I may be alone on this, but my first impression is to be unimpressed.  Sure I can see the new features:  250 GB hard drive, built in wireless N networking, sleeker design, and its black which is timeless.  But, those features in some ways represent a step backwards to me.  Xbox appears to be abandoning modularity.

We’ll start with the massive hard drive.  I currently have a 60GB hard drive.  It remains less than half full after a year and a half of use.  It takes some time once in a while to clear out old games and videos I don’t watch anymore, but it gives me something to do while I download that new demo.  In this case, the real benefit is just that it costs the same as the old elite and has more space.  However, I don’t see a detachable module up there to allow me to take my hard drive over to my friends house instead of my whole console.  I’m sure most people don’t have extra arcade models sitting around, but our group did.  After losing a couple systems to travel, this was a handy feature.  Not to mention the ease of moving things on those systems that died, snap and done.  It also meant I could keep up with the new hard drives.  If the original Xbox had come with it built in like this, consumers would have had to purchase new consoles to keep up with the new features.

How about the fact that now it comes with a wireless network controller just like the other consoles.  I applaud the idea of including it, but again there was a value to the separate module that doesn’t exist anymore.  First, its only happened once, but I am able to upgrade my network card on my Xbox from a G to an N.  Its costly, but still less than a new console.   I could also lend it to a friend.  I know lend is an evil word when it comes to technology, but to me it remains a feature.  Finally, if my wireless card went bad, I didn’t have to get the whole unit repaired, I just replace the card.  These reasons come so readily because they are the exact reasons we had to use for years to justify the lack of a built in card.  Microsoft threw them to us, and now the new Xbox registers as a reversal of policy to me.  I would have far preferred if they would have simply included the current design card in the box.  Those who didn’t need it could sell it, and recoup a small portion of their investment.

That about the fact that it comes already Kinect compatible?  Hmm… back in my days selling computers, we sold surge protectors that listed on the box “Windows 95 compatible”.  That’s no joke, they had the image and everything.  People would ask for them.  I would always tell them that its technically true, but in the same way that my car was “road compatible”.  There was nothing special about the design, they just weren’t going to cause a problem. We have the same thing here.  SVP Don Mattrick even announced that Kinect was compatible with the old equipment.  That’s good, it would have been extremely poor design and lost a big part of the market if it wasn’t.

That leads me to the color.  I know that black is timeless, but I don’t care for the shiny stuff.  I prefer my fingerprints unseen.  I can’t really see a reason for the new smaller size.  Maybe it’s too big for somebody, but despite my wife’s requests, my Xbox has a prominent position on top of my entertainment stand.  It’s a major part of our setup, running video games and Netflix, it deserves it.

Now that I’ve aired my grievances, I am glad to see that Microsoft has added more USB ports and I am ecstatic that the new unit will be significantly quieter.  I don’t want to have to turn up the volume of the game to compete with the hardware.  One can hope that it runs cooler too.