Xbox 360 secrets: After Falcon comes Jasper
Tuesday, October 9th, 2007 at 4:15 pm in Dean Takahashi, Dean and Nooch on Gaming, General. — Microsoft didn't want you to know about Falcon, and it certainly doesn't want you to know about its successor Jasper. But that's another secret we have to unveil.
Context & Ripple Effects
Dean Takahashi's August Mercury News exclusive laid out what Microsoft's rumored Falcon project meant for Xbox 360 buyers' timing, and this follow-up extends the arc: Falcon itself is still unconfirmed, and a successor chipset codenamed Jasper is now reported to be waiting behind it. Both remain rumors — Microsoft has not acknowledged either revision.
The leak lands days after Microsoft confirmed an across-the-line Xbox 360 price cut plus a two-free-games holiday bundle (October 8), which means shoppers hitting stores this season are buying consoles whose internal silicon may differ unit to unit without any labeling to tell them which they got.
First-order effects
- Holiday Xbox 360 buyers face a lottery: same box, same price, but potentially different chipsets depending on when the unit was manufactured, with no official way to check.
Second-order effects
- Retailers holding pre-Falcon inventory can clear it at the new lower price before revised units arrive, effectively using the holiday promotion to mask a mid-cycle hardware transition.
Third-order effects
- If the Falcon-then-Jasper pattern holds, console cost-reduction cycles become something enthusiasts track like product roadmaps, pressuring Microsoft to manage secrecy around hardware its own supply chain quietly changes.
The trend: Console makers are running quiet mid-generation silicon revisions beneath unchanged branding, turning chipset knowledge into a consumer-purchasing variable.