Why would any console maker release something that fragmented their market. They can release a version that is more PS3 like by including more OS memory, browser. a Blu-Ray drive built in wireless support and stuff like that. But it would have to be 100% transparent to the developers, making Microsoft those that had to keep 2 code bases up to date. One for the old 360s and one for the new.
Upgraded 360 with Natal (Rumor)
- Thread starter Nesh
- Start date
I don't think we'll see a new console as much as we'll see a "reboot".
Natal will be bundled with 360's Holiday season 2010 (this will happen in the place of a price drop, sorry budget shoppers). It will also be offered individually. In true microsoft fashion, they will attempt to minimize the losses on Natal hardware by packing in a 12 month gold subscription. Keep those gamers buying movies and XBLA content!
It'll be a smart move, and they'll probably make some good money off of it.
That said, if this doesn't happen, then Natal will die in the water.
Natal will be bundled with 360's Holiday season 2010 (this will happen in the place of a price drop, sorry budget shoppers). It will also be offered individually. In true microsoft fashion, they will attempt to minimize the losses on Natal hardware by packing in a 12 month gold subscription. Keep those gamers buying movies and XBLA content!
It'll be a smart move, and they'll probably make some good money off of it.
That said, if this doesn't happen, then Natal will die in the water.
This rumor is imho complete bullshit... It is in line with all the FUD going on actually about Natal and its announced failing. All this talk is clearly reminiscent of earlier talk about MS wanting short life spam for its console... Some people have been claiming for years that MS would launch a new system within $ years... Natal is their opportunity to spread some more fud on top of the usual economical non sense...
Anyway... It's sunday I'll go back playing geometry war with my wife.
Anyway... It's sunday I'll go back playing geometry war with my wife.
I think someone is confused and/or just wants to get hits to their website. I don't doubt that MS would relaunch a 360 bundle with Natal with loots of hoopla and fanfare. But there is no reason to launch it with new hardware, the existing hardware is enough. Maybe they will have a 360 Slim ready by then and that's what the article got confused about, but there is no reason to change the innards to something new.
A slim 360 with Natal bundle fits my expectations and makes the most business sense IMO.
I don't think they would make the upgraded hardware part of their marketing message for this unit. They would focus on the Natal piece of it and probably use a more generic "the most powerful console available" tag-line.
I agree with your point though, if they bring the upgraded hardware too far to the front, it will lead to mass confusion in terms of software compatibility.
For the mainstream consumer it would look like 2 options, you buy a new one including the natal sensor, or a stand-alone natal upgrade package, obviously making the pack-in a no-brainer from a price perspective.
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Just because a company expects a product to have a 10 year life cycle doesn't mean they won't release other products. I know some had, and still do, cling to the same concept with the PS3 yet when Sony announced this they also touted the 10 year cycle of the PS1. Look at the PS2 which, even with the PS3 on the market, continues to be relevant to the market.
As for a meager upgrade to the 360 ... why?
The 32 MB limit is only relevant while a game is running, when the operating system provides services such as Live connectivity, voice chat, and presents a minimalistic UI (the Guide interface). I don't suppose any of this will be Natal-enabled. If they want to provide a high-level API for Natal-using games, they can always go the Sony route and request additional memory from the 480 MB left for the game.
On the other hand, when a game is not running, and the user is navigating the NXE Minority Report style, the OS has full access to the 512 MB of the machine - which is more than enough for all the presented scenarios in the marketing video presented at E3.
Remember the President of Crytek talking about new consoles? When put into context with the current Natal hardware update rumor his comments are a bit more intresting.
http://www.edge-online.com/news/gc-asia-cryengine-3-readied-playstation-4
He seemed to expect the PS4 in 2011 and the Xbox 720 in 2010. Then he was linking his company with the PS4 specifically. Maybe he knew back then that Microsoft was only going for a modest upgrade. Obviously Unreal Engine is popular middleware on the 360 and with a moderate upgrade developers aren't going to switch engines. They'll want to use the same tools.
http://www.edge-online.com/news/gc-asia-cryengine-3-readied-playstation-4
He seemed to expect the PS4 in 2011 and the Xbox 720 in 2010. Then he was linking his company with the PS4 specifically. Maybe he knew back then that Microsoft was only going for a modest upgrade. Obviously Unreal Engine is popular middleware on the 360 and with a moderate upgrade developers aren't going to switch engines. They'll want to use the same tools.
