Microsoft Says No New Xbox 360s In 2009

OrochimaruVoldemort writes "Microsoft has said to Engadget that they do not plan on making new consoles available in 2009. This comes from the same company that said it wasn't producing a Blu-ray drive for that Xbox, so it is pure speculation. Expect to see a new console within that year. Engadget also hints: 'Microsoft representative let us know today that "While we don't normally comment on rumors like this, we can tell you that we have no plans to release a new console in 2009."' The rest of us will wait and see. For now, focus on what is available."

Make way for the console that will kill PC gaming!

[DanWS6 (1248650)]

I just wanted to get this out of the way now before rumors start flying.

Re:Make way for the console that will kill PC gami

[Joe The Dragon (967727)]

With out free on line play, being able to host your own games, LAN only play, free mods, user mod and maps, able to play 100% free games, and other stuff pc gameing will be the KING!!!!!!!!!!!

Re:Make way for the console that will kill PC gami

[Conception (212279)]

See, the sad thing is PC gaming isn't King, even if its better. Consoles make 2-3x as much as PC gaming does at least. There's no contest anymore. The King was crowed long ago.

3: Subscription-based games = profit!

[Behrooz (302401)]

I hate to say this, but MMO games and the continuing subscription model limited only by server and bandwidth costs make PCs king of the profit field.

I hate to say it because I think all of the MMO games currently available are roughly comparable to being consumed by and subsequently shit out of a bear.

Eventually some visionary developer is going to get it right, though... and they're going to end up richer than God.

Re:Make way for the console that will kill PC gami

[Soulslayer (21435)]

Consoles, in aggregate, generate more game software sales revenue from traditional brick and mortar retail outlets than the PC. Its a bit more difficult to sort out the hardware side. NVIDIA posted a record quarter for its first quarter this year (at $1.15 billion) but that's from a variety of sources and only one of the big two name sin gaming. There is no good way to filter out PC gaming hardware vs non-gaming hardware outside of video cards so we won't try and split up the more than $100 billion a year PC system sales to compare it to the $8 billion or so in console hardware sales.

Sticking with software for a moment; if you compare US PC retail software sales vs US console software sales the PC came in third behind the PS2 and XBOX 360 last year with $900 million from brick and mortar stores (ignoring that NPD collects data from only 60-80% of the market and extrapolates the remainder). If you add back in subscription sales [next-gen.biz] the PC was actually the top (non-portable) platform last year with over $2 billion in software and subscription sales. And if you accept recent evidence that digital sales have reached parity/exceeded brick and mortar sales then the PC is in the neighborhood of $3 billion in software derived revenue per year, or in the same ballpark as the top three console platforms combined.

Of course, all of that is a lot of silly wang measuring using NPD numbers. Which really amounts to comparing one wildly inaccurate (or at the very least, incomplete) set of numbers to another. The frustrating thing is that while NPD uses a lot of hand waving when describing their data collection methods and releases very selective sub-sets of data to the public (remember, their business model revolves around selling the detailed stuff); our illustrious media accepts these numbers as immutable, indisputable, fact. They then turn around and ignore that the $18.5 billion figure includes hardware, software, and accessories sales for nine platforms (PS2, XBOX, XBOX 360, PS3, DS, Game Boy Advanced, and PSP) plus partial software sales from a tenth (the PC) and proclaim that video games outsell theatrical movies tickets by almost two to one. The general public in turn parrots this line ('cause the news is always right) and console fans trumpet the 17 to 1 ratio vs retail PC software sales as proof that the PC industry is essentially dead.

Re:Make way for the console that will kill PC gami

[Soulslayer (21435)]

Erm...the missing platforms from the list of nine would be the Wii and the GameCube.

Re:

[kesuki (321456)]

what about the wonder swan sure it never made it anywhere but japan...

and one thing i hate, is the way 'Blu-ray' adoption rates "Don't Count PS3s, because they're console sales" even though every website I googled said 'PS3 is the best Blu-ray movie player, PS3 is the Only Blu-Ray Player to support BDJava, yada yada yada..'

Why would anyone pay $400 for a Blu-ray stand alone when the PS3 is $400? and furthermore, $200 'BD-rom drives' aren't Blu-ray players even though you can buy plenty of HD movie playback

What PC can't play a video game?

[tepples (727027)]

not all PCs come with a graphic card capable of playing a video game.

