Microsoft Says No New Xbox 360s In 2009

OrochimaruVoldemort writes "Microsoft has said to Engadget that they do not plan on making new consoles available in 2009. This comes from the same company that said it wasn't producing a Blu-ray drive for that Xbox, so it is pure speculation. Expect to see a new console within that year. Engadget also hints: 'Microsoft representative let us know today that "While we don't normally comment on rumors like this, we can tell you that we have no plans to release a new console in 2009."' The rest of us will wait and see. For now, focus on what is available."

Comments

Of course they don't have plans.

[Methlin]

If they said they did it would hurt sales of the current revision. Now if Nintendo or Sony were going to release a Wii2 or PS4 in the next year you'd have the standard MS vaporware announcement while they scramble to actually put a product together.

Re:Of course they don't have plans.

[DanWS6]

With as well as the Wii is selling right now I don't think Nintendo would want to announce a Wii2 for a while.

Re:Of course they don't have plans.

[Yvan256]

I'm with you on the colors and the expanded internal storage memory, but Nintendo has never modified their hardware while keeping the same system/name.

The only thing that was extremely close in terms of hardware (old system + new features) was the Gameboy Color, and even that had a different name. Unless you also count the Gamecube and the Wii, in which case there's also a lot of hardware differences along with the new name.

More RAM to enable larger texture files? I don't think so.

Seriously?

[aztektum]

Microsoft not having any plans on May 14th 2008 to release a new X360 model before December 31, 2009 is front page news worthy?

Re:Xbox 360 Hardware Still Isn't Profitable

[corsec67]

Are you trying to make it sound like MS hemoraging money is a bad thing?

If they keep trying to break in to the Japanese dominated console market and keep failing, losing tons of money, all I can say is "Good for them".

Re:Make way for the console that will kill PC gami

[Conception]

See, the sad thing is PC gaming isn't King, even if its better. Consoles make 2-3x as much as PC gaming does at least. There's no contest anymore. The King was crowed long ago.

Recent games are putting pressure on them...

[GrpA]

I'd guess that the recent games like Asassin's Creed and other console-first, PC later games are starting to show up the consoles and while it's not having a lot of effect yet, it's starting to, and people are waiting for the PC release before buying, because they know that unless the conversion is a dud, the PC version is always going to be better and higher resolution...

But as I said, it's only a small number of people looking that way at present, because the difference is slight at the moment.

I'd guess they're looking ahead to late 2009 where the next gen of PC video cards will make things possible in games that simply can't be repeated on consoles, and at higher resolutions too.

Then the X360 and PS3 and both going to start looking like an oversized DS..

I'd be suprised if some in Microsoft aren't wondering what they're going to do as that starts to happen... Create a new higher level X360 maybe or maybe even some are suggesting they build a whole new console that's X360 compatible.

But that's just conjecture based on them saying they're not making a new one... Because if they did, everyone would be waiting to buy it instead and the existing stocks would go the way of the Osborne PC.

GrpA.

Re:Recent games are putting pressure on them...

[desenz]

I think you guessed poorly. As someone in retail electronics, the vast majority of people have no idea what resolution means. Couple that with the higher and higher demands on performance PC hardware, and its an expensive proposition. Joe Majority is not going back to PC gaming, ever. And the majority is all that really matters here.

Re:Recent games are putting pressure on them...

[Chad Birch]

I think you've got this entirely backwards. It's PC gaming that's in trouble, not the consoles. Average people have little to no interest in constantly upgrading their PCs just so the newest game will run, worrying about driver problems, patches, the current rash of DRM on PC games, etc. With an Xbox360 or PS3, they just come home with the game, put the disc in, and it starts. They didn't even have to look on the back of the box before they bought it to see if they needed to spend $200 on a new video card first. The reason it takes games like Assassin's Creed so long to come out for PC is because the PC version is almost an afterthought now, it's hardly even considered a major platform. Grand Theft Auto IV is probably the "biggest" game of the year, and last I saw it didn't even have a PC version planned. If you're a PC-exclusive gamer now, you're going to get left behind on a lot of the big games, and I only see this trend continuing in the future.

Re:Recent games are putting pressure on them...

[tepples]

they know that unless the conversion is a dud, the PC version is always going to be better and higher resolution... But if you have friends over, how much do four copies of the PC version cost compared to one copy of the console version? Heck, not everybody who visits my house and wants to play video games owns a computer.

Re:Recent games are putting pressure on them...

[Awptimus Prime]

Don't forget how you don't have to worry about little shits running around with wall hacks, transparency exploits and other things that tend to happen in the PC gaming world within a few months of a game's release.

Oh and don't get me started on how so many PC releases are bugfests for their first few weeks or months. Nothing sucks more than downloading a demo, seeing it run so-so with promises of fixes before it goes gold, then buy the game and it not work at all without either a lot of dicking around with the drivers or waiting for a patch that fixes a compatibility issue with your particular hardware. God help you if the game vendor and the hardware folks start pointing fingers at each other instead of patching.

