The next Xbox

[BossSaru]

So what's is going to be called?

The Triple-X?

[Talk Show Host]

Advance the graphics. Not the gameplay. You could have advanced gameplay on a Gameboy Advance.

No, advance the gameplay through motion sensing to something more than mini games or wii sports. Since Nintendo has failed, Sony's try is coming up. It's going to be great.

Oh, Microsoft's take is also coming up. But I fear they don't really know what they are doing.

[Jackson]

No, advance the gameplay through motion sensing to something more than mini games or wii sports. Since Nintendo has failed, Sony's try is coming up. It's going to be great.

It'll launch with Solid Snake's War Gun Training.

[mushashi]

The Xbox 1080 will assuredly launch in 18 months, and each one will be constructed by stapling 3 broken 360s together. 9 CPUs!!!!

So Microsoft are even 1uping Nintendo's two unsold GCs ducktaped together idea?!?

[ras el hanout]

No, advance the gameplay through motion sensing to something more than mini games or wii sports. Since Nintendo has failed, Sony's try is coming up. It's going to be great.

It probably will be. But Nintendo are ready. BOS Blue Ocean Strategy, my friend. When the ocean turns red then Reggie will wheel out the next big thing. And Sony will be all "Awww, we just got this fucking thing working sad face." I bet Nintendo can't believe the ocean isn't turning red at all yet. I mean, what exactly do MS need to show that have failed and they may as well try something else? Are the waiting for their monthly sales to hit ZERO or something? What are they selling 100,000 a month in Amerca. A million a year. In 8 years time they'll be up to 25m consoles sold.

[Alex W.]

So Microsoft are even 1uping Nintendo's two unsold GCs ducktaped together idea?!?

Indeed, the new Xbox 1080 will consume almost 600 watts of power and have three times the failure rate due to its multi-xbox construction. They're calling it the "xtreme xercise xmode" as you have to go to the shops every day to get it swapped over, and can no longer afford food due to the electricity bill.

[Fugitive]

If the public did move on to the next fad and leave the Wii, as you suggest, that still won't suddenly make 70,000,000 more hardcore gamers. Sony and MS will still be fighting over you lot, the scraps, the dregs if you will. Could we not say that Playstation was a fad that people moved on from? Eh? Seems like 100,000,000 (one hundred million) people didn't follow up their love for the PS2 by buying a PS3. Is that not the definition of a fad?

I don't mind being fought over. It makes me feel wanted. Anyway, we'll see how many people will have bought a PS3 at the end of its life-span, just as we can with the PS2 now it's essentially coming to its own end.

As with anything mass-market, the key is to capture "hearts and minds" and thoroughly take advantage of our sheep-like nature. Nintendo have come up with the winning formula this time and good luck to them. Their initial surprise at the success of the Wii in the face of their super hi-tech competitors seemed genuine to me, and so they regained their crown.

But there will always be something waiting in the wings just itching for a chance to wrest away that crown, and the fad-conscious public are always hungry and loyalty often means very little to them. Just ask those 100,000,000 (one hundred million) PS2 owners you mentioned.

[ras el hanout]

I don't mind being fought over. It makes me feel wanted. Anyway, we'll see how many people will have bought a PS3 at the end of its life-span, just as we can with the PS2 now it's essentially coming to its own end.

As with anything mass-market, the key is to capture "hearts and minds" and thoroughly take advantage of our sheep-like nature. Nintendo have come up with the winning formula this time and good luck to them. Their initial surprise at the success of the Wii in the face of their super hi-tech competitors seemed genuine to me, and so they regained their crown.

But there will always be something waiting in the wings just itching for a chance to wrest away that crown, and the fad-conscious public are always hungry and loyalty often means very little to them. Just ask those 100,000,000 (one hundred million) PS2 owners you mentioned.

Well, quite.

But this thread was about the new Xbox. People here seemed to genuinely believe that the replacement to the Xbox will be aimed at them! Can you even believe that? This is quite ridiculous. Whatever replaces the Xbox or Playstation 3 may well be the next big thing. It might go on to sell 200,000,000 units. The point, as I've said, is you lot will fucking hate it. It most certainly won't be an even more powerful console with anything like a standard pad. It may well advance gaming - but for the casuals. And it'll all be thanks to Nintendo.

[Dapple]

And it should be like a sleek amazingly cool DVD/Bluray player design, so it's accepted into the front room easier.

I remember people saying this about the original ps2 design...maybe not the bit about it being sleek. Or cool.