Tetris, developed by Alexey Pajitnov and originally published by samizdat, is a video game. All PCs with a CGA, EGA, VGA, or more powerful VGA-compatible video card have been able to run Vadim Gerasimov's port of Tetris to the PC [oversigma.com], even if inside an old-PC emulator such as DOSBox.

My point is that sure, low-end PCs with an Intel GPU won't run Xbox 360- or PS3-level graphics, but they'll definitely run DS- or PSP-level graphics, and probably even Wii-level graphics. So if a game engine can scale down to

Re:What PC can't play a video game?

[Dutch Gun (899105)]

So if a game engine can scale down to the Wii, why can't it scale down to low-end PCs?

It most certainly can. I've heard so many people say things like "Oh, the xxx engine can't do this or that fast, etc..." More often than not, it's the content, not the engine, that kills performance. At my last company, our in-house engine (which was then making Xbox, PS2, and GameCube titles) was ported to the PSP. It did a fine job, too. That same engine is being used now for all current-gen platforms (360, PS3), and they're still making PSP games with it. There's a limit though - it wouldn't be efficient to scale it down to the Nintendo DS - they have an engine for that which is optimized specifically for low-memory platforms.

It's not always an issue of just the engine, though. There are lots of issues with scaling a game. If you have an extremely CPU-intensive AI system that runs fine on the Xbox or PS3's multiple cores, how do you affect this without substantially impacting gameplay? If all your art is shader-based, and relying on shaders that simply don't exist on the Wii, then what? There's not always a practical way to scale down the number of bones a character has - that's another scaling problem for you.

At some point, it becomes easier to simply rework the game for the lower-end platform than to port the game. Likewise, the gap between the highest end PC and lowest end of the current market seems to be substantially larger than it used to be.

The game my company is currently developing requires hardware with shader 2.0 support at a minimum. All of our assets are being developed with this hardware in mind. Should we create two sets of assets, one for shader 2.0 hardware and one using simple blended textures? Lighting, another shader-dependent beast, would end up looking completely different for the two systems. While this is possible, you end up making significant compromises in the look of the game.

It's all great to say "scale it down to low-end PCs", but we're making version two of a successful online PC game. Our players will be expecting a game that looks and plays significantly better than the first version. So while we're not going to require ridiculous specs, we still have to compete with the screenshots and videos of other PC games. There's a pretty significant difference between a Tetris game and what we're producing.

Re:

[drinkypoo (153816)]

See, the sad thing is PC gaming isn't King, even if its better.

It's not better, it's different. PC gaming offers the widest range of titles and peripherals and, for people for whom gaming is the focus of their life and thus they can afford such things, the most detailed gaming experience (best graphics, best sound, blah blah blah.) Console gaming offers a relatively hassle-free experience. Each has its own appeal.

I do both, and I feel I say from experience that each has its place. Don't forget handheld gaming (arguably, the oldest kind of self-entertainment) :) e.g.

Of course they don't have plans.

[Methlin (604355)]

If they said they did it would hurt sales of the current revision. Now if Nintendo or Sony were going to release a Wii2 or PS4 in the next year you'd have the standard MS vaporware announcement while they scramble to actually put a product together.

Re:

[DanWS6 (1248650)]

With as well as the Wii is selling right now I don't think Nintendo would want to announce a Wii2 for a while.

Re:Of course they don't have plans.

[KingArthur10 (679328)]

Yes, what they will do is wait for the market to become saturated with Wiis. Then they will start selling different colors. Colors will correspond to different bundled games. After a while, they'll release a Wii.1 version with expanded internal Solid State memory, possibly more RAM (to enable larger texture files), and the elimination of the Gamecube slots to make it slimmer. It's possible you'll be able to purchase a USB accessory to connect Gamecube devices to.

Re:

[GerbilSoft (761537)]

"It's possible you'll be able to purchase a USB accessory to connect Gamecube devices to."

Nintendo can't even emulate N64 memory cards. What makes you think they'll be able to emulate GameCube memory cards and controllers over USB? (Also the fact that the Wii doesn't support use of e.g. the Classic Controller in GC mode.)

Re:

[Yvan256 (722131)]

I'm with you on the colors and the expanded internal storage memory, but Nintendo has never modified their hardware while keeping the same system/name.

The only thing that was extremely close in terms of hardware (old system + new features) was the Gameboy Color, and even that had a different name. Unless you also count the Gamecube and the Wii, in which case there's also a lot of hardware differences along with the new name.

More RAM to enable larger texture files? I don't think so.

