Major Nelson on Xbox 360 Natal in 2010 Options

[Xbox-Scene]

Major Nelson on Xbox 360 Natal in 2010 Posted by XanTium | June 19 07:00 EST | News Category: Xbox360

From majornelson.com: [QUOTE] A few people have emailed me regarding something Steve Ballmer said earlier today about a new Xbox coming in 2010. As the Xbox team stated at E3 two weeks ago, we are not even halfway through the current console generation lifecycle and believe Xbox 360 will be the entertainment center in the home for long into the next decade. Project Natal will be an important part of this platform, but we have not confirmed a launch date at this time. [/QUOTE]

[BigIg91]

Sounds a lot like carefully worded PR stuff.

[irnchriz]

Basically we can expect a full relaunch of the Xbox 360 when project Natal is finalised.

[BasicAir]

Hahaha, exactly, "carefully worded PR stuff".

I actually came to the thread to post that I wonder how many higher-ups he has to talk to for advice on how to word that before posting the response on his website.

Wonder what the over/under is on that....

[Foe-hammer]

...we are not even halfway through the current console generation lifecycle and believe Xbox 360 will be the entertainment center in the home for long into the next decade.

shoot me now.....

[highbomber]

...we are not even halfway through the current console generation lifecycle and believe Xbox 360 will be the entertainment center in the home for long into the next decade.

shoot me now.....

I am happy to hear this. I am satisfied with the console now and if a new one was released I honestly wouldn't buy it. Most people are just getting over their PS2's and Original Xbox's and don't even have HD TV's to go with their new systems.

The gap between the last generation was a year or two too fast and people need time to catch up. You practically need a Home Theater set up to take full advantage of this generation and Microsoft knows that. They will wait until HDTV's are fully adopted and then release a new console that can really take advantage of them, and then forget backwards compatibility to analog.

[Muzzakus]

People aren’t putting 2 and 2 together. There will be a new xbox, and it will be upgraded hardware no different to a PC upgrade. This is a major step and M$ is covering it up at all costs.

The new 360 however will be 100% code compatible with today’s 360. Tomorrows games will work just fine on existing consoles. It will be a new "Elite" type sku. Buying the new “Elite” will be an option for the enthusiast initially and the baseline tech within 2 years. Today's 360 hardware will still remain as the cheaper and casual Natal SKU (aka gamecube to wii scenario). Natal camera will also be bundled with the Elite - but of course the whole sku will come at a premium.

What will the new 360 Elite offer? Today’s ~720p 30fps games will run at 1080p 60fps with more AA. New games will be designed with both Sku's in mind and scale textures and effects, res etc. accordingly. You will buy the one Disc and it will work on a regular 360 and the new 360. Aka 100% compatibility. This will be achieved no different to how PC games have always scaled on countless PC configurations. However with only 2 controlled configurations, full optimisation and stability will be simply acheived, and all will be well.

There were rumblings everywhere a while back about forward scalable games etc. This was exactly the first revel of M$'s strategy going forward. And this strategy will remain the same with all future console upgrades. Developer investment will no longer be thrown out like previous console iteration. Tools, codebase & methods will be as they are today. This is the natural evolution of the console market - zero burden on developers and publishers while facilitating forward movement. The leaks we are seeing here and there, from 1up and Ballmer’s speech are no coincidence.

This of course also beautifully fits the plan of totally eliminating Sony. 2010 will see 360 Elite be leaps and bounds superior to the PS3 and be the logical choice for the high end gamer. Which is what the PS3 is seen as today, High-End, and that niche will be dissolved.

Activision and other publishers are making waves in the press about PS3 pricing, penetration and even dropping support for the Sony platform. All these measures are designed to force Sony's hand to drop the price knowing full well what's around the corner and Sony’s future relevance in the market without drastic price adjustment. Why support a platform that will be irrelevant within 12 months if nothing is done?


Print this out and bury it. I for one am looking forward to playing me some GRID in 1080p, 60fps on my 60" plasma come next year! I am however somewhat concerned about the brutality of M$'s dominance in the market in the future, competition needs to exist to push the envelope.

Muz

This post has been edited by Muzzakus: Jun 20 2009, 08:47 AM

[BigIg91]

^

I'm not sure if that guy is serious and may have some truth, or if he's experimenting with drugs.

[Alkane]

The missing link with the upgraded specs strategy seems to be the optical disc. How will they deal with the space requirements of supporting 1080p resolutions and have optimized textures for both speced systems. Perhaps a hybrid DVD9/Bluray? I'm curious to see what Microsoft's solution would be.

[Muzzakus]

The missing link with the upgraded specs strategy seems to be the optical disc. How will they deal with the space requirements of supporting 1080p resolutions and have optimized textures for both speced systems. Perhaps a hybrid DVD9/Bluray? I'm curious to see what Microsoft's solution would be.

The Elite will have a hard drive standard. Some installation may occur, even from a second dvd. Forza3 will be the 1st trial of this approach in the coming months where 360's fitted with hard drive's will have access to additional content installed from disc 2.

[rxpc]

Sounds to me that he meant with project Natal coming out in 2010 will make the xbox360 a new console.

[troyBORG]

I wonder how much Natal is going to cost. $100?

[jdsony]

I predict $129.