Once the chips come down to the 32nm size, this would be MS's next possible chance to make the 360 smaller, but 32nm chips for consoles probably won't come out until 2011 or 2012.....putting this at the 360's middle or beginning of it's older years.  Coming out with a slim version *that* late might not even be worth the hassle for MS.  Thoughts?

even if the chip became smaller the power brick will remain big.

but will the 360 even need a power brick as big as it is, if the chips and power usage get smaller?

A slim version of the 360 will undoubtedly come - probably in time with the Natal release.

My guess is next holiday.

Project Natal alone or packed with new slim 360, Halo: Reach, possibly Gears3, possibly Fable III and who knows what launch Natal titles.

Edit: for clarification, I'm not suggesting that any of those titles will be bundled with a slim natal 360, just that that's what will be available for next holiday.

it might just come.....but it would have to get the next gen of chips the 32nm....and keep in mind that intel's 45nm chips have been out for over a year now, and we're just now getting 45nm chips for the consoles so I think that console's trail intel's push for smaller chips by a year and a half it seems....just sayin

People don't realize just HOW MUCH room there is inside the Xbox 360. Space that should not be needed for cooling, if cooling is done right.

Original PS3, inside has basically no space inside, and in the slim, none. What sony does right is design this stuff for a few reasons, they know how to cool. The heat sink inside the PS3 is almost 1/3rd of the original PS3, with a HUGE fan at lower RPM, bigger fan at lower RPM does same job as a smaller fan at higher RPM and makes much less noise.

What Microsoft did, was use smaller heatsinks, smaller fans, and a lot of "venting room" this is PC logic, not console logic. They also put the GPU originally underneath the DVD drive, and used heat pipes to direct excess heat from GPU into CPU heat sink thinking that would WORK. It does, however thats where RROD came from. RROD could of easily been fixed, the heat sinks for both CPU and GPU are to small, and the GPU didn't even have a fan on it's heatsink, just heat pipes bringing excess heat to CPU heat sink. They fixed that, moved GPU and CPU, bigger GPU heat sink and I think it even has its own fan now. However that is not enough.

What the 360 should of been, is the CPU and GPU being an inch apart, and the heat sink being the area from DVD drive, to the end of the console. The heat sink could of been about 1/2th inch think aluminum fans, with a single fan for cooling, with heat pipes distributing heat. This would cause all overheating problems to be almost null, with this, and a smaller DVD drive, the original 360 could of been almost 2/3rds the size it is now, in thickness. There is also no reason the power supply couldn't of been included in that same size. Right now, if they wanted to go slim version, they could of shrunk heat sink etc due to 32 nm tech, and the 360 has no reason it could be half the size it is now, WITH the power supply in it.

However why didn't they do that? Cost mostly, microsoft is so cheap they removed a 0.5 cent piece of rubber from the dvd drive, which stops the DVD from hitting the laser, to save money. This is the reason that if you move the 360 with a dvd in it, it'll make a circular ring around destroying the disc. You could of took the console, and shook it when it was on, if they didn't remove a HALF CENT PIECE OF RUBBER.

So chances of slim are very slim, unless they can save on production cost, and by the way microsoft do things what they are going to do is shrink CPU and GPU, shrink heat sinks, and leave console same size.

Oh and before anyone claims it, I love the 360, not saying it's not powerful, just saying Microsoft sucks at DESIGNING hardware, not making it powerful. Anyone who claims they even remotely know what they are doing is lying.

They spent over a billion dollars trying to fix the RROD, and fired the original team who designed it because of it. However the original teams design was basically what I described, it was Microsoft putting pressure on them to make it as cheap as possibly which made it that way.

Not that it's cheap, original 360 cost 600$ to produce and they sold it at a loss, they just didn't want to sell 700$ machine at a loss when they could sell a 500 or 600$ machine at a loss.

PS3 manufacturing costs for 950$, they sold it for 600$, for contrast.

I think MS is content with making special edition consoles. In the 8 years or so that MS has been in the console business we have never seen any piece of hardware with a cosmetic revision aside from the original xbox big ass controller.

Not really, but thanks for strutting around your ignorance. As the power draw goes lower, so does the required power brick. Heck, Jasper's brick are considerably lighter than originals, so they could have redesigned them if they wanted. Eventually they should be able to fit the power source inside the console, but that's way way down the line - if it ever happens.

Anyways, they haven't transitioned to 45nm yet. Since costs aren't as pressing as with sony's ps3, they might coast it at 65nm until the 32nm is available from their foundry (tsmc, if I recall).

That would be cool to see a 360 slim. It would be a good move for MS. Especially if it means getting rid of the power brick.