Microsoft hiring for 'next-generation console' engineers

by Griffin McElroy on Mar 8th 2011 1:00PM

Though Microsoft isn't close to approaching the end of its ten-year plan for the Xbox 360, the hardware manufacturer seems to be staffing up to develop the heir apparent of the gaming console's kingdom. The company recently posted a handful of hiring ads for its Mountain View research facility, which is looking to add a design verification engineer, hardware architect and other positions to its roster to help with "defining and delivering next generation console architectures from conception through implementation."

If these "conceptual" positions really are for the Xbox 360's successor, we're probably a few years out from learning anything else about the next-gen console. All we can hope is that the team also publishes a help wanted ad for the position of "Making Sure the Console Doesn't Spontaneously Stop Working Technician."

Via: Engadget
Source: Beyond3D

Tags: engineer, hiring, jobs, microsoft, next-gen, technician, xbox, xbox-720

Reader Comments (101)

good news. these things updated hardware.

no please not yet, 3-4 years yes please

@ansalon929 if they are hiring engineers only now it is a very long way off. I dont think they are starting now though. Anything more than 2 years without hard news and bullshots and I would be surprised.

@ansalon929

well good news, its takes about 3-4 years for R&D, then actually making them, testing, and so on...

NGP was in development in 2008. Just for reference.

@PR0F3TA
hopefully microsoft takes their time, the xbox 360 looks and plays fine [when its running]

4-5 years out would be ok assuming microsoft doesnt nerf the system like the original xbox

Just like 9/11 jokes. Too soon.

away! away from my wallets, you monsters!!

Already?!

@Trogdorwhore It came out in 2005. It is now 2011. With engineers just now being haird that puts it a good 3-5 years before even being announced. You call that too soon?

@Robborboy - I don't have the inside story on this or anything, but it is almost guaranteed that Microsoft (and Sony, and Nintendo) have been working on their next gen systems for years. This seems like an end-of-cycle push to get the hardware specs finalized to me, and not a "we're just starting to develop the next gen console" push. Any of the three companies could probably announce a new console at E3, if they needed to. It all depends on sales though, and if sales remain relatively high, there won't be any need for a new console any time soon.

well lets put it this way if they announce something like next year about a new console hopefully they wont just up and abandon the current one

Feels too soon!

@mattledger

Too soon that they're hiring/doing research for the next generation Xbox? Would you rather them hire these people in early 2013 and release a brand new console in the fall/winter of 2013?

@mattledger

"Feels too soon!"

As others have pointed out, if they're just now hiring engineers to start work on the next generation Xbox, we're still 3-4 years away from that system's launch. Work on the Xbox 360 started sometime in late 2002/early 2003 and the hardware wasn't finalized until 2004. By the time the 360 was announced at E3 2005, Xenos and Xenon were being produced only as engineering samples; both chips didn't have mass producible, final silicon revisions until late summer of that year. The PS3's design phase took an additional year after Sony came to the realization that it had grossly overestimated CELL's rendering capabilities (comparable to a Geforce 5900 Ultra) and dropped a second CPU in favor of a G70 derived NVIDIA GPU.

In short, designing a system can take years. By the time the next generation of consoles rolls around, the Xbox 360 and PS3 will probably hitting their 10th and 9th year anniversaries; for consoles (or just technology in general) this is a lifetime. Hardware will have advanced far enough along to make that snazzy UE3 demo we saw this year a playable reality.

Actually I was just thinking it was too soon to be talking about the possibility of a new console, as you say it takes years to develop a console so the fact that they're only just hiring engineers and we're already talking about it feels too soon!

Thanks for the very detailed rebuttals though.

Please take a LOOOONG time. I don't want to buy another console until 2015, at least. The quality of games that have been coming out are great, I haven't been yearning for them to "look better" like I used to in the past.

Consoles have an average lifespan of 5-6 years.

This generation is an exception.

And one other thing. The PS2. That thing is simply a freak when it comes to it's lifespan.

@Drakkenfyre

I think in general console lifespans will/have to get longer.
Technologies aren't really increasing like they have, and any increases are very expensive, and game improvements aren't going to be extremely obvious to the general gamer. The economics and expectations have changed.

This is a good thing though. Game developers will have to rely on making great games, instead of relying on people being dazzled by new technology every few years.

@AceManUSC
That's pretty unrealistic to expect you current machine to be alive in 2015!
Have you actually been lucky enough to purchase only ONE Xbucks360?
I just bought my third one last weekend; so, given the roughly 3-year lifespan, I would hope for a new console in 2014.

@JonahStein

Whooooosh!

@Dizazter What the hell are you talking about? Of course technology is increasing just as much as it used to - ever heard of moore's law? It hasn't stopped yet, in fact it is increasing slightly in some areas.

