My god, the number of Xbox 720 rumours we've written up in the past few months. You must be thoroughly sick of the bloody things, right? I know I am. And I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to the revelation of Xbox 720's real name, whereupon all accumulated Google weight will vanish in smoke and we'll have to start all. Over. Again.
Time to clear the air, or if you're of the action movie persuasion, take out the trash. Not everything that glitters is gold (especially when it doesn't have Claptrap on it), and not all that wears the next gen label deserves it.
I love the idea of dumping discs. Forget losing the fuss of having to walk down the shops and laboriously count out pennies, the real benefits could consist of chopping out retailer margins and thus, unfreezing current price points, allowing publishers to ask for sums that match what a game actually offers, rather than what HMV, GAME and co insist upon.
But it's not going to happen soon, in my opinion. For one thing, the internet doesn't have the caps. For another, all the major third parties still derive the bulk of their revenues from high street sales, despite surging digital profits, and most expect the next console generation to jump-start the ailing boxed game market. Those publishers won't take kindly to news that their precious brick-and-mortar relationships aren't worth squat. The next Xbox will accompany an expanded Xbox Live service, including (possibly) a higher Xbox Live Arcade file-size cap, and may sport solid state card storage in place of optical discs, but dumping physical media altogether? A step too far, too soon.
2. It'll be out later than 2013
When times are good, prepare for the worst, and it's not like times are especially good for Microsoft right now. Sure, Xbox 360 has spent 18 months on top of the home console market in the US, and revenues (if not profits) remain healthy thanks to Kinect and Xbox Live. But shipments of the console itself are down, and that's not just the usual mid-year squeeze in action. Console gaming needs the shot in the arm only new hardware can provide.
You don't need analyst insight, executive slip-ups or talk of a 2013-bound next gen Mafia 3 to deduce that next year should be The Year. Just look at the conspicuous absence of product in Q2 2013 (E3 season). It's like that bit in horror films when all the forest birds fall silent. Clearly, something's about to go bump in the night.
Impossible numbers of people sell their games on, or buy them from those who do, and however vigorously the likes of Crytek, Denis Dyack and David Braben complain about what they fondly perceive to be "lost sales", they won't win those customers over by blocking their freedoms. Kotaku carried a rumour to this effect in January. If it proves sound as a pound, Microsoft will immediately become the single-most infamous entity in consumer electronics.
28 comments so far...
Phenom Paradox on 9 Aug '12 said:
Finally some sense, the preowned block is b******s they'd lose so many customers to sony. If the 720 was digital downloads only I'll stick with my 360, 1mbps isn't quick enough!
CunningSmile on 9 Aug '12 said:
These are the five most ridiculous? This from a rumour cycle that on this website alone has produced the fact it will have a built in bacon grill?
What does Gertrude have to say?
Vryolaka on 9 Aug '12 said:
Not to mention the bandwidth restrictions most ISPs impose on their customers.
OXM ETboy on 9 Aug '12 said:
http://ct.fra.bz/ol/fz/sw/i59/5/7/11/frabz-one-does-not-simply-ask-gertrude-for-her-opinion-7e1054.jpg
Clanger67 on 9 Aug '12 said:
Good old Sean Bean he is from Sheffield as well.
SidTheSloth on 9 Aug '12 said:
Maybe given recent news the bacon grill idea is now considered not so ridiculous?
FishyGinger on 9 Aug '12 said:
Sean Bean had better die after that picture, he's supposed to die in everything he's in. I'm still waiting for the gunshot at the end of the O2 adverts.
My mate SalamanderDave said the next xbox will plug directly into your brain with a new device they've patented. One that isn't a total rip off from batman forever. Can you verify?
mariachi2000 on 9 Aug '12 said:
If the next Xbox truly was SIX times more powerful than the 360 then surely that would make it the...
(Pause for unnecessary dramatic effect)...
Xbox 2160
Too obvious?
Bezza89 on 9 Aug '12 said:
The gertrude isn't in there with its specs because it's real, 100% not rumour. I'm a scientist, we know things, cunning is an accountant, and accountants never lie. Face facts; gertrude's a coming.
PS in the Radio Times Sean Bean is dressed in drag and stars in a new drama in which he probably wont die.
OXM Log on 9 Aug '12 said:
Xbox 2525!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izQB2-Kmiic
"In the Year 5555,
Your arms hang limp at your side.
Your legs have got nothing to do,
some machine is doing that for you"
Zager and Evans don't see a future for Kinect, clearly.
Decent_Jam on 9 Aug '12 said:
Love the fact that this thread has managed to be derailed by none other than Ed with the help of non other than Alec Trevalyan - classic.
Anywho, I think the most worrying rumour I've heard is probably the pre-owned one, not least because it makes it less accessible to the masses, and we need them to buy the thing so it can be 'cool', you know, mocked on South Park and on satirical panel shows.
...It's the only way I'll be accepted by functioning society as a horrific geek.
CunningSmile on 10 Aug '12 said:
<Spoiler> There will be a surprise death scene after the end credits. He falls off a stiletto heel and breaks his neck <end spoiler> The only things he's allowed to live through are Sharpe and the O2 adverts. It's in his contract.
