New 'Metallic Blue' Xbox 360! ..for Devs only :D

Noel Gallagher · 26 Mar 2009 at 16:00

Microsoft will be releasing a new blue-tinted Xbox 360 XDK Development Kit for developers, which not only adds some cool blue styling to the extra-tall dev profile, but doubles the console's memory to 1GB

Looks awesome! :O

Source.

Munky1080 · 26 Mar 2009 at 16:01

I want!

r0zvad · 26 Mar 2009 at 16:02

Lol at the first comment on Joystiq. It does look rather snazzy though.

Margaret · 26 Mar 2009 at 16:04

So it's an Elite with a metallic blue disc tray yet the rest of the console is standard black, unless you include that bulky XNA kit on top.

Noel Gallagher · 26 Mar 2009 at 16:06

and 1gb memory..

Margaret · 26 Mar 2009 at 16:07

Noel Gallagher said:
and 1gb memory..

Big deal, games are designed with the 512 in mind(I think that's what the 360 has) so having that 1Gb will make no difference to us.

But yeah, the disc tray is kinda nice, I guess...

howthe · 26 Mar 2009 at 16:12

Noel Gallagher said:
Looks GAY!!!

fixed!

And I own a 360 before anyone says anything

Also, correct me if I am wrong here, but if your using an xbox with 1gb Ram to write/test software with then surely your going to have issues when releasing it to people with the standard amount of memory?

Kreeeee · 26 Mar 2009 at 16:14

I wonder why the dev kits have more memory. Surely even prototypes should be kept under the 512MB limit.

BloomerzUK · 26 Mar 2009 at 16:16

Kreeeee said:
I wonder why the dev kits have more memory. Surely even prototypes should be kept under the 512MB limit.

Might need it to debug C# code or something, I dunno. I will ask an old lecturer, as he's a part of the XNA Community.

Nanoman · 26 Mar 2009 at 16:17

Allows headroom for debugging etc?

I personally think it looks cool but do devs really care what they look like? They should release a blue themed Elite to the geny p.

Noel Gallagher · 26 Mar 2009 at 16:30

I must say, i've always wondered what that big thing is that sticks out top?

V1N · 26 Mar 2009 at 16:40

Isn't it a shame that console ram isn't upgradable?

I mean, if there was a special little slot/trapdoor where a single strip of ram could be added.

Like some 360 games now require a HDD, games could put on the box "requires 1gb ram"

If they did that, then it would allow our consoles to do more impressive things.

Months ago I bought an additional 2gb stick of DDR2 ram for my laptop, and it cost £15!

So imagine if consoles were released as is, but with the option to upgrade later. After the console has been released for a few years, RAM is much much cheaper. So honestly, if like with the PS3 you can just replace the standard HDD with a bigger one, and like the few 360 titles that require a HDD, would it really be so bad if, for the sake of £10 or £20, consoles could have an extra gig of ram added easily, designed that way.

That could help get around some limitations that devs may well be facing.

Just a thought. I know a console is not a PC. But, they've already done it with HDDs haven't they? If you buy an arcade unit, you'd need to buy a HDD to play, so would it really be so bad if a top new game was coming out, and required 1gb ram to play? (as I say, so long as it's cheap, and a standard ram slot is provided - no special Microsoft or Sony ram required)

Vin.

EDIT: and for what it's worth, I think that 360 looks pretty damn cool!

orderoftheflame · 26 Mar 2009 at 16:43

Margaret said:
So it's an Elite with a metallic blue disc tray yet the rest of the console is standard black, unless you include that bulky XNA kit on top.

There's so much more to dev kits than that.

I miss my one.

~J~ · 26 Mar 2009 at 16:43

Noel Gallagher said:
I must say, i've always wondered what that big thing is that sticks out top?

The "Sidecar" isn't actually part of the Devkits themselves, it's an optional extra and is used for adding performance indicators via USB or to playtest developments directly from a "proper" Xbox360 Devkit (of which the original link doesn't point to).

Kainz · 26 Mar 2009 at 16:47

Marky · 26 Mar 2009 at 16:54

I'd become a developer for that awesome piece of kit

cokecan · 26 Mar 2009 at 18:44

i read the title of this post as "Metallica Blue" and immediatly tried to think what part of Metallica has anything to do with blue??

Spyhop · 26 Mar 2009 at 18:46

The OG dev-kit looks cool as well

Apopcalyptic · 26 Mar 2009 at 20:03

wush said:
The OG dev-kit looks cool as well

<snip>

It looks like a powermac.... oh wait...

Lightnix · 26 Mar 2009 at 20:36

It's because apparently the normal devkits (with 512MB of memory) didn't have enough memory to also use debugging programs at the same time as loading the memory fully. This should allow developers to effectively develop for more RAM in the 360 more easily. - obviously if you have 512MB of game data in memory at the time, you don't have any room to run any development tools in the background.

Also, I want one. That thing looks awesome.