Xbox 360 life cycle to be a 'little longer than previous generations'

Phisical media's days are numbered. Disc, cartrage or stick, they'll all be gone in the future.

i don't ever comment much anymore, but that is the stupidest fucking thing i have ever heard. optical media is cheap and has high storage capacity. devs are quick to complain this gen about having only 9 gb of space to work with, so an adoption of blu-ray next gen is inevitable (unless they choose a proprietary format, which would be kind of silly).

and as for seb, considering how fucking long it takes me to navigate the xblm and the fact that broadband still has a ways to go for market penetration, physical media isn't going anywhere anytime soon. when i'm able to download 5 gb in 10 minutes (which wouldn't be near a full game by then) i'll consider changing my stance.

I think physical media will die sooner than we think, for consoles. MS doesn't want blu-ray because they don't want to support sony, and they have a lot of interest in downloadable content. With 1TB hard drives already available for less than $100, i imagine a system where you can download games, or take your HDD to game stop to load a game. The 360 HDD is already pretty portable, they could recess the connector and that would be easy.
And broadband is still not everywhere, but lots of places have it. I have a 10mbit connection, so i could download a game pretty quickly already. Faster than i could get to the store, thats for sure. Obama (please no political stuff) is on his way into office and he has been really big on spreading broadband to every corner of the country, so in a few years maybe we will have much more availability.
Either way, i would love downloadable games, and they already distribute xbox originals that are almost the same size as current gen titles, so its not like it's that unreasonable. Give it a couple more years and it will be the norm.
-Taylor

I hope for the love of God there will never be 'download only' games. What will game shops do? It took me just under a week to download a 720p Matrix (6.01GB) from Marketplace on my ridiculous 1MB connection. Games of the future will be probably double that.

digital distribution is coming--i'm not denying that. but i wouldn't bank on it overtaking retail anytime soon. yes, broadband is growing in coverage but this is meaningless unless everyone in the coverage zones subscribes. there are still people out there with dial-up, believe it or not. hell, even my bare-bones dsl connection, while broadband, wouldn't make due. if ms, or any of the big three for that matter, decided to forgo physical media for games, they would be alienating a hefty portion of the market, including the more casual gamers who wouldn't bother with downloads regardless of bandwidth.

don't forget also that people still love to be able to hold their entertainment media. with digital distribution i wouldn't be able to loan a game i've finished to a friend. and take note that cds and dvds are still selling (even though itunes is selling like hotcakes--and song downloads are even manageable on dial-up). physical media also occupies retail shelves, which lure people in and create a market presence. i'd be willing to wager that the xbox 420 will have full digital distribution, but don't expect that disc drive to up and vanish.

oh, and i'm pretty sure the avoidance of blu-ray has little to do with a sony grudge. as far as i know, sony's gaming division and home video division (whatever their proper names are) aren't interconnected like that. plus, there are about thirty million other members on the blu-ray board. the hd-dvd vs blu-ray saga did give us some lulz in the console wars, but ms would be very silly to forgo blu-ray if they stuck to physical media (spolier alert: they will)

Agreed.

Yes on the more innovative and original ips. The next jump in gaming is going to be on the software side anyway: smarter A.I. I'm talking just shy of sentient. (We don't need a Terminator/Matrix situation!)

Ok, so did you buy Mirror's Edge?

@ M

Yes I did play Mirror's Edge, I thought it was really good if a little frustrating and on the short side.
The perfect rent =)

The sequel will be a must buy I'd say.

God I HOPE NOT.

3-D is the biggest gimmick ever. Wearing glasses is sooo not cool and I would never purchase any console that made me wear that.

Plus youre right we would get terrible migraines.

I don't understand the re-found infatuation with 3D tech. I was discussing the resurgence of 3D with my family and friends and comments ranged from: "No one gives a shit." to: "Waste of money."

Who is going to want to buy ANOTHER new TV (for $2,500-$5,000) and 5 sets of those ridiculous glasses at $50/ea so Barney can be a pedephile in your own living room?!

2d in HD is plenty immersive... Hell, I'm still playing my 360 on a 12 year old 32" CRT and I still get blown away by how good certain games look on it...

yup... releasing a NEW console during these times would be virtual suicide.

Microsoft has profits and value from selling the 360s, they aren't going to risk that with a huge gamble of making a new console right when people arent buying anything.

Im expecting a new console november 2011 or 2012

My guess is that you were mistaken for an elitist PC-gaming troll, which I know you're not. :P

it's not a terrible idea in theory but imagine how many parents/uninformed would buy the cheaper package because of the price difference and the subsequent frustration they'd feel when they open it to find a box they can't do anything with. hell, people are already confused enough with multiple sku's.

Here's my prediction. Halo 3 Recon will come out in November 2009, Gears 3 will come out November 2010, and Halo 4 will launch the new console in 2011.

yeah, because assuming your predictions are correct tann, who would want to release a high profile game as a launch title, right?

sarcastic much?

i was meant to say it should come out end of 2011 at the earliest

And i'm sure they said that gears would stay on 360, the first 3 at least.