Compare flops of graphics cards and processors now with those of 5 years ago and you'll see a staggering difference... in fact the computers are around 10 times faster now compared to 5 years ago, give it another 5 years and they will be approximately 100 times faster compared to technology 10 years ago.

I mean in 1-2 years time we will have mobile phones faster than current gen consoles (quad cores are coming this winter) - so what you will see is if ms / sony wants to stay relevant when mobile phones with dock connectors to the TV outpower them they will be forced to upgrade...

@AceManUSC
If this listing is any indication, Microsoft didn't have a lot of R&D going into the next console so it will be some years before the research is done, and even more for the development.

It seems weird to me that they would specifically list for "next ge console". I always thought companies were always working to make their next product.

Hmmm interesting.
Any ideas on what a next gen console could have? (serious)

@Chanka Native 1080p output, DirectX11, a quad-core processor, easily-swappable hard drives, and enough CPU/GPU horsepower to run the newest Unreal Engine showcased at GDC with full features (and presumably CryEngine 3 as well).

@PointlessPuppies Im expecting nothing less than that.

@Chanka

One things for sure...it won't play your current gen games =(

@Chanka I'm thinking MS will go with ARM this round. They are already preparing windows 8 with ARM support for tablets and laptops.

What I would expect is something like a 32-core ARM with an ATI graphics card of the 7xxx gen (or maybe 8xxx) with directX 12 and at least 8GB RAM. This of course if we are talking late 2012 mid 2013.

@Anciegher

I think Sony will stick with Blu-ray media, but Microsoft will go with some sort of solid state cartridge. The console wars will continue as the Xbox720 people will post "load times suck" after every PS4 game posted. Sony will have Move integrated while Microsoft will have Kinect as a add on, PS4 fans will say "Microsoft nickles and dimes you" posts everywhere.

@Chanka

I think the biggest question will be do the next generation of consoles have optical drives or not. With Sony making full disc-based games available on PSN and the way they're developing entire games within Home, I think it's not outside of the realm of possibility that games will be downloadable only, or maybe even completely cloud based like OnLive.

@Chanka I think that the next gen of consoles should have the power to out put 1080p to 4 monitors simultaneously in 3D, for virtual LAN gaming without the need for additional consoles.

@Chanka
Primarily, actually being powerful enough to render games in 1080p at last instead of 600p or whatever it usually is. Although... the effects might still look nicer at lower resolution... so who knows what developers will actually do.

Given that PS3/60 still look pretty nice, I wonder if MS will take a leaf out of Nintendo's book and make their next system less powerful - I mean, I think they'll still go for significantly more powerful than 360, but not as MUCH more powerful as would allow if they went for a top-end, highly subsidised device like last time. That way they could make it in a nice small box and launch at a good price, integrated with next-gen Kinect, while not making a loss.

I kind of wonder if they'd do away with the optical drive; if they keep one, it really needs to be Blu-ray (increased resolution => bigger textures => bigger games) and I don't get the impression they're big fans of that. They could stick in a 1TB hard drive which would do to store about 40 BDs worth of games. But I'm not sure that betting on a wide audience being able to casually download 25GB+ games is a great idea - in some areas, bandwidth's likely to improve rather slowly.

So basically: who knows.

@Chanka

They'll just duct tape two 360s together. It's gonna be so, so dope.

@xxxsam

I'm thinking they both might go in a wii-esque route, going more in terms of optimizing existing technologies rather than breaking the bank again... Native 1080p 60fps, get 3D resolutions and framerates up higher, and more RAM.

@Chanka I would like complete cross gaming between pc and the next xbox. sure this could be done now but I''d like for MS to be innovative about this being a more realistic possibility for developers.

I'm not smart enough to know the hows and whys thats up to them.

whatever happens, Kinect will be at the forefront.

@PointlessPuppies

Just thought I'd mention that it probably won't be quad-core, but a six-core (sexa-core? hexa-core?) processor, since those are currently gaining steam on the PC.

@Chanka Goddammit, it better interface with my Zune and my non-existent Windows phone!

I've been waiting for a next generation of consoles for a while, mostly because I really want a better class of crappy console ports for the PC. It's the 360's fault that we're getting crappy DX9 games running on the Unreal Engine that can't even support anti-aliasing. It's just stupid.

I know devs are too lazy to pay any attention to the PC and actually use its higher horsepower, instead pandering solely to console hardware (which I wouldn't mind at all if it didn't mean PC gamers would be stuck with essentially THOSE versions copy-pasta'd to run on a PC). If they're going to pander to console hardware I'd at LEAST want said console hardware to move up a notch.

