This invidious suspiration for amaranthine delectation
Is lucidly aloof due to my paucity in the sentience department.
Now mind you, my incapability to facilitate a sanguine disposition is learned.
Despondency has become a modus vivendi
The only chance for indemnification is to overcome ignorance
An imaginary bulwark often found to be impenetrable

Engadget is reporting that an insider has provided them with information on and a picture of the XBOX 360 v2 which is to be available “soon”. According to them, the new XBOX 360, code named Zephyr, will support 1080p output via HDMI and have a 120GB hard drive. Also, the console is set to come with that new, faster and cooler 65nm chip that hit the news sites last week.

Update: Looks like there is more “proof” here at XBOX-Scene.com.

In my opinion, the most important upgrade that the XBOX 360 can get right now is a larger hard drive. HDMI isn’t as important right now because very few people have 1080p monitors.

Luckily, XBOX Live Arcade games are required to be less than 50GB, however, that’s not true for demos of major title games. Some demos are well over 1GB in filesize. In addition, Microsoft just launched their movie download and TV show download service. 720p high definition versions of full length movies can be over 6GB in filesize. A puny little 20GB hard drive will fill up fast. Mine already has and I haven’t downloaded any full length movies yet. I only have downloaded a lot of demos, patches and addons for games (like HALO 2 maps), and some game and movie trailers. If I had 100 GB of free, unused hard drive space, I would have an urge to use it. I probably would have already bought two or three HD movies from the Microsoft Video Marketplace. (I was wanting to own V for Vendetta anyway). 1080p downloads of movies and TV shows would be considerably larger in file size. Will we see 1080p movie downloads in the Marketplace?

Recall, the 20GB hard drive actually only came with 12GB of free space new. Delete those videos and movies that come pre-installed if you are hurting for more space.

Additionally, some games like the Final Fantasy beta installed directly onto the hard drive. FF installed, what was it, 2GB of data onto the hard drive. That’s a gamer tax!

Will we see new XBOX 360 titles installing to the hard drive? I think in time we will, especially if there isn’t a clear winner in the HD-DVD vs. BluRay optical media battle. Games could ship on multiple DVD’s with one or more DVD’s getting installed to the 120GB hard drive. Pre-rendered HD cutscenes take up a lot of space. Some game developers could switch from using scenes rendered by the game engine to pre-rendered cutscenes. Visually, this would be better for some games. I bet there are a lot of content producers out there that don’t want to worry about compression and the storage space of DVD media.

Will HALO 3 ship on multiple DVD’s? Will there eventually be a HD-DVD version of H3? For marketing purposes, their might be an HD-DVD version of HALO3. However, I haven’t seen any indication that the HALO 3 game will ship on more than one DVD. I don’t expect this game to install GB’s of content onto the console hard drive. However, there’s always addon and bonus content. Who knows what Bungie has in store our empty hard drive space? HALO 3 would be a great way to get gamers out to the stores to buy more accessories and add-ons (like the bigger HD) for their XBOX 360.

The HDMI port is a welcome addition. However, it will only pay off for owners of monitors that display in 1080p. Even still, if your game or media isn’t delivering a 1080p signal (say it’s only delivering a 720p signal), then you aren’t getting the added benefit of 1080p anyway. Eventually, fiber and cable providers, and satellite TV outlets will push 1080p video over their networks. Once that happens, more people will begin adopting 1080p sets.

I think now is a great time to put an HDMI port on the XBOX 360. Microsoft could now tout that their console can out put a digital 1080p signal, rivaling the puny PS3. (As if SONY needed the wind taken out of their “sales” again). Also, the early adopters would use the HDMI port and provide feedback to Microsoft and the game developers. There’s not been a 1080p game released for a Microsoft console. Surely there’s a lot to learn about producing game content in 1080p both on the hardware and software side. I don’t think HALO 3 will render out to 1080p. I think if anything we’ll see 640p to 720p out of HALO 3.

What do you think about this revelation? Is it what you wanted in the next version of the 360? If it were available today, would you upgrade? Are there any other features that you’d like to see on the XBOX 360?