New Xbox in 3 years?
One bit of news that has stuck in my mind since CES is the announcement of the Games Room for the Xbox 360. Not that I think it is a great addition or anything but what I find interesting is the words that went with the announcement. “With 1,000 titles being available over the next 3 years”. What so interesting about that you may ask? Well, if they plan to add games and support the platform, it is my understanding we won’t see a new console appear from Microsoft for 3 more years.
Not that this is necessarily a bad thing mind you. It is a well-known fact that the best games come out at the end of a consoles life cycle, when developers have gotten comfortable with developing for a machine. Fantastic, that means we get great games and won’t have to worry about the price of new hardware etc. But, I like the buzz of a new console, reading about how many petaflops of gigarams it can produce a second, seeing the fruits of the R+D departments labour and most importantly, being impressed by the new games that will be released.
I suppose that’s the point I’m getting at. I’m not absolutely gobsmacked by the games anymore. Sure, they look pretty,the stories draw you in and the audio is top notch but it has now become the norm. I am used to the textures and audio from a decent game. Has the Xbox 360 been pushed to its limits? Probably not, but I can’t see a drastic improvement being made in the next 3 years.
Natal will be released next winter. That means that in 2011 we will see loads of motion games being released. 2012 will be the same only developers will have got their head around developing for it and then 2013 they will announce the “Nextbox”. It seems to fit in with their Natal plans certainly.
I could also be totally wrong and they will release a console with the same software on the current 360 which will allow you to play in your Games Room. It seems rather silly to be basing your idea on when the next console will be released on a minor feature being added but it does seem to fit. Especially as we haven’t heard any rumours at all coming from Microsoft.
One-way around releasing a brand new console is just releasing an Xbox 360 V2 or an Xbox 540 maybe? Just add in the Natal camera and say it’s a new console. I desperately hope they don’t go that route, as I am sick and tired of new SKUs being released, for example the DS (DS Lite, DSi) and PSP (PSP 1000, 2000, 3000, GO). The market needs an update and if it’s going to be 3 years away, that’s a long time to wait.
It does sound like I am hating on the current games, which I assure you, I am not. I enjoy the games currently available; I just like to see the future of where things are going. If CES is anything to go by, the future seems to be outlined by a hazy red and blue glow, which you can only see properly if you wear 3D sunglasses. But that rant is for another article.