Next Xbox already in planning

[groper]

4 - 4.5 years cycle FTW!
So my predictions for xbox3

Worldwide release date 2009 - early 2010 (i find more posible the second)

IBM CPU with 20 cores 80 hardware treads (4 threads per core)
4 GB unified ram
ATI GPGPU 400-500 shaders / 6XAA / 16X AF
HDDVD / HDMI / 1080P standard game resolution
With each premium console , Perfect dark zero 2 for free

 

[Bobbler]

MS could also "Dreamcast" themselves by launching early. Probably very few developers would be willing to stomach a platform change in 2009 and the associated huge development cost increases.

Quite right. I think there'd be more than a few upset (along with some consumers).

 

[AlNom]

It'd be interesting to see if they actually do include enough eDRAM next time around for 720p & 4x AA or even still keep the tiling concept.

With each premium console , Perfect dark zero 2 for free

PDTwo?

 

[nonamer]

I suspect they will drop the eDRAM. If we assume everyone is going to use FP16 framebuffers, we'll quickly find out that 1920*1080*4*(8+4) = 99,532,800. Not include the front buffer. Maybe if Intel's trick of stacking eDRAM onto the main chip pans out eDRAM could work, but if not then eDRAM is probably out.

 

[Rangers]

The thing is if they launch in 2010 or even, 2009, they could really put a hurt on Sony.

Because the PS3 is set up to be such a backloaded console, in terms of mass market price and money losses..that if those profitable years are struck down by a far more powerful microsoft console in 2009..it could be a masterful stroke, given Sony's tenous financial position. And PSP isn't helping Sony any in that depth of loss leading I imagine.

I dont really support this strategy, it would be pretty ruthless and the red blood of losses on all sides would run deep, but it's interesting to consider.

Nvidia was well known to run 3dfx out of business with a ruthless 6 month GPU cycle..I've begun to wonder if a four year console cycle would work, or not work.
________
Wiki Vaporizer

 

[El Leone]

2009?? Jesus let us breathe a bit!!

Joke, surely? don't see where 2009 comes from....

Anyway, People don't really understand why Microsoft launched the next generation abit earlier than expected and seem to be abit harsh on them. MS was in the situtation where they jumped into the console industry with barely any developers on there side, most of the marketshare being owned by Sony, Sony having a 2 year head start and them making a constant loss with manufacturing. With the X360, they were in the position to launch with a years headstart, more expirence in the market, more developers willing to develop for their platform and a established fanbase. At least this way they actually have a chance of acquiring more market share and making some profit.

Also, I'm not saying that I think this generation will last 10 years or so, but saying that they're aiming for 3-4 years (I assume these posts are jokes, but I'm just takling in general) is abit ridiclous. I think people know this anyway.

The thing is if they launch in 2010 or even, 2009, they could really put a hurt on Sony.

Because the PS3 is set up to be such a backloaded console, in terms of mass market price and money losses..that if those profitable years are struck down by a far more powerful microsoft console in 2009..it could be a masterful stroke, given Sony's tenous financial position. And PSP isn't helping Sony any in that depth of loss leading I imagine.

Not quite as bad as you make it sound. The thing about the CELL is that it wasn't specifically made for the PS3 (or was it? I'm not up to date with the Cell History), as far as I know, Sony are going to try and push the CELL in different hardware markets. Because they've put alot of money into, and they probably want to recoup costs and make a profit as soon as possible.

 

[Rangers]

Joke, surely? don't see where 2009 comes from....

Anyway, People don't really understand why Microsoft launched the next generation abit earlier than expected and seem to be abit harsh on them. MS was in the situtation where they jumped into the console industry with barely any developers on there side, most of the marketshare being owned by Sony, Sony having a 2 year head start and them making a constant loss with manufacturing. With the X360, they were in the position to launch with a years headstart, more expirence in the market, more developers willing to develop for their platform and a established fanbase. At least this way they actually have a chance of acquiring more market share and making some profit.

Also, I'm not saying that I think this generation will last 10 years or so, but saying that they're aiming for 3-4 years (I assume these posts are jokes, but I'm just takling in general) is abit ridiclous. I think people know this anyway.

I believe the main reason they did that was none of the above. Xbox was doing pretty good when they supported it. Mainly, the Xbox hardware was always going to be a huge money sink due to the stupid conracts they got involved in, so they wanted to ditch it as soon as they humanly could.

