Why Microsoft's Keeping the Next Xbox Under Wraps 195
donniebaseball23 writes "Microsoft recently confirmed that it's not going to be talking at all about its next Xbox, codenamed Durango, at this year's E3, instead keeping the focus on Xbox 360. Forbes columnist Chris Morris explains that Microsoft likely doesn't have games to show for the system yet — and why should they take the focus off Xbox 360, which currently has a lot of momentum? Ultimately, though, the decision not to show the next system 'could have a ripple effect on the rest of the industry,' he says. And by pushing Durango's unveiling back a year, 'Microsoft could find itself going head to head with Sony in a battle of features, even if the machines don't hit shelves at the same time.'"
The latest rumor is that an ARM-based Xbox 'lite' is planned for 2013, with a true successor to the 360 coming some time after that.
My personal opinion (Score:4, Insightful)
The last generation surprised everyone on the console front. Hardcore gamers kept playing with PS3 and Xbox360, but Wii ultimately won the round by attracting general population into gaming. Suddenly you had millions of new people introduced into gaming, especially girls. While Microsoft has always produced quality products and by far they are the best on the industry on lots of products, they don't know how to capture that market. They want it badly, but they want to look how Nintendo succeeds with their Wii successor. By delaying the release they can learn from Nintendo's mistakes and hit them hard next year and become the #1 of next generation consoles.
Re:My personal opinion (Score:5, Informative)
Well, the red ring of death would seem to indicate that MS's gear isn't always the highest quality...
Re:My personal opinion (Score:5, Informative)
I recall that Microsoft did everything they could to deny the issue (including telling retailers not to process returns) until the magnitude of the problem became so obviously large that a hardware redesign and recall was required. Were you around Slashdot back then? It was full of stories about that. I do think we are partly to blame for them finally owning up to it, quietly though that was.
As for the PS3, I have no idea how Sony handles it, but that may be because I don't purchase Sony products anymore. Nintendo has excellent customer service according to the reviews I've seen, although I nor nobody I know ever had to send their Wii in for service - even after blatant abuse by children, animals, drunk roommates etc.
Re:My personal opinion (Score:5, Informative)
The red ring of death issue was majorly overestimated...
I do, however, appreciate Microsoft's honesty and not trying to hide the issues from users.
Wow. Why do you shill for MS?
From Tech Digest [www.techdigest.tv] - A survey of retailers has found that as many as 30 percent of all Xbox 360s are being returned for repair. This goes against Microsoft's assertion that Xbox 360 is well within standard industry failure rates of 3 - 5 percent.
From HCW [www.hardcoreware.net] After vehemently denying there being a problem, Microsoft has finally caved in and extended the warranty of the XBOX 360 another 3 years across the board, for those who have the RED RING OF DEATH problem.
I could go on and on and on... Use google and see how MS really treated their customers when the RROD was first reported.
Re:My personal opinion (Score:4, Informative)
I could go on and on and on... Use google and see how MS really treated their customers when the RROD was first reported.
Yeah, if you actually called them and didn't gripe to your friends on the Internet, or try to pitch a fit at the store, they replaced them. And did so very quickly. (The early failure repairs were 2-day in-and-out shipping, and if you had it to UPS first thing Monday, you frequently had it back before the weekend.)
A lot of companies got burned during that time by the switch to no-lead solder... and Microsoft, unlike a lot of consumer electronics companies, stood behind their devices.
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Re:My personal opinion (Score:4, Informative)
I always heard it was the last-minute addition of the HDD unit destroying the airflow on the system slowly (or quickly depending upon who you asked) cooking the GPU and melting it off the mobo.
Microsoft's last minute addition of the HDD at the top of the unit did muck with the airflow, and I think they made a "command" decision to release it flawed (knowing it was flawed) rather than not be "first" this generation. It cost them money for sure, but in my case, it cost a ton of goodwill... I will not be an early adopter of another Microsoft console. And I'm sure I'm not alone...
