The Xbox 360 S, (also known as the Xbox 360 Slim) is a video game console developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is the second model in the Xbox 360 line and is the successor to the Xbox 360. It was released on July, 2010 in the US.
The Xbox 360 S is quieter and faster compared to previous revisions of the Xbox 360 and included a built in port for the Kinect, a motion sensing accessory that removes the need for a controller. The Kinect was released several months after the Xbox 360 S, but the console was often marketed and bundled with the accessory.
Development[]
Announcement[]
During E3 2010, Microsoft unveiled a brand new revision of the Xbox 360. The model at the announcement was described as being much smaller than past models, featuring a 250GB hard drive and a built in Wireless N 2.4Ghz Wi-Fi adapter, which the original Xbox 360 design lacked.
Design[]
The Xbox 360 S features a similar but refined design to its predecessor. The Xbox 360 S is 17% smaller in form factor than it's predecessor and features significant design changes such as the removal of the two memory card slots featured on previous models as well as relocation of the USB controller receptacle, which has been rotated 90 degrees vertically and relocated to the right side of the face. Additionally, the controller sync button and IR port were moved to the top of the USB receptacle and the IR port and sync button were combined into one sleek unit. The power and eject buttons have also been changed from physical buttons to touch-sensitive buttons with this revision. The new design carried forward the Xbox 360 emblems featured on the disk drive and side of the console. The first Xbox 360 S model featured a glossy black finish with chrome trim. Later models included a matte black finish with gloss black trim, a glossy white finish which was bundled with a matching glossy white Kinect accessory and two Kinect games, as well as several limited edition variants each with their own unique styling.
The Xbox 360 S featured a completely overhauled cooling system to combat the overheating problem which caused the Red Ring of Death on previous models. It featured an open top and bottom grill where hot air is exhausted, now using parallel slats instead of small holes. The set of two side vents (when stood vertically) were combined in to one much larger intake vent which was relocated to the bottom half of the side panel. These factors combined drastically improved the console's cooling ability. Despite the much more open airflow design, it was significantly quieter than its predecessor. The removable hard drive which was previously located prominently on top of the console was redesigned to be installed internally via a removable section of the grill on the bottom and was no longer externally visible when installed. The initial version included an upgraded 250GB hard drive, with limited editions featuring a larger 320GB model. Later variants of the Xbox 360 S featured a matte black finish and did not include a hard drive. They instead included 4gb of integrated storage, however these models retained the new hard drive bay and could easily have their storage upgraded via an official Microsoft hard drive. While unofficial hard drives were supported, using an unofficial drive would block the backwards compatibility of original Xbox games on the Xbox 360 S.
In addition to these changes, the Xbox 360 S was the first Xbox 360 model to feature a dedicated port for the new Kinect accessory in order to ready the console for the launch of the Kinect accessory. The new model also included an additional USB port on the rear output to accommodate a growing range of accessories, raising the total to 3 in addition the 2 on the front face of the console, for a total of 5 USB ports. It also carried forward the HDMI port which had previously been added to the Xbox 360 line with the Jasper revision of the original design in order to accommodate the growing HDMI standard.
The Xbox 360 S dropped support for swappable faceplates due to the change in design and form factor.
Trivia[]
- The Xbox 360 S was the first Xbox model to have a power-on and eject tones.
- The limited editions of the Xbox 360 S feature power-on and eject tones unique to the edition.
- The limited editions of the Xbox 360 S included one or two matching controllers depending on the edition.
- The Halo: Reach edition featured a 250GB hard drive, with subsequent limited editions including the 320GB upgrade.
- Later versions of the Xbox 360 S included an updated controller featuring a new control stick design and a transforming d-pad.
- The Gears of War 3 edition included two matching controllers and was the first to feature the new transforming d-pad, but lacked the updated control stick design.
- The Star Wars edition was stylized as R2-D2 and included a matching white Kinect accessory and C-3PO controller with updated stick design and transforming D-pad.
- The Star Wars and Halo 4 editions of the Xbox 360 S are the only editions to feature blue power lights instead of the standard green.
- The Halo 4 edition included two matching controllers and was the only edition to have controllers which also featured blue lights.
- The "s" stands for slim.
| Consoles and other devices | |
| Development kits | Xbox Alpha Tower I • Xbox Alpha Tower II • Xbox Development Kit • Xbox 360 Development Kit • Xbox One Development Kit |
|---|---|
| Sixth generation | Xbox • Bundles |
| Seventh generation | Xbox 360 • Xbox 360 S • Xbox 360 E • Bundles |
| Eighth generation | Xbox One • Xbox One S • Xbox One X • Xbox One S All-Digital Edition • Bundles |
| Ninth generation | Xbox Series X • Xbox Series S • Brooklin • Ellewood |
| Cancelled | Xbox Prototype • Unreleased Limited Edition Halo Xbox • Xbox Watch |