Microsoft still in denial of Xbox 360 Elite

Joystiq has posted a story today about Microsoft's continuing silence in regards to the worst kept secret in gaming, the Xbox 360 Elite (formerly referred to as "Zephyr")along with some corroborating evidence of it's existance.

We broke the story of the "Zephyr" (the original 360 was dubbed "Xenon" during development) with photos a week ago and Joystiq posted a story "confirming" its existence about an hour later. I have posted the full GameJonez story below as it originally appeared.

Why is Microsoft bothering to deny its existence? What is the point? Surely there is no strategic importance, unless the ad predicting it's April release is wrong and they are planning some kind of simultaneous release along side a major game, like Forza 2 or Mass Effect, or even Bioshock. Halo 3 would make the most sense financially, but I don't see them sitting on this for another 6 months.

120GB Xbox 360 "Zephyr" - It's Black! We have the Pictures
Posted Mar 20, 2007 12:00pm by Todd Melanson

In an apparent slip-up by the Halo Wars development team, it appears pictures of the long-rumored 120GB Black Xbox 360, dubbed Zephyr, have made it to the Net, largely unnoticed.

The first picture below appears on the Halo Wars community forums. The Devs had a recent get together with some Microsoft big wigs including Shane Kim to show off their progress with Halo Wars. Well, someone snapped some pics of the group playing the game and sure enough, right there under the flat panel TV sits a black Xbox 360 with a very different looking Hardrive than what comes with the current Premium 360.


click to enlarge

The second picture is zoomed in on the area of the 360 itself, and while it's a bit blurry, you can definitely recognize it as a 360, and it is black and the hardrive (white edge) is distinctly larger than the current 20GB version. Where the current 20GB version HDD is only raised in the rear two-thirds of the box and flush with the edge in the front, this hardrive is raised all the way across the end, essentially completing the 360 as a rectangular box.


click to enlarge

Clearly if Microsoft is serious about making downloadable HD movies a reality(and they are), a larger HDD is going to be crucial. While it is impossible from these pics to tell if this Zephyr 360 has an HDMI port in the rear, I would bet the farm that it does.

So, the next question is, how much and when?

UPDATE: Joystiq has posted a story revealing the new Xbox 360 in all it's glory. It will show up on store shelves in late April and retail for $479 (ouch babe!). It will include HDMI output and HDMI cables, 120GB HDD and of course, it's black!

So, how pissed off are the early adopters going to be (pretty pissed we think) and will this signal the absolute end of Sony's decade long run of dominance? 2007 sure is shaping up as an interesting gaming year so far!