Mighty Gadget Blog: The latest technology news & reviews in the UK

The console tug of war continues. Sony not that long ago released the slimmed down version of it’s PS3 and beefed up it’s hard drive capacity. Microsoft followed afterwards with it’s newer slimmer, quieter  bigger capacity hard drive console and soon to be arcade console. Sony not happy have now announced a new PS3 console to fight the new Xbox. But does anyone really care is the real question, what are consumers really gaining?

Japan already has the option of a white console, but here in Europe we’ve had to just make do with the plain black console to match our everyday cloud cover. Also on top of that Japan can also get a 160GB console and a 320GB console. Yes a whole 40GB and 70GB respectively more HDD space than what we can get. Well according to UK retail sources, the bigger HDD sizes are coming our way to replace the 120GB and 250GB currently doing the rounds. Whether we get a white console in this country though is anyone’s guess

No dates or prices yet but I imagine you’ll be looking just before Christmas for these to appear, probably at the prices the current 120GB(£249) and 250GB(£299) for the 160GB and 320GB respectively. Also expect any older stock to drop in price to sell through, much like the old Xbox Arcade and Elites have.

Lucky for us we won’t all have to change our consoles hopefully for another few years at least, but we’re going to have to change the way we play them and actually do some work…… Thanks Nintendo Wii. With Playstation’s Move controller due soon and rumours of the Microsoft answer turned into reality the Kinect all we were waiting on was the date and price.

We had the new 250GB revamped Xbox and then the announcement of a 4GB console. With that announcement Microsoft told us the Kinect will cost £129.99 on its own or bundled with the new console for £249.99 (4GB console will cost £149.99 on its own) so when bundled you’re making a saving.

Then we were waiting for the date. Well it didn’t come from Microsoft straight away, but HMV and Play.com leaked that it was due for release on the 19th November, just in time for Christmas. A lot of talk between fan-boys though was the sheer price of the Kinect, which yes when compared to the Move controller, it’s more expensive. BUT I’ll defend it here in saying that if you want to play more than one player on the PS3 multiple Move controllers would have to be bought bumping the price up. Plus with the Kinect out before Christmas, you can probably guess if there’s still plenty in stock after Chrimbo, the price will no doubt drop.

At E3 earlier this year Microsoft did say after they announced the new Xbox 250GB Slim that an Arcade version would be in the pipeline, now the new look Xbox 360 250GB has been out less than a week and it appears Bill Gates’ boys are again going to give us the scaled down version for those a little less in the pocket or that don’t require a whole 250GB of memory just to save games. The leak has come courtesy of Amazon(Germany) where a listing appeared for the scaled down Xbox.

There’s no pictures unfortunately but rumours suggest it won’t be any different from the new 250GB model in looks, keeping that black gloss finish (ie no white console) just it’ll be packing a 4GB internal memory, more than adequate for game saves, SD videos and photos.

The release date is scheduled for 20th August, just in time for Germany’s annual “Gamescom” convention. Early indications suggest it will cost around £125.

So the rumours were true and to be fair it’s about time. The Xbox 360 slim console has been made official and will be available soon (July 16th). Playstation 3 hasn’t been out nearly as long as the Microsoft console yet they’ve followed the trend of their previous consoles and released smaller, more compact versions of their consoles. So what have Microsoft finally decided to do it?

In my opinion it’s mainly down to the fact they need to drum up some extra interest in its new Kinect(formerly Natal) motion controller that also became official this week. It’s obviously smaller than the current 360 but has a slight design tweak to it too. It is also supposedly a lot quieter, which in all honesty isn’t that hard. The image also makes it look “glossy” in comparison to the older “matte” consoles. What else is good and finally Microsoft have added it in is N-standard WiFi. You no longer have to buy the £60 wireless bridge.

Again the release date is the 16th July and will retail at £199

After announcing it earlier this year, from the middle of October, Sky will be coming to your Xbox 360. Inside the Sky Magazine an article from Rupert Murdoch’s men confirmed the date and gave some info on this upcoming feature.

Already up is sky.com/xbox360, now it hasn’t got anything on the site as of yet but the article in the magazine gave us plenty of info. Basically if you have an Xbox Live Gold Account, you can receive basic access to the “Sky Player” If you are a Sky customer to boot you will be granted access to “premium content” probably live streams of the football and Sky’s exclusive programmes and movies.

We have no details on the pricing as of yet and overall this could cause the service to stumble but once again Microsoft are pushing the boat out with the content supplied through your xbox and obviously teaming up with a media giant like Sky it surely can’t disappoint.

There has been a lot of rumours flying around about the Zune HD in the recent weeks, and it has now been officially announced.

So far the specs are a little sketchy but Microsoft have revealed that the Zune HD will include a 3.3-inch, 480 x 272 OLED capacitive touchscreen display, built-in HD Radio receiver, HD output (utilizing a new dock -- not on-board).

However the specs do conform to the leaked specifications a few weeks ago which includes:

• NVIDIA Tegra processor/gpu
• 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB versions
• HDMI Connection to stream straight to your TV
• HD Radio.
• Web Browser.
• WiFi compatible, with wireless marketplace.
• Released, early fall.
• International Release
• Home AV packs, Car packs, Charge packs.

Microsoft are getting rind of the squircle in favour a full multitouch device and they have suggested that some new touch-friendly apps and games would be released.

The device will boast an IE-based, customized browser, but little else was said in the way of software.

Zune integration is coming to the Xbox and Xbox Live, as the Zune marketplace will step in to replace the current Live video resources, expanding the library and offering all kinds of new perks.

It is also believed that the Zune will be released internationally!

Press release after the jump

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There are currently several rumours flying around the net that there could be a large price drop for the Xbox 360.

Rumour has it Microsoft might be planning another rather significant slashing of prices for its console again, with the 'entry-level' arcade model suggested to be a bargain basement $199 (£100).

The PS3 seems to be gaining momentum recently so this could help Xbox maintain sales.

Microsoft have been having a lot of problems recently with its live service however it has not stopped them selling a whole load of 360s during the Christmas break.

Apparantly the company has shipped 17.7 Million Xbox 360 Consoles since its launch 2 years ago. On September 30 the figure was apparently at 13.4 million meaning they have sold over 4.3 millions units from October onwards. Pretty impressive really.