Never had a console. I know of them :P. Thats my excuse and im sticking to it :P

The move to full 64-bit support is a welcome one. Sure the clock speed of the processor is low, but the 28nm architecture, number of cores and other factors points to, finally, a big leap in physics, A.I, NPC and world generation. WITH the RAM to back it up, 8GB is perfect. Plus dev will implement, (again finally), multicore engines that take advantage of 8 cores. We've seen what games like BF3 can do with a proper multicore engine. Multiplayer with great destruction capabilities and double the amount players compared to console.

AMD also betted the bank of GPU compute. Games like uncharted 2, 3 used the both the gpu AND cpu to provide amazing visuals for a console that had a measly 512mb ram and even when released, an old GPU. The old GPU'S were not designed with compute in mind at all and AMD has made big strides since then in this area. Which directly benefit the visuals, performance and cpu load of the new Xbox. AMD fusion already is built on Heterogeneous computing, and the console chips are just an extension of that.

You also have to factor in the near quantum leap in processor power that happened since 2005. Even if the customized design of the cpu falls well into the Sandy Bridge territory of performance (even i3), we have a very capable cpu without all the overhead windows and DirectX brings.

I'm really glad with these specs, It's actually more then I expected.

well this generation Microsoft Rushed the 360 out the door when it knew it had all of these technical problems since it just said "We don't care, we want it to run Gears and to beat Sony to the market, we will fix it later"

and now we read reports that the PS4 might Launch after MS next system, so it looks like history might just repeat itself with MS next gen....

Considering the way they're going, the next Xbox will last 8 years. In 8 years time, we went from 1GB to 16GB. Trust me, 16GB is NOT overkill. The whole point is, that consoles ALWAYS have been held back by memory and this same lame argument has been used a billion times in the past. When the PS2 was released, 32MB was also still used in many PC's and look what it meant: GTA 3 had to be nerfed massively because of memory constraints. Considering it will be another few years before it's even going to be released, I stick by what I said: 16GB would be a better choice.

I'm hoping they learned their lesson. The warranty was great, but getting RRODs sucked.