New 360 Gaming Bundle To Go Retail

[Junaid Alam]

New 360 Gaming Bundle To Go Retail

As the holiday season fast approaches, a Microsoft has confirmed a new Xbox 360 package deal.

Best Buy, one of the U.S.' largest retailers, has started taking pre-orders for the Pro and Elite versions of the console, priced at $350 and $450, respectively, bundled with two games - Forza 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance.

The Pro in particular includes HDMI support for HDTV.

The two included games are widely considered high-quality titles; Forza received a 9.0 to 9.2 composite rating of professional and consumer reviews on Gamespot.com, and Marvel registered in the mid 8s.

For those perhaps uninterested in sports racing or comic-based games, it is not atypical for one type of game bundle offering to be soon followed by another. The de facto price-cut maneuver may also force Sony to, at the least, offer a comparable built-in price reduction via another bundle as well.

Source: Ars Technica [http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2007/09/27/best-buy-confirms-xbox-360-two-game-pack-in]



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[Arbre]

I don't know... the words "most unexciting bundle ever" come to my mind.

 

[Geoffrey42]

Would it be more exciting if you knew that the bundle has potential to contain a 65nm CPU? Saw the post on Engadget, some of the forum discussion can be seen <a href=http://forums.xbox.com/15804553/ShowPost.aspx>here.

And honestly, my first XBOX came with Clone Wars and Tetris, on one disc. I guarantee you, that bundle was less exciting than this one. Forza 2 was a game I was planning on getting anyway, so this bundle, with an Elite, and a lot number higher than 735 (preferably with a CPU from Canada and made by group FDOU sometime after 8/24/2007), is very exciting for me.

Anecdotally, the members of the xbox.com forum discussing it have said that their Halo SE 360's with the confirmed new heatsinks (and theoretically new CPUs) are running remarkably cooler than their previous Zephyr and earlier models.

 

[Echolocating]

Thanks Geoffrey, this is great news for people, like myself, who simply won't buy a defective machine no matter how generous the warranty is.

Canada, you say? Fibre optics, basketball, insulin... and cooler Xbox 360 chips. What a great little country. ;-)

 

[Arbre]

So are all the new 360s going to come with that new chipset now anyway?
Seems that's the way it's going to be.

 

[Geoffrey42]

@Arbre: Best bet is that once the current stock in the channel clears out, all new 360s will enjoy the 65nm CPU, new cooling setup, and HDMI port. As I've read elsewhere, and agree with, it is much easier for Microsoft, from a manufacturing perspective, to have one motherboard and one processor set being used across all manufacturing facilities and all SKUs (Core, Premium, Elite, Halo SE).

For the TRULY patient, sometime in 2008, the GPU die-shrink to 65nm should occur, resulting in less power consumption, less heat, etc. But, these things happen all the time. No one would've said "Don't buy a PS2 until they've shrunk it down, and release a form factor redo." With the 360, I think this new round of re-engineering should be enough to combat the failure rates, and the benefit of waiting for the 65nm GPU (probably more longevity for your console) is outweighed by waiting even longer to play all of the games that are coming out.

Edit: Even more specifically to your question, Arbre, I think all will eventually have the new chips. But, there's no guarantee as to when they'll move all factories over to using the new chip (supply of the new chip fabrication has to catch up to overall demand for 360 production before the 90nm CPUs stop getting produced and used), and as with what's seen so far, they seem to have put the chips in the Halo SE's first, and the rest will follow. I would expect to see it in the Core last. But yes, everywhere eventually.

 

[Arbre]

So thus far, the 360 Halo SE is a 100% winner, and the 360 with the bundle above is likely to host a 65nm by... what percentage?
If I can get the Elite with a better cooling system, that would be quite nice.

 

[Geoffrey42]

So thus far, the 360 Halo SE is a 100% winner, and the 360 with the bundle above is likely to host a 65nm by... what percentage?
If I can get the Elite with a better cooling system, that would be quite nice.

Unless you read something on those forums which I did not, the Halo SE's are just MORE likely to have been in the right batch. I may be mistaken, but I thought someone was saying they had an SE that didn't have the new hotness. Either way, the likelihood of getting new hotness is much higher with an SE, but I truly believe, eventually, it'll be all the same. Say, right before Christmas? Everybody should've had PLENTY of time to clear out retail channel stock on all the poor, unsuspecting, uneducated parents buying 360's for Timmy.

 

[Arbre]

Ah, I thought the Halo SE was totally 65nm. Mh, nevermind.
I just hope there'll be enough Timmys then.