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What Microsoft Should and Shouldn't Do For the Xbox 720
donniebaseball23 writes "Xbox 360 just came off a record November, with more than 1.7 million units sold in the U.S., but behind closed doors Microsoft is planning its next move for the successor to the popular console. Plenty of Xbox 720 rumors have surfaced in recent months, but veteran games journalist Chris Morris has filtered through them to provide a realistic take on what Microsoft should and shouldn't do with Xbox 360's successor. In particular, he notes that Microsoft should adopt the Blu-ray format from Sony. 'A DVD drive as a medium for storing larger and larger games is outdated – and it steps on the toes of a system that bills itself as the high definition leader,' Morris writes. 'Microsoft resisted the move to Blu-ray this generation without any ill effects. It even survived picking the losing side in the format battle between Blu-ray and HD-DVD, but it can't rely on the DVD to take it into the next generation.'"
That doesn't actually work.
Why do they call it the Xbox 720? Because when you see it, you'll turn 720 degrees and walk away.
I knew the moonwalk had a practical purpose!
"What's wrong with Blu-ray? Everything except the fidelity of the content."
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
And spells Proprietary in a *very* different/new way too
I say we take off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure...
What Microsoft Shouldn't Do For the Xbox 720:
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
Why use Blu-Ray or any disc formats @ all? All it does is limit how many games they can bundle, and increase the risk of mechanical damage to the disks. Instead, since flash memory densities - currently @ par with Blu Ray densities from 25-125 GB will be available - will increase every couple of years, why not make the storage of the X-Box one of those formats - be it SD, CF, xD or something? Just like the Sony PSP used Sony's memory sticks, MS could use SD if they want something standard, or xD if they want something proprietary. That way, they save on the Blu Ray drive costs as well - just have a slot for removable SD cards. Game makers can then choose to make heavy games that need 64GB, or light games that would fit on a CD which they can put into a 1GB SD. This would enable them to have a range of games for a range of prices. It also gets rid of the problem of Blu Ray drive related failures.
Since I don't own games like PlayStation, Wii or X-Box, I have no ideas on what other improvements or pitfalls should be there.
DO: Make a sensible sized hard drive standard for every model. The 360 suffered early cycle because games were tentative about assuming that they could use a hard disk (the "core" model didn't have one). The 4GB drive that ships with the current model is also inadequate. 20GB for the bottom end model should be considered an absolute minimum.
DO: Pack in the RAM. Of all of the factors that are driving developer frustration with the current console generation, RAM seems to be at the top of the pack. It's worse for the PS3 (with its awkward memory-split and larger OS footprint) than for the 360, but still... RAM is pretty cheap and packing plenty of it in will pay dividends in 5 years time.
DO: Continue to develop what you've been doing on voice controls for the console's UI. I have mixed feelings about Kinect, but voice activation is really great - and has an appeal to a wide demographic.
DON'T: Worry too much about making a loss on each unit sold for the first year or two. MS's objectives should be to get a large installed base early on and to make sure that their machine is fairly future-proof. This probably means selling at a loss early on. The real profits from a console come later in the cycle, when component prices have fallen, so you can reduce prices and still sell at a profit, and when you have third party developers giving you free money, by putting out games for your system (and paying you a fee on each copy sold) without you having to invest in development.
DON'T: Allow your dev team to push out firmware updates every 5 minutes. The 360 has had a few too many firmware updates for comfort, but perhaps not to the extent of being a deal-breaker. With the PS3, the sheer frequency of updates (and the length of time they take) is intensely frustrating, when you just want to fire up the console and play a game.
DON'T: Allow region locking. Sony have already ditched this and it did them no harm. MS knows region coding is junk; it doesn't use it for any of its first or second party games. Take the option away from developers; its time for them to grow up. It also reduces the incentive for people to get consoles mod-chipped - which in turn means they may be less likely to look into a bit of piracy. Which brings me onto the final point:
DO: Assume that whatever copy-protection you put into the machine will get broken sooner or later and plan accordingly. Reduce the incentive for people to mod their consoles, rather than going for the punitive route. Don't region lock. Do offer up an "other OS" walled garden. Do make it as easy as possible for indie developers to get their software onto the platform.
I'll wait for XBox 1.44
There you are, staring at me again.
I have three Xbox360s, each for a different room of the house. In addition to game consoles they function as media consumption devices for Netflix and for my mountain of movies on the NAS. However, It is such a pain in the ass to migrate between them (and you must, if you want your gamer profile & saved games to interoperate), that I've actually disconnected TWO of them and replaced them with smaller quieter Linux media centers (screw it, If I can only play games on one, I'll only play games on one).
The DRM they employ is hurting their business. I'm thankful that I can re-download my content on different consoles, or swap my hard-drives around, but the fact is, I can only be signed in to XBL in one room at a time, and my Netfilx bandwidth isn't tied to XBL servers except artificially. When I want to play a game online, no one else can watch the movies or surf the marketplace which I pay to access. Yes, I can use separate accounts, but I shouldn't have to fragment my usage needlessly. Besides, I tried that already, trying to find the right drive or profile to play a specific game or movie is RIDICULOUS.
Also, this "online pass" bullshit that's bundled with games has to stop. I already pay for XBL services, MS provides the matchmaking API, its XBL. Dear Epic, I've bought and played every game you ever made from Zork to Gears, but when your activation code prevented me from playing the game I purchased, because another player had used the online pass first, I decided to boycot you... We have 1 disc. Only one of us can play at a time online anyway. You once did produce truly beloved Epic MegaGames, but this bullshit attempt to rape the used game market has caused me to hate you.
In short: SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! People will spend a lot more if you make it easier us to do so. Get rid of the DRM, or at least make it marginally usable.
Until then, I think I'll start investing in your competitors: The DRM free, truly cross platform, charity supporting, indie games.
It's a stupid assumption to think the next XBox will be called the XBox 720.
The first was the "XBox 1".
Then came the "XBox 360", which is 360x the previous number.
It makes much more sense the next one will be called "XBox 129600".
Or, if the naming scheme implies 360^(previous number), the "XBox Out-of-range error".
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
And, most important:
They should dump the optical drive entirely and move to a cartridge-like system using encrypted flash drives. For the majority of people with a solid internet connection they can just buy and download directly to their console from their living room, but for those with crappy/capped bandwidth, the physical flash drive is there for them if they want it.
Hell, they don't even need to really produce pre-made flash drives with the games on them, they could just switch to a kiosk method of distribution. You go down to your local Walmart, go up to the Microsoft kiosk, pick which 'Xbox 720' game you want, it copies that to a generic, proprietary Microsoft flash drive right in the machine, prints a label on it, and shits it out the slot on the bottom, ready to go. The cost of producing that physical copy could easily be offset to the consumer while at the same time giving incentive to people to switch to direct download by allowing for cheaper prices there
No more discs to press on their end, no more discs to get scratched up by the consumer, and it goes a long way towards moving the digital distribution method out of the city and out into the sticks. The games are always up to date (the kiosk can just keep the disc images updated) and not only that, but they can literally offer every single game they produce at every kiosk. A few TB hard drives in the unit and a web connection and you've got access to everything. Hell, they could even combine the unit with a demo machine like the 360 ones and let people play the games before they buy right there in the store!
Seems like it would work well for both them and consumers. Which is probably why it won't happen.