Next Generation Xbox To Be Called Xbox 360?

An anonymous reader writes "Gamesite Engadget has a story claiming via a trusted source that says the next generation Xbox (codename Xenon) will be called Xbox 360." From the article: "Our source, who has worked on several projects involving the Xbox and the Xbox 360, has seen the proposed packaging and other design elements for the new console..last year a marketing firm conducted a survey where they asked people whether they thought Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, or Nintendo N5 sounded more 'next-gen'."

related story

[drxray]

Sony to release Playstation 361.

Re:related story

[BoomerSooner]

Actually it will be the Playstation 720 with "Skate or Die!!!" written on the box. Or maybe not, who knows.

Re:related story

[KDR_11k]

And Nintendo will launch the Revolution with 1080: Freestyle?
If their controls are what they are claimed to be that might actually be a good idea...

Re:related story

[Grygonos]

Everyone who buys the goofy foot version will have to hold their controllers upside down.

Re:related story

[WWWWolf]

Actually it will be the Playstation 720 with "Skate or Die!!!" written on the box.

But at least that release won't be delayed because that'd mean Electronic Arts would have bought Sony to get dominion over everything sweet...

(I wonder why they haven't remade Skate or Die, or Ski or Die? Some of the few EA games I've really enjoyed... =)

Re:related story

[wed128]

They did, on the old grey PS1. It was called Skate or Destroy, and was released right about the time that Tony Hawks Pro Skater got popular. It failed.

Re:related story

[CableModemSniper]

Well if previous trends in computing are any indication, it will actually be the Playstation/370.

Re:related story

[b1t r0t]

Nintendo to release Gamecube 365. (366 on leap years)

New direction

[RasendeRutje]

Ah! So Microsoft is going a whole new direction with the XBox by turning 360 degrees!

Re:New direction

[hal2814]

No, it's actually going to be 360 times the size of the original.

Re:New direction

[escher]

Or 360 times more expensive -- they'll get away with it, too, because it will ship with Halo 3 - The Ending You Should Have Got With Halo 2

Re:New direction

[DavidLeblond]

No no no, I forsee Halo 3 being Halo 360.

Or maybe Halo XP or Halo.NET or Halo Server 2006...

Re:New direction

[Alkaiser]

Halo BOB. :)

Re:New direction

[Have Blue]

It'll be Halo 360 Extreme, because it'll be a skateboarding game.

Re:New direction

[jensen404]

Halo = Circle = 360 degrees Halo is the reason for the xbox's success.

Re:New direction

[superpulpsicle]

Damn they original xbox controllers were already 2x the size of my hands. And I have giant hands.

Re:New direction

[Jozer99]

Its the amount of money, in dollars, microsoft will lose on hardware when they sell it next year...

Obligatory Monty Python...

[irokitt]

Run away, run away, RUN AWAY!!!

Re:Obligatory Monty Python...

[saden1]

DON'T PANIC.

-HG2G.

Another quote

[Fr05t]

"last year a marketing firm conducted a survey where they asked people whether they thought Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, or Nintendo N5 sounded more 'next-gen'."

Also this marketing firm concluded the Xbox 360 name was, "So phat it was sick".

Re:Another quote

[biryokumaru]

along the same vein:

all those names sound about as next-gen as "delorean" or "teenage mutant ninja turtles" or "next-gen"

I like XBox Delorean myself

[AtariAmarok]

"all those names sound about as next-gen as "delorean""

especially the gull-wing DVD loading bay. Don't have a wall-plug? No worry. Mr. Fusion is built in. Just feed it any old garbage such as your Microsoft EULA printouts, it it is good to go.

Really...

[hal2814]

...Microsoft released X-Boxen 2 - 358 already and they just didn't catch on.

So, it will run...

[renehollan]

OS/360, OS/VM?

(I am soooo dating myself.)

