Xbox 720 codenamed Durango
Discussion
I subscribed to an xbox 720 site the other day and just received an email with some interesting information about the next xbox. It seems its codename Durango has slipped out. Obviously this isnt what it will be called when its released like project natal and the kinect but it seems all the rumours were true about microsoft working on the next console. I for one cant wait. The xbox 360 is starting to get a bit long in the tooth now.
Full article is here:
Mod edit - don't post links to your own websites: it is advertising
Full article is here:
Mod edit - don't post links to your own websites: it is advertising
Edited by identity_crisis on Monday 5th March 01:31
Edited by GlenMH on Monday 5th March 08:25
identity_crisis said:
it seems all the rumours were true about microsoft working on the next console.
not really a surprise is it though?Edited by identity_crisis on Monday 5th March 01:31
Should be interesting if they don't just decide to up the horsepower but try and make the console more about entertainment not just games.
Let's take the up and coming 720 as an example.. no doubt it will support full 1080P framerate.. just as 4k launches everywhere else. No doubt it will not be as backward compatible as they thought it would be, and no doubt it will be a lot more expensive than expected (just as the 360 was marketed as likely to be cheaper than the last console - and it wasn't).
The talk is they are going to use AMD for the graphics processor, loosely based around the 6670 which is a powerful GPU. Maybe with the inevitable delay in going to market, they might just upgrade it to the 7000 series. Thing is, we're at the end of the 7000 series chip now and the 8000 series on the horizon. As with the PS3, the new Xbox720 will have a design life of ten years.. TEN YEARS! Who buys technology and expects it to be fun ten years later? That equates to around 10 generations of GPU on a PC!
.. and what about the games? If the rumours are true, the new system will not allow second hand games to be played - they will be licensed to each machine. This will cause massive damage to the console market as people cannot swap like they used to. Of course there will be hacks and workarounds but MS will just enforce and start deleting online accounts as they do today. Also there are issues internally with MS and BluRay. MS is still reluctant to put BlueRay into the 720, instead choosing to favour fast internet for streaming. Steam has been doing this on PC for over 5 year with good results. They do not want to adopt BlueRay because it's technology from their enemy - Sony. MS got burned with HD DVD as it backed the wrong horse. This means that they will probably ask you to subscribe to online storage which will be like what they offer now for online games, again with a subscription. No optical drive could be their next bold step which would confirm incompatibility with the last gen!
PS3 is rumoured to be planning their release for 2015.. another 3 years to wait for that platform then? Also this will be with BlueRay - even though they will be obsolete in 3 or 4 years. The rumours for Xbox release are between 1 and 3 years, with 3 more likely as they need to assess the PS3 risk to be ready to be competitive.
Don't believe anything about specifications yet.. it's just the beginning of a propaganda war between Sony and MS.
So; why does Sony and MS continue to say that their platforms are designed to last for 10 years? Can we apply this logic to any other consumer electronics, like a TV or a Hifi? No. To understand this we need to differentiate between their goals as a business and yours as a consumer - and they are not in your interest. They spent an initial investment on the platform and now they earn directly from the games sales. Why would they continue to develop a new console every year? It would be a really bad business model for them. It would cost them billions and reduce their profits massively. So instead, they tell everyone that their platform is cutting edge and will last ten years. What they mean is it will last them ten years and earn them money while costing them nothing.
Where do I think we will end up? Well Steam is now seriously getting into bed with Apple so expect games there in the not so distant future. PC's are absolutely for nothing as the hardware development is way ahead of the software requirements. With PC games at half the console prices and via download I predict a swing back from consoles to the PC market. They are also getting smaller, quieter and faster all the time, more like a console in appearance but able to be upgraded whenever you want to. MS will have to be very careful about how it markets its new 720 without trying to tread on the PC market or vice versa. Very interesting times ahead I say!
All just my opinion, not looking to start a PC vs console war
Good articles with some useful info on the 720:
TechRadar
T3
The talk is they are going to use AMD for the graphics processor, loosely based around the 6670 which is a powerful GPU. Maybe with the inevitable delay in going to market, they might just upgrade it to the 7000 series. Thing is, we're at the end of the 7000 series chip now and the 8000 series on the horizon. As with the PS3, the new Xbox720 will have a design life of ten years.. TEN YEARS! Who buys technology and expects it to be fun ten years later? That equates to around 10 generations of GPU on a PC!
.. and what about the games? If the rumours are true, the new system will not allow second hand games to be played - they will be licensed to each machine. This will cause massive damage to the console market as people cannot swap like they used to. Of course there will be hacks and workarounds but MS will just enforce and start deleting online accounts as they do today. Also there are issues internally with MS and BluRay. MS is still reluctant to put BlueRay into the 720, instead choosing to favour fast internet for streaming. Steam has been doing this on PC for over 5 year with good results. They do not want to adopt BlueRay because it's technology from their enemy - Sony. MS got burned with HD DVD as it backed the wrong horse. This means that they will probably ask you to subscribe to online storage which will be like what they offer now for online games, again with a subscription. No optical drive could be their next bold step which would confirm incompatibility with the last gen!
PS3 is rumoured to be planning their release for 2015.. another 3 years to wait for that platform then? Also this will be with BlueRay - even though they will be obsolete in 3 or 4 years. The rumours for Xbox release are between 1 and 3 years, with 3 more likely as they need to assess the PS3 risk to be ready to be competitive.
Don't believe anything about specifications yet.. it's just the beginning of a propaganda war between Sony and MS.
So; why does Sony and MS continue to say that their platforms are designed to last for 10 years? Can we apply this logic to any other consumer electronics, like a TV or a Hifi? No. To understand this we need to differentiate between their goals as a business and yours as a consumer - and they are not in your interest. They spent an initial investment on the platform and now they earn directly from the games sales. Why would they continue to develop a new console every year? It would be a really bad business model for them. It would cost them billions and reduce their profits massively. So instead, they tell everyone that their platform is cutting edge and will last ten years. What they mean is it will last them ten years and earn them money while costing them nothing.
Where do I think we will end up? Well Steam is now seriously getting into bed with Apple so expect games there in the not so distant future. PC's are absolutely for nothing as the hardware development is way ahead of the software requirements. With PC games at half the console prices and via download I predict a swing back from consoles to the PC market. They are also getting smaller, quieter and faster all the time, more like a console in appearance but able to be upgraded whenever you want to. MS will have to be very careful about how it markets its new 720 without trying to tread on the PC market or vice versa. Very interesting times ahead I say!
All just my opinion, not looking to start a PC vs console war
Good articles with some useful info on the 720:
TechRadar
T3
LordFlathead said:
Let's take the up and coming 720 as an example.. no doubt it will support full 1080P framerate.. just as 4k launches everywhere else. No doubt it will not be as backward compatible as they thought it would be, and no doubt it will be a lot more expensive than expected (just as the 360 was marketed as likely to be cheaper than the last console - and it wasn't).
The talk is they are going to use AMD for the graphics processor, loosely based around the 6670 which is a powerful GPU. Maybe with the inevitable delay in going to market, they might just upgrade it to the 7000 series. Thing is, we're at the end of the 7000 series chip now and the 8000 series on the horizon. As with the PS3, the new Xbox720 will have a design life of ten years.. TEN YEARS! Who buys technology and expects it to be fun ten years later? That equates to around 10 generations of GPU on a PC!