Re:

[Lost Engineer (459920)]

Yeah they might make a Wii 2, but only four of them will be produced, one for Nintendo HQ and three for the ebay market.

No new *kinds* of 360s in 2009

[corsec67 (627446)]

I read the title to mean that MS would stop making 360s.

What the article said is that there isn't going to be a slim version of the 360 or a 360 with a Blu-Ray drive.

Quite a big difference, I think.

Re:

[snl2587 (1177409)]

It's almost as though Microsoft is actively trying to fail.

Re:No new *kinds* of 360s in 2009

[grahamd0 (1129971)]

How so? They've already got at least 3 versions of the console. How is it that further confusing the market is their only possible means of success?

This may shock you, but the most popular and financially successful non-portable console of this generation has a grand total of *one* version.

Re:No new *kinds* of 360s in 2009

[Chris Burke (6130)]

File this one under "Ways in which pedantry and literalism have damaged your brain".

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

Do you really believe he has a file with a name like that?

Basil E. Frankweiler

[tepples (727027)]

Do you really believe he has a file with a name like ["Ways in which pedantry and literalism have damaged your brain"]?

Ask Basil E. Frankweiler [wikipedia.org] what's under her "pedantry" file.

Re:

[intrico (100334)]

I agree that the title is very misleading. The wording of this title "Microsoft Says No New Xbox 360s In 2009" implies that they are ceasing manufacturing/shipping of the current XBOX 360 model in 2009. It really needs to be edited for clarity.

Re:Xbox 360 Hardware Still Isn't Profitable

[corsec67 (627446)]

Are you trying to make it sound like MS hemoraging money is a bad thing?

If they keep trying to break in to the Japanese dominated console market and keep failing, losing tons of money, all I can say is "Good for them".

Re:Xbox 360 Hardware Still Isn't Profitable

[TeraCo (410407)]

Are you retarded? Why would they dump the 'difficult and risky to chip' xbox360 market for the 'I can pirate games with 30 seconds on a search engine' vista market?

If they abandon the console market, it will be because they're leaving the games industry all together.

Re:

[enderjsv (1128541)]

Are you serious? I don't think you've been paying attention. Right now, according to Joystiq, the Xbox 360 has sold 19 million worldwide. It has 12 million worldwide subscriptions to Xbox Live. It was the first console in the current generation of consoles to sell 10 million in the U.S., compared to 8.8 Wii's and 4.1 PS3's. In another article (one I'm too lazy to find) the 360 was posting the highest attach rate. Microsoft's game division is finally in the black with its quarter-to-quarter earnings, a

Re:

[enderjsv (1128541)]

Right. Numbers are great. But I'm not saying anything about Microsoft's position relative to the other companies (Well, maybe I did with that "first to 10 mill" statement). What I am saying is that there is simply no reason to believe that Microsoft is going to leave the console market when, at the very least they're doing okay, and at the most they're doing really well. Microsoft doesn't have to be first to stay in the market. Pepsi has been second to Coke since forever.

I'm simply saying that there is

Four-player games?

[tepples (727027)]

The vast majority of Microsoft 360 developers are US PC x86 directx focused and most of them would rather have Microsoft resuscitate the dying PC gaming market than being forced to work on console hardware.

Some game designs put three or more players' characters on the same screen. Examples include Bomberman, Gauntlet, and NBA Jam. A lot of people have friends over who do not own their own computer, so it's not cost-efficient to have a separate computer and monitor for each player. If there's no third Xbox, then for which platform are DirectX developers going to develop such four-player games?

Re:No new *kinds* of 360s in 2009

[Chris Burke (6130)]

We're not being pedantic, thats a straight forward interpretation of what is written.

Yes, that's a straightforward interpretation. Another straightforward interpretation is that there'd be no new types of 360s (360s could possibly refer to either individual machines, or classes of machines, much like "I didn't see any new birds" could refer to individuals, or species). And since a sentence having multiple straight forward interpretations is completely bog-standard in English -- it can take a great deal of effort to write in such a way that there isn't multiple possible meanings -- most people are very used to holding these multiple definitions in their head, and selecting the most likely one based on context and experience. Or all of them, which is how puns work.

So of the two meanings, which is more likely? MS isn't going to manufacture any xbox hardware of any kind in 2009? Or they are not going to release a new design for their hardware in 2009?

Maybe pedantry isn't the right word. What is the right word for assuming there to be only one possible correct interpretation of a sentence?

