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The New Xbox 360 Slim is a Big Step Backward

By Lev Grossman | @leverus | June 23, 2010 | +

As a tech journalist I have a good record with firsts. I’m pretty sure I was the first journalist to see the iPhone. Ditto the Wii. Also the Xbox 360: in the months before it came out I spent a lot of time in Redmond with J Allard and the other guys who were building it.

So I remember well my first look at it. It was different. It was curvy. It was feminine. It was friendly. It was a special custom color that J called “chill.”

So yeah, that’s over. The new Xbox 360 isn’t chill, it’s black. It’s not curvy, it’s angular. It reminds me of nothing so much as the first Xbox.

(More on Techland: E310: Xbox 360 S vs PlayStation 3)

In other respects it’s a step forward. The Xbox 360 was a rush job: it was engineered during a brutal campaign to steal a march on Sony. Microsoft was last to act in the last console war, first to act in this one. To do that they spent a lot of money and cut a lot of corners, and it paid off bigtime. But the 360 always smelled a bit klugey, and it’s high time they refreshed it.

So: It’s slightly smaller. It’s a lot quieter. It’s still got a humongous power brick, but it’s not quite as humongous as it was. It’s got five USB ports compared to the older model’s three, and two are in front. And: built-in wifi.

And — cue  laugh track — it’s “Kinect Ready!”

(More on Techland: Is Microsoft Holding Back Kinect?)

The only downers are that it doesn’t ship with an HD cable, and that it’s, well, not that slim. It’s a bit slimmer. But it’s not going to make a real practical difference for anybody. Also — #petpeeve —  the switch to touch-sensitive buttons from clickable ones offends my old-school haptic sensibility.

Plus that design. I feel like it’s 2001 again. J Allard must be spinning in his grave.

Or wait, no. J Allard is probably rolling around in a pile of cash.

More on Techland:

Xbox LIVE Gold Family Pack On The Way

E310: Simply the Best, or What Thrilled Us at E3

E310: Hands-on With Xbox Live On Windows Phone 7

Related Topics: consoles, j allard rolling around in a pile of cash, kinect, new xbox, xbox 360, Xbox 360 S, Uncategorized
  • http://callnresponse.wordpress.com Evan Narcisse

    You know, it’s not until I read this that I realized how much it looks like Xbox 1. For the people who held on the first console, now you can have a nice set. All four of you.

  • http://skattertech.wordpress.com/ skattertech

    I agree. I hate glossy gadgets, period. It’s funny that the PS3 went from Glossy -> Matte. The Xbox went Matte -> Glossy. I guess consumers buy ANYTHING as long as it’s “NEW.” If Apple were to release a metallic finished iPhone 4, much like the current iPod Touch and older iPods, people would buy it again because a “mirror” is a feature.

  • http://www.babylonsticks.com Blahsum

    It’s “Kinect Ready” because it has a special port for the Kinect at the back. The regular 360 doesn’t have this and they are doing some workaround using the USB port.

    Isn’t anyone going to complain about the Xbox Gimp’s move backwards to a glossy exterior? Why do tech companies hate matte so much?

  • jdiggitty

    Lev, I think you missed the biggest step backwards of all. The HDD is NOT removeable!

    And in all fairness about the size of the new console, its NOT named the 360 Slim. That’s something you journalists have erroneously ran with for some ignorant reason. So, you can tout “criticizing a console for something I completely made up” as one of your journalistic credits now.

  • http://twitter.com/thepeterha Peter Ha

    @jdiggitty the HDD is removable. http://bit.ly/cfyjB0

  • jcsdkx51

    The HDD is removable, but it can only be used with another Xbox 360 S, not any of the older consoles.

  • freekeir

    Pfft.

    That was the sound of Peter laying the smack down on ya, jdiggity.

    Also, it’s not called the 360 Curvy or the 360 Gorgeous either. So what if it’s not called the 360 Slim? What’s your point. You’d expect a product being re-released to at least be more practical by being slimmer, wouldn’t you? And you’d expect a guy whose job it is to critique hardware to point that out to consumers who might think otherwise, wouldn’t you?

    Still, you managed to use the word erroneously in a sentence. Well done you. Bet mummy is proud.

  • http://www.twitter.com/leverus Lev Grossman

    it’s true, that’s not the official name. ‘sleek’ is what it says on the box.

