Did Ballmer just confirm a new Xbox 360?

[unimatrix7]

http://au.xbox360.ign.com/articles/996/996216p1.html

Did he just let the cat out of the bag? I bet he's sweating now...


...Who am I kidding? He's always sweating.

 

[Sheep]

I take that to mean a Natal bundle, not a souped up 360.

Bundling Natal with all future 360s going forward is pretty much the only way a peripheral like this is going to fly since history has proven time after time that they won't receive much support unless there's a big user base (like with the jump from digital to analog controllers where digital controllers pretty much disappeared).

I just hope they don't go crazy with the pricing of this new bundle, as that would be a big mistake regardless of how innovative Natal may be.

 

[clint g]

Yeah I think we've got a while before we get a follow up to the 360. They were just talking about a 10 year life cycle for the system back during e3. like Sheep says, its probably a Natal bundle.

 

[IJD GAF]

I don't buy this 10 year life cycle business. Or at least, I don't think people usually take the phrase to mean what it actually means.

The Playstation 2 is still limping along. Sony, a few years back, stated they were on track for a 10 year life cycle for the PS2, the same as the PS1. Which if you'll remember, also managed to limp along for a while after the PS2 launched.

That 10 year life cycle doesn't mean the amount of time between new consoles coming out. It means that time, plus the amount of time that the older system keeps on kicking.

Now that said, I don't really think we're getting a new 360 next year. Maybe something akin to the slim models that Sony pumps out a few years into their consoles' lifespans. But I seriously doubt we're going to be waiting another five years for another XBox or Playstation or Nintendo system.

 

[clint g]

Not five years, but probably 2 or 3

 

[TheGodBen]

The Xbox is coming up on 5 years now, that is normally the time at which the next generation comes along. It's not going to happen this time though because it took a longer time for the 360's install base to grow than in previous generations so they only started turning a profit on the thing a year and a half ago, and you'd want to be mad to launch a new super-console in this economic climate.

They'll use Natal to extend the 360's lifespan by around 3 years and a new Xbox will probably be released in 2012 or 2013. And they'll make damn sure they don't rush development on the next one; the 360 is doing okay but it would be in a far better position today had it not been for the RROD and all the bad press that brought them.

 

[Twilight]

Major Nelson was on damage control about this last night:

http://majornelson.com/archive/2009/06/18/to-clarify-what-steve-said-earlier-today.aspx#comments


Ballmer must have been referring to a Natal/360 bundle. Microsoft HAD to have learned its lesson with HD-DVD - peripherals are hard to catch on unless they come packaged with your base product.

When people bought a PS3 two years ago they got a blu-ray player that many probably thought they didn't need. But now look where we are. If people had been required to drop another $100+ on top of their $400 machine for a blu-ray player that was very much a niche product back then, Blu-Ray would have had a much harder time winning the high def battle.

 

[FPAlpha]

It wasn't such a huge loss i thing.. the HD-DVD drive wasn't integral to the 360 so MS didn't lose that much.

However the very high cost of the PS3 because of the BR drive really hurt it in the beginning and sealed its fate as the 2nd place console behind the 360. It may catch up now as the HD race has been decided but it could have gone under faster than a rock in the sea if HD-DVD made the race.

A very high risk maneuver by Sony and they were very lucky.. i seriously doubt they'll make the same mistake again when the next gen consoles roll around.

However if Natal is what it is supposed to be i see an even bigger revolution that the Wii.. if it works like its supposed to and there are games specially designed to take advantage of Natal it could become THE video game product of 2010.

I know how much fun the Wii is and now imagine you don't have to wave around a controller but can act freeform in front of Natal with all limbs and it recognizes each movement and transforms it in real time into the game. The possibilities are endless.. (if only they would come up with a good set of VR goggles).

 

[FlyingLemons]

Combine Natal with 3D glasses, and you've got a very interesting product. Apparently James Cameron's Avatar: The Game will be in 3D, so if others start following its lead we could have games that allow you to interact with 3D objects using Natal.

 

[Rii]

^ Meh, lots of games already support "3D".

There's a lot of grey area between "bundle" and "new console". I expect they'll redesign and relaunch the platform to appeal to folks beyond the existing audience of male adolescents, however the core hardware will retain the same basic capabilities and will be compatible with all existing Xbox 360 games. It'll be Microsoft's "slim", with extras.

 

[clint g]

Hopefully their slim with extras comes with better ventilation and cooling lol

 

[Haggis and tatties]

If they are going to design the 360 and make it slimmer they really need to redesign the cooling system this time, the present one is the cause of all the 360 woes and all from overheating.

I mean what were MS smoking way back in 2005 when they thought a plastic funnel with 2 air extractor fans at the back was going to be sufficient for the machine, no passive heat sinks on any of the memory or other motherboard fixed chips, No active cooling on the CPU and GPU heatsinks, and that DVD driver sitting right onto of the GPU shared heat sink pumping all that lovely DVD drive producing heat right into the top of it.

Unbelievable how the machine passed any stress tests......assuming it had them.

 

[clint g]

From what I've read the 360s problems comes from adding features late in the game. one was the addition of the Hard drive, something that they weren't originally going to include with the 360. The other feature was the wireless controllers. All of this stuff caused cluttering of the insides/took up space for ventilation. Couple that with the rush to release it before the PS3 and you get what we got. That said, like Sony and their horribly built PS2s, I can only imagine that MS will learn from this and that the next system we get will be much more reliable

 

[FPAlpha]

Doubtful if it happens again that Sony and MS are preparing to launch in the same time frame.. they'll ramp up the design process and cut corners.

It happened on every release because being out early gives you a great advantage and heaven forbid you miss christmas season with a new console.

However judging by the lost sales and customer dissatisfaction now it could very well be that they'll take way more care in design to prevent such insane numbers of breakdowns. MS is really lucky that the PS3 launched so late and bad because otherwise they'd have lost the entire market and once again be only 2nd (or maybe 3rd after the Wii) for years to come.

 

[TheGodBen]

That said, like Sony and their horribly built PS2s, I can only imagine that MS will learn from this and that the next system we get will be much more reliable

Lets just hope that that's the only thing MS learns from Sony for their third console generation.

Xbox E3 press conference 2012:
Xbox Rep: Xbox 720 will retail for 899 US dollars!

It happened on every release because being out early gives you a great advantage and heaven forbid you miss christmas season with a new console.

Tell that to poor old Sega, it didn't work from them with the Saturn or Dreamcast.

And the ironic thing about the 360 is that they cut corners to get it released six months before the PS3 and then the PS3 was pushed back six months anyway. If they had known that they could have held it back a few months to resolve the issues, but then they would have missed Christmas.

 

[clint g]

Honestly I think the gaming industry may have grown out of the Christmas thing, they probably just don't realize it yet. Id bet that if they were to release a brand new console in the summer that it would not only sell well, but would probably sell out all shipments.

 

[FPAlpha]

I believe it's a psychological thing as much as it is a financial issue.

Financially it makes sense because in the christmas shopping craze the wallets are a bit more open than over the year and people are ready to spend more than usual and what better way to spend christmas glued in front of your shiny new console? At least for gamers that is..