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Wow. Why do you shill for MS?
Usual deal, morons have to label anything they don't agree with to do with Microsoft as 'shilling'. Do you actually know what that means? If so do you really truly believe that MS is paying people to write comments like that on a site like this? You're really that stupid?
I could go on and on and on...
But of course then you'd find all the conflicting reports, and you wouldn't want that now would you.
estimate by warranty provider SquareTrade to be 23.7%
estimate being 54.2% by a Game Informer survey
SquareTrade published an examina
Re:My personal opinion (Score:4, Informative)
Really? An estimated 33% of Xbox 360s were sent back for repairs and you think it's overestimated because it has some lights on the front? Both the Wii and PS3 have hundreds of error codes, along with warning lights and beeps that inform the user of a problem.
Three vs. four red quadrants (Score:3)
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Microsoft lied & denied about the RROD for a full three years until the threat of a very public lawsuit forced them to admit the problem.
Not what I would call being honest.
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Microsoft lied & denied about the RROD for a full three years until the threat of a very public lawsuit forced them to admit the problem.
Not what I would call being honest.
Even if you were to take it from the very first release date up until the official open letter about it was published that still falls well short of 2 years, much less 3. Not saying that's ok but suggesting it was 3 years is a bit of a stretch.
The Xbox 360 was released on November 22, 2005, in the United States and Canada. [wikipedia.org]
On July 5, 2007, the Vice-President of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business division published an open letter recognizing the console's problems [wikipedia.org]
Re:My personal opinion (Score:5, Funny)
The red ring of death issue was majorly overestimated, and you know why? Because Xbox360 actually does show error messages on failure while PS3 and Wii do not. It became it's image, just like the blue screen of death. Image wise it would had been better for MS to just show nothing in both cases. I do, however, appreciate Microsoft's honesty and not trying to hide the issues from users.
Because the PS3s and Wiis kept failing, and their owners cluelessly continued using them and enjoying their games until this day for many of the consoles?
As opposed to the Xbox 360 developing the RROD which you otherwise could have mistaken for normal operation in some cases as early as 3 to 6 months after purchase, and often repeatedly after getting it back from RMA, and being such a fiasco that the warranty was retroactively increased to 3 years?
Hmm you have a point I guess, or not.
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I guess no one remembers the PlayStation (PSOne) drive failures etc etc? Or the PS2 disk read errors? I've been on slashdot well over a decade now (think I first hit this place in about 1999), and there was just as much bitching about the PSOne and PS2 and PS3 as there ever has been about the Xbox360 - the failure modes are different, but because the Xbox360 errors came in a clump they seem to stick in peoples minds more.
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So it would seem that spinning electronic stuff in a toy environment is always going to be problematic.
Maybe M$ is holding off on Xbox until such time as storage media and content distribution media all go solid state. Waiting for flash drives to hit a better price point.
Everything can be on the thumb drive, game content and saved games, don't need a large internal data storage device, a relatively small one will do.
No hard drives or optical drives substantially reduce console footprint and simplify
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Re:My personal opinion (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, okay dude.
I don't actually know anyone that hasn't had to replace their Xbox 360 console at least once due to it either getting the RRoD or that bullshit where it just stops reading the fucking discs. I'm on my third, the first one died 2 years after purchase, sent it in and got it replaced, it died again about a year and half later (just after the 3 year extended warranty, of course), so I had to purchase a new one out of pocket since obviously I'm not about to just say fuck it when I've got like 40 games and a ton of accessories for it. Now that one is even making a grinding sound and taking forever to load discs so I'm sure I'm going to have to replace that one soon, too. At least I can keep using it as a Netflix box, I guess, but considering I've invested already $700+ dollars into it ($500 for the Elite that died, $200 for the replacement Arcade unit), that does little to soften the blow.