[Jackson]

Microsoft haven't even attempted to make a 'discrete' console yet, which is absolutely key if they're to ever sell anything in Japan and to a broader market worldwide. Nintendo and Sony have proven capable of producing small & reliable technology, qualities Microsoft need to aim for.

Oh, and someone mentioned dropping the 'Xbox' title, definitely a good idea.

[futureshock]

Oh, and someone mentioned dropping the 'Xbox' title, definitely a good idea.

I was just about to say the same thing - I don't care what the hardware is like, it's not going to appeal to the audiences they need whilst hanging on to that name.

[Sprite Machine]

I was just about to say the same thing - I don't care what the hardware is like, it's not going to appeal to the audiences they need whilst hanging on to that name.

See also: "blades", "tags", "underground", etc.

[Snowman]

There are 30million hardcore nerds at the very most. Sony and MS aren't going to fight over them with a very expensive console. They want to sell 100m consoles. To sell 100m consoles you need to appeal to casual gamers.

I'd agree that Sony and MS aren't going to fight over 30 million hardcore customers with a new and expensive console with very shiny graphics. But I think it's rediculous to suggest that all three manufacturers are going to completely ignore the hardcore, leaving them to idly wander back to their PCs. 30 million people is an awful lot of potential customers. If Microsoft's next console was just as powerful as a 360, but came with a waggle stick and a standard controller (like packing in a classic controller with a Wii), wouldn't they be able to have their cake and eat it? You could say that people might find having two controllers confusing, but much like Virtual Console games, there would be a start-up screen that explained which controller was needed for that particular game.

It shouldn't have to be black or white, hardcore or casual. Just a nice shade of grey. I really think something like this is possible. It's just going to take someone with some vision to pull it off, and unfortunately Microsoft are probably the least capable in that respect. Perhaps Sony will rise to the occasion and it'll be their turn in the limelight once more.

[futureshock]

See also: "blades", "tags", "underground", etc.

They won't drop any of that lingo for fear of alienating their current fanbase.

Whatever they do, I'm struggling to see how they'll compete with an updated Wii-branded machine.

[Philly]

I recon it'll have to look something like this, and called something neutral like Microsoft Recreation.

Also i think a pad, with a DS like slide-outable wand/stylus pointer about the size of a magic wand would be a good happy medium.

Hardcore get a pad and casual get a pointer.

[Super Craig]

Recreation doesn't sound cool. It shouldn't really have Microsoft on it either.

[fatoy.japa]

See also: "blades", "tags", "underground", etc.

I think this needs to be stacked against Ramone's doom-mongering because, taken as a whole, a Microsoft machine intended to compete for the same demographic as the Wii or even as a follow-on from the Nintendo's "gateway drug", leading bewildered new acolytes into ever darker caves where their waggle motions are ranked and, heaven help us, timed, would have to be the absolute antithesis to what they've spent nigh on a decade establishing.

Matchmaking? Nope, we don't want that element of competition. Same goes for gamerscore, gamer zones and so forth. The whole service that the original Xbox engendered and the 360 ran with is so geared towards the immersive-but-insular, competitive gaming market that the only viable way around that (rather than a huge back-pedalling "yeah, you don't want that stuff any more") would be to introduce two new machines in a similar fashion to today's Arcade and Elite but with far more disparate aims;

The Arcade equivalent is called, I don't know, the Xii or something and caters for a more casual crowd. Wii-mote pastiches are the bundled controllers, and Live silver becomes 'the meeting place' or similar and acts as a messaging service and communal gathering place for easy, fun multiplayer gaming, a video marketplace / sharing zone and a music store - all as a side dish to the intended 'in the same room' market.

The Elite equivalent is called The 3DMonsterX, comes with a typical game pad as standard and boasts the new Live Gold service - subsidised by advertising to the new silver userbase - which is entirely geared to competitive multiplayer and boasts clan support, online challenges and trophies that can be compared against other users and a suite of more 'traditional' videogames. They'd probably use the same essential hardware (specifics, peripherals and storage space aside) and could even share a common library of downloadable titles but, in spite of all that, would provide effectively two separate platforms to develop for.

I'm sure that absolutely none of this is viable in the current or immediate-future marketplace, but it seems to be at least a logical extrapolation of what is already in place for this generation. It would eliminate a lot of the vagaries of today's multi-SKU market and, in place of "well, this has four USB ports, no BC" or "this is lacking a hard drive and a Wi-Fi adapter" the only choice consumers would be faced with is whether or not their specific configuration plays the games that they want to play. With a strong enough branding difference between the two, that wouldn't be a particularly difficult decision for them to make.

