So I'm sitting here watching Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, surfing the good ol' interwebs, when I stumble across this little article of Sam Kennedy's with 1UP.com. Apparently the rumor is that Microsoft is planning for Natal to be its next iteration of the Xbox platform; he even goes so far to say that Microsoft could be releasing a new Xbox console and packaging the Natal camera with it for Fall 2010. He elaborates:
"[W]e wouldn't be talking about the sort of hardware leap we've seen with Xbox (or most other) platforms in the past, and we're not talking about Microsoft ending one console cycle and starting another. We're talking about an evolution of the Xbox 360; similar hardware but upgraded, repackaged, and rebranded. It's actually not that unlike what Nintendo did with the Wii, where it essentially took the GameCube hardware, stuck in motion controls, and successfully relaunched it."
He concludes by stating that the timeframe Microsoft would be releasing this new system in could conceivably beat Nintendo's all-but-confirmed Wii HD to the market.
If this is true, Microsoft is signaling that they're coming after Nintendo. I've read speculation that some people are viewing the 360 as the winner of the hardcore console war with Sony; if Microsoft holds this view as well (and why wouldn't they?) this would seem to make sense.
It needs to be noted that this is all speculation (although Kennedy several time mentions "inside sources"). Even with that being said, it's very, very intriguing.
15 years ago
Would an updated 360 sell? Wouldn't more people want to just buy the camera? Stupid Microsoft.
ReplyDeleteI don't know, Microsoft is very good at marketing. I imagine they could sell this. While I would disagree with the writer of the article on the Wii's insides, as it definitely has better specs that the Gamecube, his point is a good one. The Wii's selling point wasn't that it was more powerful, but that it brought something new to the table. After all, the 360 Elite sells, and it's really no different from a brand new Pro, except that it just has a bigger hard drive. You could easily buy the hard drive separately, but some people sold their Pros and bought Elites.
ReplyDeleteI honestly think that they just need to let Natal sit for a bit longer, get some more polish, make sure all the bugs are worked out, and release it with a truly new system, not just an updated 360. But that's just me.