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Nothing particularly interesting to report, just fairly surprising about the timing. I would have thought the current gen consoles still had a lot of legs left in them.

It'll just be initial announcements. I would wager that they are still about 2 years away and even then I reckon they'll support the old console for a while as well because the new one will be expensive. I'd be surprised if they launch at less than £400.

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bastard monkey hands

Diminishing returns .. I dunno what the next gen can add.

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Ampera • Women • Car Trade

The next Xbox better support all the games that I already have purchased on Live arcade - I will be pissed if I have to get them all again.

exiges said...

Diminishing returns .. I dunno what the next gen can add.

Shirley that could have been said about all previous gens?

Albeit, they can't go up in screen resolution any further as 1080p has become the highest consumer standard.

I'd imagine every game will feature 3D as standard.
Anybody played any 3D console games yet? Any good?

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David_Yu said...

Shirley that could have been said about all previous gens?

Depends on how far you want to go back, but I remember the big leaps offered by the introduction of

1. Colour
2. Sound
3. Resolution CGA -> VGA -> SVGA
4. Stereo/Surround sound
5. 3D
6. Textures
7. Network gaming

I'm sure there's things I've missed, but I don't see what a new gaming console can bring, given the X360 etc is already in Dobly, Hi-Res etc.

Increased frame rates, and that's about it really..

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Ampera • Women • Car Trade

I've been wondering this for a while, previous new consoled have made obvious big leaps forwards, but there have also been rumours and spy shots of the next gen consoles after the previous had only been out a couple of years. The current ones have been around for ages already, and games are getting better and better.

Hard to see what the next gen will offer, 3d probably, but it also requires a significant hardware upgrade as 3d tvs are still a long way off being 'normal' and I'm sure a lot of people won't ever bother anyway. At least even the current consoles work on virtually any tv made in the last 20 years.

I'm sure graphics can improve, but again, enough for people to really notice? Is it going to be worth all the extra work it'll take to produce the games?

Improved online and streaming services will still be limited by the broadband infrastructure, and there's a risk of annoying / losing a huge number of current customers who don't want to be forced into upgrading assuming there's no comparability crossover.

In previous years the arcade machines have given big clues about future home systems, now, I don't often venture into arcades but when I have done I cant remember seeing anything that looked much if any of a jump forwards from anything the current home consoles can already do

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cheers,

Harry

Too many old sheds.

I think Microsoft's big thing is going to be cloud streaming. I don't Think they'll bother doing disc games at all.

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bastard monkey hands

Again, are consumers ready for it / askin for it? There are big holes in broadband coverage and speed, and a lot of providers still take the piss with download limits, especially as newer games are obviously going to be bigger than ever. I'd probably never download a 10, 15, 20gb game.

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cheers,

Harry

Too many old sheds.

You wouldn't have to download the whole game file to play the game as it would stream from a cloud server.
My thinking is that game devs want to kill the pre owned market, DVD is fast becoming obsolete as a game storage medium and Microsoft may not want to bite the bullet and put a blu-ray drive on their machine. Taking physical media out of the equation entirely solves all of these problems.

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bastard monkey hands

My internet is too unreliable for cloud streaming. if they did this i wouldn't be buying one untill my internet was improved dramatically.

Those of you wondering what they can do to improve things. well considering console hardware is 7 YEARS OLD now i think there is a lot to be done. this has been the longest running console genertation ever. it is only thanks to the skill of the game programmers in eeking every last bit of performance out of the hardware that the 360 / ps3 have lasted so long.

Any of you who have played a brand new PC game that optimises the best of the current hardware will no that console graphics and speed have started flagging a bit.

Also the new systems will allow multi-platform games to finally meet the standard of current PC only titles as currently they are being "de-tuned" for consoles.

XBOX will have to go down the Blue-ray route. if they dont, the size of DVDs will certainly comprimise their games

Getting away from discs is what I see happening. I mean...the file size limitation of the Xbox are pretty bad and alot of games have begun to suffer as a result. Going to blue ray is just a bandaid, and as others have stated maybe broadband would hurt some. Why couldn't they just sell games as USB sticks or SD cars? Hell, why couldn't you get a couple SD cars with the console and then go to the gaming store and have the personnel there download the game to your card for you in minutes?

To be completely honest the cost of developing games for specific consoles and then trying to port them to other things means that consoles are likely to become just gaming PC's with controllers. This would also allow easy hardware upgrades without changing the firmware or software because they could just use PC standards....which would keep the cost from skyrocketing.

350Chris said...

XBOX will have to go down the Blue-ray route. if they dont, the size of DVDs will certainly comprimise their games

They could either give Sony lots and lots of money for Blu-ray rights, or they could plough that same money into Cloud streaming. That's where the games industry will inevitably end up.

good point. forgot sony developed blue ray.

My point it though. a lot of people in the UK don't have sufficient internet speed for cloud. especially with so many households haveing multiple PCs

I can only stream at 360p and thats when my pc is the only one on in the house. which would rule out normal definition cloud gaming let alone HD

You could easily fit a very powerful pc into a Xbox shaped box... Windows 8 or whatever and, finally, a console that can run games at pc spec. Also, it would make developers lives easier and will make the new console appeal to people who've never bought a console before: email/Facebook/rts gamers etc.

Stick it under your tv and have movies, email, games (and probably more) all in one box...

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Cheers,

Ian

Loganmotor said...

Getting away from discs is what I see happening.

I'd agree.

Also I think they may do alot of downloads in the background, so say for example a game is due to be released on Jan 1st, they could let people download 90% of the game in background prior to "release" for a week, then on the day of release let them download the rest. That would get round the bandwidth constraints.

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Ampera • Women • Car Trade

1anf said...

You could easily fit a very powerful pc into a Xbox shaped box...

I don't think so, I was having a look inside my mates gaming PC the other day and his graphic card is about a foot long and needs three fans to keep it cool. He had to cut out a section of his massive casing to make it fit .

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bastard monkey hands

Zedleg, Is that a bloke's "foot long"!? Aka 6 inches!!

I'm guessing it's not as wide tho, nor multi-layered. The physical can always be overcome! Look at Apple's efforts, or Alienware laptops for that matter...

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Cheers,

Ian

1anf said...

Zedleg, Is that a bloke's "foot long"!? Aka 6 inches!!

I'm guessing it's not as wide tho, nor multi-layered. The physical can always be overcome! Look at Apple's efforts, or Alienware laptops for that matter...

And look at the prices of Apple & Alienware kit! We're talking a price-point of around £2-300 not £2-3000!

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Something witty goes here.....

Jorg Gray Ltd Edition Watch Number : 313631

True, but it's not the internal components that cost so much.. I'd also suggest that the next Xbox will be around the £500 mark, assuming it has kinect built in.

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Cheers,

Ian