Ren of Heavens Posted May 12, 2008 Posted May 12, 2008 I agree about using flash memory as storage for Wii 2. Remember that you don't need rewritable SSDs, so they can be made considerably cheaper than your average SD memory card.
McPhee Posted May 12, 2008 Posted May 12, 2008 I'm not sure how successfully Microsoft are going to be selling Xbox as a complete multimedia portal. They were trying to sell the 360 as such, but there are always going to be far too many things competing for the same thing. You can see the vision they're laying out, a fanciful Star Trek style future where you can work, play, record, surf and set the dishwasher from their particular brand of box, but who's box, playing who's games, recording who's movies and connecting to who's dishwasher? I just can't see it happening until all the various companies stop waving their cocks around in public and create some kind of common ground for their products. They haven't even figured out how to make their current connectivity features less fiddly. Im not sure how successfull it will be either, but it will be Microsoft's next step. They're really trying to push the video marketplace as it is (and it might be successfull if they dropped the points system and accepted Maestro), the next step will be a quieter, more reliable machine with media integrated even deeper in to the console's functionality. It's the natural next step, and tbh they're the only company that look like they can pull off that sort of device in the next few years. What remains to be seen is whether or not the general public will buy in to such a device. As for useability, i'd expect the next Xbox will launch some time after Windows 7. Assuming it delivers what it promises then it should be fairly easy to hook the next Xbox up to a PC.
Pit-Jr Posted May 12, 2008 Posted May 12, 2008 I want a 1-console-per-generation future. The benefits of this would far outweigh the drawbacks. Imagine having to buy only one console every 4-6 years, having the best (only) version of every game to choose from, and being able to play anybody online because everyone is on the same network. I realize this wont happen anytime soon if ever but it sure would be nice
darkjak Posted May 12, 2008 Author Posted May 12, 2008 I'm surprised only one person has commented on my Solid State cartridge idea. I think that it's not too far off. We're talking about a console being released in perharps 2012. That's four years away. Compare with the DVD which was a luxury for nearly a thousand euros in 1998, and in 2002 it cost about 80 euros. I have no idea what DVD discs originally cost, but it probbably too fell a lot. Or compare with mp3-players. In 2005 I bought the cheapest mp3 around for 125 euros. It had 128 megs of memory. Now you'll get way over a gig for that money, and the cheapest mp3's which at smallest have 256 megs come for free with magazines. I don't know if they'll do it, but solid state cartridges would be an incredible improvement. It's possible for games to grow practically infinitelly throughout a consoles lifespan. I hope and think that games won't stop coming in material form. Many people still don't have broadband, and excluding them wouldn't be good for the industry (although we would perhaps get rid of those pesky casual gamers who make crap minigame compilations come out for wii all the time).
Guest Jordan Posted May 12, 2008 Posted May 12, 2008 As for useability, i'd expect the next Xbox will launch some time after Windows 7. Assuming it delivers what it promises then it should be fairly easy to hook the next Xbox up to a PC. Remember what happend to XBOX Live on Vista? It disappeared never to return. We were promised full intergration between games, a dash board on Vista (not the one you get in the games) and easy communication. What do we get? Nothing... basically.
Dan_Dare Posted May 12, 2008 Posted May 12, 2008 that's because a paid service on pc was never going to fly. They need to drop the charges and make the marketplace their source of revenue.
McPhee Posted May 12, 2008 Posted May 12, 2008 Remember what happend to XBOX Live on Vista? It disappeared never to return. We were promised full intergration between games, a dash board on Vista (not the one you get in the games) and easy communication. What do we get? Nothing... basically. I still think that will surface at some point in the next few years, probably in line with the next Xbox/Windows 7 combo. I'd also expect Live to go free, paid for by the marketplace and advertising. Then again, maybe you're right. Maybe it won't happen. It just seems like too sensible an idea to forget about...
Esequiel Posted May 13, 2008 Posted May 13, 2008 How much would it cost now for a ..... 10Gig USB HDD? There not expensive right? Imagine making 6 million of them and having GTA IV on it and selling for £39.99 a piece.... Surely HDD's are getting cheap enough now to make this a viable option? Stick it a box or just brand the HDD with the games logo... Or something... Its been a long day at work >.>
darkjak Posted May 14, 2008 Author Posted May 14, 2008 How much would it cost now for a ..... 10Gig USB HDD? There not expensive right? Imagine making 6 million of them and having GTA IV on it and selling for £39.99 a piece.... Surely HDD's are getting cheap enough now to make this a viable option? Stick it a box or just brand the HDD with the games logo... Or something... Its been a long day at work >.> The problem with USB harddrives would be the fact that they're widelly available. Anyone would be able to just stick it into a computer, and copy the files to another hdd. Plus the things that make cartridges better than discs is the vastly much longer lifespans. A CD will last you 30 years, whilst a DVD will last you half that time. Cartridges have virtually infinite lifespans. A regular rotary harddrive has much, much shorter lifespan than a CD. Have you ever heard of a harddrive to last more than 10 years? And harddrives still have longer loadingtimes than cartridges. If you'd instead use solid state drives with very specific connectors, that would make it very hard to pirate games. I mean, cartridges as a matter of fact WERE solid state drives.
Wesley Posted May 14, 2008 Posted May 14, 2008 Different companies will take different routes, obviously. Overall the gaming scene as a whole though... probably just more online orientated, micro-transactions, etc. etc.
MoogleViper Posted May 14, 2008 Posted May 14, 2008 I won't be happy until they create a sort of parallel reality. Like virtual reality but more realistic, where you can feel and it's as if you are actually in the game. Not just a tv scren strapped to your face.
gaggle64 Posted May 14, 2008 Posted May 14, 2008 Yeah, but all that's going to happen when they invent holodecks is that people are going to keep on getting trapped in them, and end up forming weird sexual relationships with story book characters from their child hood while historical figures turn evil and start killing everyone.
dwarf Posted May 18, 2008 Posted May 18, 2008 It's weird reading this thread because there are so many different ideas and opinions and it just goes to show how many directions gaming can go now. Next generation we could see all the consoles being seperated from each other completely, kind of like what the Wii is doing now where you'd have to buy one as well as a different games machine, except on a broader scale. However we could just see the same thing that has gone on from last gen to this gen. A few improvements here and there but what I'd say to be unsubstantial. Nobody will completely get rid of optical/physical software. That would be insane because you would lose out on the publicity of people wanting to buy from a Game-store. wasnt it Iwata that said he thought a balance between download and software was key recently?
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