Whoa, rampant speculation!!!
About wireless/wired controllers, my personal belief is that the panel on the right of the box is removable, and behind it you would find places to plug-in and charge wireless controllers, or places to plug in wired stuff, like wheels, etc. (that is, if that panel is legit)
I'm really happy about the fact that it looks to be smaller than it's bloated predecesor. Compare the dvd drive with the rest of the console.
Apparently, it's going to be released standard with a grey/chrome finish like the Ourcolony.net shots, but you will be able to strip off the standard case and stick on a custom one.
I personally believe that the "complete" picture from SA is a photoshop job that used the Ourcolony pictures and descriptions of the Xbox 360 to create the missing pieces, namely the right side. This is supported by the fact that the eject symbol is misaligned when compared to the Ourcolony photos, and the fact that the memory slots on the Ourcolony photos are labled in all undercase whereas the SA job has capitalized labels. Then there's the fact that the glowy power thing on the SA pic is also not aligned correctly (wrong angle, even if the Xbox 360 stood on it's side, which it won't). While looks aren't the most important thing, I refuse to believe that Microsoft would be stupid enough to stick a giant glowy thingy on their next-gen console and uglify it. If so, they seriously need to higher some new art and design people...
Performance wise, the Xbox 360 should still beat out the PS3, based on the specs. Plus poking around a patent filed by ATI produced this...
"The patent, filed in August 2, 2000, exposes a custom memory used by the graphic chip for storage of the frame buffer.
This custom memory has been created mostly to perform anti-aliasing operations and help overcometoday's biggest problem in graphics chips: memory bandwidth.
Generally, the present invention provides method and apparatus for supporting anti-aliasing oversampling in a video graphics system that utilizes a custom memory for storage of the frame buffer. The custom memory includes a memory array that stores the frame buffer as well as a data path that performs at least a portion of the blending operations associated with pixel fragments generated by a graphics procesor. The fragments produced by a graphics procesor are oversampled fragments such that each fragment may include a plurality of samples. If the sample set for a particular pixel location can be compressed, the compressed sample set is stored within the frame buffer of the custom memory circuit. However, if such compression is not possible, pointer information is stored within the frame buffer on the custom memory, and a sample memory controller included on the graphics procesor maintains a complete sample set for the pixel location within a sample memory. When the sample memory controller maintains a complete sample set for a pixel location, the frame buffer stores a pointer corresponding to the location of the sample set.
The invention can be better understood when viewing the following image:
The figure illustrates a block diagram of a “graphics processing system” that supports oversampling anti-aliasing. The system includes a graphics processor (GPU), a sample memory (the standard memory on today's video cards) and a custom memory module (the embedded RAM). The graphics processor, the sample memory, and the custom memory may each be individual integrated circuits.
Embedded DRAM is expensive, because it’s very similar to microprocessors cache memory, so that is why the patent explains that in order to keep costs low, the amount of additional logic included on this custom memory may be minimized. Therefore, although some of the circuitry always found within the video graphics system has been moved onto this new custom memory invention, some functions still remain within the graphics processor in order to keep the production costs low for the custom memory.
So what does all this mumbo jumbo mean? It means we’ll get games running at 720p HDTV resolution, that is 1280x720, with full screen anti-aliasing and almost no impact on framerate. Imagine Project Gotham Racing 3 or those badass Unreal Engine 3-powered games running at some 60 FPS, with full screen anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering taken to the max!
It’s a hardcore gamer’s dream come true!"
One more thing, pictures of the dev kit have found their way onto the internet...
Power Mac G5 anyone?
