Stronger PS3 rival in the works?

Unconfirmed reports are currently bouncing around the internet that Xbox 360 is set to receive its first hardware update and will include a 120GB hard drive and an HDMI port, meaning that future Xbox 360s would come with true digital 1080p HD support straight from the box, just like Sony's PS3.

The source of the story comes from an Xbox insider viaengadget.com and includes an image seemingly showing the sexy new HDMI slot. According to the article the new iteration of Xbox 360 is codenamed Zephyr and will also feature a cooler 65nm processor.

While news of such an upgrade isn't entirely surprising, Microsoft isn't ready to confirm the reports just yet - a Microsoft representative told us: "We have not announced any new iterations of Xbox 360 and we do not comment on rumors or speculation".

Despite Microsoft's unwillingness to play ball, we're positive that this story has got legs- it's common practice for consoles to receive updates as better components become available and, certainly, a heftier hard drive and good as you can get HD would make Xbox 360 an even stronger rival to PS3 - thoughthis post from Kotaku, linking to an Ars Technica story in which Microsoft speculates that HD DVD could be the next Betamax, has us thinking we shouldn't plan on that internal HD DVD drive just yet.

January 5, 2007

Justin was a GamesRadar+ staffer for 10 years but is now a freelance writer, musician and videographer. He's big on retro, Sega and racing games (especially retro Sega racing games) and currently also writes for Play Magazine, Traxion.gg, PC Gamer and TopTenReviews, as well as running his own YouTube channel. Having learned to love all platforms equally after Sega left the hardware industry (sniff), his favourite games include Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams, Zelda BotW, Sea of Thieves, Sega Rally Championship and Treasure Island Dizzy.