News - Next Microsoft Xbox console planned for 2013 holiday season

[HEXUS]

Bloomberg says the new Xbox will be on sale from next Thanksgiving.

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[shaithis]

Nice, means developers should start working on test machines soon......so PC games should start getting better!

[dangel]

I think they already are working on games for it - after all you don't need final hardware to do that and development times are longer than a year..

[kingpotnoodle]

The devs for launch games will have kits and resources but with I suppose tight secrecy contracts, takes 2 years or so to complete a decent game AFAIK.

Surprised they let this slip now rather than after Christmas... might spoil sales? Perhaps they want to dissuade Wii-U and PS3 buyers, get them into the XBox ecosystem.

I find it amazing such a cheap device has an 8 year life-cycle. It's almost unparalleled - looks how far phones, PCs, TVs, laptops (even washing machines) have come in that time.

[Smudger]

To be fair, the current machines serve a lot of current purposes. OK, games might not be pushing the graphics envelope as much as they should be, but as media consumption machines, they're pretty much on the ball. I think a lot of people who bought them as games machines are probably now using them more as media streamers & entertainment centres, and only gaming once 'er indoors goes out...

[Blademrk]

Wish they'd update Smartglass to work on a Nexus 7 (you would have thought it would since it's the current Google flagship tablet)

[dangel]

Wish they'd update Smartglass to work on a Nexus 7 (you would have thought it would since it's the current Google flagship tablet)

Lucky you: http://www.droid-life.com/2012/11/29...ablet-support/

[addz17]

Finally! We might see some actual progression in the gaming industry. Developers having to cater to 8 year old technology has stunted games improvement and innovations for far too long. Buy a new game for the console now and it will look pretty much the exact same as its predecessor due to hardware limitations... No wonder the gaming industry is in slump. I'm waiting to see some better pc games so if new consoles are still running DX9 i'll crack up!

[simonpreston]

I think they already are working on games for it - after all you don't need final hardware to do that and development times are longer than a year..

Not to mention a lot of games these days are scalable in their design. By that, I mean they develop models, worlds and such for better than even the top end PC specs and then bring the polygons and other details down so they can be played on your PC, Xbox or PS3.

[sublime]

Calling full MetroUI for Xbox now.

[shaithis]

Calling full MetroUI for Xbox now.

That has been obvious since Windows RT was announced.

[baius]

I find it amazing such a cheap device has an 8 year life-cycle. It's almost unparalleled - looks how far phones, PCs, TVs, laptops (even washing machines) have come in that time.

+1.

I'll be interested in learning what MicroSoft might call their next XBox: 720? 8? (Unlikely.) Metro? SuperKinect? UmbrellaCorpHomeMachine?

I think 720 would be cool, as it relates to snowboarding; indeed they could use the sport in a release marketing campaign (especially now that baius has said it). However, I think that they won't.

I suspect most people won't Kinect (see what I did?) that 0->360->720 is a sequence - 360(n-1) or 360n-360 if you're interested, where n is the XBox generation.


Metro isn't a bad name, no?

[baius]

Also, (can't be bothered to edit,) isn't it time that Google released a console?

They're in pretty much every other market - except Baked Beans production (afaik).

[Blademrk]

+1.

Metro isn't a bad name, no?

Not a bad name, but one that has been copyrighted by someone else, which is why Microsoft seem to be trying to distance itself from it of late. Although I have the feeling that the name has already stuck.

[Heisenberg]

Wish they'd update Smartglass to work on a Nexus 7 (you would have thought it would since it's the current Google flagship tablet)

I hope so to, I'm glad this tablet is so well liked, I pre-ordered one and get one on the day it came out knowing little no nothing about it's popularity, sadly Microsoft see this as competition and will likely ignore any support for it .

I also hope the next console isn't out next year as I'm planning on building a gaming rig.

[Lord Midas]

I can't wait to see the official specs of the new Xbox. Then to hear the collective groan of the internet, as it clearly won't live up to commentard expectations.

It'll probably be hardware from last year. But if they can cram a GTX660 or HD7970 or above GFX chip, alongside an i7 of around 3GHz and 8GB+ RAM, then this could be a tidy little machine. Considering what these talented Devs can squeeze out of a 7800GT and some old PowerPC chip.