A pun revived

[fm6]

They probably had the same idea IBM had: "We'll call it the 360 because it's an all-around system!" (The System 360 was the first computer with byte-level addressing, breaking down the distinction between "Scientific" and "Business" computers.) I wonder if IBM will sue?

Re:So, it will run...

[wandazulu]

More importantly, will it have a model wearing a plaid miniskirt and beehive hairdo smiling, extolling how she can now service multiple jobs at the same time?

Re:So, it will run...

[mrseigen]

The scary part is that since it's CPU is IBM-based, it might just.

Re:So, it will run...

[renehollan]

Because apparently, no one else will.

No, I don't think my wife would like that, and my kids would likely be confused.

"Mommy: do people come apart like machines?" "No." "Then why is Daddy on the phone bragging about how he screwed the ass off his secretary?"

skipped a few version numbers?

[j0nb0y]

I thought it was bad when they went from Windows 3 to Windows 95.

Re:skipped a few version numbers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try 4.0 to 2000...

Anderson Cooper 360

[AtariAmarok]

The 360 thing is so "trendy" just like 24/7 was a year and a half ago. If this was 1984, they'd call it "XBox XT"

Re:Anderson Cooper 360

[moosesocks]

A few years ago I realized that my brand new Dell laptop had XT as the last two characters in the model number.

I chuckled silently to myself and then realized how damn geeky I was.

but, wow. what a great machine....IBM XT was my first computer (in 1995 nonetheless). good times good times

Re:Anderson Cooper 360

[PhotoBoy]

I actually took part in the market research for the name (I got an email invite to partticipate from a GameSpot "affiliate") and Xbox 247 was actually one of the potential names, along with 360, FS, HD and a few others I can't remember anymore.

Turning

[Chemisor]

The new Xbox is a really drastic 360 degree change in direction!

What's up with the Circles?

[stpitner]

As soon as I heard the word "XBox 360" it made me think "XBox Revolution" and then thoughts of Nintendo's codename ran through my head for their next product. Maybe all of their games will make you start spinning around and around until you're so dizzy you won't know what price you're paying to buy every game they have.

I understand why they don't want to call it XBox 2, and I agree with that. It does sound behind the times. Maybe for "Xbox 3" it will be XBox 1024x768 or who knows what.

Re:What's up with the Circles?

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

My suggestion:

"Xbox 2*Pi Radians"

Doesn't "radian" sound high-tech and next-gen (well, provided you don't know what it means)?

Re:What's up with the Circles?

[Detritus]

IBM had a series of ruggedized/military derivatives of the IBM 360 that were labeled "4Pi". They were used by the USAF and NASA.

Re:What's up with the Circles?

[DarkMantle]

But then people will think it's Made by ATI

Re:What's up with the Circles?

[Guppy06]

Because only Microsoft could call something round "box" and get away with it. :)

Re:What's up with the Circles?

[Destoo]

Not only circles.. A box can be a cube...

XBOX 360 = GAMECUBE REVOLUTION

X = GAME !

And the next release of MS Windows will be...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

and the next release of MS Windows will be called "Windows 980"

Re:And the next release of MS Windows will be...

[bob_jordan]

Windows 980?

I think you are mixing that up with the requirements.

Windows 980meg minimum memory required.

Bob.

Roman Numerals?

[L. VeGas]

I always assumed it would be called XIBox.

Oh God!

[alamandrax]

Let this not be an obscure refrence to the UPN show [dance360.net] with Kel and the other dude.

Re:Oh God!

[Stubtify]

Dance 360 is one of those shows where you can't stop watching it because its amazing that a show like this one:

a. got green-lighted

b. is still running successfully

c. has hosts who haven't killed themselves.

seriously, its one of the funniest shows I've EVER seen, only because its so obviously bad and pretends is not.

And then the next one after that will be...

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

The X-Box AS/400.