My PS3 and Wii are both still going strong 5 years later. My Playstation 2 is still going strong (although I admit I had to readjust the laser height at one point) and I bought that at least 10 years ago, my N64 still works at 15 years old, my SNES, NES, and Gameboy still work, they're all over 20 years old. Hell, my original Xbox even still works (although I hardly ever use it, not since I last played through KOTOR 1 & 2 a year or so ago in preparation for The Old Republic).
My point is, obviously there is something different about the 360 when all these other consoles are still going strong after so many years (and I put more hours than I can count on some of them, I'm big into JRPGs, so my PS2 had many, many 12 hour days, as did my SNES). Meanwhile, it seems like you fucking breathe on a 360 funny and the thing self-destructs.
I admit, I don't know what the quality is like with the newest consoles with the redesigned cases and ventilation and everything, but Microsoft really screwed the pooch with their older models. Either that, or it's all a ploy to get us to buy the same fucking console over and over again, in which case I'd say they succeeded spectacularly. I know one thing, I'll be damned if I buy the next one right away. I'm giving them at least 2 years to get the kinks worked out first because lord knows they're probably going to need it. I'm not even a Microsoft hater, I've put a lot of hours on my 360, but nowhere near what I've put on those older consoles, and certainly not enough to justify it's ridiculous failure rate even just in my own personal experiences, and like I said, I don't know anyone that has had a vastly different experience than I have with the hardware.
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I own an xbox 360 Elite from when that was new and I have never had an issue with it. So anecdote for anecdote we seem to be even.
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That's fine, it's not a competition. I don't care what other people do, I'm just relating the reason why I think the claim that the incidence of RRoD is "majorly overestimated" is ridiculous. Like I said, it's not just me, it's pretty much every single person I know that's got a 360 has had to replace it at least once (I know one guy on his 5th, which is insane in my opinion), but people are going to believe what they want.
Maybe we should all have our heads examined for buying multiple Xbox 360's in the f
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OoooOOoo... can I play too? My brother's on his third xbox 360. The best part was, he worked at UPS and shipped the units back and forth all day long. He said the volume was staggering. The reason he knew is that people getting their Xbox back would usually be at school during the day so they'd get a UPS "We were here, you were not" sticky on their door. Rather than waiting for the next day delivery, the kids/teens would make their parents go to the local distribution center to pick it up in the evening tha
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Re:My personal opinion (Score:5, Insightful)
If they don't steal some core players from MS and Sony, they're sunk this time around. they need to out-power the big boys and deliver some adult games that compete with the exclusives that Sony and MS own.
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Xenoblade, Last Story, Monster Hunter Tri
See, now, that's precisely the problem. Even their good games sound like stupid kids games from the 80's. Maybe they should make the translations from Japanese a bit less literal...
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Nah, Nintendo couldn't care less about older gamers. Their target audiences are children, teens and young adults. They can continue to re-release effectively the exact same game over and over forever to this group because the group it's self it transitory.
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it's self it...
Wow. Even for slashdot, that's quite some mangling!
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If they don't steal some core players from MS and Sony, they're sunk this time around.
Because if there's one thing that the recent success of the Wii, games on mobile devices, and the move to freemium models has shown us, it's that the market for casual gamers is much smaller than the market for "core" gamers.
No, wait. I have that backwards.
As much as I would LOVE to think otherwise, the fact is that casual gamers outnumber hardcore gamers by a wide margin, they're quickly becoming worth more to the companies making games, and companies have no need to cater to us if they want to succeed. In
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and normal people are getting frustrated by the difficulty of dealing with consoles that require constant firmware updates and patches. They want an appliance, not a computer.
Actually computers still let you work while they are downloading upgrades. They also let you choose when you want to get your upgrades. And what irritates console gamers the most, from what I gather, is being forced to wait while a full Gb of updates is downloaded just so they can play their games (I still hold a grudge, Heavy Rain). I have a 512Kbps connection - and a very unstable one, to boot -, so a console like that would be highly impractical for me.
