Hints at the Future of the Xbox 360 Emerge

CES has brought out quite a bit of news, for subjects across the tech industry. The future of the Xbox 360 seems to a subject Microsoft can't talk enough about. Gates' keynote touched on new media partnerships for Live Marketplace, like the collaboration with Disney/ABC. A post-keynote email to several games writers noted that 2008 will be the company's year to capitalize on strong hardware and software sales from the holiday season, and that several as-yet-unannounced exclusive 360 titles are in the works. Fans of the platform might still have some anxiety this year; a rumour on the 1up site indicates Microsoft is already working on a game for the next-next-gen console to bear the Xbox name.

Re:Next-Next-Gen

[mathletics]

Next gen isn't current gen until the current gen dies, and my PS2 is still kicking.

Re:Next-Next-Gen

[Anonymous Coward]

How about we call it "the successor to the Xbox 360" instead of "the next-next-gen console to bear the Xbox name". See how much easier that is?

Anxiety? Ummm OK...

[Is0m0rph]

"Fans of the platform might still have some anxiety this year; a rumour on the 1up site indicates Microsoft is already working on a game for the next-next-gen console to bear the Xbox name." You do know it takes years to develop new hardware right? They don't just produce it overnight. Of course MS as well as Sony and Nintendo are working on their next generation of consoles. It would be stupid of them not to be. Didn't Sony mention working on the PS4 before the PS3 was even released?

Promises of swimming while neck-deep in mud

[Anonymous Coward]

So while Xbox Live and Zune Marketplace are not working, they promise to put more stuff on it. I'm sure that will work.

Re:Where does it leave the PC?

[Erwos]

The low sales of Crysis are troubling. Doom 3 sold very well, and it was equally a system-killer. There is legitimate concern that PC game piracy is reaching epic proportions, enough to actually make game development unprofitable.

What???

[Itchyeyes]

Fans of the platform might still have some anxiety this year; a rumour on the 1up site indicates Microsoft is already working on a game for the next-next-gen console to bear the Xbox name.

Morons might have some anxiety over this. High profile games take years to develop, particularly when they're trying to meet a tentative launch date of a console that doesn't even have firm hardware specs in place.

The original Xbox was cut short because 1) it was a money losing platform for Microsoft and 2) because Microsoft saw launching before the PS3 as crucial to their success. While Microsoft is still having trouble making the 360 profitable, it's doing significantly better than the original Xbox was. As for #2, Microsoft is in no hurry to beat out the other two machines, which are only a year old right now and probably won't be replaced for at least another 4 years, at which point the 360 would be 6 years old.

You can practically guarantee that the 360 has, at the very least, 3 more years of life before Microsoft decides to replace it.

Re:Next-Next-Gen

[edwdig]

They actually remodeled the PS2 recently. In late November they announced a revision of the slim version that includes the power supply inside the unit.

I'd take that as a sign that they're still making them.

Re:What???

[AbRASiON]

Actually most of us 'hardcore' gamers would still like to see longer periods between consoles.

It's my firm belief the last generation was cut short by at LEAST a year before it needed to be, the PS2, GC and Xbox all were quite capable of outputting some fairly nice graphics in their final days, also 2 of the 3 had network capability, 2 of them could hold full DVD sized data (9gb) they had digital audio out (in most cases) supported 5.1 audio or pro logic 1 / 2 and all 3 could (in most cases) output via component in progressive scan, infact there was a small selection of high definition games to boot.

They were close to the end but I'm sure another 12 months, maybe 18 could have been comfortably squeezed out of them.
The Xbox obviously couldn't for financial reasons, this doesn't change the fact ,...that sucks for us - it was by far the most powerful console and some of it's top end games just looked great
The PS2 while fairly weak, people figured out, look at Shadow of the Colossus, God of War 2 etc - damn fine looking games
Gamecube, I don't know much about but I do believe some of the games also looked quite nice.

The thing is, I don't like dropping 700$ on a console, 200$ on accessories, 150$ on a couple of launch games every 4 or 5 years, I'd much prefer 'milking' my dollar out with 6 / 7 or even 8 year cycles, this also ensures the next console is damn well NEXT gen.

The Xbox 360 and PS3 both do look nice, no doubt but I don't think the leap was that great.
The graphical capabilities of both new HD consoles is obviously better but is it leaps and bounds better?
We're not just upping the ante with texture detail, polygons, quantity of multi-textures per surface, we're also increasing the resolution which impacts us 4x slower (well approximately)

We're already seeing HD games which are rendered at a lower resolution and upsampled by the onboard chips.
If they had waited another year, we'd have seen several good changes, possible examples.
HD-DVD in the 360 (forget the movie war for a moment!, this means not only more room for games but more DENSELY packed data, meaning slower spin speeds, meaning a QUIETER SYSTEM ala the PS3)
Arcade model possibly not existing?
Movement control in all 3 next gen systems (to clarify, I personally couldn't care about this)
HD capability on the Wii
Digital audio out on the Wii (WTF?)
Better online infrastructure.
The first year of the next gen consoles not being crap! (1 or 2 great games per system :/ )
More consoles on shelves at launch, especially the PS3 with it's blue diode issues
HDMI across all 3, following STANDARDS
etc.

I could speculate all day, to get back on point, it's my belief that yes, all 3 of these new consoles are too early (specifically the 360) and I'd like to NOT see a new system from anyone for at least 4 years from now, bare minimum or I simply won't be joining them.
(I also doubt the next gen will be backwards compatible, hence we need to milk this gen out thoroughly)