There's also the issue of PC games being stuck on the PC you installed it on. Your mention of DRM covers that, but you know, it's great to be able to pop out the DVD of any game I own and toss it into any friend's 360 and not have to worry about installing or affecting the 'security measures' of the product.

The list, with me, goes on to the social side of console gaming. Even with WoW being the dominant gaming force, I can't stand playing it. It's not fun to lose in PVP because someone else downloaded a script/mod that makes their character quicker at certain tasks than someone with the normal interface. I hate playing games where people are sitting around typing instead of actually playing. On the modern console, or 360 at least, every controller comes with a headset so if people are going to be talking, they'll likely be productive because they aren't keying away-- but speaking with their actual voice. They don't have to go download teamspeak, or whatever today's voice conference application is and switch back and forth between the game and the software when wanting to talk to someone else, and so on.

All this and if you go ahead and plunk down $200 for the new graphics card, there you are, sitting at the desk, using the same interface you use to browse the web, do your taxes, work, etc. It's just nice to sit on the sofa with a beer and relax to the hdtv and surround system instead of being hunched over a desk like folks already spend eight hours a day working at.

To me, technological bliss is where all computing is done on the laptop and all gaming is done on the console. Not very geek, but it interfaces with a real life a bit more than the old computer desk with a bunch of gear that heats up the room by 15 degrees and is loud enough to drown out a window fan. :)

Re:Make way for the console that will kill PC gami

[kesuki]

what about the wonder swan sure it never made it anywhere but japan...

and one thing i hate, is the way 'Blu-ray' adoption rates "Don't Count PS3s, because they're console sales" even though every website I googled said 'PS3 is the best Blu-ray movie player, PS3 is the Only Blu-Ray Player to support BDJava, yada yada yada..'

Why would anyone pay $400 for a Blu-ray stand alone when the PS3 is $400? and furthermore, $200 'BD-rom drives' aren't Blu-ray players even though you can buy plenty of HD movie playback software for M$ windows. $250 in 'upgrade' costs is a lot less than $400, especially if your PC is already hooked to you HDTV because you didn't want to pay $1400 for a crappy 30" PC monitor display when a 42" HDTV with PC in was $1000

anyways, consoles aren't all used to play games, and not all PCs come with a graphic card capable of playing a video game. http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/card-wars/intel-graphics-business-still-champ-but-nvidia-is-showing-rockys-pluck-257035.php at least 37% of the market have intel graphics and intel graphics don't even run 'aero' much less video games, and nvidia and AMD sell tons of graphic cards that don't play video games (any nvidia card below 'X,500' won't play modern games at any frame rate and ATI doesn't have a convenient scheme to determine which cards play games, but as intel has shown the lions share of the market is in cheap chipsets. but that's because something like 60% of the PC market is aimed at businesses most of which (graphic artists aside) want the cheapest chip available...
and then about 20% of the market are people who want 'internet capable' machines, with maybe 20% who want a multi use game capable machine, of those only 25% are serious gamers who will spend more than $200 on a graphic solution just to be able to play modern games at full frame rates (in less than HD resolution) and an even smaller set of those will buy $400+ for full HD capable graphic solutions rather than running on a PC monitor at a 'lower resolution' to get acceptable framerates...

personally, I've decided to go SLI/crossfire, and all told will spent almost 4 grand on my next gaming PC plus the TV set, and i should be able to run games for many years to come, without needing new graphic cards or a new PC... but I'm a serious gamer, and i spend thousands of hours playing games. and I expect my gaming rig to handle any game i throw at it for 4 years... if Full HD isn't the end of graphic card evolution...
(of course physics engines etc might some day go beyond a quad core CPU, and newer computer setups might save significant electric consumption)

but for at least the next 4 years I plan on being able to play anything i buy at the stores, when i build my next gaming rig.

Re:Or maybe the XBox 4D?

[Xtravar]

They:
1. Release XBox360 slim (or with blu-ray...) then
2. Release XBox 4 and 'legitimately' call it '4'

The whole 360 thing was to have a number starting with 3 to compete with Sony.

What PC can't play a video game?

[tepples]

not all PCs come with a graphic card capable of playing a video game.

Tetris, developed by Alexey Pajitnov and originally published by samizdat, is a video game. All PCs with a CGA, EGA, VGA, or more powerful VGA-compatible video card have been able to run Vadim Gerasimov's port of Tetris to the PC, even if inside an old-PC emulator such as DOSBox.

My point is that sure, low-end PCs with an Intel GPU won't run Xbox 360- or PS3-level graphics, but they'll definitely run DS- or PSP-level graphics, and probably even Wii-level graphics. So if a game engine can scale down to the Wii, why can't it scale down to low-end PCs?