.. and what about the games? If the rumours are true, the new system will not allow second hand games to be played - they will be licensed to each machine. This will cause massive damage to the console market as people cannot swap like they used to. Of course there will be hacks and workarounds but MS will just enforce and start deleting online accounts as they do today. Also there are issues internally with MS and BluRay. MS is still reluctant to put BlueRay into the 720, instead choosing to favour fast internet for streaming. Steam has been doing this on PC for over 5 year with good results. They do not want to adopt BlueRay because it's technology from their enemy - Sony. MS got burned with HD DVD as it backed the wrong horse. This means that they will probably ask you to subscribe to online storage which will be like what they offer now for online games, again with a subscription. No optical drive could be their next bold step which would confirm incompatibility with the last gen!
PS3 is rumoured to be planning their release for 2015.. another 3 years to wait for that platform then? Also this will be with BlueRay - even though they will be obsolete in 3 or 4 years. The rumours for Xbox release are between 1 and 3 years, with 3 more likely as they need to assess the PS3 risk to be ready to be competitive.
Don't believe anything about specifications yet.. it's just the beginning of a propaganda war between Sony and MS.
So; why does Sony and MS continue to say that their platforms are designed to last for 10 years? Can we apply this logic to any other consumer electronics, like a TV or a Hifi? No. To understand this we need to differentiate between their goals as a business and yours as a consumer - and they are not in your interest. They spent an initial investment on the platform and now they earn directly from the games sales. Why would they continue to develop a new console every year? It would be a really bad business model for them. It would cost them billions and reduce their profits massively. So instead, they tell everyone that their platform is cutting edge and will last ten years. What they mean is it will last them ten years and earn them money while costing them nothing.
Where do I think we will end up? Well Steam is now seriously getting into bed with Apple so expect games there in the not so distant future. PC's are absolutely for nothing as the hardware development is way ahead of the software requirements. With PC games at half the console prices and via download I predict a swing back from consoles to the PC market. They are also getting smaller, quieter and faster all the time, more like a console in appearance but able to be upgraded whenever you want to. MS will have to be very careful about how it markets its new 720 without trying to tread on the PC market or vice versa. Very interesting times ahead I say!
All just my opinion, not looking to start a PC vs console war
Good articles with some useful info on the 720:
TechRadar
T3
The talk is they are going to use AMD for the graphics processor, loosely based around the 6670 which is a powerful GPU. Maybe with the inevitable delay in going to market, they might just upgrade it to the 7000 series. Thing is, we're at the end of the 7000 series chip now and the 8000 series on the horizon. As with the PS3, the new Xbox720 will have a design life of ten years.. TEN YEARS! Who buys technology and expects it to be fun ten years later? That equates to around 10 generations of GPU on a PC!
.. and what about the games? If the rumours are true, the new system will not allow second hand games to be played - they will be licensed to each machine. This will cause massive damage to the console market as people cannot swap like they used to. Of course there will be hacks and workarounds but MS will just enforce and start deleting online accounts as they do today. Also there are issues internally with MS and BluRay. MS is still reluctant to put BlueRay into the 720, instead choosing to favour fast internet for streaming. Steam has been doing this on PC for over 5 year with good results. They do not want to adopt BlueRay because it's technology from their enemy - Sony. MS got burned with HD DVD as it backed the wrong horse. This means that they will probably ask you to subscribe to online storage which will be like what they offer now for online games, again with a subscription. No optical drive could be their next bold step which would confirm incompatibility with the last gen!
PS3 is rumoured to be planning their release for 2015.. another 3 years to wait for that platform then? Also this will be with BlueRay - even though they will be obsolete in 3 or 4 years. The rumours for Xbox release are between 1 and 3 years, with 3 more likely as they need to assess the PS3 risk to be ready to be competitive.
Don't believe anything about specifications yet.. it's just the beginning of a propaganda war between Sony and MS.
So; why does Sony and MS continue to say that their platforms are designed to last for 10 years? Can we apply this logic to any other consumer electronics, like a TV or a Hifi? No. To understand this we need to differentiate between their goals as a business and yours as a consumer - and they are not in your interest. They spent an initial investment on the platform and now they earn directly from the games sales. Why would they continue to develop a new console every year? It would be a really bad business model for them. It would cost them billions and reduce their profits massively. So instead, they tell everyone that their platform is cutting edge and will last ten years. What they mean is it will last them ten years and earn them money while costing them nothing.
Where do I think we will end up? Well Steam is now seriously getting into bed with Apple so expect games there in the not so distant future. PC's are absolutely for nothing as the hardware development is way ahead of the software requirements. With PC games at half the console prices and via download I predict a swing back from consoles to the PC market. They are also getting smaller, quieter and faster all the time, more like a console in appearance but able to be upgraded whenever you want to. MS will have to be very careful about how it markets its new 720 without trying to tread on the PC market or vice versa. Very interesting times ahead I say!
All just my opinion, not looking to start a PC vs console war
Good articles with some useful info on the 720:
TechRadar
T3
very informative and insightful post, thankyou Some good points there. The 2nd hand market is getting squeezed with more emphasis on multiplayer and single use codes rather than single player.
PCs are now not the old style massive boxes which need lots of cooling (Although you can if you want) but they are pretty much console style boxes which run quiet and with the new Windows 8 Metro interface could be easily controlled with a gamepad.
PCs are now not the old style massive boxes which need lots of cooling (Although you can if you want) but they are pretty much console style boxes which run quiet and with the new Windows 8 Metro interface could be easily controlled with a gamepad.
It's always been the same - right back as far as the original NES and Master System. They were awesome when they came out compared to the Atari 800XL and Commodore 64, but by the end of their cycles they were up against the Amiga and Atari ST, a whole different kettle of fish.
Out came the Super NES and Mega Drive, and consoles were back out in front again until CD-ROM drives and the first generation 3D cards came to PCs. Then we got Playstation, Saturn and N64.
That was great until the internet came along big style, and everyone was playing Counterstrike online. So then we got Xbox and PS2 which had proper online things for the first time.
The cycle after that didn't really bring any new development from the PC market that consoles responded to, so it was the first real incremental update when we got the PS3 and 360. Nintendo then came along with the Wii which screwed massively with the gameplan, meaning a rush to the Move and Kinect before the next gen consoles were ready.
It's all about "convergence" this time round anyway. All the manufacturers will want the one box under your TV to be their box, delivering games, TV, music, movies, and the internet (or an app-esque subset therein) to your screen.
Out came the Super NES and Mega Drive, and consoles were back out in front again until CD-ROM drives and the first generation 3D cards came to PCs. Then we got Playstation, Saturn and N64.
That was great until the internet came along big style, and everyone was playing Counterstrike online. So then we got Xbox and PS2 which had proper online things for the first time.
The cycle after that didn't really bring any new development from the PC market that consoles responded to, so it was the first real incremental update when we got the PS3 and 360. Nintendo then came along with the Wii which screwed massively with the gameplan, meaning a rush to the Move and Kinect before the next gen consoles were ready.
It's all about "convergence" this time round anyway. All the manufacturers will want the one box under your TV to be their box, delivering games, TV, music, movies, and the internet (or an app-esque subset therein) to your screen.