The same guy who claims they maxed out the consoles with their first console attempt?
Got to thinking about it and one thing they may do is change the xbox360 branding to something simpler like x360 or even simpler like 360.
I'm still thinking "xbox360" is too technical sounding for all the technophobes out there that they want to lure in with Natal.
A protean Xbox platform is a plausible strategy. The more opaque you make the platform, the more you stymie attempts from usurpers.
The worst aspect of the console business is the "reset" at the end of the cycle. This is the danger zone where a sudden reversal of fortune can happen. While the Gameboy is a mobile device, the way Nintendo handled it has been brillant. It started off with a black & white screen and then got upgraded with color. This was followed by more incremental updates.
The worst aspect of the console business is the "reset" at the end of the cycle. This is the danger zone where a sudden reversal of fortune can happen. While the Gameboy is a mobile device, the way Nintendo handled it has been brillant. It started off with a black & white screen and then got upgraded with color. This was followed by more incremental updates.
Not to mention how much would it cost? There is no need imo, they are already doing ok. I've stated this before but I think the next piece of hardware released from Sony or Microsoft will be profitable from release. I think they will abandon the "software will make up the difference" business model.
Actually I was referencing eveything postulated in the original post, so it's relevant.
But I don't think MS would seriously consider releasing Xbox 360.5 with updated graphics core, more edo, more ram, faster CPU, etc...
However, I could see if MS just expanded say the amount of EDO and a speed bump to the GPU to allow for true full time AA as they wanted originally.
Regards,
SB
I'm starting to come to that conclusion as well. Makes the most sense. Microsoft seemed to copy the PS2 for the 360. So I could see them try to copy the Wii for a Natal SKU using your speculation. The 360 is not really a bad architecture. Simple tweaks could extend it for another 3-5 years, when the market is ready for a larger jump in power. Hardcore gamers will scoff at it though, but I can see that Microsoft is longing for a much larger audience.
Shifty, thanks for your grand insight as always.
I definitely see why Microsoft thought forward compatibility would be appealing.Tommy McClain
There are many points that don't make sense to me.
I don't understand why Ms would want to peace off +35 billions of costumers. Not too mention the user base is still growing and Sony is still not a threat to Ms.
Ms has to be cheap, we don't know how much Natal will cost but it's not unreasonable to consider that Ms could chose to subsidize for its cost, why add extra costs, cost that would come on top of most likely super expansive marketing campaign?
And on top of that the rumour seems so obviously and pruposely mixed up ? misunderstood comments made by Ms that it's not even fun...
The only upgrade I can see coming are ones due out of necessity:
all sku should include a consistent amount of flash memory (256MB on the arcade might not be enough for whatever they plan the next interface to be). somewhere between 16 and 32 GB would make most sense (it would be an improvment all sku would support caching).
A slim system.
And there could be a slight bump in frequency for xenos if for some reason it's a better match for whoever 40nm process they will be using.
But clearly this rumour doesn't make more sense than all the FUD about a 4 years life span for the 360...
I don't understand why Ms would want to peace off +35 billions of costumers. Not too mention the user base is still growing and Sony is still not a threat to Ms.
Ms has to be cheap, we don't know how much Natal will cost but it's not unreasonable to consider that Ms could chose to subsidize for its cost, why add extra costs, cost that would come on top of most likely super expansive marketing campaign?
And on top of that the rumour seems so obviously and pruposely mixed up ? misunderstood comments made by Ms that it's not even fun...
The only upgrade I can see coming are ones due out of necessity:
all sku should include a consistent amount of flash memory (256MB on the arcade might not be enough for whatever they plan the next interface to be). somewhere between 16 and 32 GB would make most sense (it would be an improvment all sku would support caching).