Anyway, my point is that you kind of got it backward
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I don't disagree with what you said. Traditional computers are definitely about giving users control, whereas appliances are not. That said, I think that's a discussion along a different axis than where I had intended to go. The axis I was talking about was the level of hassle. Computers, because they give users more control, also offer more nuisances than locked-down devices. That's just the nature of the beast.
Appliances are supposed to be things that you simply use without having to think about the detai
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I think Live and PSN 'panned out' just fine, and the complex consoles did fine, even with lower sales than the wii. They built customer base for this gen coming up, and had games that warranted more than 15 minutes' play. I don't think N
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I don't disagree with most of what you said, but I think you misunderstood some of what I said. Let me clarify.
I do disagree regarding game sales for the Wii mattering as much as you say. The lack of sell-through on games isn't, I believe, as much of an issue as we might hope. I know a few different people with Wii consoles, and the only one getting dusty is mine. All of the others see regular use with their older games. A group of light-gaming college guys I know still play Super Smash Bros. Brawl regularl
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The Wii wasn't underpowered at launch. It was correctly powered. The PS3 and 360 were over powered. That is the reason that so many more Wiis sold than PS3/360s. The PS3/360 was way too expensive for the market because they tried to pack in too powerful of a system. The power of the PS3/360 would have been properly sized for 2 or 3 years l
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A handful, yes. I also have a few original Xbox games as well and no way to play those either.
These days, in addition to new games I love picking up games that passed by me the first time and playing them, and I plan those purchases out well in advance. I knew I wanted to play these games years ago, so when I spotted good deals on eBay, I went ahead and picked them up, knowing that I'd eventually pick up a 360 (or a later device with the same compatibility) when the price was right. All told, I doubt I've s
Re:My personal opinion (Score:4, Interesting)
Nintendo proved that you could sell an underpowered console at a profit from day one and still make piles of money. Apple and numerous Android manufacterers have shown that you can sell a nifty device at a decent profit margin and satisfy millions of people with $1 games.
Yeah, if anything I think it's the other way around. Casual gamers are often very casual - a $1 smartphone/tablet game may be enough, why get a $200-300 console? In 2006 there really weren't many other casual gaming options except flash games, in 2013 there are plenty. Hell, sometimes they drive an insanely crazy bargain against themselves, for example I got Hector: Badge of Carnage for the iPhone and it's a steal for $3 - actually 3x$1 so you can try it for a dollar, as opposed to paying $19,99 on the Telltalegames site. I can get Angry Birds [amazon.co.uk] for the PC at a bargain price of only 6.47 GBP. It's like they don't want to sell for the PC at all unless you're hemorrhaging money.
As for the xbox/ps3, I think they both know the next generation will last much longer than this one - just look at graphics card reviews and how far they have to crank it up to 2560x1600 at Ultra/Extreme/Enthusiast/Maximum quality level and the most punishing AA modes to show the difference. The next gen consoles will have full HD and "enough" shaders for a 1920x1080 screen and will not be outdated for at least a decade. They're waiting because they want to have a little edge over the other - better to have an edge in 10 years than be first to the market for 1 year. Microsoft couldn't honestly couldn't care about their positioning relative to the Wii U, it's their positioning relative to the PS4 that matters to them.
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The Wii came out in 2006, and the world was a very different place then. The iPhone didn't exist, GOG didn't exist, even Steam had just started making third-party games available. There was no cheap and e
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I think I agree with everything you said, except the reason for your post. :P
The point I was trying to make by pulling the quote I did was that I do not believe it is necessary for Nintendo to cater to hardcore gamers to succeed (i.e. it was not my intention to suggest Nintendo is in a solid spot, merely that they have other viable options than catering to hardcore gamers). It's reasonable that they could establish a successful business plan that caters exclusively to casual gamers. They helped to demonstra
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Also, thanks for the post! I love reading well-considered responses.