Out Tufnel-ing Spinal Tap

[babbage]

last year a marketing firm conducted a survey where they asked people whether they thought Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, or Nintendo N5 sounded more 'next-gen'.

Is this Microsoft's version of David Tufnel's classic "Spinal Tap" bit in which he shows off his special guitar amp that was custom-made for him by Marshall and is better than the regular version, because it goes to eleven.

"The 360 is better, innit? Because, you see, it's 355 more than the N5, and 357 more than the PS3."

All they need are exploding drummers and the circle (ahem) will be complete...

Re:Out Tufnel-ing Spinal Tap

[AndrewHowe]

Nigel Tufnel! The other guitarist/singer was David St. Hubbins.

Re:Out Tufnel-ing Spinal Tap

[babbage]

D'oh! Brain fart. Yes, you're right of course...

Guess I need to go watch that movie again :-)

Ah yes... marketspeek

[the_skywise]

XBox 360 - It's a box.. so it's square... but it's 360, so its a sphere!

It's square AND it's round!

It's mindboggling kewl that it can do two things at once!

(I'm willing to bet somebody in Microsoft suggested XBox '05 but got shot down because that would confuse people who thought it was the 5th XBox version...)

Re:Ah yes... marketspeek

[dmneoblade]

I wanna go bowling with the Xbox sphere!

Re:Ah yes... marketspeek

[cgenman]

360 degrees is not a sphere, but a circle. And if you have a circle and a square, what you have is a column. Or rather, what you have is columns, the half-assed game Sega made to compete with the stroke of genius Tetris. And we all know that Tetris means the third new year (Tris for 3, Tet for Vietnamese new year). Now a GNU year implies that IBM will be doing well, and that the console manufacturer whom they supply will be doing well. But the third? Obviously their third string console manufacturer w

Clearly Microsoft stole the idea...

[ikewillis]

...from the Okama GameSphere

No XBox 1337?

[justforaday]

I'm surprised they're not calling it the XBox 1337...

Re:No XBox 1337?

[selderrr]

how nerd can you be : when I see 1337 on a computerscreen, I'm simply not capable anymore to see it as a number... It's impossible to read it outside l33tspeak.

OMG... i n33d pr0f3ssion4l help->$this... any1 3ls h4v3 $this s7ndr0m ?

For those who dont read L33T..

[AzraelKans]

(lucky you) 3=E 6=G 0=0

360=EGO

XBOX: EGO

Doesnt sound so bad actually..

Now we can start with the "leggo my xbox ego" jokes!

Anyway Im not buying this is the actual name, looks more like a marketting campaign (a la "who are you"?) to me.

p.s. You have to remember XBOX2 is suposed to be made with the japanese market in mind, does 360 mean something in japanese culture?

Re:For those who dont read L33T..

[th3walrus]

does 360 mean something in japanese culture?

Uh, yes. It's the number of degrees in a full circle. Just like in the rest of the world thanks to Babylonian mathematics!

360?

[briankoenig]

I always thought "Xbox Next" was the best....has a nice ring to it.

Re:360?

[FLAGGR]

NeXTBox is cooler. It could run NeXTBOX as its OS, and then those crazy gnu's could make openBox and OPENBOX and a whole whack of crazy naming schemes. Then Apple would buy out MS's xbox division, and make the xbox not look ugly. But it would cost 4000$. People would complain. Then they'd come out with a 499$ version. People would complain that they can get a Nintendo Revolution 2 for cheaper, but savvy readers would notice you get more games bundled with the OSXbox, and that it comes with more controllers.

Re:360?

[gl4ss]

*. People would complain that they can get a Nintendo Revolution 2 for cheaper, but savvy readers would notice you get more games bundled with the OSXbox, and that it comes with more controllers. *

then they would notice that the 499$ version doesn't come with controllers at all - but it doesn't matter according to some guys on the internet because you already have controllers from your old xbox and snes.

memory card upgrade is also a ripoff.

Re:360?