LordFlathead said:
Let's take the up and coming 720 as an example.. no doubt it will support full 1080P framerate.. just as 4k launches everywhere else. No doubt it will not be as backward compatible as they thought it would be, and no doubt it will be a lot more expensive than expected (just as the 360 was marketed as likely to be cheaper than the last console - and it wasn't).
The talk is they are going to use AMD for the graphics processor, loosely based around the 6670 which is a powerful GPU. Maybe with the inevitable delay in going to market, they might just upgrade it to the 7000 series. Thing is, we're at the end of the 7000 series chip now and the 8000 series on the horizon. As with the PS3, the new Xbox720 will have a design life of ten years.. TEN YEARS! Who buys technology and expects it to be fun ten years later? That equates to around 10 generations of GPU on a PC!
.. and what about the games? If the rumours are true, the new system will not allow second hand games to be played - they will be licensed to each machine. This will cause massive damage to the console market as people cannot swap like they used to. Of course there will be hacks and workarounds but MS will just enforce and start deleting online accounts as they do today. Also there are issues internally with MS and BluRay. MS is still reluctant to put BlueRay into the 720, instead choosing to favour fast internet for streaming. Steam has been doing this on PC for over 5 year with good results. They do not want to adopt BlueRay because it's technology from their enemy - Sony. MS got burned with HD DVD as it backed the wrong horse. This means that they will probably ask you to subscribe to online storage which will be like what they offer now for online games, again with a subscription. No optical drive could be their next bold step which would confirm incompatibility with the last gen!
PS3 is rumoured to be planning their release for 2015.. another 3 years to wait for that platform then? Also this will be with BlueRay - even though they will be obsolete in 3 or 4 years. The rumours for Xbox release are between 1 and 3 years, with 3 more likely as they need to assess the PS3 risk to be ready to be competitive.
Don't believe anything about specifications yet.. it's just the beginning of a propaganda war between Sony and MS.
So; why does Sony and MS continue to say that their platforms are designed to last for 10 years? Can we apply this logic to any other consumer electronics, like a TV or a Hifi? No. To understand this we need to differentiate between their goals as a business and yours as a consumer - and they are not in your interest. They spent an initial investment on the platform and now they earn directly from the games sales. Why would they continue to develop a new console every year? It would be a really bad business model for them. It would cost them billions and reduce their profits massively. So instead, they tell everyone that their platform is cutting edge and will last ten years. What they mean is it will last them ten years and earn them money while costing them nothing.
Where do I think we will end up? Well Steam is now seriously getting into bed with Apple so expect games there in the not so distant future. PC's are absolutely for nothing as the hardware development is way ahead of the software requirements. With PC games at half the console prices and via download I predict a swing back from consoles to the PC market. They are also getting smaller, quieter and faster all the time, more like a console in appearance but able to be upgraded whenever you want to. MS will have to be very careful about how it markets its new 720 without trying to tread on the PC market or vice versa. Very interesting times ahead I say!
All just my opinion, not looking to start a PC vs console war
Good articles with some useful info on the 720:
TechRadar
T3
You miss the two biggest factors about consoles:The talk is they are going to use AMD for the graphics processor, loosely based around the 6670 which is a powerful GPU. Maybe with the inevitable delay in going to market, they might just upgrade it to the 7000 series. Thing is, we're at the end of the 7000 series chip now and the 8000 series on the horizon. As with the PS3, the new Xbox720 will have a design life of ten years.. TEN YEARS! Who buys technology and expects it to be fun ten years later? That equates to around 10 generations of GPU on a PC!
.. and what about the games? If the rumours are true, the new system will not allow second hand games to be played - they will be licensed to each machine. This will cause massive damage to the console market as people cannot swap like they used to. Of course there will be hacks and workarounds but MS will just enforce and start deleting online accounts as they do today. Also there are issues internally with MS and BluRay. MS is still reluctant to put BlueRay into the 720, instead choosing to favour fast internet for streaming. Steam has been doing this on PC for over 5 year with good results. They do not want to adopt BlueRay because it's technology from their enemy - Sony. MS got burned with HD DVD as it backed the wrong horse. This means that they will probably ask you to subscribe to online storage which will be like what they offer now for online games, again with a subscription. No optical drive could be their next bold step which would confirm incompatibility with the last gen!
PS3 is rumoured to be planning their release for 2015.. another 3 years to wait for that platform then? Also this will be with BlueRay - even though they will be obsolete in 3 or 4 years. The rumours for Xbox release are between 1 and 3 years, with 3 more likely as they need to assess the PS3 risk to be ready to be competitive.
Don't believe anything about specifications yet.. it's just the beginning of a propaganda war between Sony and MS.
So; why does Sony and MS continue to say that their platforms are designed to last for 10 years? Can we apply this logic to any other consumer electronics, like a TV or a Hifi? No. To understand this we need to differentiate between their goals as a business and yours as a consumer - and they are not in your interest. They spent an initial investment on the platform and now they earn directly from the games sales. Why would they continue to develop a new console every year? It would be a really bad business model for them. It would cost them billions and reduce their profits massively. So instead, they tell everyone that their platform is cutting edge and will last ten years. What they mean is it will last them ten years and earn them money while costing them nothing.
Where do I think we will end up? Well Steam is now seriously getting into bed with Apple so expect games there in the not so distant future. PC's are absolutely for nothing as the hardware development is way ahead of the software requirements. With PC games at half the console prices and via download I predict a swing back from consoles to the PC market. They are also getting smaller, quieter and faster all the time, more like a console in appearance but able to be upgraded whenever you want to. MS will have to be very careful about how it markets its new 720 without trying to tread on the PC market or vice versa. Very interesting times ahead I say!
All just my opinion, not looking to start a PC vs console war
Good articles with some useful info on the 720:
TechRadar
T3
1.) Lifespan, no consumer wants to constantly upgrade kit. The 10 year lifespan makes absolute sense from a manufacturers perspective and a consumer. I for one do not have a limitless amount of money or time to constantly upgrade, I suspect a culture swing from the recent consumeristic must upgrade attitude (re phones etc) to a more mature buy it to use it for a long time. DX12 comes out so I need a new graphics card and possibly a new motherboard just so I can play the game at a usable refresh rate.
2.) I buy a game for my Xbox, I put it in, it works. There are no issues with hackers and online play is fair. I have read so many times about PC gamers complaining about driver issues, hacking issues etc that to me it makes no sense for me to even attempt to play on a PC. The graphics may be nicer but the current console graphics look anything but dated.
Also to suggest that Microsoft will not adopt Blu-Ray is simply bonkers. Ok they missed out with HD-DVD but at a cost that almost crippled Sony. To suggest that MS will avoid Blu-Ray when people want a machine to play films on makes no business sense. MS will realise that people have a back collection of blu-ray and DVDs to watch and will want to watch on their new box.
As for the life span of Blu-Ray for another 3-4 years, whilst that may be true Blu-Ray has not really made any huge impact has it? Most films are still on DVD because people simply do not want to update their working kit (which reflects point one in my last post).
As for the life span of Blu-Ray for another 3-4 years, whilst that may be true Blu-Ray has not really made any huge impact has it? Most films are still on DVD because people simply do not want to update their working kit (which reflects point one in my last post).