Although why they didn't,. a huge multi-billion dollar corporation, realize this about the Xbox BEFORE-hand is beyond me.

But I think, if they weren't losing so much on the box, they would have rode Xbox1 much longer, because in that case, they wouldn't have been bleeding red the whole time.
________
Medical Marijuana Card

 

[Powderkeg]

It will be 2011.

As much as MS might want to beat Sony, making the 360 profitable is much more important to them.

Sony runs on 6 year life cycles. Playstation in 94, PS2 in 2000, PS3 in 2006, that would put the PS4 in 2012. MS could easily go with a 6 year lifecycle with the 360, maximizing profits from the system and still being able to launch the next Xbox system a year before Sony without having to rush the system one little bit.

I'm quite sure MS would rather have a fairly close 2nd place while making a good profit than come in 1st while losing a few billion more. Not to mention a longer life cycle would increase the publics impression of security and trust when they start thinking about the next-gen after this. Mindshare is just as, if not more important than marketshare in the long term.

 

[Rangers]

It will be 2011.

As much as MS might want to beat Sony, making the 360 profitable is much more important to them.

Sony runs on 6 year life cycles. Playstation in 94, PS2 in 2000, PS3 in 2006, that would put the PS4 in 2012. MS could easily go with a 6 year lifecycle with the 360, maximizing profits from the system and still being able to launch the next Xbox system a year before Sony without having to rush the system one little bit.

I'm quite sure MS would rather have a fairly close 2nd place while making a good profit than come in 1st while losing a few billion more. Not to mention a longer life cycle would increase the publics impression of security and trust when they start thinking about the next-gen after this. Mindshare is just as, if not more important than marketshare in the long term.

The sad thing is (and I'm sure I'll catch flack for this) it doesn't seem like Sony or Nintendo was in any hurry to launch their consoles. Even now, they seem rushed.

If it wasn't for Xbox 360, who KNOWS when we might have gotten PS3. 2007? 8? 9? I would say it would have been 2007, simply because Sony needed something to fend off the Nintendo onslaught in Japan.
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BustySnowWhite

 

[Corwin_B]

Will the next-next-gen (man, does that sound stupid !) see the end of optical media ? IIRC, there were people at both MS and Sony saying that HD-DVD and Blueray were probably the end of the road as far as optical media were concerned, and that the future was all about network distribution...

What would a drive-less console look like ? How would a network-based distribution work ? I think XBLA already represents some kind of experiment in that direction...

 

[Bobbler]

The sad thing is (and I'm sure I'll catch flack for this) it doesn't seem like Sony or Nintendo was in any hurry to launch their consoles. Even now, they seem rushed.

If it wasn't for Xbox 360, who KNOWS when we might have gotten PS3. 2007? 8? 9? I would say it would have been 2007, simply because Sony needed something to fend off the Nintendo onslaught in Japan.

It doesn't seem to me Sony was in any hurry... I agree 2007 is when Sony probably would have launched a PS3 if they weren't pushed (maybe even winter '07?).

Nintendo seemed like they were definitely more ready than Sony (Targets, Walmarts, Best buys, etc. started getting Wiis this last week, if anyone was wondering! -- of course, they are just sitting in warehouses at the moment).

I don't think anyone, with a straight face, could really argue against that.

 

[pc999]

I totally disagre with you. I'd really bet on a 4 year life cycle, with the 2010 mention as a way to reinsure consumers that are still waiting to buy it. To me, Ms purpose is to spend so much money Sony won't be able to follow and might have to take a different path, just as Nintendo's.

Most consumers in this industry like long life cicles (that is way PSOne lasted 10 years, and PS2 only a few years after that started to outsell it), many others just cant/or dont want to buy that many consoles. Devs/publishers wouldnt like it too.

2009?? Jesus let us breathe a bit!!

Or at least let or wallets breath.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The sad thing is (and I'm sure I'll catch flack for this) it doesn't seem like Sony or Nintendo was in any hurry to launch their consoles. Even now, they seem rushed.

If it wasn't for Xbox 360, who KNOWS when we might have gotten PS3. 2007? 8? 9? I would say it would have been 2007, simply because Sony needed something to fend off the Nintendo onslaught in Japan.

They both said as much. Both Sony and Nintendo said MS were rushing into next-gen. That's why they're launching a year later - that is nearer when they wanted to. They might both have been waiting for 65nm processes to keep costs down.

