    I think it looks quite nice.

  • max75 #33 2 years ago

    is this slim version or just the same as before but in shiny black with a internal harddrive you cant remove and no built in natal?
    pointless...
    i think its best untill some one does a hardware review to see whats under the bonnet.new cpu,less fan noise, etc,etc.
    as long it doent end up like the ps3 slim......

  • leem018 #34 2 years ago

    Aesthetically, looks like a gaming PC. Don't like it.
    Functionally, belated, yet welcome progress.

  • kobashi #35 2 years ago

    @drumbaby. Blu-Ray was never ever gonna be included. MS confirmed they had no plans for blu-ray ages ago!

  • byakuya83 #36 2 years ago

    two questions i would like to see answered prior to seriously considering a purchase are:

    1) is the power adapter now internal, and;
    2) does it have battery save for date/time.

    at present the ps3 has both of those plus the blu-ray player. if it ticks all the boxes the ps3 does then the lure of 360 exclusives and superior (in a majority of cases) multiplatform games will be too much for me to ignore.

    however, there's no point purchasing one if it doesn't at least equal what my ps3 already does in terms of hardware.

  • dingo75 #37 2 years ago

    Play.com has it listed now:

    [link url=http://www.play.com/Games /Xbox360/4-/15570092/Xbox-360-Slim-with-250GB-HDD/Product.ht ml
    ]http://ww w.play.com/Games/Xbox360/4-/155...[/link]

  • higganos #38 2 years ago

    @ Twiggins

    Cheers m8, wasn't sure...you know...coz MS do like to keep their peripherals 1st party to maximize revenue. Is the HDD a generic SATA or a MS plug in jobby does anyone know?

    Oh and is the power brick still external?
    Edited by 1 at 14/06/10 @ 21:19

  • YoungPayters #39 2 years ago

    sucks to be those people who bought a xbox last week, haha

  • busboy33 #40 2 years ago

    @byakuya83:

    "battery save for date/time"

    Not to sound stupid, but what does this mean?

  • drxym #41 2 years ago

    Looks much nicer than the old model, especially by removing the mishapen lump at the top for the HDD. However it doesn't look it lost as much volume as the PS3 did in its slimming down.

  • Johnsters #42 2 years ago

    hmmm, built in wifi.
    Maybe, just maybe

  • rarehobo #43 2 years ago

    Don't think i'll buy a fourth xbox...

  • busboy33 #44 2 years ago

    @Superet:

    Thanks for the explanation.

    I suppose what's confusing me now is what the point is? The 360 knows what day/time/timezone it is when I turn it on. Assuming it doesn't have an internal battery for this feature, what is the benefit of having one? What would make me say "oh crap, I wish I had an internal day-n-date battery"?
    buykuya's post seemed like this was important enough that it would impact his/her decision to get a 360 -- why?

  • Darren #45 2 years ago

    Looks quite nice. My existing Xbox 360 is on its way out so I might pick one of these up if I am able to transfer the contents of my existing 120 GB HDD to the new 250 GB one.

  • byakuya83 #46 2 years ago

    @busboy33

    the problem with no battery save i found was that if you don't connect to live the console will not set the time/date, which it loses when you turn the power off. what it does is revert to an old time/date being the launch or manufacture date. it's great how it syncs with live each time you connect.

    however, as you can probably imagine, this plays havoc with game saves (especially games with autosave/continue options) when you do not have access to live. i visit my mother most weekends and like to take the ps3 to watch movies and play games. i used to do this when i had a 360 and gave up as we kept losing track of which save was the latest, or the game would overwrite depending on how long you had been playing.

    i lost progress on bioshock and few times and found it very confusing to keep covering the same ground.

    it's a step back when compared to the last-gen.
    Edited by 1 at 14/06/10 @ 21:50

  • busboy33 #47 2 years ago

    @buykuya83:

    Wow. Well, that makes sense. My 360 is always connected, so I never realized this was a problem, but yeah that's a serious issue.

  • Dizzy #48 2 years ago

    I am still on my launch 360 but will get this one, will look good next to my new black Sonos.

  • Raiko101 #49 2 years ago

    Looks cool. Wifi is a plus!

  • BonzoBanana #50 2 years ago

    Is it technically improved inside like a 32nm gpu or cpu etc?

  • Doctor_What #51 2 years ago

    @ byakuya83: Pretty much every motherboard built in the last fifteen years will have a battery on it to store the date and the time. If yours needs to connect online to get the date then that means your motherboard battery has been drained (possibly a short circuit) or was broken to begin with. It's rare, but it can happen. I've never had a problem with a non-online console forgetting the date.

  • Dylbot #52 2 years ago

    God, that thing looks fuck awful.