Iggle Piggle said:
2.) I buy a game for my Xbox, I put it in, it works. There are no issues with hackers and online play is fair.
I'm sort of with you here, in that I like how consoles offer a level playing field (to a large extent) because everyone's using pretty much the same hard ware. So we all get the same wait times and resolution, depth of field and frame rate. Makes online FPS' feel more competitive. (Albeit there are still issues with latency.)I also agree that issues with hackers are less than used to be with PC games of old. However Steam has a pretty good system for preventing cheats, and on the other hand MW2 was torn to shreds by cheats on the X360. So whilst I agree with part of your argument, I disagree that hacking/cheating exists on PC but not on console.
LordFlathead said:
Let's take the up and coming 720 as an example.. no doubt it will support full 1080P framerate.. just as 4k launches everywhere else. No doubt it will not be as backward compatible as they thought it would be, and no doubt it will be a lot more expensive than expected (just as the 360 was marketed as likely to be cheaper than the last console - and it wasn't).
The talk is they are going to use AMD for the graphics processor, loosely based around the 6670 which is a powerful GPU. Maybe with the inevitable delay in going to market, they might just upgrade it to the 7000 series. Thing is, we're at the end of the 7000 series chip now and the 8000 series on the horizon. As with the PS3, the new Xbox720 will have a design life of ten years.. TEN YEARS! Who buys technology and expects it to be fun ten years later? That equates to around 10 generations of GPU on a PC!
.. and what about the games? If the rumours are true, the new system will not allow second hand games to be played - they will be licensed to each machine. This will cause massive damage to the console market as people cannot swap like they used to. Of course there will be hacks and workarounds but MS will just enforce and start deleting online accounts as they do today. Also there are issues internally with MS and BluRay. MS is still reluctant to put BlueRay into the 720, instead choosing to favour fast internet for streaming. Steam has been doing this on PC for over 5 year with good results. They do not want to adopt BlueRay because it's technology from their enemy - Sony. MS got burned with HD DVD as it backed the wrong horse. This means that they will probably ask you to subscribe to online storage which will be like what they offer now for online games, again with a subscription. No optical drive could be their next bold step which would confirm incompatibility with the last gen!
PS3 is rumoured to be planning their release for 2015.. another 3 years to wait for that platform then? Also this will be with BlueRay - even though they will be obsolete in 3 or 4 years. The rumours for Xbox release are between 1 and 3 years, with 3 more likely as they need to assess the PS3 risk to be ready to be competitive.
Don't believe anything about specifications yet.. it's just the beginning of a propaganda war between Sony and MS.
So; why does Sony and MS continue to say that their platforms are designed to last for 10 years? Can we apply this logic to any other consumer electronics, like a TV or a Hifi? No. To understand this we need to differentiate between their goals as a business and yours as a consumer - and they are not in your interest. They spent an initial investment on the platform and now they earn directly from the games sales. Why would they continue to develop a new console every year? It would be a really bad business model for them. It would cost them billions and reduce their profits massively. So instead, they tell everyone that their platform is cutting edge and will last ten years. What they mean is it will last them ten years and earn them money while costing them nothing.
Where do I think we will end up? Well Steam is now seriously getting into bed with Apple so expect games there in the not so distant future. PC's are absolutely for nothing as the hardware development is way ahead of the software requirements. With PC games at half the console prices and via download I predict a swing back from consoles to the PC market. They are also getting smaller, quieter and faster all the time, more like a console in appearance but able to be upgraded whenever you want to. MS will have to be very careful about how it markets its new 720 without trying to tread on the PC market or vice versa. Very interesting times ahead I say!
All just my opinion, not looking to start a PC vs console war
Good articles with some useful info on the 720:
TechRadar
T3
Sorry mate, I disagree with a good deal of what you've said:The talk is they are going to use AMD for the graphics processor, loosely based around the 6670 which is a powerful GPU. Maybe with the inevitable delay in going to market, they might just upgrade it to the 7000 series. Thing is, we're at the end of the 7000 series chip now and the 8000 series on the horizon. As with the PS3, the new Xbox720 will have a design life of ten years.. TEN YEARS! Who buys technology and expects it to be fun ten years later? That equates to around 10 generations of GPU on a PC!
.. and what about the games? If the rumours are true, the new system will not allow second hand games to be played - they will be licensed to each machine. This will cause massive damage to the console market as people cannot swap like they used to. Of course there will be hacks and workarounds but MS will just enforce and start deleting online accounts as they do today. Also there are issues internally with MS and BluRay. MS is still reluctant to put BlueRay into the 720, instead choosing to favour fast internet for streaming. Steam has been doing this on PC for over 5 year with good results. They do not want to adopt BlueRay because it's technology from their enemy - Sony. MS got burned with HD DVD as it backed the wrong horse. This means that they will probably ask you to subscribe to online storage which will be like what they offer now for online games, again with a subscription. No optical drive could be their next bold step which would confirm incompatibility with the last gen!
PS3 is rumoured to be planning their release for 2015.. another 3 years to wait for that platform then? Also this will be with BlueRay - even though they will be obsolete in 3 or 4 years. The rumours for Xbox release are between 1 and 3 years, with 3 more likely as they need to assess the PS3 risk to be ready to be competitive.
Don't believe anything about specifications yet.. it's just the beginning of a propaganda war between Sony and MS.
So; why does Sony and MS continue to say that their platforms are designed to last for 10 years? Can we apply this logic to any other consumer electronics, like a TV or a Hifi? No. To understand this we need to differentiate between their goals as a business and yours as a consumer - and they are not in your interest. They spent an initial investment on the platform and now they earn directly from the games sales. Why would they continue to develop a new console every year? It would be a really bad business model for them. It would cost them billions and reduce their profits massively. So instead, they tell everyone that their platform is cutting edge and will last ten years. What they mean is it will last them ten years and earn them money while costing them nothing.
Where do I think we will end up? Well Steam is now seriously getting into bed with Apple so expect games there in the not so distant future. PC's are absolutely for nothing as the hardware development is way ahead of the software requirements. With PC games at half the console prices and via download I predict a swing back from consoles to the PC market. They are also getting smaller, quieter and faster all the time, more like a console in appearance but able to be upgraded whenever you want to. MS will have to be very careful about how it markets its new 720 without trying to tread on the PC market or vice versa. Very interesting times ahead I say!
