Everyday Gamer

Ben Patterson at Yahoo! Tech has put together a wishlist of improvements he’d like to see either for the Xbox 360 or future iterations of it.

Better cooling system: Overheating seems to be the main bringer of the Red Ring of Death-the dreaded ring of red light that signals a major hardware failure. The upcoming 65nm graphics chips for the 360 should go a long way toward keeping new consoles cool, but a top-to-bottom redesign of the entire cooling system is also in order. Which brings us to…

Quieter cooling fans and optical drives: The Xbox 360 must be one of the loudest gadgets I’ve ever owned (well, the 20-pound, 4MB hard drive my dad bought in the mid-80s might take the cake). After spending some time with my relatively whisper-quiet PS3, I’d gladly fork over more cash for an Xbox that doesn’t roar like a jet engine, especially when the DVD drive is spinning. And that reminds me…

A slot-loading optical drive: Again, I’ve been pretty happy with the slot-loading drive on the PS3-why not one for the Xbox 360 (er, 540)? It would definitely be a step up from the flimsy DVD tray in the current model, which tends to get jammed in the closed position. And speaking of optical drives…

A built-in Blu-ray drive: This one will probably have to wait for the Xbox 720, circa 2012 or so, but still, it would be a nice touch.

Built-in Wi-Fi: From the start, Microsoft’s $100, snap-on wireless adapter seemed like a rip-off. Just build Wi-Fi into the console and be done with it.

Slimmer design…maybe: I guess it would be nice, but frankly, I’d happily trade a slimmer console for all the points I just mentioned, especially since overheating has been such a thorn in the 360’s side.

I agree with his first and second suggestion whole-heartedly. In my house, my Dreamcast and 360 are in constant competition for being the loudest console, not to mention the recent RROD issue I have with my Xbox. I believe with the design of the Xbox 360 shell, they wanted to get away from the fug-ness that was the original Xbox, and I believe they did. I like the way the 360 currently looks but if a better case design coupled with a better cooling system will prevent the Xboxes from dying then I’m all for it.