Prototypes

Not a lot of information about this one and only calling it the model K07T since that’s what the serial starts with. It was most likely made in early-mid 2004. Perhaps to show what a wired 360 could look like? But clearly Microsoft decided against this design. It resembles a Playstation controller more than an Xbox. Also confident the ABXY buttons were a placeholder design. And still has the original Xbox ending on the cord.

Not a lot of information out there about this one either. Date on the back of this specific one is Jan. 28th, 2005. It appears to be pretty close to the official wired, but with some rather big differences of the ABXY, buttons, using black thumbsticks, a white dpad, and then a black cord.

Krypton's should be pretty close to final stage, however, they don’t work with retail Xbox 360 consoles. They need specific builds of Dev 360s, however, I have heard they work on PC with the regular drivers. It's interesting that the board firmware would be locked down or not fully compliant.

The controller has etched labels for the buttons and sticks(LS, RS, etc), a solid white guide button, its missing the holographic sticker on the back, the big back sticker will say Krypton on the first line and also has an extra sticker below the serial sticker that says:

Property of Microsoft Corporation

PROTOTYPE NOT FOR SALE

Another interesting thing to note is these appear to be missing the ferrite shielding bulges in the cables near the top of the controller and at the bottom end of the breakaway piece.

Apparently these were the first set of controllers sent out to development teams. The Radon models should work with retail Xbox 360s, but wouldn't recommend using a prototype as your daily controller since they are rather rare. I’d prefer to preserve them in like new condition as possible, so they stay looking nice and crisp.

These Radon designs will be mixed, some have a white guide button with the thumbsticks appearing to have a little bit different shade of grey(more of a steel/silver grey?). Then there are the closer to retail controllers with the usual non-shiny silver guide button with the green X logo over it. None appear to have the hologram sticker, and will be missing the big back sticker noting the FCC compliance/controller model. The other randomness is some having the matte grey bottom trim, while others have the shiny silver trim.

They will have the part number and serial sticker though. On the left will be Radon DV1 with the controller serial below it, then on the right, will be a part number X802135-001. Finally a barcode at the very bottom of the sticker.

Unfortunately this one won't have a lot of definitive information, but below is my guess on why it exist.

The first part of the part number(X807994) matches the controller sent to the FCC that was tested on September 25-28, 2006. However, that one ended in -001. And well, just the fact that it was 2006, where as the serial on this one ends in 707 so this one was made in early 2007 and the ending part number is -006, shows clear evidence of this being made much after the FCC approved the WC01 boards.

It also says LIBDV4-062 in the bottom-right corner, and I believe the -062 is a unique number specific to the controller. But I'm not sure what the LIBDV4B part could be. Either way, I feel confident MS was still doing some later testing with the WC01 boards, and this was a controller they were using for their test.

It's a fairly standard looking white/grey wireless controller, even has the retail front sticker on it and the official hologram sticker. So the only way to know this is special is the big back sticker and the part number.

Each colour of the Radon 4i prototypes seem to go up in letters and numbers. This dark blue ends in EV2B-145, so it was probably made before the Pink and Light Blue 818 prototypes as those end in D, E and F along with higher last 3 digit numbers. The 3 digit number seems to be unique to each controller, and correlates along with the letter. So this being -145 also is a B, whereas the pink is -256 and that's a D.

While this is an estimated guess on my part, these all have part number X817145 that were used in 1403 controllers that later came out in early to mid 2009. The last 3 digits of the part number is -001, which was never used in retail 1403 controllers, so this could be where it all started for testing early produced 1403 boards. In which, all 818 controllers have TP21 in the top hole just like 1403 controller boards and the '4i' part after Radon may also stand for "4th Iteration" and technically the 1403 boards are the 4th board to be thought up if counting the minor revision made to WSK368 boards when removing the shielding.

So, I feel pretty confident these series of controllers were being used to test 1403 boards inside, and I guess using each new colour variations from 2007 was a good way for them to keep track of each stage of board inside, or perhaps even small differences in the boards without the need to see look at the back of the controller for a specific number or even tearing it down to see the board inside.

There are 3 confirmed colours of the 818 series, Dark Blue, Pink, and Light Blue. But if my guess is right, and the EV2A is the White/grey controller, there could be up to 4 colour variations of these Radon 4i controllers that all end in 818 serials.

Each colour of the Radon 4i prototypes seem to go up in letters and numbers. This Pink controller ends in EV2D-256, so was probably made somewhere between the dark blue and light blue variants of these 818 prototype series. The 3 digit number seems to be unique to each controller, and correlates along with the letter. So this being -256 is a D, whereas the Light Blue is -357 and that's an E.

While this is an estimated guess on my part, these all have part number X817145 that were used in 1403 controllers that later came out in early to mid 2009. The last 3 digits of the part number is -001, which was never used in retail 1403 controllers, so this could be where it all started for testing early produced 1403 boards. In which, all 818 controllers have TP21 in the top hole just like 1403 controller boards and the '4i' part after Radon may also stand for "4th Iteration" and technically the 1403 boards are the 4th board to be thought up if counting the minor revision made to WSK368 boards when removing the shielding.

