The big news this morning comes to us courtesy of GameInformer magazine and a scan-happy reader, who points to a new article detailing the upgraded Xbox 360 that’s been rumored for so long. The major details so far? The new 360 will come in black (which our very own gearlive scooped right here), and it will feature built-in HDMI outputs, an HDMI cable (zing!), and an upgraded 120GB harddrive for holding all that new IPTV content. The system’s rumored to break in “late April”.

The $479 price tag is obviously meant to take another cheap shot at Sony, as MS’s most expensive SKU will still be cheaper than Sony’s cheapest PS3. Still, with all these upgrades to the console built in, it’s a wonder they forgot to include WiFi compatibility out of the box… no love for those of us with our routers in other rooms?!?

And for all of you wondering whether this is an April fool’s joke, the story appears to have been vetted by Kotaku:

Matt Helgeson, senior editor over at Game Informer, just dropped us a line to let us know that the story is in fact true. As a rule they don’t post fake news stories in their April mag. So go celebrate.

There you have it! See the scans after the jump.