New Xbox 360 revealed at E3

Photo / Supplied

The Xbox 360 has shrunk, quietened down, beefed up its storage and gained some high-speed networking abilities.

At a media conference in Los Angeles this morning, the day before the gaming world's biggest annual conference, E3, kicks off, Microsoft execs announced a new, smaller version of the high-def gaming console and entertainment centre.

And the good news for Kiwi gamers is that it won't cost any more than the current Elite model, and it will be available at retail in New Zealand on July 9.

Priced at $499, the arrival marks the first radical departure from the form factor that has graced 140,000-odd Kiwi homes since its arrival late in 2006. The price of the current Elite - the only black Xbox 360 on sale in New Zealand today - will now sell for $399.

In a post conference interview, Xbox entertainment and devices boss for Australia and New Zealand, David McLean said that the company had listened to the main gripes from gamers about the new device - namely heat, noise and Wi-Fi speed.

"It runs a lot cooler and quieter," he told nzherald.co.nz, admitting that the change was more evolution than revolution, as a result of a continuous cycle of improvement from Microsoft's multi-billion dollar research and development spending.

"It's really about a change of design, not changing the whole console.

He likened the change to the constant alterations to the Xbox Live service - something that will benefit greatly from the leap to cutting edge Wi-Fi, 802.11n.

"It's the only console that has 'n'," said McLean, "and that means that streaming of music and high definition video is optimised on the network, so it will give the best streaming experience that any console can offer."

New Xbox 360: Key points

* It's black and chrome, tailored to fit more tastefully into entertainment centres. It also matches the upcoming Kinect camera/microphone peripheral.

* A new 250GB hard drive has been fitted - although serious data pigs can upgrade them down the track if necessary.

* The Wi-Fi has been upgraded to meet the high velocity 802.11n standard, which was previously only possible with the purchase of a Wi-Fi extender add-on. This has big ramifications for online gaming, the new Kinect video chat service and high-def downloads of movies from Xbox Live.

* The physical size and weight of the Xbox 360 has been drastically reduced, as has the formerly weighty power supply.

* Where the current models have a tendency to sound like a Chinook chopper on lift-off - whether working hard or sitting idle - the new model is quiet. Microsoft gleefully bandied about the phrase "whisper quiet," which is true, it could not be heard operating from any distance more than a metre or so.

* The new model runs a lot cooler, which is one of the reasons the fanfare has subsided to almost nothing.

* There are now five USB ports in total - two front mounted behind a swing cover, three on the back panel, plus HDMI for single cable integration into home theatre set-ups, or easy connection to high-def televisions.