So, I feel pretty confident these series of controllers were being used to test 1403 boards inside, and I guess using each new colour variations from 2007 was a good way for them to keep track of each stage of board inside, or perhaps even small differences in the boards without the need to see look at the back of the controller for a specific number or even tearing it down to see the board inside.

There are 3 confirmed colours of the 818 series, Dark Blue, Pink, and Light Blue. But if my guess is right, and the EV2A is the White/grey controller, there could be up to 4 colour variations of these Radon 4i controllers that all end in 818 serials.

Each colour of the Radon 4i prototypes seem to go up in letters and numbers. The 3 digit number seems to be unique to each controller, and correlates along with the letter. I have found the Light Blue controllers end in EV2E-357 and EV2F-481. Different lettering, but still follows the trend of higher the number, later the alphabet letter will be. Perhaps F, even being the last of the batches made.

While this is an estimated guess on my part, these all have part number X817145 that were used in 1403 controllers that later came out in early to mid 2009. The last 3 digits of the part number is -001, which was never used in retail 1403 controllers, so this could be where it all started for testing early produced 1403 boards. In which, all 818 controllers have TP21 in the top hole just like 1403 controller boards and the '4i' part after Radon may also stand for "4th Iteration" and technically the 1403 boards are the 4th board to be thought up if counting the minor revision made to WSK368 boards when removing the shielding.

So, I feel pretty confident these series of controllers were being used to test 1403 boards inside, and I guess using each new colour variations from 2007 was a good way for them to keep track of each stage of board inside, or perhaps even small differences in the boards without the need to see look at the back of the controller for a specific number or even tearing it down to see the board inside.

There are 3 confirmed colours of the 818 series, Dark Blue, Pink, and Light Blue. But if my guess is right, and the EV2A is the White/grey controller, there could be up to 4 colour variations of these Radon 4i controllers that all end in 818 serials.

It could be debated whether or not it's a prototype since it doesn't exactly say that. I've thought about putting it in the Not for Retail category, however, since it says DV2 and DVs were prototypes, it's why I decided to list it here. Hopefully one day I can track down more information on these.

The Walton part is cool as that's the family’s name that owns/created Walmart. Microsoft must have wanted to impress or show gratitude by labeling it as such. It is an oddly designed controller, and I'm not sure who was responsible designing it. This controller was exclusive to Walmart in the US region, and came with a nice bonus headset while still being the standard controller price of $50usd.

The back has a blank white back sticker with 'DV2 Units and are not for resale' on it. While the serial section says 'Walton DV2'. Everything else is the same as the retail dragon controller that later came out in October of 2008. Including the packaging and all the misc items inside.

*As a quick side story, this controller is what led me to discovering the last 3 digits being the year and week number of manufacture for all 360 controllers. Wish I would have noticed the pattern sooner, but it really was difficult to find how Microsoft could track what controllers were inside this sealed package. I found it crazy there were no markings of any kind, not even a different package part number.

It's a wild guess, but Microsoft may only have been using light blue shells to test 1403 boards since the part number is now a standard X817145-004 which was used for the retail white/grey wireless controllers that were 1403/TP21 boards.

The serial digits end in 909, putting it as manufactured in pretty early 2009. It no longer says prototype on the big back sticker and I'm not sure what Flex could mean. It's still marked as Not For Sale! And the other interesting notes is there is now a space between Radon and 4i. The serial also starts with 05 whereas the light blue prototypes from 2008 started with 02. Otherwise, the board is still TP21.

It does have a matching battery cover that also has a later made sticker on it. The retail controller battery cover sticker didn't have the 2 X 1.5v section since it was released in late 2007. And from what I have found, the change didn't happen until early 2008(this goes for all controllers).

If my guess about them using the shell for board testing only, these would have been one of the last revisions. They submitted the 1403 design to the FCC on March 10th, 2009. I'm not sure on the exact day this controller was made, at the latest point in the week, that makes it a 9 day difference between being made and the submission.

Serial shows it’s from very early 2010, and will have a white vertical sticker with C1-410 written horizontal on the back. It’s pretty close to the final design, however I did find an image that still shows Microsoft written on the top trim between the bumpers. So not quite the final design, but does have a hologram sticker, black input ports and the new shiny guide button. The board inside is TP21 making it a model 1403 that all retail blacks ended up being.

This is a test controller for their class 2 change according to FCC filings on Aug. 3rd, 2012. The outside shell should be no different than a standard black/black retail, but pcb board inside did get some slight changes as listed below. The boards are still labeled as TP21 in the top hole, and for retail controllers the models didn't change from 1403. Won't be easy to fully know if you have a class II change board or the old 2009, 1403 model other than if it's made sometime after mid to late 2012.

“1. New PCBA layout

2. Replace radio ROM chip to RAM master chip, and addition to memory flash and FW support RAM. “

The controller itself is missing the hologram sticker, and on the back, the huge back sticker has 'Do not have FCC Approval !'. Is more interesting to note that these aren't labeled Radon in any way. These controllers were purely meant to test the board inside and thus the most likely reason for only having FW(firmware) Rev.(revision) on the part number sticker.

I have also found a controller labeled with FW Rev 4.61. Unsure what the differences would be there, but do presume it would fall under the same category as this one.