It'd be a different matter entirely for developers, of course, but I'm just thinking out loud as is my wont.

[divine visitor]

They won't drop any of that lingo for fear of alienating their current fanbase.

Whatever they do, I'm struggling to see how they'll compete with an updated Wii-branded machine.

That kind of lingo is pretty common to the Myspace/YouTube generation. I don't think the Xbox 3 will necessarily be a response to the Wii as more of a response to Web 2.0. That's as casual as you like, yet not completely uncharted territory for Microsoft who've already started down that path with certain features of Xbox Live.

[Super Craig]

I think this needs to be stacked against Ramone's doom-mongering because, taken as a whole, a Microsoft machine intended to compete for the same demographic as the Wii or even as a follow-on from the Nintendo's "gateway drug", leading bewildered new acolytes into ever darker caves where their waggle motions are ranked and, heaven help us, timed, would have to be the absolute antithesis to what they've spent nigh on a decade establishing themselves as.

Matchmaking? Nope, we don't want that element of competition. Same goes for gamerscore, gamer zones and so forth. The whole service that the original Xbox engendered and the 360 ran with is so geared towards the immersive-but-insular, competitive gaming market that the only viable way around that (rather than a huge back-pedal) would be to introduce two new machines in a similar fashion to today's Arcade and Elite but with far more disparate aims;

The Arcade equivalent is called, I don't know, the Xii or something and caters for a more casual crowd. Wii-mote pastiches are the bundled controllers, and Live silver becomes 'the meeting place' or similar and acts as a messaging service and communal gathering place for easy, fun multiplayer gaming, a video marketplace / sharing zone and a music store - all as a side dish to the intended 'in the same room' market.

The Elite equivalent is called The 3DMonsterX, comes with a typical game pad as standard and boasts the new Live Gold service - subsidised by advertising to the new silver userbase - which is entirely geared to competitive multiplayer and boasts clan support, online challenges and trophies that can be compared against other users and a suite of more 'traditional' videogames. They'd probably use the same essential hardware (specifics, peripherals and storage space aside) and could even share a common library of downloadable titles but, in spite of all that, would provide effectively two separate platforms to develop for.

I'm sure that absolutely none of this is viable in the current or immediate-future marketplace, but it seems to be at least a logical extrapolation of what is already in place for this generation.

I don't think they have to get rid of all that stuff at all. It just needs to be presented differently. Emphasize playing with people you know over randoms.

[Sprite Machine]

I don't think they have to get rid of all that stuff at all. It just needs to be presented differently. Emphasize playing with people you know over randoms.

Friend codes!

[Snowman]

Someone needs to start tapping into the whole MySpace/Facebook phenomenon. As an online community, Xbox Live is looking increasingly pathetic compared to its internet-based brethren. I guess Home is a step in that direction but I'm not all that convinced.

[futureshock]

That kind of lingo is pretty common to the Myspace/YouTube generation. I don't think the Xbox 3 will necessarily be a response to the Wii as more of a response to Web 2.0. That's as casual as you like, yet not completely uncharted territory for Microsoft who've already started down that path with certain features of Xbox Live.

It'll be another twenty years before the Myspace/YouTube generation are as 'casual' as the current Wii market.

[Super Craig]

Friend codes!

Not at all.

[MK-1601]

Someone needs to start tapping into the whole MySpace/Facebook phenomenon. As an online community, Xbox Live is looking increasingly pathetic compared to its internet-based brethren. I guess Home is a step in that direction but I'm not all that convinced.

Good point. The approach to online taken by all the current consoles is very old-fashioned. The idea of these closed networks isolated from each other and the web makes me nostalgic for Wireplay.

[Warszawa]

The thought of another new Microsoft console less than five years since the previous one launched is too depressing to contemplate. "We'll throw out a new console with abysmal build quality every few years as a spoiler rather than really attempt to take the market forward!" is just a shitty concept. I think the 360 is fantastic other than the noise and reliability issues (which are, admittedly, pretty fucking big issues) and would rather see Microsoft attempt to fix said problems rather than jump straight ahead and launch a new console before the back end of 2010. It's disappointing whenever the PS3 version of a multi-format game has no advantages other its 360 counterpart because it's blissful playing on such a quiet and reliable console whenever possible.

