Goodbye in-depth video games, hello quick money grubbing ala shovelware motion sensing horsecrap.
Goodbye in-depth video games, hello quick money grubbing ala shovelware motion sensing horsecrap.
DERP
I have my doubts this is true...but if it is..well, Microsoft will have lost my business. Assuming they don't include standard controlling along with the motion sensing.
Microsoft needed to re-engineer the Xbox 360 a few years back, just to make it stop overheating. A new 360 with slightly more powerful hardware? Sounds like a machine that will red ring even faster. If they'd stop being so cheap and just upgrade the cooling system on the 360, I'd be happy. And so would millions of others who have had multiple Xbox 360s die from overheating.
Microsoft should just do what Sony does to every console. A budget redesign which improves on the faults of the predecessor... A 360Slim with these added motion sensing capabilities would sure sell. They really need to nip this heating problem in the bud.Originally Posted by Steve W
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I don't think any company, be it Nintendo, Sony, or MS is ballsy enough to launch any console without a traditional interface. It's like voice recognition. Sure, it's neat, but would you want to replace a mouse/keyboard with "Computer, open My Documents, please."
In the end, I don't see this changing much. A new console or a peripheral, it'll have it's uses but I highly doubt we'll end up becoming the old generation saying things like, "These whippersnappers today don't even know what it's like to hold a controller!"
I really believe virtual/augmented reality will be a major thing in the near future. You never know what controls they could dream up then. I doubt the video games in their present form would be standard still in 20, 30 or 40 years.
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Things will evolve but I doubt the interface will be completely replaced for one major reason: it's never really happened before. There's no precedent for it and there's no real reason why it has to happen.
The computer is 50+ years old. The automobile is approaching 100 years old. The airplane is roughly as old. Guns are a few hundred years old. And boats and ships are even older than that. While they advanced over time, there hasn't been some gigantic overhaul of how humans interact with the machinery. Innovation expands how we can do things but doesn't necessarily replace what's most efficient. And while voice activated computers make for a great plot device in Star Trek, it's incredibly impractical.
I can't imagine interfacing with video games by waving your hands in the air being any more practical for most things that would be considered actual games. I think most people would rather make moves in virtual Chess with the click of a button than have to manually make the motion as if they were playing real chess. And that's not even considering games that ask the player to do things not comfortably translated into body movements. I could play Pac-Man by pointing my arms in different directions like a football referee but where's the benefit? These new interfaces are good but usually have fairly specific applications.
Last edited by TonyTheTiger; 06-13-2009 at 02:59 AM.
It's not just the cooling. it's also the cheap solder on the board.
If MS does release a successor next year, it damn well better be backwards compatible with both hardware and software.
It's already an established fact that the main problem with the 360 is that the x-clamp used to attach the cooling system expands too much, causing the board to warp and pop the BGA connections on the GPU. The newer chips don't heat up as much so it is less of a problem with new consoles, but it still happens.
Supposedly (don't hold me to this, I forget the source), they're going for "forwards compatibility." Once the new system's dev kits make their way to developers, there's supposedly a format to do software that will run on both 360 and the new hardware, with more features and detail on the newer hardware. The idea being to continue support for 360 owners into the next generation, essentially the opposite of what Sony has done with PS2 compatibility.
As far as Natal is concerned, I'm very concerned. Has anyone considered the implications of such an intelligent camera (moreso than the regular one they have), placed where it can watch your family?
I don't believe this 'Xbox 360 Turbo' will be a true successor to Xbox 360 (the Xbox3 will be far more powerful and is a few more years away) but more like an upgrade. The question is, how much of an upgrade. Probably something like DS to DSi, GameBoy to GameBoy Color, GameCube to Wii, TurboGrafx-16 to SuperGrafx, etc. So probably not something like a generational leap like GameBoy to GBA, or Genesis 32X. That 32X upgrade was something that was actually a very large leap over Genesis (40 times on paper) even though developers didn't push it very hard and it failed. I'm expecting Xbox 360 Turbo to be 2 ~ 4 times more powerful than Xbox 360 overall. A decent upgrade that developers will really love.
Now with this upgraded 360 coming in a little over 1 year, the next-gen Xbox3 is probably going to be a little farther away, like 2012 or 2013. Maybe not even until 2015 if Microsoft sticks to what they said this last week.
Xbox 360 Turbo might be the way that Microsoft can keep this generation going another 5 years (in 2010 Xbox 360 will be 5 years old). Or I could be entirely wrong.
Last edited by parallaxscroll; 06-13-2009 at 05:53 PM.
What makes me think it would be a hit is because of the 'attention whore' socially retarded kids growing up today. Social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, countless junk videos of kids talking about anything on YouTube, the fact that you rarely see teenagers *not* staring at their cellphone screens anymore. Kids don't seem to be able to do anything by themselves anymore, there's no social independence. Broadband internet access has come a long way since the original Xbox's launch, couple that with a new Xbox Satan (anyone misread that when they see 'Natal'?) with the special camera, and then Xbox Live with new social networking style sections for video chat and such, and they could have a winner on their hands that would really appeal to teenagers, their main demographic. Microsoft is practically in a league of their own as far as ripping off other's ideas, they could take all sorts of social networking ideas from other sites, incorporate them in countless ways into Xbox Live utilizing the camera, and hit every teenager or college student's proverbial G-spot.
Last edited by Steve W; 06-13-2009 at 08:51 PM.
With excruciatingly few exceptions, the Wii library has proven motion controls in video games to be little more than shallow, gimmicky shit so far. I haven't looked into or gotten excited about Natal thus far, but I still can't imagine getting hyped about motion controls.
If Natal is Microsoft's next stab at a console, I'll pass.
Most in depth games waved bye bye a long time ago.
I blame Wii
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The rumor is over. No new console next year, just the release of the Natal/360 bundle.
Last edited by The 1 2 P; 06-20-2009 at 04:18 AM.
ALL HAIL THE 1 2 P
...so they're pulling an XP. Leave your product in the market so long that nobody wants to upgrade, because they're so familiar with what they have. Five-year dev cycles for consoles is a good thing, given the speed that computer hardware is evolving. If we don't get a new Microsoft console until 2013, then I don't think it's going to be a very fruitful four years ahead for Redmond.
Barely half way my butt. The XBOX 360 is pushing 4 years old already and the original XBOX was superceded at 4 years. The gamecube lasted 5 and the Wii is turning 3. The PS2... Isnt dead yet. etc etc.
This Generation is probably going to sunset around 2011.
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