It's rather telling when some of those ports, under the "recommended" section of the specs, list video cards 5 years old.

@PointlessPuppies

Consoles are where the money is, these days. That being said, it's kind of sad that the PC has to suffer because of it.

It's amazing what can be done when a developer actually develops FOR the PC, or FOR consoles. But when you try to do both... one or both will end up suffering, usually.

@Drakkenfyre
It's rather nice in a way to see such low specs because I haven't had to upgrade anything in YEARS. At the same time, though, come on. Throw us a bone over here and at least support anti-aliasing, or do SOMETHING to take advantage of the inherently higher horsepower. I don't want to come off as one of those holier-than-thou "PC Master Race" snobs, but at the same time I think it's criminal to underuse the advantages of the PC this badly. I felt the same when the PS3 had such horrible ports, but at least devs got around to making respectable PS3 versions that actually utilized the hardware well. I'm not seeing any of that on the PC.

@PointlessPuppies

Exactly. When I downloaded the Crysis 2 Demo, and the first screen said "Press Start"? Also, default hold-to-aim and no option to turn crouch toggle off? What PC gamer uses crouch toggle? Not to mention the simplified graphics "settings".

And I realize the high texture pack for Dragon-age is here on release day, but it really should have been part of the package...

I built this PC to take advantage of the awesome stuff they can do that consoles can't, and we get ports :(

@PointlessPuppies My i7 and dual GTX 480s are sad when dealing with console ports. Their tapping their feet for the next consoles to show up already so their ports can trickle down to us. Or better yet, if only the PC platform was a higher priority for devs.

Oh, it's nice being able to run games on older hardware, but it's the fact that you buy the latest and greatest, and most companies don't take advantage of it.

And console-to-pc ports piss me off when they take no advantage at all of the hardware. And I mean all hardware. I am sick of getting games where I can't change keybinds, or barely adjust the sensitivity of the mouse, or the graphic options are limited to "High/Low", or the sound options are limited to "Stereo/Surround."

And I am really sick of developers just taking an analog stick and mapping it straight to a mouse. It feels like you are turning in molasses. We have greater mobility and freedom with a keyboard and mouse. Don't limit me in how fast I turn because you didn't take the time to properly adjust for a mouse. I DON'T want to plug a controller into my system to play a FPS. You wouldn't want to have to plug a keyboard in to play a fighter.

@RKN

I dunno. Given that the current crop of consoles are getting long in tooth and all three companies are bringing engineers onboard to start work on the next generation of consoles, you might start seeing developers turning to the PC to use as their guinea pig. While DX10 really didn't bring much to the table over DX9 with the exception of more tightly defined standards (and a few things like proper hardware AA in games that use deferred rendering), DX11 offers hardware features that will be seen in next gen consoles. By getting their feet wet now, developers will be saving themselves quite the headache when it comes to tessellation, moving away from pixel shaders in favor of compute shaders, or delving into GPGPU functionality.

Also...when did you get two GTX 480s? My HD 4870 gave up the ghost last weekend (the VRAM started to crap out while my wife was playing WoW) and I replaced it with a GTX 570.

"All we can hope is that the team also publishes a help wanted ad for the position of "Making Sure the Console Doesn't Spontaneously Stop Working Technician.""

:O OH NO YOU DIDNT!

It's been roughly 5 and a half years since the 360 launched, to me it's a sensible time to start getting ideas together for the next one and give it healthily long development.

it a healthily*

Calm down, people. Hiring for the next-gen console doesn't really mean anything. We are still years away from seeing a new Xbox or Playstation.

I'm glad that this gen is sticking around for a long time. For the first time, it really feels like you can customize your console to make it your own and it's really a part of your living room/entertainment center. Also, I feel like they are getting better and better and people are still finding ways to make games look better and better somehow. Yeah, we don't need any new consoles for a while, thanks.

@Uncle Jesse
It'll be 2-4 years at most until we see the next xbox, if they're now at the engineering phase.

The thing is with computers they have to have a very short engineering phase. The R&D is either done or finishing, now it's time to get those wild and wacky dreams into a reasonable box.

Quite surprised its this close. But then again the Xbox launched in 2005 didn't it? 2006? yeah. That's old, maaan.

I can definitely see a new machine from Nintendo sooner than later, but Sony and MS will stick with their current consoles for another 3-4 years, I'd say. Or at least, I hope. They can wait longer and I'd be okay with that.

It's funny. I would be really excited to see something new from Nintendo and would definitely buy it, but if Sony and/or MS did the same and announced a new console to be released right away, I would definitely not buy it, at least, not for a while anyways.

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Microsoft hiring for 'next-generation console' engineers

Reader Comments (101)

Posted: Mar 8th 2011 1:03PM stolen73 said

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