It's never too early for gamers to begin obsessing over rumored future consoles, which is why we are already seeing stories on the rumored Xbox 720, the planned successor to the Xbox 360. The projected date for a release isn't until sometime around 2012, but that isn't going to stop gamers from debating what the next Microsoft game system will (and won't) be.
Much of the current rumor mill (like the recent piece from Gamers World Bangladesh) is based on year-old interviews and conjecture, but we can break down what's probable and what's unlikely:
1. It's already in development?
That would be a no-brainer. It isn't like console manufacturers have staff who sit around for years waiting for the next development cycle; by the time the Xbox 360 shipped, the next generation console was already in the design process. Of course, based on the hardware issues Microsoft ran into with the 360, the hardware designers may have spent some time working on fixing the design of the 360, but every company starts planning the next iteration as soon as the current one is out the door. We didn't need hints from Microsoft to tell us that.
2. It's going to have Blu-ray?
There will be much gnashing of teeth, but if Blu-ray is the standard in high-def video, the next Xbox will have it (despite the suggestion in The Standard's Digital Home of 2013 special that Blu-ray will become obsolete). Microsoft is loathe to add a Sony standard to its gaming device, but the reality is that unless Redmond comes up with something on its own (a pipe dream), or someone else does (who wants to eat the kind of loss Toshiba took on HD-DVD?), it's going to have Blu-ray. It may take at least four years for Microsoft to choke the idea of talking to Sony about licensing, but odds are it will happen.
Comments
It's going to be the first system to push mainstream use of ray tracing.
1. Yes.
2. No. There are half a dozen hungry venders willing to sell Microsoft $20 optical drives capable of reading 20 GB+. Some tech pushes as much as 81 GB out of plain old DVD. Microsoft won't pay $60 Blu-Ray royalty and doesn't need Blu-Ray to get the capacity it needs.
3. No
4. Yes. Xbox 360's RROD problem is about to completely go away starting with Jasper motherboard revision. Given how profitable Xbox 360 hardware has been(Microsoft currently makes $70 off every Xbox 360 Premium sold, well over $100 on each Elite), Xbox 360 will continue to sell alongside Xbox 3.
sounds like its gonna be a ps3, lol
Deadmeat, I'm still not convinced about the Jasper board. They are also eating mad money fixing all of our boxes that go in time and time again for a fix. As for the Blu-ray, you may be right, but it all depends on what happens with plain vanilla DVD in the meantime.
ehutch, with a Wii controller. There are days when I wonder if Halo has been the one thing that keeps the Xbox going. If that game ever got opened up, I honestly don't think we'd even have one. The Xboxes are the ONLY Microsoft products that enter my house.
None of your suggestions sound unreasonable, but I posit that Microsoft will move game distribution to a combination of digital downloads and SSD's. Digital distribution is simply a follow-on to what they're trying to achieve now. Widespread high-bandwidth internet penetration may continue to be a limiting factor though. I think solid state memory devices show considerable promise for game distribution. Considering how their cost continues to scale downward at the current pace, game 'sticks' may become the norm. I also think Microsoft will use a SSD HDD next gen. Not only are they quieter and cooler, they should serve the data needs of a console quite well. Platter-based HDD's are old news.
Paul, by 2012, you might be right on the SSD issue. Then again, considering that the homebrew "repair" for the RROD issue is to melt the contacts, you may not WANT the heat to be reduced. ;)
durrrr...this comment never gets old (sarcasm).
The PS3 uses an old 7 Series GPU that was obseleted the day it launched by the 8 Series. Atleast the Xbox 360 hardware was current with the technology available at the time of its release. Trying to compare the PS3 to ANY future console is like trying to compare a Pentium 4 with whatever AMD puts out next.
It would be a chipshot for Microsoft to release a console today let alone in 2012 that had 4x the power of a PS3. You can already build such a system using off the shelf parts for under $600 that will run games like COD4 at 1080p without even breaking a sweat. The PS3 and Xbox 360 can barely manage 720p.
Anything you see in 2012 will be lightyears beyond the PS3. For some reason Sony has pulled a wonderful marketing job on people into convincing them their system will still be cutting edge in 10 years. Bluray in itself does not make a console considering there aren't any games as of yet that require it. Nor is it relevant anymore now that media servers are hitting the market.
"It's going to be the first system to push mainstream use of ray tracing."
Probably not quite yet. That's more than likely a few decades off at this point.
The big step in the next generation will be universal 1080p support and direct download games. Putting a 500 GB 2.5" drive that can hold 50+ games on a console shouldn't be a huge of a leap by 2012. The only roadblock to that is broadband penetration which is still not universal. That may allow optical drives to survive one more round even if direct download games become universally available as an option for new releases.
Graphics wise, we'll probably see more detail at longer draw distances. In the past, it was impossible to "hide in the grass" in multiplayer at 250 meters away because the game engine wouldn't render grass that far out. The should become less of a restriction.
Also...if Crysis is the current bleeding edge of graphics technology...just imagine what we will see in 3 years. I'd be stoked even if the next gen of console could match what Crysis is doing at 1080p.
One last thing...
If the Xbox 720 remains on the PowerPC platform, then there is no reason to think that all of the Xbox 360 games won't be backwards compatible without requiring emulation. They'll probably even include updates to enable NATIVE 1080p support on old games.
That's probably a big part of their strategy. By staying with a RISC platform, they should be able to release an Xbox 720 that allows higher performance on existing games Xbox 360 games or even dual generation releases where the same disk plays on both consoles but with different graphics settings optimized for each one.
