It's hard to believe that it's been nearly five years since the original Xbox 360 launched. The Xbox 360 hit the market a year ahead of the Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3 and continues to do quite well in the marketplace. Thanks to a relatively healthy stable library of exclusive games and the second-to-none Xbox Live gaming service, gamers keep coming back for more despite years of RROD issues.

Over the years, the Xbox 360 has gone through a number of hardware changes. Advances in manufacturing technologies for GPU and CPU have resulted in smaller, cooler running chips; and HDMI output has made its way to the console. Storage capacities have been bumped, new colors have been added, and special editions have announced.

However, the basic design of the console has remained the same -- until now. Today at E3, Microsoft unveiled a new look for the Xbox 360.

The new Xbox 360 is smaller, sleeker, quieter and comes with an integrated 250GB hard drive (removable) and five USB ports (two in the front, three in the back). And yes folks, it FINALLY has built-in Wi-Fi (802.11n). It will be priced at $299 and will be in stores later this week.

According to Engadget, the current Xbox 360 Elite will drop down to $249 while the Xbox 360 Arcade will fall to $149.

In other Xbox 360 news, Microsoft today officially announced the Kinect accessory which captures full body motion for immersive gaming.