Though Microsoft didn't even wait five years to jump from Xbox 1 to 360, the company plans to sit on its current breadwinner for the foreseeable future.
Instead of making the leap to another piece of hardware, Microsoft plans to focus on improving the 360's games and features, specifically Xbox Live, President Robbie Bach said in an interview with the San Jose Mercury News.
Having witnessed the monumental success of the technologically inferior Wii, Bach seems to believe that the pursuit of more technologically advanced hardware has ended and the next generation of consoles will have to do more than simply push pixels. "Just coming up with something that's faster and prettier isn't going to be sufficient," Bach said. "The life cycle for this generation - and I'm not just talking about Xbox, I'd include Wii and PS3 as well - is probably going to be a little longer than previous generations."
Building a product that has value beyond its technological power is especially important in the light of the world's current economic woes. Since money's tight for everyone these days, selling a new console to consumers right now would be difficult, Bach believes. "When you look at consumers, they are going to be more value-conscious," Bach said. In the end, putting out a new console might be mostly a matter of waiting for the right time. "We want to make sure that as the economy does start to recover, that we're positioned as well." So if Microsoft's got anything in the works (and they probably do), they'll be sitting on it until this whole recession thing starts to right itself. Hope that it does, because it might mean the difference between this generation of games and the next.
fix-the-spade: Breadwinner? I thought the 360 was costing them vast quantities of bread, even more bread than the first one.
Nope. It'll take a long time to fill the hole already dug by development costs and that billion-dollar RRoD write-down, but last time I checked the 360 seemed to be making a profit on software sales and breaking even on hardware.
Anton P. Nym: last time I checked the 360 seemed to be making a profit on software sales and breaking even on hardware.
-- Steve
They make a marginal profit on the hardware sales, if I remember correctly.
As for the article, I'm glad that Microsoft has caught onto the idea that graphics aren't the 'big seller' for video games. Hopefully, Sony does the same, and we can get more dev time being focused on the gameplay and story.
Anton P. Nym: last time I checked the 360 seemed to be making a profit on software sales and breaking even on hardware.
-- Steve
They make a marginal profit on the hardware sales, if I remember correctly.
As for the article, I'm glad that Microsoft has caught onto the idea that graphics aren't the 'big seller' for video games. Hopefully, Sony does the same, and we can get more dev time being focused on the gameplay and story.
Well, this is good to know, I was a little worried when I bought the 360 a month ago, that they would drop it for the Nextbox, and I would be out all of my money I saved to buy it.
fix-the-spade: Breadwinner? I thought the 360 was costing them vast quantities of bread, even more bread than the first one.
Nope. It'll take a long time to fill the hole already dug by development costs and that billion-dollar RRoD write-down, but last time I checked the 360 seemed to be making a profit on software sales and breaking even on hardware.
-- Steve
not sure if it makes a profit or not but it's not losing money. but as you said it will take a while to fill the crater they made with the money loss from the original xbox and the rrod and all that fun, i do know the 360 was first sold at a loss
as for the article i'd have to say that they'll release something new soon, they'll have to keep up with the capabilities of the blu-ray disc in the ps3 as i'm sure at one point games on both systems will have different resolutions and effects due to disc limitations of the dvd-9 standard the 360 uses
for movies deffinatly but games no, Crysis came on a single dual layer DVD and has far better graphics and resolutions than what the ps3 supports despite the size difference in media
jamesworkshop: for movies deffinatly but games no, Crysis came on a single dual layer DVD and has far better graphics and resolutions than what the ps3 supports despite the size difference in media
Yes, but in order to run it you have to spend massive amounts of cash on a PC with enough power. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the draw of Blu Ray the amount of space on the disc than its graphical prowess since the difference between it and standard definition is so incredibly marginal?
jamesworkshop: for movies deffinatly but games no, Crysis came on a single dual layer DVD and has far better graphics and resolutions than what the ps3 supports despite the size difference in media
I thought Crysis was on multiple discs, like nearly every computer game for a long stretch of time.
Good for Microsoft, I'm probably a bit biased towards my PS3, but still it's better they don't pull a Sega (consoles being released every alternate year)
jamesworkshop: for movies deffinatly but games no, Crysis came on a single dual layer DVD and has far better graphics and resolutions than what the ps3 supports despite the size difference in media
Yes, but in order to run it you have to spend massive amounts of cash on a PC with enough power. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the draw of Blu Ray the amount of space on the disc than its graphical prowess since the difference between it and standard definition is so incredibly marginal?
blu ray is just a high density optical storage medium it has nothing to do with computer game graphics however because movies are just a series of individual images you can fit more and larger resolution images than on standard DVD's. Unrelated to the storage medium but yes crysis does require a decent machine to achieve those graphical settings.
Indigo_Dingo: I thought Crysis was on multiple discs, like nearly every computer game for a long stretch of time.
Crysis was 6.5GB and warhead was 6.9GB so either could fit on the DVD9 that xbox uses
Anton P. Nym: last time I checked the 360 seemed to be making a profit on software sales and breaking even on hardware.
-- Steve
They make a marginal profit on the hardware sales, if I remember correctly.