 

[Platon]

It will be 2011.

As much as MS might want to beat Sony, making the 360 profitable is much more important to them.

Sony runs on 6 year life cycles. Playstation in 94, PS2 in 2000, PS3 in 2006, that would put the PS4 in 2012. MS could easily go with a 6 year lifecycle with the 360, maximizing profits from the system and still being able to launch the next Xbox system a year before Sony without having to rush the system one little bit.

I'm quite sure MS would rather have a fairly close 2nd place while making a good profit than come in 1st while losing a few billion more. Not to mention a longer life cycle would increase the publics impression of security and trust when they start thinking about the next-gen after this. Mindshare is just as, if not more important than marketshare in the long term.

I agree, the earliest I can see MS launching their new console would be just before christmas 2010. They have no reason what so ever to rush into next gen, Sony will for sure not try and launch ahead of them and reduce their 6 year cycles, this time I don't see them even being financialy capable even if the wanted to.

And next time I also don't see MS ditching the 360 as soon as the new system is out. Rather they will be supporting it for quite some time. I could see them taking an approach were they launch their new system at quite high price, not to loose money, for the hardcore and only reduce it after a couple of years when Sonys next system is out...

 

[-tkf-]

They could have ended this early if they wanted to dump a couple billion extra within the next 5-6 years (which is what they'd be doing launching their new console in ~4 years vs ~6)..

Arent they up to 5-6-7 Billion as it is right now?, in total of course.

The XBOX never had a chance to really shine, imagine the games it would have produced age 6, instead we get a 360 which might never get the chance either

 

[palamede]

Arent they up to 5-6-7 Billion as it is right now?, in total of course.

The XBOX never had a chance to really shine, imagine the games it would have produced age 6, instead we get a 360 which might never get the chance either

I'm a big Ninja gaiden Black fan, that's for sure.
But I want NJ2 to be on 360 and take advantage of its hardware rather than having it on xbox, even if it's the best looking game on xbox ever (well, NJB already is, IMO).
On the xbox3 release date issue, it all depends on MS plans : do they want to bleed their competitors to death (or try to) and enjoy a semi monopoly on a segment of the market (high tech consoles) or do they feel comfortable with a good marketshare.

 

[Powderkeg]

They both said as much. Both Sony and Nintendo said MS were rushing into next-gen. That's why they're launching a year later - that is nearer when they wanted to. They might both have been waiting for 65nm processes to keep costs down.

Call me crazy, but I could have sworn that the PS3 is launching a year later (almost 1.5 years later for Europe) because it was delayed more than once, which would indicate they are not launching near when they wanted to, but were instead trying to rush their own launch and failed to meet the timetable they had set for themselves.

 

[AlNom]

Call me crazy, but I could have sworn that the PS3 is launching a year later (almost 1.5 years later for Europe) because it was delayed more than once, which would indicate they are not launching near when they wanted to, but were instead trying to rush their own launch and failed to meet the timetable they had set for themselves.

That's the impression I got.

One should also keep in mind their hype machine for E3 2005, a year and a half before launch.

 

[patsu]

The sad thing is (and I'm sure I'll catch flack for this) it doesn't seem like Sony or Nintendo was in any hurry to launch their consoles. Even now, they seem rushed.

If it wasn't for Xbox 360, who KNOWS when we might have gotten PS3. 2007? 8? 9? I would say it would have been 2007, simply because Sony needed something to fend off the Nintendo onslaught in Japan.

I think it's not just a vendor-only decision. The criteria also include when do _gamers_ expect a new console and what needs to go in to grow the business ? MS terminated Xbox earlier...while Sony and Wii waited 1 more year.

PS3 seems to suffer the most because of the number of new technologies in the console, 1080p targets, plus the new online platform... all within a short period. MS had the "benefit" of rushing the console proper out first, and then wait out 1 year for the HD-DVD to come. I don't get the feeling that Wii is rushed. Not sure why they dropped online (for now). May be a business decision.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Call me crazy, but I could have sworn that the PS3 is launching a year later (almost 1.5 years later for Europe) because it was delayed more than once, which would indicate they are not launching near when they wanted to...

If they wanted to launch early 2007, then the delays aren't taking them away from when they wanted to launch. I'd say MS forced them to 'rush' (again, they said as much IIRC) but it just wasn't possible to meet those deadlines.