A slim system.
And there could be a slight bump in frequency for xenos if for some reason it's a better match for whoever 40nm process they will be using.
But clearly this rumour doesn't make more sense than all the FUD about a 4 years life span for the 360...
upnorthsox
Veteran
I think you're missing the point though, Natal already requires it own/more processor so if you have a sku with onboard Natal then you need to add a processor/co-processor and if that's the case isn't it best to add more Xenon cores so it can be used by everything? As to memory, even if Natal is using only 32mb of memory they'd never hear the end of it (esp. from discruntled devs
) if it was taken away from the current 512mb base. So for a builtin Natal sku you are going to need more processing power and more memory and if you can do it in a way that also enhances the play for non-natal games then you'll get the 3-5 mil who absolutely have to have the latest and greatest to run out and upgrade. That creates momentum and a big PR win.As far as upgraded edram, gpu, and ssd, that seems like someone filling out their wish list. Though, if you can upgrade the edram cheaply then it's easier to require devs to add a 1080 mode. The only reason to risk breaking compatability with an updated gpu is if it fixes a much larger problem such as rrod. If it fixes that, then you'll get buy-in from the MS faithful. So while I don't think these two are necessary, as case could be made for them if they can be done cheaply.
Now of course you could just keep natal an expensive add-on...............
upnorthsox
Veteran
I'm starting to come to that conclusion as well. Makes the most sense. Microsoft seemed to copy the PS2 for the 360. So I could see them try to copy the Wii for a Natal SKU using your speculation. The 360 is not really a bad architecture. Simple tweaks could extend it for another 3-5 years, when the market is ready for a larger jump in power. Hardcore gamers will scoff at it though, but I can see that Microsoft is longing for a much larger audience.
Shifty, thanks for your grand insight as always.
Tommy McClain
Yea for about 5-10 minutes, then they'll run out and get it and proclaim it the best idea ever (esp. if it's done before Sony)
DuckThor Evil
Legend
I wouldn't mind if the rumour turnes out to be true with the forward compability, basically it would make the current X360 into a new low price arcade unit, which would still be able to play all the content and thus be supported far into the future.
If PC-games can work with hundreds of different configurations with different quality assets, then a still closed environment with 2 or few different configurations shouldn't be too hard to make working. Imo if they pull it off it makes consumer more tied to the platform and the risk of changing platform during a generational shift will be lesser than what it is now.
Imo it's not a bad idea, all they need do is to make sure that the low end model still offers good enough service, with solid frame rates etc. I know many people don't like consoles to turn into PC, but I think this could be good change to bring the best of both worlds into the same unit. I personally don't want to wait for 5 or more years to get new tech, but I don't want to go the full PC upgrading either. I'd be happy to get say a new Xbox model every 3 years or so, with upgraded capabilities for 300-400$/€.
Eventually the low end spec would rise and the support for the older spec versions would drop, but not until say 6-8 years of support, similar how Windows OS's are supported by MS these days. Apple kind of does this too with their Mac's periodic upgrades.
If PC-games can work with hundreds of different configurations with different quality assets, then a still closed environment with 2 or few different configurations shouldn't be too hard to make working. Imo if they pull it off it makes consumer more tied to the platform and the risk of changing platform during a generational shift will be lesser than what it is now.
Imo it's not a bad idea, all they need do is to make sure that the low end model still offers good enough service, with solid frame rates etc. I know many people don't like consoles to turn into PC, but I think this could be good change to bring the best of both worlds into the same unit. I personally don't want to wait for 5 or more years to get new tech, but I don't want to go the full PC upgrading either. I'd be happy to get say a new Xbox model every 3 years or so, with upgraded capabilities for 300-400$/€.
Eventually the low end spec would rise and the support for the older spec versions would drop, but not until say 6-8 years of support, similar how Windows OS's are supported by MS these days. Apple kind of does this too with their Mac's periodic upgrades.
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