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And believe it or not, the games that are really cheap on GOG now were _not_ cheap when they first came out in the 90s. Of course like now you could save quite a lot if you were willing to wait and get them used (or just decided to pirate them,) but the people who bought them new were paying a lot of money. I believe PC games went for around $3
Re:My personal opinion (Score:4, Interesting)
Wii won in unit sales
And turned a profit on every unit sold.
but they have turned a generation off
That "turned off generation" already abandoned them on the gamecube. But nintendo found a whole new market of people to replace them.
continued rehashes of old franchises.
Lets see what's most anticipated according to gamestop's website:
Assassin's Creed III
Another Ghost Recon
Witcher 2
Borderlands 2
Tiger Woods PGA 13
Another Star Wars Game
Halo 4
Prototype 2
Warriors Orochi 3
Darksiders II
Resident Evil 6
Another Bioshock
Max Payne 3 (with BONUS!)
Sniper Elite 2
Dragons Dogma * first game that is not a continued rehash of an existing franchise?
Another Medal of Honor
Lollipop Chainsaw * second game that is not an existing franchise
Far Cry 3
Yep, continued rehashes of old franchises for the win. And a near uninterupted parade of FPS games. How is it you are not turned off by the xbox360?
they need to out-power the big boys and deliver some adult games
Why is that? There aren't enough Medals of Honors and Halo's on your xbox that you'd buy a wii 2.0 to play even more of them?
Hate to break it to you, but Nintendo already lost you. Pandering to you with a parade of FPSes featuring giant robots that dismember alien zombie hookers isn't really going to win you back... that market is saturated.
Going after new markets is a winning strategy... New Super Mario Bros Wii is probably one of the best games I've ever played. Super Paper Mario and Super Mario Galaxy were great too. The Metroid Primes were well done,and Kirby's epic yarn was pretty much adorable, and the kids loved them all too.
Re:My personal opinion (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately a lot of the hotly anticipating games you used as an example are not for the Wii.
That would be because I went to gamestops most anticipated releases for Xbox 360 page.
Where all I saw was a list of "continued rehashes of old franchises"... which is what the OP was complaining about being "the problem" with the Wii.
The top 2 games on the list for the Wii were both new IPs from what i could tell which was interesting, but the rest of the list was sequels and movie tie ins.
But my point wasn't that Wii games aren't largely sequels... because they are. My point was that singling out sequals as being a wii problem is absurd, given the xbox 360 list is almost nothing but sequels too.
Sure Nintendo has Mario Bros, Metroid, and Kirby franchises but the existence of these franchises isn't enough to counter the larger number and much more popular and profitable titles that are coming out on the PS3 and Xbox 360.
Which all appeal to primarily to people like the OP. That's all they play, that's all they want to play. Nintendo jumping in to the "15-30 year old boy who wants to play a supersoldier" fray with a hey look-at-me-too title isn't going to work.
It will alienate the base they cater to and grew with with the Wii... and the 15-30 old guy with with his xbox live gold account is going to sneer at it no matter what it does... if they make even one mario title it'll be etched in their minds as the kiddie-platform that they don't want their freinds to even know they ever enjoyed.
Nintendo is right to forge a different path.
I do agree the hardware really should be stronger this next round - HD is a must now. But not being able to play all the non-exclusive titles that are heavily marketed at the xbox/ps3 crowd isn't really hurting it. Even if the Wii was equal to a ps3 or xbox... do you really think its going to be the platform of choice for the CoD crowd?
I don't.
Re:My personal opinion (Score:5, Insightful)
Wii won in unit sales, but they have turned a generation off with a (yes, huge-selling) fad device and continued rehashes of old franchises.
And, more to the point, lost *badly* in game sales. There are a LOT of people with Wii consoles, and most of them have Wii Sports and maybe another game or two.
