Rumor: Microsoft to allow third party X360 manufacturing.

[Squilliam]

Nidan said:

The idea is that you can use the xbox360 design for a number of OTHER applications

Bluray decoder
Control system
Video on demand system

whatever someone else can imagine

This lets developers come up with their own solutions and if they want also employ the XBOX360 games machine, MS wins by getting a licence fee to recoup dev dollars, they win because the machine is available in a number of different configuration and through a number of different sales channels, and they win because higher sales drives the price of key components down.

 

I don’t think this is an unlikely rumour as they have said it publicly already.

Integration will start being possible probably middle of next year with the "slim" revision. They are moving towards a "system on a chip" design. They'll start to integrate the peripheral silicon into the main chip starting with the GPU - ED ram die and CPU.

The early applications will start with things such as Cable boxes where the Xbox360's power/design may not be significantly more expensive than what the boxes would currently cost as the hardware inside the Xbox360 could probably assume the same functionality with the right software/accessory chips. Also the systems are rented not purchased so the cable companies would possibly recoup the expense thru the video on demand service or increased monthly fees or both. *Note the possible synergy with Xmote and its use AS a remote.*

Next generation after slim - 45nm shrink with maybe a few more chips such as the Northbridge and southbridge intergrated as well. This will reduce power consumption/cooling/size/costs even further. The applications at this point increase greatly as well.

They could include Car entertainment systems for kids - thereby ensuring that the household will have at least one other unit inside the house.

They could integrate it with TV's, especially those that have built in DVD players/Blu ray players. Im sure people will apreciate the gesture. Some people would apreciate - Wireless media linking, Game playback, Video recording/Optical media playback all in the one device.

One other thing, I wonder if the reason why the Xbox360 controlers didn't come with cables is because of a future vision as the above I have written where cable charging would be problematic.