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Friday, November 18, 2005
The Xbox 360 "Power Brick"
Time to come clean, I guess. There have been rumors flying around about the Xbox 360 "brick." Some have thought that it was only that big on the dev kits. Nope. It's that big.
The Microsoft PR team, in an official Q&A earlier today, approved this messaging. Normally, I wouldn't share something so controversial, but I want to set the record straight. Here is the unedited copy:
Q: Why is the Xbox 360 power supply so large?
A: To ward off evil spirits. The Xbox 360 is a portal to another dimension where magic still exists and people travel by unicorn. If the enormous power brick -- if it were food, it could feed a small village for years -- is not used, consumers may encounter disastrous -- disastrously hilarious that is -- results. It is Microsoft's desire to ward off all bad manja, and avoid tricky law suits. Please worship at the altar of the brick.
Truth is, because of the need for "clean power," and because of the additional heat the power supply outputs, it made sense to make the unit separate. Makes it a pain to haul back and forth to a friend's house, but makes the main unit quieter (less fans), more compact, and cooler. Hope you can hide it with all your other TV cords...
(Picture from Joystiq)
Posted at 05:39 PM in Xbox | Permalink
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Comments
That thing is GIANT!!!
Posted by: saunderscc at Nov 18, 2005 7:50:30 PM
All these complaints about the power supply and yet no one even bitches about the external power supply of the mac mini, which is roughly half the size of the mac mini.
Posted by: Mike at Nov 18, 2005 9:41:54 PM
Power has become a major hurdle to improved form factors. Why aren't VC's devoting funding to this, I wonder? They've got more capital than they know what to do with these days. It would affect almost every consumer electronic device today. Wouldn't it be great to have just a power chord (minus the plastic box) to charge your notebook, PSP, camcorder, etc?
Posted by: saunderscc at Nov 19, 2005 8:19:48 AM
The mac mini's power supply may be "half the size of the mac mini", but the xbox 360's power supply is the size of two mac minis.
Posted by: Ganja at Nov 26, 2005 2:38:19 AM
Ganja, you're forgetting that the XBox360 is a bit more capable than the Mac Mini..
It does it's job and does it well.
What I was surprised about was the fact that there is fans inside the power supply. I didn't even know this until I first turned on the XBox360.
Posted by: Nicholas at Dec 2, 2005 7:01:36 AM