All just my opinion, not looking to start a PC vs console war
Good articles with some useful info on the 720:
TechRadar
T3
i) Just because 4K is launched as a video standard doesn't mean devices which don't support it are obsolete. How long did it take between the release of 1080p as a standard and that becomeing the default resolution of normal home TV's? Price will put 4k beyond most people for a good few years.
ii) Design life of 10 years. As someone else has said, the console is expensive, as is the hard drive, the controllers, the charging station, the AV cables, the headsets etc. People won't want to be changing their console every year, as you've implied by equating 10years with 10 generations of PC GPU. I'm not even sure if PC gamers would buy a new GPU each year.
iii) Can we expect consumer electronics to last 10 years? Umm, YES. I've got loads of AV equipment older than 10 years, y Dad has a hifi he's had for about 30 years - still works and the quality is still great. In the "olden days" people would also buy things like a dish washer or washing machine and expect it to last longer than the 3yr manufacturer guarantee. Unfortunately you seem to have been taken in by our consumerist society (not your fault) where you believe it's right that things should be replaced on a 3yr cycle. (My last TV I had for 6 years, replaced because it failed not because I wanted a new one. The one before that is still going strong 10 years after I bought it, as is my surround system with is 9 years old.) [I recognise that the pace of change is different in computing/gaming vs. household electronics, but I'm addressing your comparison to "any other consumer electronics".]
iv) Consoles "cost them nothing" if they last 10 years. Clearly this is not the case. The insides of an X360 cost more to develop and manufacture than they are sold for. MS makes a loss on the sale of each console. The investment is recouped through the sale of games due to the licensing fee paid by publishers to MS for the right to sell a game on that platform. If you don't get this business model then I'm not going to exlain it again.
v) Swing back to PC's. No chance. No chance at all. The mainstream computer user has already moved away from tower PC's with upgradable chips and gpus. They now use laptops for their web browsing, or even iPads (or other tablets). You can get gaming laptops, but they don't sell in anything like the same numbers. As another poster pointed out, people want convenience - so the console which sits under the TV will ALWAYS be the most convenient way to play. (i.e. more convenient than speccing and building ones own gaming rig and coping with the constant updates and patches required.) PS - yes I know xbox has system updates, but they are a lot easier to install IMO!! No, what will replace consoles will not be PC's, rather it will be online rendered games. They'll work by having a mega fast internet connection and effecivly a "dumb terminal" of a console box (this box will be very cheap). The game data, the save games and the processing required to render the games will be in big server centres, and all that's sent down the wire will be the redered frames and audio. All the horsepower is remote. The console will be very small, light and cheap and gaming will become a subscription service like Sky TV. There's already at least one player in this market. Also, as another poster said, the console will become an even more important hub for media - so this box, essentially a streaming box, will be perfect for streaming tv/movies/music/etc on demand from the internet - because it will use the same compression/streaming tech required to serve up the rendered screens from the games. That's where we're heading with the future of games, not back to PC's.
Edited by mrmr96 on Monday 5th March 13:22
mrmr96 said:
Sorry mate, I disagree with a good deal of what you've said:
1 - collected a courtest car, an auto. Dealer threw the keys at me, and I sat in the car for a good 5-10mins before I gave up trying to start it and went to ask for help!
2 - 306 duplicate filler cap
3 - checkign brake thinkness, arm in alloy
4 - vectra failed handbrake into garage
i) Just because 4K is launched as a video standard doesn't mean devices which don't support it are obsolete. How long did it take between the release of 1080p as a standard and that becomeing the default resolution of normal home TV's? Price will put 4k beyond most people for a good few years.
ii) Design life of 10 years. As someone else has said, the console is expensive, as is the hard drive, the controllers, the charging station, the AV cables, the headsets etc. People won't want to be changing their console every year, as you've implied by equating 10years with 10 generations of PC GPU. I'm not even sure if PC gamers would buy a new GPU each year.
iii) Can we expect consumer electronics to last 10 years? Umm, YES. I've got loads of AV equipment older than 10 years, y Dad has a hifi he's had for about 30 years - still works and the quality is still great. In the "olden days" people would also buy things like a dish washer or washing machine and expect it to last longer than the 3yr manufacturer guarantee. Unfortunately you seem to have been taken in by our consumerist society (not your fault) where you believe it's right that things should be replaced on a 3yr cycle. (My last TV I had for 6 years, replaced because it failed not because I wanted a new one. The one before that is still going strong 10 years after I bought it, as is my surround system with is 9 years old.) [I recognise that the pace of change is different in computing/gaming vs. household electronics, but I'm addressing your comparison to "any other consumer electronics".]
iv) Consoles "cost them nothing" if they last 10 years. Clearly this is not the case. The insides of an X360 cost more to develop and manufacture than they are sold for. MS makes a loss on the sale of each console. The investment is recouped through the sale of games due to the licensing fee paid by publishers to MS for the right to sell a game on that platform. If you don't get this business model then I'm not going to exlain it again.
v) Swing back to PC's. No chance. No chance at all. The mainstream computer user has already moved away from tower PC's with upgradable chips and gpus. They now use laptops for their web browsing, or even iPads (or other tablets). You can get gaming laptops, but they don't sell in anything like the same numbers. As another poster pointed out, people want convenience - so the console which sits under the TV will ALWAYS be the most convenient way to play. (i.e. more convenient than speccing and building ones own gaming rig and coping with the constant updates and patches required.) PS - yes I know xbox has system updates, but they are a lot easier to install IMO!! No, what will replace consoles will not be PC's, rather it will be online rendered games. They'll work by having a mega fast internet connection and effecivly a "dumb terminal" of a console box (this box will be very cheap). The game data, the save games and the processing required to render the games will be in big server centres, and all that's sent down the wire will be the redered frames and audio. All the horsepower is remote. The console will be very small, light and cheap and gaming will become a subscription service like Sky TV. There's already at least one player in this market. Also, as another poster said, the console will become an even more important hub for media - so this box, essentially a streaming box, will be perfect for streaming tv/movies/music/etc on demand from the internet - because it will use the same compression/streaming tech required to serve up the rendered screens from the games. That's where we're heading with the future of games, not back to PC's.
Firstly, this sounds like a Bond Villain...1 - collected a courtest car, an auto. Dealer threw the keys at me, and I sat in the car for a good 5-10mins before I gave up trying to start it and went to ask for help!
2 - 306 duplicate filler cap
3 - checkign brake thinkness, arm in alloy
4 - vectra failed handbrake into garage
i) Just because 4K is launched as a video standard doesn't mean devices which don't support it are obsolete. How long did it take between the release of 1080p as a standard and that becomeing the default resolution of normal home TV's? Price will put 4k beyond most people for a good few years.
ii) Design life of 10 years. As someone else has said, the console is expensive, as is the hard drive, the controllers, the charging station, the AV cables, the headsets etc. People won't want to be changing their console every year, as you've implied by equating 10years with 10 generations of PC GPU. I'm not even sure if PC gamers would buy a new GPU each year.
iii) Can we expect consumer electronics to last 10 years? Umm, YES. I've got loads of AV equipment older than 10 years, y Dad has a hifi he's had for about 30 years - still works and the quality is still great. In the "olden days" people would also buy things like a dish washer or washing machine and expect it to last longer than the 3yr manufacturer guarantee. Unfortunately you seem to have been taken in by our consumerist society (not your fault) where you believe it's right that things should be replaced on a 3yr cycle. (My last TV I had for 6 years, replaced because it failed not because I wanted a new one. The one before that is still going strong 10 years after I bought it, as is my surround system with is 9 years old.) [I recognise that the pace of change is different in computing/gaming vs. household electronics, but I'm addressing your comparison to "any other consumer electronics".]
iv) Consoles "cost them nothing" if they last 10 years. Clearly this is not the case. The insides of an X360 cost more to develop and manufacture than they are sold for. MS makes a loss on the sale of each console. The investment is recouped through the sale of games due to the licensing fee paid by publishers to MS for the right to sell a game on that platform. If you don't get this business model then I'm not going to exlain it again.