As for the article, I'm glad that Microsoft has caught onto the idea that graphics aren't the 'big seller' for video games. Hopefully, Sony does the same, and we can get more dev time being focused on the gameplay and story.
Thats probley not what they mean. What they really mean is Xboxmote and Xchuck.
This is good to hear, that there won't be a knee-jerk reaction to upgrade to other hardware and that Microsoft plans to stick by its console for a while. The problem I had the last time was that I bought an XBox relatively late in the lifecycle, and being cautious about the 360 as well (I gotta pay the bills, after all), I was afraid I'd be picking up one right when they'd be crafting another to take its place.
I'm a PS3 and Wii owner, but I envy the library of titles the 360 has.
SomeBritishDude: Thats probley not what they mean. What they really mean is Xboxmote and Xchuck.
Wouldn't that come under 'gameplay'?
Indigo_Dingo: That wasn't exactly breaking sales records, now was it? Hence my point.
There's a difference between 'breaking sales records' and 'selling well'. While it didn't actually break any sales records, it didn't flop either. 4.3 million copies in the space of 6 months isn't exactly what I'd call 'not selling well'.
Anton P. Nym: last time I checked the 360 seemed to be making a profit on software sales and breaking even on hardware.
-- Steve
They make a marginal profit on the hardware sales, if I remember correctly.
As for the article, I'm glad that Microsoft has caught onto the idea that graphics aren't the 'big seller' for video games. Hopefully, Sony does the same, and we can get more dev time being focused on the gameplay and story.
Anton P. Nym: last time I checked the 360 seemed to be making a profit on software sales and breaking even on hardware.
-- Steve
They make a marginal profit on the hardware sales, if I remember correctly.
As for the article, I'm glad that Microsoft has caught onto the idea that graphics aren't the 'big seller' for video games. Hopefully, Sony does the same, and we can get more dev time being focused on the gameplay and story.
Since when has story ever sold well?
Deus Ex.
Really? I thought it only experienced average sales.
Well, this is a bit reassuring. For me, there really seems no need to improve the graphics much further, and consoles are only becoming more and more expensive. Now, hopefully, the games and services will improve somewhat.
Well, I can't really say any 360 or PS3 games I know that sold well for story, but FF7 imo sold well, and has a great story. KoToR1 has a great story, and is extremely popular.
Anton P. Nym: last time I checked the 360 seemed to be making a profit on software sales and breaking even on hardware.
-- Steve
They make a marginal profit on the hardware sales, if I remember correctly.
As for the article, I'm glad that Microsoft has caught onto the idea that graphics aren't the 'big seller' for video games. Hopefully, Sony does the same, and we can get more dev time being focused on the gameplay and story.
Since when has story ever sold well?
Deus Ex.
Really? I thought it only experienced average sales.
Average sales but massive amounts of downloads!
I'd have to agree though, story doesn't drive sales. I wish it did, but that's just not the case.
I'm sorry, I must be the only one enraged at the Wii for holding back progress.
It was my hopes that in the next consoles, Microsoft would get it right. I mean, what count are you on? My 360 is currently my third. I was actually planning on my warranty expiring just in time to upgrade to whatever new console they were going to put out, and hopefully the company would have LEARNED not to ship a substandard product just to meet an arbitrary deadline.
It wasn't even about graphics, it was about the technical issues that my friends and I constantly face.
-The out right freezing -The Disc load time (Especially playing games like Saint's Row, where you'd freeze in the middle of the road, your car disappearing and you'd have to wait for the disc to catch up again before you can play) -Occasionally not having the stupid thing turn on, just displaying the 360 loading screen -That stupid "The Disc is unreadable" error even if your disc doesn't have a scratch on it.
And so on. I hoped I'd get a system that addressed these things soon. I guess that isn't to be. Oh well, maybe they did learn their lesson and they are starting builds for the new system now even though they don't plan to release it soon.
... Yeah, I know how stupid that sounds, but one can hope?
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Next Xbox Not Coming Any Time Soon
Though Microsoft didn't even wait five years to jump from Xbox 1 to 360, the company plans to sit on its current breadwinner for the foreseeable future.
Instead of making the leap to another piece of hardware, Microsoft plans to focus on improving the 360's games and features, specifically Xbox Live, President Robbie Bach said in an interview with the San Jose Mercury News.
Having witnessed the monumental success of the technologically inferior Wii, Bach seems to believe that the pursuit of more technologically advanced hardware has ended and the next generation of consoles will have to do more than simply push pixels. "Just coming up with something that's faster and prettier isn't going to be sufficient," Bach said. "The life cycle for this generation - and I'm not just talking about Xbox, I'd include Wii and PS3 as well - is probably going to be a little longer than previous generations."
Building a product that has value beyond its technological power is especially important in the light of the world's current economic woes. Since money's tight for everyone these days, selling a new console to consumers right now would be difficult, Bach believes. "When you look at consumers, they are going to be more value-conscious," Bach said. In the end, putting out a new console might be mostly a matter of waiting for the right time. "We want to make sure that as the economy does start to recover, that we're positioned as well." So if Microsoft's got anything in the works (and they probably do), they'll be sitting on it until this whole recession thing starts to right itself. Hope that it does, because it might mean the difference between this generation of games and the next.
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