Thread: Xbox Next?

The rumour mill is rumbling along again with EA and other key studio's allegedly having Dev kits but what will the Next iteration of the xbox bring?

Native 3D?
Real, true, none upscaled 1080p with dual HDMI outputs?
7.1 Surround sound?
Kinect as standard?
Solid State Hard disks?
No Optical drive?
Blu Ray?

What would you like to see inside the next Xbox?

I'd be happy if it was sufficiently well engineered to avoid RROD et al - a quieter fan/disc drive would be good. And some prawn wontons.

I really hope they avoid becoming an all singing, all dancing 3D wankfest, I don't want to have to wear uncomfortable stupid looking glasses just to play a game

i doubt they've done much real work on a new console yet, theres some really big decisions to make before the next gen, are they going to push digital distribution of full titles more and scrap discs? are they going to go 3D? are they going to push kinect-style stuff?

theyll have to wait to see if kinect is a real hit and if 3d isnt just a fad and if digital distribution would work practically

i reckon there is a possibility that the xbox might start to look like a hard drive from the PC to have a fan that would prevent RROD happening at all, i would love to see the graphic card to 1GB or more to make the graphic even better than xbox 360 (which is already brilliant), possibly a better dashboard to maybe be like Home on PSN but a lot better

But over i want the memory, the speed and everything that makes a game, sharper, faster, and possibly no loading to be had in games, i would like to see more than 250GB, maybe 1 TB HHD, and i see that it maybe the future of games being bought on the dashboard rather than in shop, which might be a bad thing of it costing too much, when in stores or online it might be cheaper because Microsoft are quite tight when it come to money

Xbox 360 is a good console, i hope they keep to the same formula of making good games

I cant help but think 'meh' to this sudden rush of information..
Sure, Nintendo are releasing a newer console to combat the lack of interest its current (last gen) console is now producing.. Nintendo have pretty much told hardcore gamers to suck a cock with the wii... will hardcore gamers wont really flock to whatever the wii2 is(& I daresay that nintendo are well aware of that problem)?

But, games companies are still working to get the best (& reduce their own costs) out of the two current systems, kinect & move are new enough to not need the push, and perhaps an increase of graphics isnt required..

3D on next xbox? why? that's possible now!.. It was sold as a big thing on the PS3 because they used it to try & sell Sony 3D TVs! (same with bluray). This can be produced by Games companies already, however theres just no demand for it!
Until there's a single standard for 3D its not going to happen (& of course a large or projected growth market)

Dual HDMI output? not going to happen, Might have that on Dev kits but when it comes to the actual released product, itll just have one (much like the PS3 development unit) Few people have Dual TVs where the 360 would be (& a TV & recording device isnt that common). Its extra costs for a consumer device that will be used by less than 1% of people.

7.1 sound, Yeap, This will probably be in as standard, I do wonder what the percentage of market penetration 7.1 sound systems have though (& having 7.1 sound systems in a headset is not 7.1, despite the bullshit marketing the headset sellers will try & use)

Solid State HDD : although it would be great if that was the case, the increased costs at this point lead me to think it wont be available as standard (maybe available as a sort of 'elite version' however).
The 360 already has limited HDD space, they would need to increase that number to make it appear the next release has increased numbers (marketing again)... Having smaller SSD space will be counter intuitive to this.

Kinect I think will be standard (or Kinect 2 anyway).. Whether it'll be used or not is a seperate matter.

which comes to the main increase: more memory & faster/beefier CPU/GPU
So that'll be a ported version of DirectX11(12?) hardware to the next360 then.
The question is whether new hardware would be too expensive for a consumer level unit, PC GPUs tend to more used at higher screen resolution. with the 360, its limited to a maximum of 1080p, so there gets to be a point where the extra oompf from the GPU/CPU isnt utilised fully for graphics (ie, theres a limit on texture sizes).

Change of optical disk, Yeap, needs to change, but somehow, I wonder if bluray would be a bitter pill for MS to swallow? Perhaps better support for multidisk installers for games that come on multidisk (IE installs the game like windows to remove disk swapping)

They need to get rid of HDD or small storage size devices.. the Arcade & 4Gb units (even the 20Gb ones these days) are a blip on the developers..
At very least should have a standard 'scratchpad' that games can use for caching (perhaps that small SSD) that games can use to optimise loading speeds and whatnot; but are not used for installing/saving games by the user.

and finally a bug fix, so that when users download game updates, it keeps tracks & doesnt end up having to download an update for every single game put in until the cache area is erased & the tracking starts again!

Even if the devkit story is true (& its been denied by EA & MS so far), I'd be surprised if MS havent at least started work on prototypes.. maybe even sharing early prototypes with close developers to get their opinions on their ideas & early builds. - Most devices have early prototypes that are built but never intentionally released, look at the PS3, it even had that crazy ass boomerang controller!

At best, hopefully MS will just not rush whatever development(s) they are rushing through to be dealt with the RRoD.. and from their PoV.. their main competitors currently have a gaming system that can't even get online!

Something that doesnt break and also doesnt sound like a cross between a fighter jet and a hoover would be a start.

a hoover jet? that sounds like the solution to this country's dust problems.

just do a flyover once a week and tell everyone to hold on

A swiss army xbox, with five blades, a toothpick, a miniature hacksaw, that thing for getting stones out of horses hooves (for Msross when he's playing hannah monatana) and a cup/beverage holder.

Maybe a subscription based streaming service like that one on the PC?

M$ would hate to have to accept Blu-ray and I'm nor sure they would... Multi disc installs would be a great start but couldn't they do this for the current system?