Traditionally, the gaming industry has operated in five-year cycles, tearing down its old hardware with a new set of consoles and rising like the phoenix. The fifth year of this current hardware cycle is upon us, but there is no sign of gaming's “next generation” and that seems to be something Microsoft is content with right now.
"I think it's important to say that the Xbox 360 is the console of the long future for us. There is no need to launch a new console, because we're able to give this console new life either with software upgrades or hardware upgrades like Project Natal," said David Hufford, senior director of Xbox product management at CES to The Guardian [thanks GI.biz]. "The Xbox 360 was designed for a long life, and I don't even know if we're at the midpoint yet."
Hufford concentrated on Natal as being a major mover for the hardware going forward. As for a smaller, cheaper, less power-hungry revision of the Xbox 360 hardware like Sony did with the PS3 slim, he dodged the question. "We love our prices right now," said Hufford. "I don't want to say that technology stops, but we believe we have a high quality console, and we stand by that quality with an unprecedented warranty, so we think we're in a good place now heading into the Natal era."
4 Comments
January 11, 2010
"...we believe we have a high quality console, and we stand by that quality with an unprecedented warranty," as much as I love Xbox I wish I could truly agree with him here but if I have ONE more 360 die out on me with a red ring or dirty disc error I'm going to quit and go back to Sony!!! It's getting ridiculous how often the boxes breakdown.
January 11, 2010
Anecdotally, every person I've known save one that has purchased an Xbox 360 has had it fail on them at some point. A few of the heavy users have had it happen more than once and I know one fellow who has been through 5 (!) Xbox 360s.
January 11, 2010
I'm on my fourth x-box,hope this one last longer.is he not telling the truth????
March 7, 2010
Unlike previous console generations that were fairly static in their growth and evolution, this generation, specifically the PS3/Xbox360 and to a lesser extent the wii are evolving each year. Firmware updates add new features, hadware updates add new dimensions and so on. Both the PS3 and the Xbox360 have their motion control systems comming up for launch, you have online market places for both, play tv for the ps3….the list gose on.
r4 revolution