Though to be fair, adding the word "types" or "kinds" would have certainly made the meaning more clear. I'm all for that.

Re:No new *kinds* of 360s in 2009

[PopeGumby (1125507)]

Yes, that's a straightforward interpretation. Actually, sorry, I'll take back what I said, saying that there will be no new 360s in 2009 isnt really an interpretation at all, it's just what's written.

Realising that its referring to types or models is an interpretation, extrapolating meaning from missing words and from the text of the summary.

Obviously it didnt take me very long to realise my mistake, but the fact is I saw the headline, and was momentarily taken aback by the decision not to produce any new 360s at all next year.

The plural also didnt help. If the headline read "No New Xbox 360 In 2009" it would be much more obvious, but having it as a plural further confuses.

Re:

[Chris Burke (6130)]

Realising that its referring to types or models is an interpretation, extrapolating meaning from missing words and from the text of the summary.

Not really. Like I said, "360s" could refer to classes of machine or individual machines, just like "birds" can refer to individual birds or species of birds. No extra word is necessary strictly speaking.

If you aren't "interpreting" things people say or write, then you are probably getting the wrong meaning much of the time. For example if you heard someone say "I

Seriously?

[aztektum (170569)]

Microsoft not having any plans on May 14th 2008 to release a new X360 model before December 31, 2009 is front page news worthy?

well duh

[hurfy (735314)]

They are too busy fixing the ones they already built.......

I'll believe it when i see it....oh wait..i mean don't see it

Well

[NaCh0 (6124)]

What about the Xbox 720?

Or maybe the XBox 4D?

[JSBiff (87824)]

I wonder what the next name will be. I doubt they'll just double 360, that's kind of lame. No doubt, in the great tradition of Microsoft products, they will choose a succession of names where you could absolutely, positively not tell the order of release of the products from the name. Without knowing computer history, please put the following products in order of release:

Windows Vista, Windows ME, Windows XP, Windows 98, Windows 3.1;
Visual Studio 2003, Visual Studio 6, Visual Studio.Net

(Of course, I expect

Re:Or maybe the XBox 4D?

[Xtravar (725372)]

They:
1. Release XBox360 slim (or with blu-ray...) then
2. Release XBox 4 and 'legitimately' call it '4'

The whole 360 thing was to have a number starting with 3 to compete with Sony.

So all still in 2008 then?

[loony (37622)]

Sounds like Microsoft will release a new xbox 360 in 2008 then. That way their statment holds true...

Peter.

The Overwhelming Response?

[BlueStrat (756137)]

A great big THANKYOU!

From all the "Red Circle Of Death"-experienced gamers everywhere!

I keed, I keed!

Cheers!

Strat

Translation...

[nick_davison (217681)]

'We don't want to say, "We're releasing a better version next year." and then have people refuse to buy the old units like they did with the HDMI thing. Especially as it would be for a full twelve months this time. That would really kill our lead against the other consoles in North America. So, uh, "We've got no plans!"'

It's almost certainly a lie. But they would be crazy to tell the truth and destroy their market until the new models did finally ship.

It's pretty much guaranteed Sony will ship new models too. Bigger hard drives, cooler processors, smaller cases, new skus with games bundled. There are always new stimuli to keep the market active. But no one in their right mind acknowledges their roadmap for the next 20 months (to the end of '09), screwing their current market with all the people who figure they'll just wait.

It's not just consoles. Canon releases a new xxxD camera every year or so, a new xxD camera every 18 months, pretty much like clockwork. And yet they refuse to announce the new model until the last possible moment, denying everything they can, so as not to trash the current prices. Look at what happened to the $3,000 Canon 5D that everyone assumed would have got a new revision in February. Even without a new rev turning up, discounting got so competetive on the assumption the old model was about to become obsolete that it now goes for a hair over $2,000. Even then, people like myself who'd still get a lot from the 5D are putting off their purchase, waiting for whatever its successor turns out to be or much lower 5D prices, rather than letting Canon shift stock now.

Re:

[Jeff DeMaagd (2015)]

I thought 5D was getting close to $2000 very early last year, not this year or late last year. I've found a thread in August 2006 about a then-price drop on that model. It's a model that I certainly wouldn't mind getting, though other priorities beckon.

Re:Recent games are putting pressure on them...

[desenz (687520)]

I think you guessed poorly. As someone in retail electronics, the vast majority of people have no idea what resolution means. Couple that with the higher and higher demands on performance PC hardware, and its an expensive proposition. Joe Majority is not going back to PC gaming, ever. And the majority is all that really matters here.