v) Swing back to PC's. No chance. No chance at all. The mainstream computer user has already moved away from tower PC's with upgradable chips and gpus. They now use laptops for their web browsing, or even iPads (or other tablets). You can get gaming laptops, but they don't sell in anything like the same numbers. As another poster pointed out, people want convenience - so the console which sits under the TV will ALWAYS be the most convenient way to play. (i.e. more convenient than speccing and building ones own gaming rig and coping with the constant updates and patches required.) PS - yes I know xbox has system updates, but they are a lot easier to install IMO!! No, what will replace consoles will not be PC's, rather it will be online rendered games. They'll work by having a mega fast internet connection and effecivly a "dumb terminal" of a console box (this box will be very cheap). The game data, the save games and the processing required to render the games will be in big server centres, and all that's sent down the wire will be the redered frames and audio. All the horsepower is remote. The console will be very small, light and cheap and gaming will become a subscription service like Sky TV. There's already at least one player in this market. Also, as another poster said, the console will become an even more important hub for media - so this box, essentially a streaming box, will be perfect for streaming tv/movies/music/etc on demand from the internet - because it will use the same compression/streaming tech required to serve up the rendered screens from the games. That's where we're heading with the future of games, not back to PC's.
On to the consoles, i use both the PS3 and Xbox as much for a media centre as i do for games. It works very well, the Xbox is by far better than the PS3 at this but i still use both. Games wise, currently i have too many to enjoy, BF3, MW3, Skyrim (not played for three weeks) Fifa 12 and Drake 3. i won't be buying anyhting for a few months yet. But, i am still impressed with what i currently play, the online system is exceptional given the scale and the updates in Xbox terms come thick and fast and easy. They have continued to develop the dashboard which is incredibly easy to use.
I have to admit, i do have a naughty xbox that enables me to download games for free, haven't used it, no point.
I used to be a massive PC player, and thought i always would be, still play but nowhere near as much as the consoles. The PC i have is verry high end with 16g ram big 3g Graphics card, SSD and overclocked 2600 Sandy Bridge, plays everything on full, but still is less convenient. I hae to say, World of Tanks does get a lot of play time but i am getting back in to it.
I see mrmr's prediction as being pretty spot on, my internet connection has a constant average of 18mb download, i can get an xbox 2g demo in a little under 20mins out of peak time, so it seems the only logical way to go.
Whatever it is when it comes out, i will still buy it, i am sure it will be fantastic.
mrmr96 said:
Sorry mate, I disagree with a good deal of what you've said:
1 - collected a courtest car, an auto. Dealer threw the keys at me, and I sat in the car for a good 5-10mins before I gave up trying to start it and went to ask for help!
2 - 306 duplicate filler cap
3 - checkign brake thinkness, arm in alloy
4 - vectra failed handbrake into garage
Lost me there, is this a play on words? 1 - collected a courtest car, an auto. Dealer threw the keys at me, and I sat in the car for a good 5-10mins before I gave up trying to start it and went to ask for help!
2 - 306 duplicate filler cap
3 - checkign brake thinkness, arm in alloy
4 - vectra failed handbrake into garage
mrmr96 said:
i) Just because 4K is launched as a video standard doesn't mean devices which don't support it are obsolete. How long did it take between the release of 1080p as a standard and that becomeing the default resolution of normal home TV's? Price will put 4k beyond most people for a good few years.
So you would rather buy something brand new with old technology and give good money for it? Ok! The Americans are way ahead of us as consumers in HiDef, only in the Uk in the last 5 years have people been upgrading to HiDef, whereas they have had it for 15 years. The UK is slow playing catchup by comparison and price will not put people off because by the time it eventually launches it will be mainstream. It is fast becoming main stream now. So I find it somewhat asmusing that you are trying to protect a console manufacturer that is hyping a donkey 3 years before it is released.. as I said, it's only industry rumours.mrmr96 said:
ii) Design life of 10 years. As someone else has said, the console is expensive, as is the hard drive, the controllers, the charging station, the AV cables, the headsets etc. People won't want to be changing their console every year, as you've implied by equating 10years with 10 generations of PC GPU. I'm not even sure if PC gamers would buy a new GPU each year.
I did not imply that all the PC people are changing their hardware every year. I stated that as a technology progression comparison there is a new generation of GPU every year. Of course when a new game arrives which pushes the boundaries, the console will always get the dumbed down version. Take BF3 as an example, it is nothing like the PC version. Of course there are the hard core gamers that want the latest and greatest but I am not referring to the majority of PC owners as this group.Well that's the problem with consoles - you're stuck with it for ten years which is exactly what I have said.
mrmr96 said:
iii) Can we expect consumer electronics to last 10 years? Umm, YES. I've got loads of AV equipment older than 10 years, y Dad has a hifi he's had for about 30 years - still works and the quality is still great. In the "olden days" people would also buy things like a dish washer or washing machine and expect it to last longer than the 3yr manufacturer guarantee. Unfortunately you seem to have been taken in by our consumerist society (not your fault) where you believe it's right that things should be replaced on a 3yr cycle. (My last TV I had for 6 years, replaced because it failed not because I wanted a new one. The one before that is still going strong 10 years after I bought it, as is my surround system with is 9 years old.) [I recognise that the pace of change is different in computing/gaming vs. household electronics, but I'm addressing your comparison to "any other consumer electronics".]
I've got loads of AV equipment from the same age as your Dad. We are probably around the same age so I have bought a lot of it. Mine still works as it did before and probably will for another 10 years but the functionality is dissolving fast. AM/FM tuner? Turntable? CD? Philips DCC? Minidisc? DAT? DVD? All obsolete - but they still work. I was referring to the lifespan of the 'fashion' which is what makes people buy into technology - pure and simple. Also one of the fields in which I work is for a white goods manufacturer where the design life is 20 years, so I am much more in touch than you think I am. Consumer electronics are just that - electronics designed to be consumed by the masses.mrmr96 said:
iv) Consoles "cost them nothing" if they last 10 years. Clearly this is not the case. The insides of an X360 cost more to develop and manufacture than they are sold for. MS makes a loss on the sale of each console. The investment is recouped through the sale of games due to the licensing fee paid by publishers to MS for the right to sell a game on that platform. If you don't get this business model then I'm not going to exlain it again.
That statement makes very little sense and is factually incorrect. Let me explain the business model to you so you get it. The initial development costs in ANY project are normally based on an investment recoup time of two years (the rate of investment). That is a given and an absolute fact in the consumer manufacturing industry because trends change in a volatile market and that is a dangerous place to be when they do. The sum of materials in an Xbox is absolute peanuts - the overall cost of manufacture would be less than $100. Now do some math and tell me how many you think they have sold since the product launch? Let's compare PC technology at this point, because the Xbox IS a PC in a frock. Take motherboards; there are new motherboards from every vendor launched at least every quarter - how to you think they pay for their development? Not by games! Yet they sell hundreds of thousands of motherboard every year so your business model just doesn't work. mrmr96 said:
v) Swing back to PC's. No chance. No chance at all. The mainstream computer user has already moved away from tower PC's with upgradable chips and gpus. They now use laptops for their web browsing, or even iPads (or other tablets). You can get gaming laptops, but they don't sell in anything like the same numbers. As another poster pointed out, people want convenience - so the console which sits under the TV will ALWAYS be the most convenient way to play. (i.e. more convenient than speccing and building ones own gaming rig and coping with the constant updates and patches required.) PS - yes I know xbox has system updates, but they are a lot easier to install IMO!! No, what will replace consoles will not be PC's, rather it will be online rendered games. They'll work by having a mega fast internet connection and effecivly a "dumb terminal" of a console box (this box will be very cheap). The game data, the save games and the processing required to render the games will be in big server centres, and all that's sent down the wire will be the redered frames and audio. All the horsepower is remote. The console will be very small, light and cheap and gaming will become a subscription service like Sky TV. There's already at least one player in this market. Also, as another poster said, the console will become an even more important hub for media - so this box, essentially a streaming box, will be perfect for streaming tv/movies/music/etc on demand from the internet - because it will use the same compression/streaming tech required to serve up the rendered screens from the games. That's where we're heading with the future of games, not back to PC's.