If they want to try and capitalise on the Wii's success while blending it with the current 360 market they'd be better off rebranding and reboxing the 360 with Wii-beating motion controllers, hard drive as standard and a new front end in order to maximise accessiblity. Don't call it a 360 or indeed an Xbox but leave the innards as they are so software is compatible across the board. Offer the new controllers as seperate entity and the new firmware as a paid download (and bundle it 'free' with any hard drives sold from that point on) so that current 360 owners can 'upgrade'. Rather like the Wii hardware model but with the option for existing customers to upgrade without shelling out for a new console. If it fails Microsoft can say it was only a temporary half-way house and (assuming they don't want to duck out of the market altogether) still bring out a technical behemoth a couple of years later, if it succeeds they'll be in with a shot of coming much closer to Nintendo than they currently are, though even then they've little hope of getting what could reasonably be considered close.

[ras el hanout]

I'd agree that Sony and MS aren't going to fight over 30 million hardcore customers with a new and expensive console with very shiny graphics. But I think it's rediculous to suggest that all three manufacturers are going to completely ignore the hardcore, leaving them to idly wander back to their PCs. 30 million people is an awful lot of potential customers. If Microsoft's next console was just as powerful as a 360, but came with a waggle stick and a standard controller (like packing in a classic controller with a Wii), wouldn't they be able to have their cake and eat it? You could say that people might find having two controllers confusing, but much like Virtual Console games, there would be a start-up screen that explained which controller was needed for that particular game.

It shouldn't have to be black or white, hardcore or casual. Just a nice shade of grey. I really think something like this is possible. It's just going to take someone with some vision to pull it off, and unfortunately Microsoft are probably the least capable in that respect. Perhaps Sony will rise to the occasion and it'll be their turn in the limelight once more.

30m people IS an awful lot of customers. However, and this may sting, MS didn't enter the console race because they wanted to make groovy games for you wonderful people. They entered it to make an enormous amount of money by catering for all your media needs. This can't happen if they don't sell 100m consoles. Which they won't.

Perhaps Sony will announce a casual twee machine. Then the path to those 30m is clear and profitable for somebody. If Sony and MS suspect one of them is going to release a hardcore gaming machine then the other most certainly will not (neither of them will, btw) If they did they'd be fighting over you lot.

As for your suggestion that next gen they should release the same console with waggle. Well, isn't that exactly why you lot hate the Wii? In five years time PC graphics are going to be amazing. You'll be playing on something that has shit graphics. Not as shit as the Wii's but pretty fucking shit compared to the best of what's on offer. I mean, at the end of that gen your 360 will be pumping out ten year old graphics! Just like the Wii does!

And, you know, the 360 pretty much is a PC. It looks like a PC and the games on it are all PC type games. You even strap headsets on! You could just hook your PC up to one of those new fangled HD tellies and you're good to go.

Guys, I'm not trying to be all doom and gloom for you. But use your business heads for a second. Would YOU lose billions of pounds on a machine to make nerds happy when you could try and make billions of pounds making non-nerds happy? That's what it comes down to.

[Philly]

How about making ALL your potential customers happy with a hardcore and causal machine in one? The DS does well enough this way.

Hardcore and oldschool RPGs and braintraining stuff.

You don't need to sacrifice one for the other.

Release launch schedule for new microsoft player.

Train your brain and body game - advertised in woman's mags and morning telly

Hardcore online WOW type game - hardcore games mags and net

Racer and shooter - casual kids on the street posters and telly

It needs to be on all the time like the wii/video/dvd player. For the whole family to use at anytime.

[divine visitor]

It'll be another twenty years before the Myspace/YouTube generation are as 'casual' as the current Wii market.

The positive reception towards things like the video sharing in Skate and Halo 3, as well as LittleBigPlanet shows that this kind of thing is going to be big in games in the next couple of years. Community is core to Microsoft's strategy, and I think they'll take their next Xbox in this direcition, with lots of text/picture/video sharing and a facebook style customable dashboards for each user.

[ras el hanout]

How about making ALL your potential customers happy with a hardcore and causal machine in one? The DS does well enough this way.

Hardcore and oldschool RPGs and braintraining stuff.

I think that's what Nintendo are trying to do with the Wii. But you can't please all of the nerds without cutting edge stuff. The things that the hardcore want are the very things that put off the casuals. Voice chat, harddrives, servers, installs, loading, buttons. Many many buttons. Lots of buttons.

[Philly]

a controller with a flip top revealing lots of extra buttons, i had a telly remote like that once. (sony ironically)

hide the voicechat in the pad, hide the harddrive like the original xbox.

Even superpower PCs still run facebook like any other PC.