XBox 360 overhaul to come in August

267w ago - According to EDN newspaper in China, Pegatron Technology (offspring of Asustek, in case you're wondering), has managed to grab the highly-denied "Blu-Ray for Xbox360" deal of the year.

We imagine Microsoft denied the existence of such unit, not to shield its upcoming launch from the competition's prying marketeers, but rather because its staff were responding in default "mirror" mode whereby hacks that asked the Vole if they had plans for a BD add-on, they received a 100% flat/honest "No". True. All things considered, it won't be an add-on.

The newspaper adds that Pegatron will assemble Microsoft's console with the in-built BD player, with units hitting the market in Q3/2008 - Mid-summer, as it were.

This goes head-on with Dean Takahashi's info on the Xbox 360 "Jasper" platform that is scheduled for August of this year. We'd already mentioned this platform over here, btw. The Jasper will feature a shrunken 65nm ATI graphics core and "smaller memory chips". This does make more sense if you're using the new GPU core to aid you in decoding HD on Blu-ray, too.

So that's about it, major Xbox 360 platform overhaul coming this summer, with some time to spare for Christmas - Blu-ray, faster graphics and what is likely to be an all-round cooler console - and the thing is assembled by Pegatron Technology.

This Xbox 360 "Ultra" (our word, not the Vole's) should be able to do a bit more than trail the PS3. Should make for an interesting holiday season this year.