The PC market was killed by a number of things, namely the lacklustre appeal of a large beige box, the unreliable nature that was the MS desktop, and virii and malware. The rest of your post is out of date. The online rendered games has been trialled and was not successful, the need to send the graphics over the pipe and fly by remote control is not dependant on everyone getting fast bradband, it is wholly dependant on pingtime. Sky has notoriously bad connections as a lot of their older network is still copper. It is also counter intuitive to streaming HD. Microsoft like Sky, are very keen to get you into cloud-based subscription, even though MS is still denying this officially. This is one reason why PC gamers enjoy not paying to play online. Yes laptops are popular, tablets are becoming main stream and gesture is on the horizon, but we are talking about the success of consoles, and the reason that they will fail is because they will be absorbed by Media Centers. I firmly believe that the future lies in Media Centres. A console is a PC, a Media Centre is a PC. As we know it does more than any console could but the consumer wants something more sexy. Consumers want HiDef video, games, multi-room audio streaming. MS cannot put a BlueRay into it's box without paying Sony a lot of money under license. They know that the life expectancy of BlueRay is already being threatened by streaming technologies, so the only way forward for them is to either keep DVD (unlikely), lease Sony technology (also unlikely), invent a new media technology (totally unlikely), or massively promote cloud baseed technologies. The future is IMO modular Media Centres. Like PC's they will have slots in so you can change hardware as and when required. The software is not modifiable, the system is maintained and patched via broadband, and the Media Centre platform then can be sustained. I'm glad that you are passionate about consoles, over the years I've been passionate about a lot of technology but I watched them all come and go.
The term PC is too generic. Maybe we are looking at PMC's? Personal Media Centre.. or should that be Personal Media Server(s)?
Far too many words in this thread to reply in full on my iPhone but I have a few thoughts:
1) who says Bluray will be obsolete in 3-4 years? In favour of what? Tech Geeks might think a format is 'obsolete' as soon as the next great thing comes along, but to your average consumer it's obsolete when they stop making them or the machines you need to play them. DVD, CD, paper-based written media, FM radio, CRT TV's, land-line telephones..... All 'obsolete' to some, all still hugely popular and used daily by most.
2) The next XBox will be more of a multi-media centre like the PS3, it'll play faster/better looking games than the last on and will come with some sort of of high capacity disc drive, probably Bluray or it will be a sales disaster. MS aren't stupid, they won't turn their back on all their customers who don't have access to 50meg fibre optic broadband.
3) the 'ten year life cycle' thing has been done to death - but it's simply the time the platform will be supported for, it's not the time it'll be the flagship platform or indeed how long the machine will stay untouched there will be smaller we versions that are smaller/quiter/cheaper along the way and it'll spend a while as the 'old one' still for sale and still having games made for it when the new one comes along.
1) who says Bluray will be obsolete in 3-4 years? In favour of what? Tech Geeks might think a format is 'obsolete' as soon as the next great thing comes along, but to your average consumer it's obsolete when they stop making them or the machines you need to play them. DVD, CD, paper-based written media, FM radio, CRT TV's, land-line telephones..... All 'obsolete' to some, all still hugely popular and used daily by most.
2) The next XBox will be more of a multi-media centre like the PS3, it'll play faster/better looking games than the last on and will come with some sort of of high capacity disc drive, probably Bluray or it will be a sales disaster. MS aren't stupid, they won't turn their back on all their customers who don't have access to 50meg fibre optic broadband.
3) the 'ten year life cycle' thing has been done to death - but it's simply the time the platform will be supported for, it's not the time it'll be the flagship platform or indeed how long the machine will stay untouched there will be smaller we versions that are smaller/quiter/cheaper along the way and it'll spend a while as the 'old one' still for sale and still having games made for it when the new one comes along.
Edited by P-Jay on Monday 5th March 12:48
P-Jay said:
Far too many words in this thread to reply in full on my iPhone but I have a few thoughts:
1) who says Bluray will be obsolete in 3-4 years? In favour of what? Tech Geeks might think a format is 'obsolete' as soon as the next great thing comes along, but to your average consumer it's obsolete when they stop making them or the machines you need to play them. DVD, CD, paper-based written media, FM radio, CRT TV's, land-line telephones..... All 'obsolete' to some, all still hugely popular and used daily by most.
2) The next XBox will be more of a multi-media centre like the PS3, it'll play faster/better looking games than the last on and will come with some sort of of high capacity disc drive, probably Bluray or it will be a sales disaster. MS aren't stupid, they won't turn their back on all their customers who don't have access to 50meg fibre optic broadband.
3) the 'ten year life cycle' thing has been done to death - but it's simply the time the platform will be supported for, it's not the time it'll be the flagship platform or indeed how long the machine will stay untouched there will be smaller we versions that are smaller/quiter/cheaper along the way and it'll spend a while as the 'old one' still for sale and still having games made for it when the new one comes along.
I agree with all of this.1) who says Bluray will be obsolete in 3-4 years? In favour of what? Tech Geeks might think a format is 'obsolete' as soon as the next great thing comes along, but to your average consumer it's obsolete when they stop making them or the machines you need to play them. DVD, CD, paper-based written media, FM radio, CRT TV's, land-line telephones..... All 'obsolete' to some, all still hugely popular and used daily by most.
2) The next XBox will be more of a multi-media centre like the PS3, it'll play faster/better looking games than the last on and will come with some sort of of high capacity disc drive, probably Bluray or it will be a sales disaster. MS aren't stupid, they won't turn their back on all their customers who don't have access to 50meg fibre optic broadband.
3) the 'ten year life cycle' thing has been done to death - but it's simply the time the platform will be supported for, it's not the time it'll be the flagship platform or indeed how long the machine will stay untouched there will be smaller we versions that are smaller/quiter/cheaper along the way and it'll spend a while as the 'old one' still for sale and still having games made for it when the new one comes along.
Edited by P-Jay on Monday 5th March 12:48
LordFlathead said:
mrmr96 said:
Sorry mate, I disagree with a good deal of what you've said:
1 - collected a courtest car, an auto. Dealer threw the keys at me, and I sat in the car for a good 5-10mins before I gave up trying to start it and went to ask for help!
2 - 306 duplicate filler cap
3 - checkign brake thinkness, arm in alloy
4 - vectra failed handbrake into garage
Lost me there, is this a play on words? 1 - collected a courtest car, an auto. Dealer threw the keys at me, and I sat in the car for a good 5-10mins before I gave up trying to start it and went to ask for help!
