Nextbox rumors..

LiquidMantis wrote:

I paid almost $2/gb for one about 8 months ago. I don't see any reason there can't be a NextBox Elite with a 256 GB SSD at launch. I'd pay a premium for one.

I'd be real surprised if there isn't an official SSD option for any of the new consoles. Although technically the Wii already did this since they used 512 mb of flash memory for the internal storage.

The only downside aside from price is that some SSDs aren't reliable and I doubt MS or Sony are really in the position to deal with a hardware fiasco like the RROD. So if they go with an SSD option you're likely to pay a premium on it without question.

I think if it was a standard option, it would just be a few gig of chips surface mounted on the motherboard for caching rather than a mass storage option. For what a console is (traditionally) meant to be, mass produced and hence cheap gaming hardware, putting a big expensive component in isn't a good move. I don't think there are massive benefits that would draw a manufacturer to storing big games on there, but having a smaller amount of flash for fast access cache seems like you would see the benefit there.

Scratched wrote:

I think if it was a standard option, it would just be a few gig of chips surface mounted on the motherboard for caching rather than a mass storage option. For what a console is (traditionally) meant to be, mass produced and hence cheap gaming hardware, putting a big expensive component in isn't a good move. I don't think there are massive benefits that would draw a manufacturer to storing big games on there, but having a smaller amount of flash for fast access cache seems like you would see the benefit there.

That's essentially what the 4GB console already is. When I laid out costs, I presumed the 4GB of flash would remain as a stock item, and any other storage, like an SSD or an HDD would be on top of that. In other words, it's a fantastic idea, and that's really where all the smaller XBL apps should reside, facebook, twitter, netflix, hulu, etc.

Podunk wrote:

Off topic, I guess, but all this next gen murmuring is making me nostalgic for the old Sony Haterade thread.

Hating them is not as fun as it used to be. They're like Biff at the end of Back to the Future. You can enjoy some small amount of schadenfreude, but mostly you just feel sorry for them and wish they would make some good choices. :(

I meant to reply and say that I agree with this totally. Loved the haterade thread, not much fun kicking them when they're down this far.

Just to make this as OT as humanly possible....

Whatever, man, Biff was an attempted rapist. Let me say that again. AN ATTEMPTED RAPIST. And George McFly GAVE HIM A JOB. A menial job, sure, but all things considered I'd say the man got off light. Didn't feel sorry for him in the least.

Sony may play the bumbling buffoon at times-- remember that time they got hacked and lost a bunch of people's credit card numbers, ha ha ha, wacky antics!-- but they never tried to rape anyone's mom to my knowledge. Them, I've got some sympathy for.

Metaphorically speaking, Sony tries to rape everybody.

Rootkit, anyone?

I tried telling my wife she could work two jobs to have sex with me.

I'm still recovering.

This conversation could go in bad directions quickly. Hoping to stem that off, a question: given that a Kinect will likely be a guaranteed part of the next Xbox, is there any concern that that will result in voice or motion controls getting shoehorned into the core games the Xbox is known for, or are you all confident that the Wii and current Kinect will have eased out all the growing pains of that kind of integration?

I'm not sure if MS can afford to not put kinect in the nextbox. On one hand they need it to be ubiquitous, but on the other they need to be able to charge for it (as an accessory?) to make back their R+D investment. Perhaps it'll be a "Kinect v3, only available with Xbox720". I think part of that is that they need to prevent cheap knock-offs getting a foothold, there's already alternatives like this.

Scratched wrote:

make back their R+D investment

I thought they were already trying to do that by charging $200 for the PC version?

Personally, I'm excited by the prospect of what devs will do with the Kinect when their guidelines for using it are, "make use of this feature that people have access to anyway," as opposed to, "justify to people why they just spent $150 on this thing they saw on Oprah. Also your target audience doesn't actually like games."

Well, as long as the hard drive is replaceable, you could put in your own SSD later on. Doesn't have to be in the box.

On Kinect: I think one of the things MS could use to bring people along is to just use the old one. Offer a new, better one, sure, but for those folks who bought in with the one that's out now, make it work with the next system.

As for large storage drives, I think MS would be better served by going the Sony route and letting folks slot in their own and loading all the proprietary stuff rather than making them jump through hoops as is currently the case.

AnimeJ wrote:

On Kinect: I think one of the things MS could use to bring people along is to just use the old one. Offer a new, better one, sure, but for those folks who bought in with the one that's out now, make it work with the next system.

Noooooo, stop dividing the install base.

LiquidMantis wrote:
AnimeJ wrote:

On Kinect: I think one of the things MS could use to bring people along is to just use the old one. Offer a new, better one, sure, but for those folks who bought in with the one that's out now, make it work with the next system.

Noooooo, stop dividing the install base.

I think to a certain extent it depends on whether it's cutting functionality, or different degrees of quality of that functionality, which is what later versions of kinect sound like.

I don't think MS would pass up an opportunity to sell another backwards-incompatible version of kinect for the nextbox though.

The current version can make blind men see, what does version 2.0 have?

LiquidMantis wrote:
AnimeJ wrote:

On Kinect: I think one of the things MS could use to bring people along is to just use the old one. Offer a new, better one, sure, but for those folks who bought in with the one that's out now, make it work with the next system.

