XBox With Blu-Ray, 2 Quad Processors, 2GB, HDMI, 7.1 Surround, 1080P DVD Upscaling, IPTV, Bluetooth, Cable Card, 500GB HDD, Home Server Integration and Home Automation
Posted by Keith Elder | Posted in XBOX 360 | Posted on 17-02-2008
Now that Blu-Ray has driven the nail in the coffin of HD DVD, Microsoft is about to release the ultimate console that will take over your living room for good. The Blu-Ray / HD DVD format war has held them back from releasing a true home media machine that compliments other products in the line up like Windows Home Server. Many may not know it but the format war put a wrinkle in Microsoft’s plans to own your living room. This is why Microsoft chose to ship the Xbox 360 with a standard DVD player a few years ago. Not knowing what the standard would be has held them back from truly embracing the potential of the XBox and XBox Live’s success. That wait is now over. Ladies and gentleman, I give you the XBox 1080.
XBox 1080 Specs
CPU
The specs of the 1080 are truly remarkable as it is a culmination of industry standards finally coming together in one solid machine. The good news for gamers is nothing has changed in the architecture to make your current games obsolete, they only get more powerful. The XBox 1080 has two quad core processors and 2GB’s of memory to bring a great 3D experience to games and also provide enough horse power to run other tasks in the background while playing the most intensive of games. With all of these cores it is no wonder why the marketing reads “Have your cake and eat it too.”. The XBox 1080 will truly rock your Guitar Hero / Halo 3 experience and provide developers more room to breathe allowing the XBox 1080 to devote processor cores to games while other ones are keeping an eye on your home (see home automation section).
Video
At the heart of the graphics engine of the XBox 1080 lies NVidia’s latest acquisition, the PhysX Tech card by Ageia. This newly added addition to the NVidia family allows for physics to be more realistic within games. Ageia has already been apart of the Xbox, Wii and Playstation but more is to come. New things are now possible that never were before like sheets flying in the wind, fully destructible buildings in first person shooters and more.
Home Theater
The XBox 1080 ships complete with a Blu-Ray High Definition drive that supports standard CDs as well as standard DVDs. Finally home owners can place their separate DVD players and Blu-Ray players on Ebay and consolidate their entertainment centers into one device to rule them all. The XBox supports 1080P upscaling of traditional DVDs providing a stunning picture to home owners that waited out the Blu-Ray / HD DVD format wars by not supporting either side. The 1080 also supports high definition video at 1080P (where it gets its name) using the Blu-Ray disc drive. High definition without great sound would be show stopper for home theater enthusiasts but the XBox 1080 doesn’t spoil the fun. It supports true 7.1 Dolby surround sound and can be auto configured to support a variety of options like THX for movies and 5.1 for games. To carry the high def data the XBox 1080 comes with an HDMI output. It also support component video and digital sound connectors. For those of you that don’t have either option, sorry, the XBox 1080 can’t help you. Microsoft wanted the machine to be completely cutting edge and that meant letting go of yesterday’s technology. For some, it may be time to upgrade.
HD DVR and Media Center
Besides replacing your old DVD and Blu-Ray player, the XBox 1080 can replace your legacy DVR or digital cable box. There are two options the 1080 supports:
- Cable Card – Slide in a cable card from your cable provider into your XBox and turn your XBox 1080 into a 500GB HD DVR. With the Cable Card the XBox also supports features like OnDemand from Comcast.
- IPTV – If you are fortunate enough to live in an area where you can get IPTV from a provider, just plug into your fiber network and configure the XBox for IPTV. Within minutes you’ll be watching TV in 720P streamed right from the Internet.
The 1080 takes advantage of years of work that have gone into Media Center to bring a full blown High Def DVR into the home.
Home Server Integration
Integrating with Windows Home Server has never been easier. Simply point to your home server and start streaming videos, photos, music and much more directly from Home Server. One of the best features about the home server integration is the ability to take advantage of your home server’s storage capacity. While the XBox 1080 ships with a 500GB hard drive, it can quickly fill up, especially with high def movies and games either recorded in media center or ones rented/purchased from XBox Live.