That didn't put Nintendo out of business, as they don't sell the Wii at a loss, but it sure limits the upside of each sale. Sony and MS make dramatically more money per console sold, because they sell so many more games per console.
Ya I've noticed two thigns about Wiis (Score:2)
First is that they tend to be an "and a" console. Meaning people seem to own one of the others "and a Wii". Ok, nothing wrong with that, but it does seem to be that it isn't so much competing and taking away the market for the other two, but living along with them. That does, of course, mean fighting in terms of getting game sales. People may well elect to buy for their other console.
Second thing I've noticed is they don't seem to get used that much both by the people who have multiple consoles, and those t
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If they can release at the same time Xbox360 lite and the 720 then they are in a good position. First game sellers will still sell their old stuff for all those people who got the 360 lite where they were just too expensive before and the Hardcore will get the 720.
Microsoft made a fare amount of ground against
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It's highly debatable whether the Wii really "won" anything in this generation. The Wii hard great hardware sales at the beginning, but its software attachment rates were awful, it's hardware sales eventually bottomed out (while the PS3 and 360 kept going strong), and with its weak online system it had no real way to make significant income from DLC and subscriptions (just think about how much MS makes each year off of Xbox Live alone).
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If there's anybody to be blamed for the Wii losing momentum, it's the third parties. They saw the Wii was selling out, and there was a huge untapped market, and they released... Rehashes, ports, and shovelware. Nintendo can only do so much in terms of software production, and there was a lot of money on the table for third parties to develop a decent game for the Wii. So what did they do? They chose to leave that money on the table, and piss away their money developing 'blockbuster' titles for the PS3
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it was a fad
other than nintendo fanboys it was people like me buying the wii fit and EA Sports Active and that's it. the fit board sucked and now i have an x-box with kinect
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I think it comes down to one thing, why replace a money maker, the buzz about Kinect has seemed to breathe a bit more life into the platform, the latest generation of the entry level console has brought the price point down to be competitive against Wii, and more and more of the game complexities are being handled on the server end. So again why replace a money maker, instead spend more time developing Kinect 2.0, get it right, and then own the industry.
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While Microsoft has always produced quality products and by far they are the best on the industry on lots of products, they don't know how to capture that market. They want it badly, but they want to look how Nintendo succeeds with their Wii successor. By delaying the release they can learn from Nintendo's mistakes and hit them hard next year and become the #1 of next generation consoles.
Sorry, but the reason I won't own a Xbox is because of the quality. My Sony devices can run 24/7 and be just fine. Xbox on the other hand tends to burn up if you play regularly (better now, but still not the same quality as Sony or Nintendo).
A few people I worked with were Xbox fans. All of them had the same issues. 5-6 hours of hard game play daily and their Xbox would die. One guy complained to Microsoft after having to have his Xbox replaced for the 4th time in 3 months and received a reply from the
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You have that right as a consumer, though I do hope you realize that your Windows PC phones home and spies on you so is just as root kitted as anything Sony has done. Also hope you do some homework on what the root kits were actually placed on. Hint: It was not a Playstation.
I'm all about boycott and consumer power on market. As long as you tell others to boycott, and why, it's a damn powerful tool. Be warned though, that if you are dishonest in your reasoning, it tends to backfire and make one look li
Wii? (Score:2)
Sold about 20M more units but from what I've read in Business Week I think it was a few months ago the problem is in game sales. Those casual gamers tend to by a few games and then stop. XBox and PS3 gamers tend to by a few games a quarter. Wii has a lot of add ons too but I suspect XBox with Kinect and its higher initial price probably makes the hardware sales a wash but they sell more games.
A bigger issue might be Kinect: maybe they don't have a new piece of hardware available yet and don't want to get ca
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" While Microsoft has always produced quality products"
Never owned a Xbox360 have you. The graphics chip falling OFF the board because of a massive defect in cooling design is not my definition of "quality product"
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> I'll give Nintendo credit for creating a very successful fad console
Uh, you DO realize that ALL consoles are "fads" -- trying buying new games 10 years after the initial launch. The industry moves onto the latest shiny to milk the customers yet again.
