Wouldn't be surprised, but I'm expecting MS is focusing most of its XBox HW R&D on Natal.

I agree. But, I do think slim + bundling a natal attachment would be in the works in the future.

if they could do it , they would have already. 360 its turning 4 years old.

doing such a redesign require quite a alot of hardworker engineers.

something both nintendo and sony excels at.

for microsoft it's possible, but it would take time, and we don't know if they have started working one one.

sony have been on theirs since the almost fat was release

Oh gosh, I sure can't wait for a new 360 that's a half inch thinner than the original. -_-

There are likely a couple of key things that haven't fallen into place yet... the first is Valhala GPU on CPU chipset and the second is cheaper solid state drives... my idea is that Microsoft will issue a smaller unit that uses solid state memory (it's got an insane read time so installed games would be awesome) at about 1.5 or 1 inch... maybe 10-130 gigs depending on price. The GPU on CPU will free up tons of space on the MoBo that's already nearly empty and we can see a system that is closer to the Wii in size... though much fatter.

I would assume it would be mainly shorter and only slightly slimmer, considering the size of the HDD. Personally I like the look of my 360 and see no reason for a re-design, unless sales really fall off.

I don't know about a Slim but a remodel especially to target a new audience isn't unimaginable. The PS3 Slim isn't anything new but it feels new and it will rekindle the PS3's fire. The 360 is old news for us HD gamers now, and the Wii is old news to the casual gamers. If they want to sell Natal to the casual gamers as a replacement for the Wii then they can't come up with a big old console with a smal gadget. They would make a good move to release a new model, smaller (and therefor easier to replace the spotthat that the Wii has in the households). On top of that people wouldn't feel as if it has the same chances of getting PROD as it is a new model. So a X360 Slim could happen, not because they wan to copy SOny and their style but because smaller is more effective, cheaper and will help move more units.

I still think they will release a designed 360 with natal built into it next year.

'' considering the size of the HDD ''

That is a restriction but if they were to make a 360 Slim then I don't think they would design it around the old HDD. Most likely all slim models would have a new HDD on it and a transfer cable for those who want to bring their old data to the new model. That is if they choose to make a Slim that is.

Boils down to two issues: most importantly cost, secondary to that, "new" image.

The main reason for redesigning the packaging of a console is if the complete product can be produced at a significant savings over the original. SCE saves about 35% off manufacturing costs in the transition between the current SKUs and the slim.

But if the case is already a cheap component, the console may well just continue to have more and more empty space in it, housed by the same shell as the chip set shrinks, rather than redesign the case into a smaller format.

But a "new" image (new physical appearance) could be key for marketing purposes if MS intends to relaunch the console next year as a new product with the debut of Natal, feasibly in an attempt to capture some of the Wii market.