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Sunday Comics: Dead Island We’ve all been there — you’re buying a television/console, you’ve agreed to buy your brand new plasma/LCD/PS3/360 and within seconds the Old Gill-esque salesman is trying the old ‘spend $200 on a ridiculously overpriced HDMI cable’ trick. Looks like Harvey Norman has taken that trick to all new levels, cleverly attempting to compare Monster HDMI cables with regular composite cables in store.
GameStop is now accepting preorders for Madcatz’ new Xbox 360 HDMI Conversion Kit. It’s an add-on that’s meant to replace component outputs in older, non-HDMI Xbox 360s to support HDMI. While Madcatz promises that the kit will allow full resolutions up to 1080p, the privilege will cost you $US 90. Yeah, that’s quite a bit of cash considering that it’s 20% of the price of a new Xbox 360 Premium bundle.
We’re guessing that not too many people will take advantage of Madcatz’ latest accessory, but with as stingy as television manufactures can be with HD input options, there’s certainly some segment of the 360-owning population who will benefit.
Preorder [via gamingnexus]
I may very well be one of the only people with this problem, but HDMI-enabled devices are a total pain in the ass for me. That’s because when I bought my television there weren’t many out there with multiple HDMI in ports, so mine only has one. And I have a cable box, PS3 and Xbox 360 Elite that all use HDMI. So I bought the only switcher I could find at the time, a 2-1 splitter, and just manually swap cables, which is a pain in the ass.
Walking around CEDIA today I stumbled upon RT Com, a company that specialises in HDMI switchers and splitters. What caught my attention was this nifty set-up: One Playstation 3 playing on six high-def televisions at once. Once there they I spotted an 3-1 remote controlled HDMI switcher for $US130, not bad, not bad at all.
Brave NeoGAF member and Kotaku Defence Force lieutenant “wonderkins” was bold enough to crack open the chassis on his brand new Xbox 360, one of the newly released Premiums with HDMI output. This inside look at the gory internal workings of the newest Xbox 360 is now largely assumed to be off the “Zephyr” variety, following the motherboard and heatsink form factor of the Xbox 360 Elite. What’s that mean? The latest hardware release from Microsoft is most likely not of the “Falcon” 65nm manufacturing spec, meaning the arrival of cooler, smaller, hopefully more reliable CPUs is still unknown.
On the plus side, wonderkins did provide a photo of the new Premium’s hard drive, the quieter BenQ variety. More shots of the hardware in the gallery below and at the original NeoGAF thread. Thanks to wonderkins for the original photos.
The Falcon and the Snowman: Greatest Movie Ever or The Greatest? [NeoGAF]
Good news, brick and mortar store shoppers! Because according to one photobucket philanthropist, the new HDMI-equipped Xbox 360 Premiums are clearly marked for your consumer discretion. As you can see in this side by side, the Premium’s list is WAY longer than the Core’s with the addition of HDMI.
Also, when the current “Falcon” chips are replaced with new, smaller, cooler “Zephyr” technology, that will be right on the box as well:
Chalk one up for Ars Technica’s Opposable Thumbs crew and their Xbox 360 “insider” as newer versions of the Xbox 360 (non-Elite versions) with HDMI output have already begun appearing in stores. A commenter in a Shacknews thread boasted of his recent 360 acquisition, wondering why his Xbox 360 Premium came equipped with an extra audio/video port.
The console clearly displays a manufacturing date of July 4, 2007, indicating that Xbox 360s that post-date that are likely to be of the new, HDMI ready variety. No official word yet on whether the new box is sporting a CPU of the 65nm manufacturing spec, but we’ll get our magnifying glasses and rulers out to check as soon as is humanly possible.
One additional note, it appears the box for the new Xbox 360s makes no mention of the change, nor is an HDMI cable included in the Premium package as it is in the Xbox 360 Elite. Buyer beware.
Xbox 360 Premium With HDMI [Picasa]