Noooooo, stop dividing the install base.

How is that dividing the install base? It's one less barrier to upgrade.

It is textbook dividing the install base. That's when different segments of people have different hardware. Dev's end up catering to the lowest common denominator. It's like when they stupidly made hard drives optional.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

It is textbook dividing the install base. That's when different segments of people have different hardware. Dev's end up catering to the lowest common denominator. It's like when they stupidly made hard drives optional.

And subsequently broke a lot of BC with the original XBox. Stupid move, especially early on in the game when BC matters.

Stele wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

It is textbook dividing the install base. That's when different segments of people have different hardware. Dev's end up catering to the lowest common denominator. It's like when they stupidly made hard drives optional.

And subsequently broke a lot of BC with the original XBox. Stupid move, especially early on in the game when BC matters.

Also, made it so developers couldn't rely on the hard drive being there.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

It is textbook dividing the install base. That's when different segments of people have different hardware. Dev's end up catering to the lowest common denominator. It's like when they stupidly made hard drives optional.

If it were the same system, sure. But this is for two entirely different bits of hardware. Games on the Nextbox would be automagically not compatible. Bringing the 360's Kinect hardware up to the Nextbox is more like allowing Wii users to use old gamecube controllers for Wii games.

It's still a pretty deadly split, because you've got five, count'em, FIVE different configurations developers have to decide whether to support:

A.) Xbox 360 users without Kinect
B.) Xbox 360 users with Kinect 1.0
C.) Xbox 720 users without Kinect
D.) Xbox 720 users with Kinect 1.0
E.) Xbox 720 users with Kinect 2.0

Assuming perfect backwards compatibility (and we all know what happens if you assume), A plays all games released for A, B plays A and B games, C plays A and C but not B, D plays A thru D, and E plays A thru E. Yeah. That's real simple. *rolleyes*

Even if you assume that the first two will be phased out within a year or two of the 720's release, that's still three totally different system configurations. Even more if they pull the same boneheaded move of not requiring a hard drive. Given that Kinect 2.0 would probably have the smallest install base, it would be a really uphill battle to try to get devs to give it any kind of support at all.

The much, much simpler solution would be to simply include Kinect 2.0 with every Xbox 720. Kinect 1.0 users don't have to worry about which games work with their hardware and which require the latest revision: if you have Xbox 720, you can play all Kinect games. If you have Xbox 360 with Kinect, you can only play Kinect 1.0 games. Period, end of story.

Is there a need for a new Kinect though? It's a fairly modern peripheral, and I don't know that there's much they can do to improve on it; tracking is quite good.

As for SKUs, I don't see it as an issue, just ignore the 360 for development purposes, and it's no different than it is now. If you want to add kinect support, make it optional. If you don't want it, don't include it, so it becomes a bonus feature, like it is for Forza 4.

Again, to me it's no different than being able to use a Gamecube controller with my Wii. Neat bonus, saved me a bit for some games, but not a deal breaker by any stretch.

One more edit... For developers, it's a binary choice, no different than it is now.

Do I make this game for 360, or for 720?

I remember seeing somewhere a design for a dual camera kinect, to help accuracy and make it so you could be closer to the display (less need to clear an 'arena' for it). Just because it's a new version doesn't mean it's incompatible with the old one, just enhanced in the same capability. Whether that comes out in practice is another matter.

AnimeJ wrote:

Is there a need for a new Kinect though? It's a fairly modern peripheral, and I don't know that there's much they can do to improve on it; tracking is quite good.

Tracking could be a lot better. MS "dumbed" the Kinect down from the tech they acquired in order to lower production cost, maybe they can just go back to the on-board processor and higher resolution camera. This new LEAP stuff could be incorporated as well.

My understanding was that the USB connection required by the current Xbox was a bottleneck that prevented the amount of information the Kinect could have been sending for better tracking. The Nextbox will have a dedicated port that will allow the Kinect to work much better.

I still don't think it is going to be a great gaming device. But if the exercise and dance stuff is improved, there will be a lot of benefit. And who knows, maybe gestures may become useful while watching media, instead of the Kinect just being a glorified microphone.

AnimeJ wrote:

Is there a need for a new Kinect though? It's a fairly modern peripheral, and I don't know that there's much they can do to improve on it; tracking is quite good.

The imaging is extremely low res, processing is low powered, and I'm sure they've learned a lot as to what the system limitations are so that they can improve the thing significantly for similar or less money.

For me, the Kinect is like the Wii: something I bought but haven't used much. If not for Super Mario Galaxy 2, I would have hardly played my Wii.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

For me, the Kinect is like the Wii: something I bought but haven't used much. If not for Super Mario Galaxy 2, I would have hardly played my Wii.

That for me sums up how I'd feel parting with my money for kinect (If I ever felt the need to scrub the coating of dust off my 360 to play it), the games for it have to come first.

I do like the voice stuff from Kinect a lot. The daughter's gotten some decent use out of the Kinect, but it's not really for me.

My pet peeve about voice is that it takes so long for Kinect to be online that I've often long since navigated to where I need to be.