So much for the traditional 5-year lifespan (Score:5, Insightful)
Just keep in mind, MS and Sony, that every year your systems age is another year for more of your users to look at their friends' new PC's and say "Wow, that blows away my console!" Being more-and-more obsolete is not a good position to be in in the videogaming world. Every time I've turned away from consoles in the past, it's been because I was impressed by how advanced the PC's had gotten compared to the consoles.
Re:So much for the traditional 5-year lifespan (Score:5, Funny)
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ok, until you get to the part where you have to buy a $500 graphics card plus the other parts of the PC
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Yay that lame ass argument again. Right now you can put together a PC for $650 that will be better specced then even the next gen consoles will be. There is no reason to spend $500 on a GPU unless you are gaming across 3 monitors.
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and my consoles double as blu ray players, music players, youtube on TV, watching movies from USB stick, etc
Re:So much for the traditional 5-year lifespan (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So much for the traditional 5-year lifespan (Score:5, Funny)
So you're a Linux user, eh?
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Except for youtube and games my Asus O!play does it too for $65 AND watching moves from an USB HD. Take that USB stick. Wait my TV takes an USB stock too...
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I really wanted to use my xbox for movie watching but it was too loud. How is the ps3 in terms of noise?
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PS3 is a lot better
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PS3 is a lot better
Now, that is an understatement.
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and TV's are 1080p and will be for years to come. no need to build a super powerful super expensive console anymore
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I've played Mass Effect on the x-box and my laptop. i don't care how good the PC version looks, i like the x-box version better. the controller is A LOT easier than the keyboard
strategy games are a different story, but action games are better on consoles
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action games are better on consoles
Action games with crappy controls designed for consoles are better on consoles. Mass Effect's controls were an abomination on the PC precisely because it was a console game.
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Re:So much for the traditional 5-year lifespan (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time I've turned away from consoles in the past, it's been because I was impressed by how advanced the PC's had gotten compared to the consoles.
Fortunately 90% of PC games are now just crappy console ports so they don't have to worry about the PC looking better.
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And the other 10% are actually worth playing.
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If anything is going to kill off console gaming it certainly will not be desktops. It will be cell phones. Within a few phone generations (which are remarkably short) we'll have pretty staggering graphics capability on our cell phones. Perhaps the 3rd gen XBox will be a mobile phone + controllers...
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Just bought daughter iPhone and Xbox. We're replacing a Wii that died. Daughter (11) is ready to move on from basic Wii games but still likes iOS games.
Re:So much for the traditional 5-year lifespan (Score:5, Insightful)
Within a few phone generations (which are remarkably short) we'll have pretty staggering graphics capability on our cell phones.
Indeed. In a few years you might be able to play a game on a tiny phone display which looks as good as a current console.
You might even be able to play it for ten minutes before the battery goes flat.
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And why would I want to? (Score:2)
Why would I want to lose the ability to use my phone as, well, a phone to plug it in to my TV and play games or watch movies on it? I could instead just buy a device that plays games and does so better, and then keep my phone as a phone.
To me this is like suggesting you get rid of your oven, toaster, kettle, and so on and only have a microwave. Yes, technically you can get along with just a microwave, it'll cook most things, with some potential issues and reservations. Or, you know, I could not get rid of t
Re:And why would I want to? (Score:4, Interesting)
Try looking a little deeper into the crystal ball.
If I can use my phone as a console, playing games on a large TV with a wireless controller, I am pretty certain that I'll also be able to use (or already wearing!) a wireless Bluetooth headset as well. The phone menu will allow me to answer my phone and chat to friends, or use Google+ Hangouts to have team based voice chat going. This doesn't seem like particularly far-fetched science fiction.