It would certainly make the transition easier on consumers and more profitable for Microsoft since they wouldn't have to rebuild their user base from scratch with the new generation.
There is absolutely no viable reason for Microsoft to use Blu-Ray. Even suggesting it shows how little you researched the basic business model of the first Xbox and the Xbox 360. Microsoft has not only made it obvious through their actions, but outright announced that they think online interaction is the future. They are putting their bets on digital distribution of movies and other Hi-Def content. As for storage space, DVD is still more than sufficient. As previously mentioned there are numerous companies with methods to increase DVD's storage capacity should it be needed. SSD and Flash game "sticks" is also a very real possibility.
With the way the current Mid Range GPU market has been the last 6 months, the next gen consoles should be able to pack some decent power for roughly the same money as they do now.
My argument, though, is based on what users demand. Streaming content is still buggy depending on bandwidth limitations, and vendors can talk cloud storage until the cows come home, but if the U.S. broadband providers move to tiered bandwidth pricing, it suddenly ups the demand for physical media over downloading a big, old HD movie or game. We aren't yet at the point where online storage can replace physical media, only supplement it, and I'm not sure we'll be at that point by the next iteration either. In addition, people are increasingly looking for consoles to do more than just play games (Wii's Web browsing, PS3's Blu-Ray) and function as more of a media center. Microsoft's deal with Netflix gets a bit closer to that goal, but we aren't at the point of universal unlimited broadband to make that the only method for media content.
i think digital distribution is the next step in consoles. its quickly becoming the standard for PC games with Valve's content delivery platform, Steam, which has over 15 million unique users and almost every big developer putting their games on it. they also support indie-developers and gamers of every demographic, from casual to the most hardcore... and i'll let you in on a little secret about steam... it only supports broadband connections. i actually have a feeling that MS and Valve may come together to form a solid content delivery system for the next console considering steam is a windows only platform, and that would be the ideal way to go.
sorry for the double post, but here's my other prediction about the new xbox... the new console, and i think any new console, not specifically an Xbox, is gonna go the route of making a portable gaming rig (i.e. the fragbox from falcon northwest) that runs a proprietary "media center" type OS. the xbox is the biggest gaming console out there and have been making leaps away from being a gaming console and towards being a media center that runs proprietary games.
also, i'd like to comment on the whole "discs that run on 2 consoles" thing. if MS were to do this, people wouldn't buy the new consoles just for a few extra pixels. most gamers look at grapics second next to gameplay, and while visual candy makes it all the more immersive, it doesn't make the game.
do u have windows
Dude, I like the 360 as much as anyone else....but your facts are totally off.
1. Yes...okay we all agree on that.
2. No DVD can hold 81GB. Sorry. It hovers somewhere just under 10GB. And people are going to want a system that plays whatever format movies are on at the time....be it Blu-Ray or another technology. P.s. Please look up what a "Royalty" is....you obviously have no idea.
3.Probably not....but you don't know.
4.The 65nm chipset that is supposed to reduce the occurrence of RROD started long before the Jasper. Also saying that MS makes $70 off the pro and $100 off the elite is pure conjecture. You pulled that straight out of your....well, you know.
then again....jvim.com could be right and the apocalyspe is comin' on 2012 ...so........hmm.....
HI THERE I REALY DONT THINK I WILL UP GRADE FROM THE X-BOX 360 BECUASE NO BODY WILL OFFER A FASTER DRIVE I DONT LIKE WATING ABOUT 10 MINUTES FOR GAMES TOO LOAD UP A WANT A SOLID STATE FLASH DRIVE OR A 10,000 OR 15,000 RPM HARD DRIVE MAY BE EVEN A 20,000 RPM HARD DRIVE LASER HARD DRIVES JUST GIVE ME A 8 16 24 32 OR 64 GB SSD FLASH DRIVE AND I WILL BE HAPPY WITH THAT YOY WANT A 2.5 INCH 500 GB HARD DRIVE LETS MAKE IT DIGITAL WESTERN 600 GB RAPTOR AT EATHER 10,000 OR 15,000 RPMS LETS GET A REALY FAST HARD DRIVE SOO I DONT GO TOO SLEEP WAITING ON THE GAME TOO LOAD UP OR NANOSPHERE AT 2.5 TIMES FASTER THEN LIGHT SPEED LETS SEE HOW WE CAN PUT THE FASTEST DRIVE INTO THE GAMING CONSOLES LETS GET FASTER THEN THE 5,400 OR 7,200 RPM HARD DRIVES THAT ARE CURENTLY BEING USED WE NEED FASTER DRIVES.
I don't believe the downloadable games are the future they could make it optional but if they make it the only way it will most likely fail. Call me crazy but I don't want to download my games. I want to be able to buy something and take to a friends house or resell it if I want to physical media is not going to die off soon. The only reason music is going the way of downloads is because once you get it you can burn it on a c.d. or copy it any way you want to, but we all know they won't let that happen with games. I wouldn't mind downloading a game if after I got it i could burn it onto a disk even if I could only burn it one time it would be better then having it stuck to one hard drive in one console. Microsoft could just use hd dvd for thier games and not worry about ans optical drive for movies, they could just include a netflix memebership with gold that would justify paying all that money to play online a little more. (im just a little mad right now because I just bought a $20 3 month card for live and the day I activated it lightning atruck by my house and killed my ethernet port so I can't play!!!!.) anyway enough ranting. Thats just my 2 cents.
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