Re:

[GrpA (691294)]

I'm always suprised when I hear comments like this... Especially as I didn't suggest anything extreme such as "PC games were going to overtake consoles", but take a look at what the game designers are saying about Console Vs PC on google (takes a little searching).

What I was saying is that the PC architecture is still so far ahead of console that next-gen games will only play on PC. (And by Next-Gen, I mean games designed for the technology designed over the past two years).

The PC is already and likely perm

But why not plug gamepads into a PC?

[tepples (727027)]

conversely, games intended for console frequently don't make it to the PC. It's not that you can't play them - they just weren't designed for keyboard and mouse (and few people actually keep an X-box or PS2 like pad for their PC ).

I have six console-style gamepads that I can plug into my PC's USB ports (one PC-native, and adapters for three PS2, one N64, and one GameCube). Obviously, I'm an outlier, but why don't more people plug one or two gamepads into a PC?

So if you want to see where this is going, compare PCs that can run anything you can do on a console (assuming it's not an exclusive title) to older PS2 and Xbox's and you will see why the console's need to keep up also

A lot of console titles aren't "exclusive" in the sense of being exclusive to one console, but they never show up on Windows or Mac OS X despite being released on all three consoles and even one or both handhelds. Why is this the case?

Re:

[drsquare (530038)]

What I was saying is that the PC architecture is still so far ahead of console that next-gen games will only play on PC. (And by Next-Gen, I mean games designed for the technology designed over the past two years).

So what you mean is that games designed for the latest expensive PC graphics cards will only play on the latest expensive PC graphics cards? The problem is, most people have no interest in those cards, as well as all the other costs with gaming (more RAM, better processors, Windows Vista). Most pe

Re:

[tepples (727027)]

As someone in retail electronics, the vast majority of people have no idea what resolution means.

For most people, consoles are SDTV (or EDTV at best), and PCs are HDTV. The vast majority of monitors paired with new computers that I saw in Circuit City this week are 1280x720 or bigger, while plenty of TVs are stuck at what is effectively 320x480.

Re:Recent games are putting pressure on them...

[Chad Birch (1222564)]

I think you've got this entirely backwards. It's PC gaming that's in trouble, not the consoles. Average people have little to no interest in constantly upgrading their PCs just so the newest game will run, worrying about driver problems, patches, the current rash of DRM on PC games, etc. With an Xbox360 or PS3, they just come home with the game, put the disc in, and it starts. They didn't even have to look on the back of the box before they bought it to see if they needed to spend $200 on a new video card first. The reason it takes games like Assassin's Creed so long to come out for PC is because the PC version is almost an afterthought now, it's hardly even considered a major platform. Grand Theft Auto IV is probably the "biggest" game of the year, and last I saw it didn't even have a PC version planned. If you're a PC-exclusive gamer now, you're going to get left behind on a lot of the big games, and I only see this trend continuing in the future.

PC has freeware and shareware

[tepples (727027)]

If you're a PC-exclusive gamer now, you're going to get left behind on a lot of the big games

What about the little games? PCs running Windows or Mac OS X have games that are developed and self-published by microISVs [wikipedia.org]. Consoles, not nearly as many, at least until Microsoft figures out a way for all XNA Creators Club members to publish their games to the general public on Xbox Live Marketplace.

Re:

[Awptimus Prime (695459)]

Don't forget how you don't have to worry about little shits running around with wall hacks, transparency exploits and other things that tend to happen in the PC gaming world within a few months of a game's release.

Oh and don't get me started on how so many PC releases are bugfests for their first few weeks or months. Nothing sucks more than downloading a demo, seeing it run so-so with promises of fixes before it goes gold, then buy the game and it not work at all without either a lot of dicking around with

Re:

[ucblockhead (63650)]

Hot graphics don't make good gameplay, nor does it create market dominance. Nintendo is proving that quite handily. You might also have noticed that this year's DS has outsold the technically superior PSP.

I gave up on the PC gaming treadmill...though I am still quite happy playing 2004/2002/2000 era PC games. The graphics may be mediocre, but the gameplay is great.

Re:

[tepples (727027)]

they know that unless the conversion is a dud, the PC version is always going to be better and higher resolution...

But if you have friends over, how much do four copies of the PC version cost compared to one copy of the console version? Heck, not everybody who visits my house and wants to play video games owns a computer.