Xbox 360: Before Next Gen

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Microsoft’s next-generation Xbox 360 is due to release today, with responses so far ranging from enthusiastic to completely indifferent. The Xbox 360 touts some of the most impressive hardware we’ve even seen in a gaming machine, even putting some gaming PC to shame. Even so, many are wondering if all the extra horsepower of the 360 promises a truly better gaming system.

Microsoft is unleashing their next-gen system, just in time for a holiday buying frenzy. They have foregone much normal publicity, but have certainly generated attention from their plans to have massive supply shortages. Press scares aside, the Xbox 360 offers a few improvements on the original Xbox.

The Xbox 360 claims attention with a few new features. But primarily, it will be sold for the new hardware rig. It has some impressive hardware specs that could shame decent gaming PCs. To get the obligatory details out of the way, let’s take a look at the 360 hardware:

	Xbox 360	Xbox	Playstation 3
Processor	IBM PowerPC 3.2 GHz 1MB L2 Cache 6 Threads (from 3 Hyperthreaded Cores)	Intel P3 Celeron 733 MHz 128KB L2 Cache 1 Thread (from 1 Core)	Cell Processor 3.2 GHz 512KB L2 Cache plus 256KB for each of 7 SPEs 7 Threads (from 7 SPEs)
Memory	512 MB (Shared with graphics processor)	64 MB (Shared with graphics processor)	256MB
Graphics	ATI Custom GPU 512 MB (Shared with system memory) 500MHz Core Clock	Nvidia GPU based on NV15 64MB (Shared with system memory) 233 MHz Core Clock	Nvidia RSX based on G70 256MB 550 MHz Core Clock
Resolution	480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i	480p, 480i, 720p, 1080i	480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
Hard Drive	20 GB	8 GB	Removable Hard Drive
Media	Dual-Layer DVD-ROM	DVD-ROM	Bluray

Supposedly, the new hardware configuration is supposed to give the 360 roughly 10 times the graphic power of its predecessor. While we know that raw power doesn’t mean great games, it does mean that Xbox 360 can handle pretty much anything game developers can throw at it for a while.

The Playstation 3 will make another powerful next-gen system. Since both processors and graphics cards are essentially custom jobs and they use different memory configurations, it’s really not possible to say one will trample the other in all-out gaming specs. They are both strong looking systems at this point, and either one should play the next generation of games outstandingly.

That said, these game systems will have a lot to prove initially. Many are asking if the Xbox 360 is really making games any better. So what else is Microsoft doing?

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