  • kinggid #53 2 years ago

    My 360 doesn't know the time unless logged into Live either.

  • mumblyjoe #54 2 years ago

    The saying you cant polish a turd comes to mind here.

  • lockload #55 2 years ago

    "$299 sooooo £299 and 299 euros then? "

    No its the same price as the current elite of £200

  • byakuya83 #56 2 years ago

    @Doctor_What

    you would think that is the case but i'm almost certain that all past versions of the 360 do not include a battery save. i've never seen it confirmed or denied officially though so cannot be 100% unfortunately. perhaps i was just unlucky and like many others my 360 suffered from poor build quality.

  • Retroid #57 2 years ago

    360 doesn't have a battery for the clock, neither did the original Xbox. It keeps the time if you keep it plugged into the mains, though - otherwise it gets the time from Live.

  • L0cky #58 2 years ago

    I don't get the "Kinect Ready" badge. Does that mean current Xbox 360's are somehow less "Kinect Ready"?

  • SHPanda #59 2 years ago

    A few points, firstly I like the look, though I'm disappointed that there's still a small external PSU, though it's more reminiscent of that of a laptop transformer than the current one.

    People saying slims are supposed to cut manufacturing cost so that there can be a price drop for customers... This has a 250gb HDD, so it'd more like a Super Elite which carry £249.99 RRPs, this is going to sell for £199.99, and includes Wi-Fi on top of that £50 saving, not bad really.

    @L0cky - It has a Kinect Ready sticker because the new 360 differs slightly from the original ones. The new 360 has a special Kinect port on it, which you plug Kinect straight into and you're off. If you want to use Kinect on a regular 360, you need to plug it into the mains and your 360s USB port.

  • Quint2020 #60 2 years ago

    Is this thing even smaller? It looks to be about the same size...

    I Imagine I'll pick one of these up when I've got a bit of spare cash though, if only for the built in wi-fi and bigger HDD.

  • geeza2020 #61 2 years ago

    I think it looks very sleek. Much better than the ps3 slim. At least MS managed to make their "slim" console look better than the original, while somehow Sony made the PS3 look worse by "slimming" it.

  • Quixz #62 2 years ago

    Can't believe we have to wait a full month before we can get our hands on this baby!

  • gfindlay1974 #63 2 years ago

    Any chance that the price for XBox Live will be reduced or dropped entirely? Paying extra to play online is still enough to put me off and stick with the PS3.

  • Soton4084 #64 2 years ago

    I sold my xbox a few years ago to get a PS3 and I have to say I haven't regreted the decision. However, I must admit I'e been tempted to get an xbox again to enjoy Mass Effect 2, Tropico 3, Alan Wake, etc. This is VERY tempting, seems like they've addressed all the problems with the old console!

  • carlitoswagon #65 2 years ago

    E74

  • chrisjm #66 2 years ago

    mines healthy but getting old, only a few months after launch and gets lots of use. seems like a good time to upgrade as my 20gb is not enough. not bothered about wifi but the cooler & less power is nice. i just wish it was available in more colours. red please.

  • telboy007 #67 2 years ago

    red and glossy O_O

    wowzer

  • DefdumBlindkid #68 2 years ago

    PS4?

  • canIdoyabombsforya #69 2 years ago

    are people really going to buy this because it looks better? turn it on and play it ffs

  • telboy007 #70 2 years ago

    "are people really going to buy this because it looks better? turn it on and play it ffs "

    Hate to say it but yes, this model will look awesome sitting under my new TV rather than the white model. Sigh... sad but true. :) Still, can't wait. Want one now. :)

  • chrisjm #71 2 years ago

    someone should work out how many hours of play on a launch original you would need to do to pay for the new one in saved electricity :-)

  • RedSparrows #72 2 years ago

    don't tempt me :((((

  • mkreku #73 2 years ago

    I really, really would have liked to see Blu-Ray support! I mean, I know it's a Sony technology and all, but.. In the eighties me and my cousin used to rent these VHS videos and have a blast watching them, especially when they were crappy and we laughed at our bad movie choices. That kind of disappeared with DVD (I have no idea why).

    Recently we've been starting to rent Blu-Ray's again, very much like the old VHS days! Cousin has a PS3 and we're having a blast watching stupid movies with talking dogs in silly crisp HD. I just wish I could do the same with a Microsoft machine.

  • gjgjg #74 2 years ago

    too much want, e3 killed me

  • holloguts #75 2 years ago

    Friend who works at HMV has already got one of these. He's not impressed with ther HDMI slot. His HDMI lead won't connect because the surrounding plastic on the lead is too thick. So make sure you have a lead with a slim plastic cover. He's looking for one that will fit. There is no HDMI lead supplied when you buy this.-