For movies you’ve recorded or downloads you’ve purchased that you want to keep simply select it in the menu and press “Send to home server”. In the background the data is then moved to your home server (with DRM rights still intact). The transfer and viewing of items from Home Server and the XBox 1080 is seamless. For users that have purchased games or downloads from XBox Live, this solves one of the problems of having to repurchase data if you want to upgrade to a larger hard drive or in case your hard drive fails. What better place to store data than on the server. For people that are at friends houses and have purchased items from XBox Live that configured and synced home server with their Live accounts, any purchases made from your friends house will be automatically added to your home server. This new upgrade to XBox Live allows friends to visit another friend who may not have the same add on or mod and still make it accessible as long as the person that owns the item is logged in. The added bonus of synchronizing these downloads or purchases made from other XBox with home server will be a big win.
Home Automation
One of the most anticipated features of the XBox 1080 has been home automation. By purchasing the $399 home automation kit you can now control your own home right from your XBox. Home automation features automatic timers, security integration and monitoring, and much more. See the website for more details about what is possible with the home automation feature.
With all of these features it is no wonder the XBox 1080 is one of the most anticipated console launches to date.
Really exiting features of XBox 1080 Specs. And it’s really awesome.
What you also have here is an average modern PC with a shiny “X” on it and a Blu-ray player…You have just discgraced Microsoft…Also I hate XB…But Microsoft’s PC’s and Laptops are very high-tech…
It would be sweet if this happened. The problem is that console would cost microsoft somewhere in the range of 1-2 thousand to make. That’s not a realistic price for a console, even if it can do all that stuff. Apple has had a dual quad core system for a while, but it costs 2800 dollars. I wish we could have that, but technology will have to improve enough that microsoft could offer those features at a reasonable price. Especially because the 360 owners would make an outcry at being left behind.
This Xbox 1080 is going to be awesome, the PlayStation fanboys are only complaining about it because the Playstation 3 sucked so bad. GET ONER IS PLAYSTATION FANBOYS!!!
You can get home server integration with 3rd party plug-ins. I have one and it works like a charm -I can stream my whole library to my PS3. And cable card? WTF is that for? I’ve already got an HD Tivo, I don’t need another one. And, although the PSN isn’t as big, or infested as XBL, it is FREE after all, and will have every XBL feature soon, plus more.
Plus, I don’t have to worry about my PS3 RROD’ing. What number xbox are you on? 2? 3?
Man, the specs you list here are very close to a PS3 now. 8 processors, HDMI, 7.1 surround (PS3 is lossless as well), 1080p dvd upscaling, Bluetooth, big HD (PS3 can go as big as what’s released). The only thing this has that the PS3 doesn’t is more RAM and access to IPeeTV -but Sony is releasing their own music and movie service anyway, so this whole “Masturbatory Future Xbox” is just backing up how good and ahead the PS3 is, feature-wise.
Word is that they already have plans to update the 1080 will include VoIP. You will use your Xbox headset to talk on the phone while playing games. Think about it, they’ve got Messenger built in to the 360, so this is the next logical step as their Office Communicator product does this already in corporate environments. So how will they do this? Vonage will be MS’s next acquisition. Bank on it.
You play station homo fanboys are just ridiculous. 75% my…. whatever…
so where is ps3’s home server integration, cable card media center unit? u have nuthing!
all you guys have is a blu-ray disc and not really anything else, your online community is nothing compared to xbox live, what a waste of my time reading your stupid fan boy comments, get over yourselves…
Thanks for describing 75% of the PS3.. What a waste of my time.
What a freakin waste of space, time and bandwidth.
I would love to see a new Xbox with these features on board. Maybe with a little more RAM.