[b1t r0t]

Except the controllers it didn't come with only had one button, just like the Atari 2600. First they gripe that the controller only has one button, then they gripe that they're forced to choose their own damn controller. There's just no satsifying the slashbots.

Too much!

[memco]

Ack! Do you realize the overload that would occur if both Apple and Nintendo were competing in the same market? The paradox of having to choose one over the other is mind boggling!

Re:360?

[LWATCDR]

How about XLongBoxHorn?

Should have been

[eamonman]

Xbox 365. It'd be cooler, I think, and remind you how MS thinks you should use their product(s).

Re:Should have been

[toddhunter]

Not so much how much you should use their product(s), more how often you should be paying them.

Well of course!

[Low2000]

"last year a marketing firm conducted a survey where they asked people whether they thought Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, or Nintendo N5 sounded more 'next-gen'."

Well of COURSE they would pick Xbox 360 if those where the only choices. The only other options would result in copyright infringement. Even the strong legal arm of MS would be no match for that kind of blatant usage of competitor trademark!

In Related News...

[Grygonos]

Microsoft announced that they will be dropping the standard polygon approach in favor of using a new CircularSDK. Release titles are said to include the mystify screensaver for windows 3.1

hmm .. this has to be a joke.

[AzraelKans]

After thinking about it a bit more. I think this has to be a joke or a fake of somekind.

360 is a revolution (obviously), so it means: Xbox revolution pun intended no the Nintendo revolution console.

Xbox360.com is already registered to someone with a yahoo mail address so all this theory seems pretty unlikely.

I think X2, XNXT or Xenon seems like more possible choices.

Re:hmm .. this has to be a joke.

[ZephyrXero]

That's not really a very good assumption being that somebody bought gamecube.com before Nintendo announced it. Probably just some dumbass hoping to get lucky...

Re:hmm .. this has to be a joke.

[Destoo]

(redundanting myself, but heck, it's a silly topic)
XBOX 360 vs. Gamecube revolution

And a box is a cube... meaning X = GAME!

Re:hmm .. this has to be a joke.

[Thuktun]

Xbox360.com is already registered to someone with a yahoo mail address

Yeah, that would stop Microsoft from using it.

around and around in

[mkop]

Circles like always

Now For the Mathematicians

[blueZhift]

If you're more mathematically inclined you can think of it as Xbox 2pi! And since pi is a transcendental number, you've got your tag line ready made.

"Xbox 2pi, playing in another dimension!"

Or something like that...Yeah, it's a reach.

Re:Now For the Mathematicians

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Don't forget the rap version of it: "2-Pi Shakur."

Not bad

[Washizu]

Not a bad name, but the YBox would have been better.

Re:Not bad

[|/|/|||]

Yeah, and then we can hope that after "ZBox" they'll give up 'cause they're out of letters.

Re:Not bad

[Washizu]

I'm sure the BufferOverflowBox would follow the ZBox.

Re:Not bad

[GreenHell]

No, then they'll move on to the YuzzBox.

Re:Not bad

[Bloomy]

No, after the Zbox comes the [box.

i had a feeling

[yesacs]

I used to work for a design/marketing firm (not telling, sorry, but you know their work), and over the summer I started to see packaging specs and comps referring to the xbox 360. At the time, I thought it was for a possible xbox redesign. That was the last i saw, because after some stuff started to leak, only certain people in the company were allowed in the rooms were they were just printing stuff. I think xbox f5 (like refresh, i guess) or fs (couldn't tell because of the font) were in there too.

Typical reaction...

[NanoGator]

... nearly all Game System names sound stupid at first. PlayStation, DreamCast, XBOX, GameBoy, 3DO (D'oh! D'oh! D'oh!)...

Silly names

[fwitness]

I bring this up a lot too. People forget how odd the names sound once they become mainstream. Howver, I like the PlayStation name from day 1, and still do. Dreamcast was a little silly but ok. The XBox always sounded silly to me. (X is an unknown, and we put it in a box:Unknown stuff innabox?). 3DO had some meaning to somebody, but not to me.