  • damumps

    WONDERFUL yet another 360 slim/kinect/Microsoft, sucks article. Where were all these when PS3 slim launched, no one had the balls to write them!

    360 slim launches and everyone wants to be a critic, everyone knows better than Microsoft, everyone wants to talk tough about how crappy everything 360 is. Sure is easy to pick on the one everybody hates. Why are you tools so afraid to write anything negative PS3, and so anxious to write bold negative anti MS 360 titles?

    Could it be, oh I dont know, HITS!?!?!? ;)

  • damumps

    Its funny too, because we know this is just for hits because the reasons you give for why the 360s is “backwards” is because its black and shiny!?!?!? and not round? WTF EVERYONE complained the old 360 was ugly as sin, did you write an article defending it back then?

    I bet you didnt write anything complaining when Sony took features AWAY from PS3 slim, and actually DID go backwards with it, either did you?

    Seriously STFU I am so sick of you hacks all following the same lead, its getting sickening.

  • jdiggitty

    Sorry Lev, I was in a bad mood this morning. 6 hr. epidemiology classes make me moody.

  • http://theTIMEmachine.deviantART.com RadioActivist

    a bad article about PS3′s and 90% of the PSN community go ‘meh, i like it, whatever’. They shrug it off. A bad article about 360′s and it’s like you’ve offended killed the entire communities’ mothers.
    I just find that funny.

    That is all.

    (FYI, i don’t care about the 360 or microsoft, that isn’t to say i’ll bash them, I’m impartial. i just prefer the blu-ray capabilities of the PS3 (old school, not the weird slim; i like my consoles to look sexy)

  • http://figerrific.wordpress.com/ figerrific

    I sort of see damumps point of view, but I’m not rabidly obsessed with Microsoft to scream about it. And considering how piss poorly MS treated their early adopters (HD DVD, RROD, ludicrous pricing on the HD) I don’t think it’s unfounded for people to be skeptical / cynical about their hardware.
    While I don’t think the new 360 is “a Big Step Backward” it’s not a step forward either. The internal parts are actually laudable, but as others have said, why bother refreshing the design if it’s just to place it ostensibly in an Alienware case? Oh! It’s Kinect Ready? Well that makes everything better. Since we’re on the topic of big steps backwards, that demo on Fallon was sad. No amount of canned applause could save that poor bastard from looking like junk. What the hell were they doing the last year? Save us, Milo!

  • http://www.twitter.com/leverus Lev Grossman

    @jdiggitty don’t worry about it. that would make anyone moody.

    @damumps I did write a big article back in the day defending the 360 design. It’s here http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1061497,00.html

    everybody called me a Microsoft fanboy. yay for the internet!

  • damumps

    Great article Lev, its hard to believe the same guy wrote this article, and the one you linked; however, you did not once defend the 360 in that article, not the appearance, or any other aspect of the console.

    In fact that article was far too professional for that, reading that I couldn’t tell if you were a PS3 fanboy or a 360 fanboy, there was no bias, just the conveyance of information from the writer to the reader, delivered in the most interesting way possible, without picking a side. It was beautiful, it told us all kinds of things we DID NOT know and had not heard 10,000 other places. It was almost like, I don’t know, journalism, gasp!

    My only question is if your capable of that why are you here contributing to a juvenile fanboy war?!?!?
    Surely you are informed enough to know that EVERYONE is pumping out write ups trashing Kinect, the new 360 and Microsoft right now. Why participate in that crap, why not do another article like the Time one in which you actually talk to the folks behind the new 360?

    Man what I wouldn’t give for some real journalism in gaming these days, done by adults, who live in the real world LOL.

  • http://theTIMEmachine.deviantART.com RadioActivist

    Gaming =/= Real World

  • tyrantking

    As the owner of 2 xbox 360′s can I just say that I agree with everything in Lev’s post. I currently have an xbox 360 in my family room and one in my bedroom. I use them for gaming and media streaming. I’m considering getting a third one for my children’s playroom to use as a media extender. I will not be getting a shiny (ps I hate the word shiny, feels like it should be shiney but then people pronounce is as shinny) new xbox 360. I’m going to get one of the discounted arcades before they are all gone. Which really sucks because I hate how loud the round ones are.

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