Cant understand what you are all annoyed about what he wrote,…just some ideas. Great ideas, i think.
some of the ideas came across as profoundly idiotic…
the entire strength of the console market comes from the fact that a system hungry os doesn’t run in the background devouring processing power…. it allows devs to push consoles much further than they could otherwise…
I realize that the 360 has some multitasking capabilities if you press the green x on the controller, but thankfully it’s limited enough to keep the console efficient. bad idea.
@DIK
dude you don’t know what you are talking about, there is this thing called a “license” whereby anyone can get the blu-ray who pays out the a55 to sony
why in the hell would sony even bother fighting the battle if they didnt want people to use it, the xbox can certainly get and use a blu-ray drive if microsoft makes it happen
whether or not we will see one is a mystery though
nice speculation the elder….
Ok, I admit. I probably like many read this and thought, holy cow but then I started to read between the lines and realized you were just speculating….. you got me…
Having said that I do like your ideas and think it is something that MS should at least strive for in a next version even if they can’t, i honestly don’t know what this thing would cost but it is definitely a geek device…
Microsoft should just hire you and let you design a “Xbox Geek Version” or something
The xbox360 can’t get blu-ray because sony owns it…
I think you’re off on a couple of items. MS learned from the first Xbox that you have to own the parts. Too much of yours belong to someone else. They wouldn’t use Blu-Ray because it would slow the move to downloads. I believe they can just add a second chip like the one in the current 360, just using a 45nm(or smaller) die. They will include a large hard drive, but this time every console will have one. I think they will use heavy compression and a hybrid disc/flash hard drive to cache the game to. For physics I think they will try to develop using a second GPU for that. I’ve heard that the current GPU in the 360 is more powerful than the cell. MS could use things that they already own, save 80% of the R & D money and still make a box that would be far better than the PS3 without much of a learning curve for developers. You also have complete hardware backwards compatibility.
Well he did say the next Xbox. In a few years 2gbs of Ram and a Blu Ray drive will cost about the same as todays standard. You guys are all Sony fanboys, get over it, all the consoles are good.
dude, are you serious “two quad cores with 2GB ram” dude, thats gonna cost 1500 on its own, with the HDMI, dvd and what not, just the CPU and Ram is gonna cost £1500/$2000 lol and since Xbox is a PC running Windows in disguise, the price will be at least £3000/$4000 and they’d be losing £3000/$4000 for every console, to make profit by software, they need to sell the software for £500/$600 each (whereas it is now £50/$60), what does this tell you? Xbox will die a fast death, probably only gay rich people like gayes/gates himself will buy it lol.. no offence, but you need to do some research before you post this bullcrap, yes 1080p upscaling, IPTv, Home Server Integration and Home Automation is just software which shouldn’t be too much effort for MS, but the hard ware WILL bring it to at least £3000/$4000 and, sony release PS3 for only £425/$600 and people fuond it too expensive, so i am 1000000% sure that people will find the xbox 1080 tooo much very (yep that is correct grammer) expensive
greeetzz
this dude is dreaming… M$ will be left in the dark ages with a DVD drive only if the BDA/Sony had there way (dunno if thats a bad thing for sales of BD).
I say “this xbox 1080 is too hard to code for” will be the next fanboy text
well, mr author, you have pretty much taken about 75% of the ps3, thrown in outdated PC features, and slapped a shiny new sticker on it calling it “the most anticipated console”. sir, it isnt a “playstation” it isnt a “nintendo ENTERTAINMENT System” and im pretty sure the whole XBOX thing doesnt scream customer satisfaction. this, well, extroadinarly dumb concept of what will be in the next xbox is something that not only wont come to fruition, but is something that you sir, have no clue what you are talking about.
Very nice, very nice… Except for one thing: Bungie finished the Halo trilogy and on top of that, they have also split from Microsoft, so there is no reason to buy the next Xbox!
That wasn’t very nice Mr. Gates 😉
I think that this is indeed what the neXbox should feature. Good writeup, though you didn’t say much about the video card.
Hi sir, are u a moron?