As an added bonus, you can bring your phone with you to your friend's house, and access your apps, your saved progress, your controller settings, your favorite servers, etc. I think that would be extremely awesome. God help you if you lose it or someone steals it, of course, but by then I'll hope to have Steam For Phones that will let me re-download anything I've bought already. (Does the Android market do that already?)
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That's one of those ideas that sounds nice, right until the first group gathering where the person whose phone is being used as a game console gets an important call...
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Meanwhile, you can now piece together a PC from 5-year-old parts from the garage and have a PC that's capable of playing games better than the 360.
You're forgetting that the 360 was meh for hardware when it came out. A $400 PC will run circles around it today, as will a $400 PC from several years ago.
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I don't have any friends who have PCs.
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Just keep in mind, MS and Sony, that every year your systems age is another year for more of your users to look at their friends' new PC's and say "Wow, that blows away my console!" Being more-and-more obsolete is not a good position to be in in the videogaming world. Every time I've turned away from consoles in the past, it's been because I was impressed by how advanced the PC's had gotten compared to the consoles.
Most of the games industry is focused on consoles (more recently mobile devices) anyway because that's where the profits are. Sure PCs are more powerful but these days games companies want to reach more users across more platforms which means developing for the lowest common denominator. I haven't seen that many PC games that whip the current gen console games aside from cranking up the resolution, which doesn't really matter when you're comparing it to a HDTV that you don't sit particularly close to anyway
Simple explanation (Score:3)
Why pre-announce something that is far from being ready to ship? All that would do is steal sales and thunder away from your existing product. The only reason to announce a new console early is if a competitor is getting ready to release something significant enough to affect your market share. Seems like this is just an excuse for a fluff article.
Why release a new one? (Score:3, Interesting)
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The current Xbox 360 is still generating massive amounts of revenue, http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2012/01/12/xbox-360-extends-win-streak-to-12-straight-months-with-banner-holiday-sales.aspx [technet.com], if they introduce a new platform, it will kill off the current version and forego the millions in additional revenue by extending the life of the 360. only when sales start to slump will the 720 be announced.
It's ok, because they will just suddenly pull the plug and cease all development for the Xbox 360 when the 720 is announced. Microsoft did this with the first get Xbox and I have the utmost confidence that they will do it again once their next gen is ready to be launched.
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so?
there are lots of GOTY editions of awesome games to keep you playing for another few years. Mass Effect games, fallout, dragon age, etc. you can buy them cheap with all DLC included
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who wants to buy a game for a dying console?
People who want to play the game and have the console? I don't see anything wrong with buying a game to play on a console about to be superseded.
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They should call the 360 a "burning platform" to drum up some excitement for the possible future versions.
They could call it "Deepwater Horizon". That should drum up support!
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Nah, hook it up to the next installment of the Hunger Games - "Catching Fire".
Works on so many levels.
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Microsoft is planning to have XBOX 720 run a variation of Windows 8. This would finally kill the 'black sheep' from their platform lineup and complete their "Windows Everywhere" vision.
Both versions of the Xbox ran versions of the Windows kernel, so technically speaking they've never been "black sheep".
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With tablets and smart phones some people that needed desktops in the past don't need them anymore. A wireless keyboard, wireless mouse, HDTV, and a console with a few key applications would be enough to push a huge number of home users completely away from th
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I highly doubt this and I'll tell you why.
He said a variation of Windows 8, just like the original XBox OS was based on NT, just like Windows Phone is based on Windows CE, it doesn't make sense to write a new OS kernel for a device like that, just use the one you've got. That doesn't mean 'run Windows 8 on the XBox', it just means use some core pieces that already exist, pretty much all popular devices/systems do this.
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Microsoft is planning to have XBOX 720 run a variation of Windows 8. This would finally kill the 'black sheep' from their platform lineup and complete their "Windows Everywhere" vision.
Good luck with your 6ft pole for touch screen control on the 60" display.