The GameBoy though. Absolutely great name for the original product. However, it's time for an upgrade on that. You can't be 30 in todays society and be seen as

Re:Silly names

[Txiasaeia]

I understand the need for these companies to distinguish themselves from each other, but seriously, why not XBox 2? The Playstation 2 didn't suffer in popularity because of the reused name, and certainly nobody's going to buy or not buy a console because of the coolness/geekiness of a title, right?

But I agree with you on the Gameboy. Unless they pull a Street Fighter on the name (Gameboy Advanced Ultra Turbo Edition), it's gotta end someday. How about GameChild? GameDancer? GameBlade? SuperBoy?

Fake

[Dixie Flatliner]

Their source is either wrong or mistaken, the aforementioned survey was distributed by Edelman PR Worldwide, on retainer by Sony Japan. The Playstation 3 is the only real system moniker, the "Xbox 360" being a joke, referencing past Sony comments that Microsoft wasn't so much taking the system (Xbox 2) in a new direction, but in fact just turning in circles (paraphrased from memory). And N5 being simply the Fifth home console evolution in the Nintendo line. Both are fake.

Re:Fake

[White Roses]

We must move forward, not backward, upward, not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.

Re:Fake

[yesacs]

I don't know... Do you have a source for that? It looks to me that Edelman is all about the xbox, just google them. I don't think anyone knows what the name is really going to be, I know that xbox 360 is one of them (check previous post). And why would Sony care about PS3 sounding futuristic enough when we all know that was M$'s big fear with calling it xbox 2

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd think if they were going to go with this name, they would've snapped up the domain name. This guy picked it up over a year ago.

This whois service shows the information for .COM and .NET domains
only if they are registered thru DotRegistrar.com. For ORG, .BIZ, .US
.INFO and.NAME domains, the information is displayed regardless of
the sponsoringregistrar for said domains.The fact that your query
returns "NOT FOUND" does not necessarily mean thatthe domain
may be available for registration. To search all do

Re:Really?

[Leadhyena]

You'd think if they were going to go with this name, they would've snapped up the domain name. This guy picked it up over a year ago. With Microsoft's awe-inspiring litigious power, let's see if he keeps it.

Better XBOX name...

[softspokenrevolution]

How about Next-Box, I mean come on, it has the word next in the name, you can't get more 'next gen' unless you were put gen somewhere in the name, but such actions would explode men's minds.

360 degrees

[bynary]

I call BS. The Xbox is...a box. 360 is the number of degrees in a circle. So it's going to be a round box? Think about it.

Note the picture in the article...

360

[BlueLightning]

Tony Vivaldi: What is this, Benedict?! First you're my friend; now you turn a... 360 on me!
Benedict: 180, you stupid, spaghetti-slurping cretin -- *180*! If I did a 360, I'd go completely around and end up back where I started!
Tony Vivaldi: What?
Benedict: Trust me!
[shoots him]

Still better sounding then Windows XP

[cyrax777]

as in the windows Experience.

Re:Still better sounding then Windows XP

[Thuktun]

I thought it meant "Xtra Patches".

XBox 360

[OneIsNotPrime]

Roll it over to a friend's house for some on the go fun!

My friend's name...

[BTWR]

My friend's name for the XBox sequel...

"XBox 95"

Degrees?

[__aafkqj3628]

If these guys were REAL engineers it'd be the XBOX 2?.

Re:Degrees?

[__aafkqj3628]

2pi then, damn you encoding!

The funny rumor I heard

[syntap]

was that the game "discs" will be squares.

Re:A better name...

[OK PC]

Nevermind beaten to it!

Re:My preferences over Xbox 360

[CaptainTux]

You forgot the most logical of all (since it's Microsoft): X.NET