FishyGinger on 10 Aug '12 said:
To give him his due he's died more times than Rasputin so I think he's earned a living or two...
http://www.pajiba.com/videos/the-sean-b ... h-reel.php
SidTheSloth on 10 Aug '12 said:
It is almost to the point of ridiculous now with Sean Bean that whenever you see him in something you know it's curtains for his character. I didn't know the story of Game of Thrones before watching the series and as soon as i saw him in it i guessed it was a matter of time. I really like him as an actor but it's like an immediate on-screen spoiler now whenever he appears!
Am i right in thinking he doesn't die in Troy? He plays Odysseus unless i'm mistaken (which google confirms i'm not - paranoia moment!) and i don't remember him dying in that (annoyingly neither does Orlando Bloom
)
CunningSmile on 10 Aug '12 said:
I think he just sort of vanishes in Troy, with no explanation (possibly as a result of an hour being cut out to still leave a 3 hour film) which is a pity. I was sort of hoping for an Odyssey film starring him.
SidTheSloth on 10 Aug '12 said:
I was always hoping they were going to do Odyssey too, although i enjoyed the film more than most i think as it was largely panned
Correct me if im wrong but Odysseus doesn't die in Odyssey either does he?* That's it, he was just badly cast! 
He probably initially auditioned for the role of Hector!!
*Then again, i don't remember Paris/Hector killing Menelaus in the original Illiad!!
FishyGinger on 10 Aug '12 said:
There was an Odyssey but with what's his face, the bad guy from Stallones Judge Dredd. He wasn't the law. Armand the vampire or something. Was rubbish.
As far as I remember, he doesn't die in the Odyssey but his son with the witch kills him later I think, something to do with Steve Irwins stingray.
For such an epic, why hent there been any decent games?
CunningSmile on 10 Aug '12 said:
I like you Fishy, you're a funny and articulate guy and seem to be fitting in well with the other regulars on this forum. But if you ever mention the Stallone version of Dredd again I will request you get banned. We just don't accept that kind of language round here!
FishyGinger on 10 Aug '12 said:
I like you Fishy, you're a funny and articulate guy and seem to be fitting in well with the other regulars on this forum. But if you ever mention the Stallone version of Dredd again I will request you get banned. We just don't accept that kind of language round here!
Well happy-slap my fishy giblets, thank you kind sir. I wasn't aware of any dredd embargos I do apologise. Anything else I should be wary of, in case I use normal everyday phrases such as "Ice to see you", "I'll rip out your optics", and the ever popular in the office "what appears to be your boggle?".
CunningSmile on 10 Aug '12 said:
All those are fine except the "Ice To See You" I basically like to forget about bad comic adaptations, especially ones that miss the whole point
The new Dredd is actually looking quite cool though.
msbhvn on 10 Aug '12 said:
Speaking of Sylvester Steroids, anyone notice that he doesn't speak out of the side of his mouth anymore? I saw the trailer for the Expendables 2 (in the cinema when I went to see Batman, I didn't watch it willingly) and it looks like he's had a lot of bad surgery to fix it.
Dredd is looking quite good from the trailer I saw.
FishyGinger on 10 Aug '12 said:
I assumed he just put it on for the first Rocky film then Carl Weathers hit him so hard he stayed that way. Enjoyed Batman though, going through a phase of liking Tom Hardy at the minute.
I'm partially ashamed to say I enjoyed the judge dredd game that was what, out 10 years ago or summat.
CunningSmile on 10 Aug '12 said:
I heard he broke his jaw on the Expendables 1 so maybe that fixed the problem? I can't believe they've got Arnie to go from respected politician (who'd a thunk Demolition Man would get something right? Now where's my three shells?) back to bad actor.
msbhvn on 10 Aug '12 said:
The whole having a kid with his mistress thing killed Arnie's political career. I think he got sabotaged because of what happened last time they had an actor in the White House. Not that he could have been President because you have to be born in the US, hence the whole "Obama's Birth Certificate controversy".
CunningSmile on 10 Aug '12 said:
You're probably right about the mistress, but there was a big movement to repeal the law about being born a US citizen because of Arnie. Just goes to prove that when the Republicans do it it's to promote greater opportunity but when the Democrats do it it's to promote a left wing conspiracy to destabalise America and let immigrants in
Always thought it was a stupid law though. You don't have to be a genius to figure out at least the first half a dozen presidents, including Washington, weren't born in the US cos it didn't exist!
msbhvn on 10 Aug '12 said:
American politics never ceases to amaze me about how blatantly corrupt it is. Elections all boil down to whoever's got the most money. And I'm stupified by the Republican party's current trend of trying to one-up each other as to who has the most extreme and offensive opinions. Then they wonder why no sane person thinks they can oust Obama.
Say what you like about our political system, but I'd much rather stay here than the so-called "land of the free". Although Canada wouldn't be so bad, if I could stand the weather.
Clanger67 on 10 Aug '12 said:
My English teacher was Canadian,mrs Bibby,really nice woman and good teacher.She used to regale us with tales of living in Canada,sounds like a really nice place.Lot of French though (no offense to anyone).
I would be up for living in the Bahamas personally.
FishyGinger on 10 Aug '12 said:
I don't think you need the American bit. All politics is corrupt. Something unnerves me about people who want to rule over others. Blair, Putin, Ming the Merciless...all bad apples. Given the opportunity they'd all make you kneel before Zod.
Sadly the truth is we'd all be better off in a dictatorship led by a howler monkey.