New Xbox coming sooner then expected?

_Jimlad_

_Jimlad_

_Jimlad_

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The intertubes are buzzing once again with rumours that a new Xbox may be on it's way next year (as in the year 2010). According to 1UP, not only will Natal be as big as a new console launch, it will be the next console from Microsoft.

Yup, a new Xbox console is coming soon, and not just the same thing with a fancy camera.

While developers seem to be complaining that the Xbox is current tapped, this new Xbox is said to have some new muscle under the hood. The specs will include:

* A new GPU that will be based on Shade Model 5 and will output in 1080p with 32mb of eDRAM. The GPU itself will come from ATI/AMD and will be clocked at 600mhz.
* The CPU will be bumped from 3 cores to 6, and is exactly the same as the previous, except just 200% faster (making it pretty equal to that of the PS3).
* RAM is also getting a nice upgrade, from 512 GDDR3 to 1024 GDDR5. The system will keep it's Unified Memory Architecture.
* The hard will be also go from a HDD to a SDD (32gb).
* The system will keep its DVD drive, ensuring backwards compatibility.
* Finally, the system will include built in WiFi.

Speaking of backwards compatibility, this is where the console wouldn't be considered next-gen (or next next-gen). All of the games that will be made for the system will be compatible with the older one, except if the games are to be played on the newer Xbox (which I am dubbing the Xbox 540), they will look and perform better similar to that in the PC gaming world.

To add some further fuel to the rumour, Blizzard has been in talks with Microsoft about their next console. The primary concern in the conversation was how to get some of their games more "friendly" to home based consoles (such as MMORPG and RTS titles).

In reality, this should be viewed similar to what Sony has done the PSP and what Nintendo has done with the DS in terms of introducing new models to the line. The old Xbox would be slowly phased out, but Natal would be sold as a stand alone add-on for the older console model. The system would be priced at around $300 US and we would see it in Q4 of 2010. While all of this is speculation, the only thing that is known so far is that Natal will be coming out some time next year.

http://www.neowin.net/news/gamers/09/06/16/rumour-new-xbox-coming-sooner-then-expected
 
Is this another new rumour or the same one as the other day? I'm sure MS released a comment yesterday denying the 1UP article.
 
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a new Xbox may be on it's way next year (as in the year 2010)
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Thanks for that, wasn't sure what year it was.

While developers seem to be complaining that the Xbox is current tapped
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Not developers no, hell not even a developer, a publisher. A terrible & lazy publisher that is known for generally awful games.

I could go on, but there's little point.
 
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SSD might be optional, prices are falling, like anything you have to take it with a pinch of salt, but same sort of rumours proved to be correct from that site before.

but agree its rumour based
 
Looks like testicles to me, too much of a jump for it to be a new SKU (unlike the more believable slim 360 + natal bundle rumour), too little of a jump to make it worthwhile.

[EDIT] Bit harsh frapple?
 
Frapple said:
Terrible "article" for 'The Sun' readers and those of a retard persuasion.



Thanks for that, wasn't sure what year it was.



Not developers no, hell not even a developer, a publisher. A terrible & lazy publisher that is known for generally awful games.

I could go on, but there's little point.
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yeah thanks for that, just posted it as it’s a rumour flooding around the net at the moment, I don’t appreciate the insult coming from you off all people who has a reputation of posting trolling and flaming posts all the time… keep walking on
 
Theres no margin in this, why upgrade the innards if you cant exploit the new power because you need to retain backwards compatibility? I find it highly unlikely that any developer would want to code two seperate versions of a game onto a disk to make use of each hardware variation. Plus, traditionally, upgrades to consoles fail miserably and in modern gaming with such a large casual market an upgrade like this would be unlikely to inspire many people. The SSD would have some merit what with the anouncment of the games on demand service it would help to have super fast load times but at current price vs capacity ratio's it wouldnt be economically viable, people would rather a 500gb HDD than pay double that for a 100gb SDD or even a measley 32Gb which is a step back for most. This sounds like the usual tripe designed to titilate pseudo techist teens into a speculative frenzy, from a practicality and business standpoint it is highly unlikely.
 
The same kind of sentiment can be applied to the "where is the 2nd analogue stick for the PSP?" comment that keeps coming up at each revision.
You would create 2 hardware standards, and the devs... which one would they make games for and optimise for? The one with the biggest install base. They wouldn't want to make anything that could effectively cut themselves off from a large market
 
dannyjo22 said:
It would need Blu ray for a start.
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Yeap, the whole 'dvd for backwards compatibility' is a load of old tosh tbh.

They are already struggling with DVD and it would be suicide for MS to put a DVD drive in the next console.

As much as people say digital distribution is the way forward, there are still those (especially in America, their main market) that have sloooowwww connections, 128 - 512k isn't unusual still. Add to that, live has about a 66% take up, that means they would lose 33% of their market with no drive. So it will need to be able to release games on disc still.


Number of live users came from this article.
http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/19746/30M-Xbox-360s-Sold-Worldwide-Over-20M-Users-on-LIVE/
 
They say 'DVD drive to ensure backwards compatibility' as if blurays don't read DVDs, which is obviously not the case. To add to that, newer bluray drives read DVDs just as far as standard DVD drives (even the PS3 drive is only marginally slower at reading DVDs than a DVD drive). That comment to me reeks of a lack of knowledge of the subject. But then, i'm no specification designer, is there a reason why DVD drives would need to be kept other than read speeds?

Also, on the digital distribution front, i would rather not have to download the 30odd gig that MGS4 used (which didn't use data mirroring) on my connection, and i don't even have bandwidth limitations. The poor sods on the basic virgin package would have to wait days to get it downloaded. Until 50meg connections become commonplace i can't really see digital distribution replacing high definition media like bluray, the disk capacity is just too big. A good example would be the gadget show where they compared the apple digital download thingy (popcorn?) against bluray, the guy had time to get the bus to the shops, buy the bluray, get home and watch it before the apple product had finished downloading their high definition copy. Even after the long download time the sound quality was inferior indicating the file size had been somewhat reduced.
 
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Whilst there may well be a new revision of the 360, I really don't think it will be a 'next generation' xbox.

Like that eurogamer article says, it'll just be a smaller, quieter and cheaper to produce version of the current hardware, a '360 slim' basically.
 
DreXeL said:
Like that eurogamer article says, it'll just be a smaller and quieter version of the current hardware, a '360 slim' basically.
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Aye, as i say i saw more truth to the rumour lowrider posted a while back; a new 360 bundle of a new slimline 360 bundled with Natal. It would be perfect for competing with the Wii and would also attract some people to 'upgrade'. I would certainly be interested in purchasing one as a complete overhaul of the hardware would to me pretty much eliminate my current worries about rrod etc, it would be unlikely (insane in fact) if MS managed to create a completely new SKU but still manage to carry over the hardware issues found in the 360.

Changing hardware units to be cross compatible one way, but not the other just sounds like a ball ache for developers.
 
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