2 - 306 duplicate filler cap
3 - checkign brake thinkness, arm in alloy
4 - vectra failed handbrake into garage
LordFlathead said:
mrmr96 said:
i) Just because 4K is launched as a video standard doesn't mean devices which don't support it are obsolete. How long did it take between the release of 1080p as a standard and that becomeing the default resolution of normal home TV's? Price will put 4k beyond most people for a good few years.
So you would rather buy something brand new with old technology and give good money for it? Ok! The Americans are way ahead of us as consumers in HiDef, only in the Uk in the last 5 years have people been upgrading to HiDef, whereas they have had it for 15 years. The UK is slow playing catchup by comparison and price will not put people off because by the time it eventually launches it will be mainstream. It is fast becoming main stream now. So I find it somewhat asmusing that you are trying to protect a console manufacturer that is hyping a donkey 3 years before it is released.. as I said, it's only industry rumours.LordFlathead said:
mrmr96 said:
ii) Design life of 10 years. As someone else has said, the console is expensive, as is the hard drive, the controllers, the charging station, the AV cables, the headsets etc. People won't want to be changing their console every year, as you've implied by equating 10years with 10 generations of PC GPU. I'm not even sure if PC gamers would buy a new GPU each year.
I did not imply that all the PC people are changing their hardware every year. I stated that as a technology progression comparison there is a new generation of GPU every year. Of course when a new game arrives which pushes the boundaries, the console will always get the dumbed down version. Take BF3 as an example, it is nothing like the PC version. Of course there are the hard core gamers that want the latest and greatest but I am not referring to the majority of PC owners as this group.Well that's the problem with consoles - you're stuck with it for ten years which is exactly what I have said.
LordFlathead said:
mrmr96 said:
iii) Can we expect consumer electronics to last 10 years? Umm, YES. I've got loads of AV equipment older than 10 years, y Dad has a hifi he's had for about 30 years - still works and the quality is still great. In the "olden days" people would also buy things like a dish washer or washing machine and expect it to last longer than the 3yr manufacturer guarantee. Unfortunately you seem to have been taken in by our consumerist society (not your fault) where you believe it's right that things should be replaced on a 3yr cycle. (My last TV I had for 6 years, replaced because it failed not because I wanted a new one. The one before that is still going strong 10 years after I bought it, as is my surround system with is 9 years old.) [I recognise that the pace of change is different in computing/gaming vs. household electronics, but I'm addressing your comparison to "any other consumer electronics".]
I've got loads of AV equipment from the same age as your Dad. We are probably around the same age so I have bought a lot of it. Mine still works as it did before and probably will for another 10 years but the functionality is dissolving fast. AM/FM tuner? Turntable? CD? Philips DCC? Minidisc? DAT? DVD? All obsolete - but they still work. I was referring to the lifespan of the 'fashion' which is what makes people buy into technology - pure and simple. Also one of the fields in which I work is for a white goods manufacturer where the design life is 20 years, so I am much more in touch than you think I am. Consumer electronics are just that - electronics designed to be consumed by the masses.LordFlathead said:
mrmr96 said:
iv) Consoles "cost them nothing" if they last 10 years. Clearly this is not the case. The insides of an X360 cost more to develop and manufacture than they are sold for. MS makes a loss on the sale of each console. The investment is recouped through the sale of games due to the licensing fee paid by publishers to MS for the right to sell a game on that platform. If you don't get this business model then I'm not going to exlain it again.
That statement makes very little sense and is factually incorrect. Let me explain the business model to you so you get it. The initial development costs in ANY project are normally based on an investment recoup time of two years (the rate of investment). That is a given and an absolute fact in the consumer manufacturing industry because trends change in a volatile market and that is a dangerous place to be when they do. The sum of materials in an Xbox is absolute peanuts - the overall cost of manufacture would be less than $100. Now do some math and tell me how many you think they have sold since the product launch? Let's compare PC technology at this point, because the Xbox IS a PC in a frock. Take motherboards; there are new motherboards from every vendor launched at least every quarter - how to you think they pay for their development? Not by games! Yet they sell hundreds of thousands of motherboard every year so your business model just doesn't work. LordFlathead said:
mrmr96 said:
v) Swing back to PC's. No chance. No chance at all. The mainstream computer user has already moved away from tower PC's with upgradable chips and gpus. They now use laptops for their web browsing, or even iPads (or other tablets). You can get gaming laptops, but they don't sell in anything like the same numbers. As another poster pointed out, people want convenience - so the console which sits under the TV will ALWAYS be the most convenient way to play. (i.e. more convenient than speccing and building ones own gaming rig and coping with the constant updates and patches required.) PS - yes I know xbox has system updates, but they are a lot easier to install IMO!! No, what will replace consoles will not be PC's, rather it will be online rendered games. They'll work by having a mega fast internet connection and effecivly a "dumb terminal" of a console box (this box will be very cheap). The game data, the save games and the processing required to render the games will be in big server centres, and all that's sent down the wire will be the redered frames and audio. All the horsepower is remote. The console will be very small, light and cheap and gaming will become a subscription service like Sky TV. There's already at least one player in this market. Also, as another poster said, the console will become an even more important hub for media - so this box, essentially a streaming box, will be perfect for streaming tv/movies/music/etc on demand from the internet - because it will use the same compression/streaming tech required to serve up the rendered screens from the games. That's where we're heading with the future of games, not back to PC's.
The PC market was killed by a number of things, namely the lacklustre appeal of a large beige box, the unreliable nature that was the MS desktop, and virii and malware. The rest of your post is out of date. The online rendered games has been trialled and was not successful, the need to send the graphics over the pipe and fly by remote control is not dependant on everyone getting fast bradband, it is wholly dependant on pingtime. Sky has notoriously bad connections as a lot of their older network is still copper. It is also counter intuitive to streaming HD. Microsoft like Sky, are very keen to get you into cloud-based subscription, even though MS is still denying this officially. This is one reason why PC gamers enjoy not paying to play online. Yes laptops are popular, tablets are becoming main stream and gesture is on the horizon, but we are talking about the success of consoles, and the reason that they will fail is because they will be absorbed by Media Centers. I firmly believe that the future lies in Media Centres. A console is a PC, a Media Centre is a PC. As we know it does more than any console could but the consumer wants something more sexy. Consumers want HiDef video, games, multi-room audio streaming. MS cannot put a BlueRay into it's box without paying Sony a lot of money under license. They know that the life expectancy of BlueRay is already being threatened by streaming technologies, so the only way forward for them is to either keep DVD (unlikely), lease Sony technology (also unlikely), invent a new media technology (totally unlikely), or massively promote cloud baseed technologies. The future is IMO modular Media Centres. Like PC's they will have slots in so you can change hardware as and when required. The software is not modifiable, the system is maintained and patched via broadband, and the Media Centre platform then can be sustained. I'm glad that you are passionate about consoles, over the years I've been passionate about a lot of technology but I watched them all come and go.
The term PC is too generic. Maybe we are looking at PMC's? Personal Media Centre.. or should that be Personal Media Server(s)?
You've said a lot about media centres and add ons, but how do you think we'll be playing games? Does your "modular media system" count as a console?
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