March 18, 2010

Last August, Sony announced the PS3 Slim, a smaller, cheaper redesign of the PlayStation 3 system it launched less than three years earlier. The impact was immediate, as the Slim, which also received a $100 price cut, sold more than a million systems in less than three weeks.

Now it appears that Microsoft could be following Sony's lead with a redesign of the Xbox 360. Users on A9VG posted two images of what appears to be a redesigned Xbox 360 motherboard. One image shows the entire motherboard, which is more compact and closer to a square than the system's current configuration. A second image on the thread shows what's underneath the giant fan in the original picture: a single chip that is supposed to combine the functions of the Xbox 360's CPU and GPU.

While the Xbox 360 hardware has undergone several revisions since its November 2005 launch, those changes have been mostly internal and invisible to the average consumer (added HDMI port aside). Given the significantly different shape, size, and screw locations of this 360 motherboard, the system casing would need to be revised and almost certainly would undergo a change in outward appearance.

It's also worth noting that this motherboard appears to lack the current Xbox 360's specialized hard-drive port, but includes an extra SATA interface port. That has led to speculation that Microsoft will be making the system's hard drive an internal component, and possibly inaccessible to users.

This wouldn't be the first time a hardware redesign was leaked out from overseas. Last May, a Chinese hardware blog leaked pictures of the PS3 Slim, which were all-but-confirmed when media outlets started receiving notices from a Taiwanese law firm demanding the photos be taken down.

Source:-http://www.gamespot.com