Next-Gen Xbox Rumored to Include Blu-ray and Dual AMD GPUs

[Rob Williams]

As hard as it might be to believe, Microsoft's Xbox 360 launched a staggering 6.5 years ago, and its follow-up isn't expected to release until late 2013. Given the huge amount of time in between these releases, one would expect that the "Xbox 720" would be far more powerful and capable than its predecessor, and so far, that's looking to be the case.

Read the rest of our post and then discuss it here!

 

[DarkStarr]

gahhh all this anti piracy BS is so annoying. Supposedly PS4 (or w/e its called) will require registering the games so you cant resell them later. I use my 360 offline all the time due to either network outages or being in a different location etc etc and this would SUCK because no net = no play.

I would be VERY VERY tempted to buy a console wait for the patch/hack to remove it and only dl games if that were the case. This is a extremely DUMB move, M$ should implement better piracy detection however and TBH it would be cool if they embraced the homebrew community and were to make a second part of XBL.

The second section (that would have to be manually selected, like say how the "zone" is and "underground" would put you in a separate section and allow any underground players to only play other underground players) that allows certain kinds of mods but if your found say, life modding (infinite life(s)/invincible) then you get banned. Same with piracy and making weapons OP unless everyone can have the OP weapons.

I think it would likely pull a lot of people to the Next gen xbox since you could resell games, mod if you want as long as your in the right section, and not have any restrictions on games besides improved antipiracy on the disks and drives. Now on the other hand that assumes that it wouldn't be extremely hard to setup (I would assume its not due to the devnet that runs alongside XBL)

 

[Kougar]

It'll be really interesting if they do adopt AMD's Southern Islands 7000 series GPUs in the next-gen consoles. Those have general purpose shaders that can be tasked for compute or a myriad of other options, and when ya combine that with x86 processors, the system will pretty much be a regular computer. Users can utilize both the processors and the graphics card to do any sort of computing working or task that they want.

I've heard Microsoft was also toying with tying games to the console or even going digital download only for that reason. Given consoles are just a "closed loop" game platform designed to maximize game sales for a particular company, they very well might.

DarkStar, that's some interesting thoughts. My only concern is, if MS did promote such "sectioning" of their service, they would only be encouraging people to modify, pirate, or crack their consoles. Or Microsoft would at least view it as such.

It seems like a large number already mod or crack them for the sole purpose of unauthorized/pirated games. If they did switch to a digital-only download service for games then it'd make it much, much easier for console users to trade or upload copies and other modders to grab them.

 

[DarkStarr]

EXACTLY! That is my point, if they embrace the mod community like they did with the kinect then they will sell TONS of them (since devs/hackers may break theirs) meaning more money so imho a good idea if xbl could be sectioned like that. The best part would be the only type of complaints that could be filed on that area would be on unallowed mods. No language or anything like that so it wouldn't be like a sudden massive increase of complaints.

Also download only wouldn't do crap to stop piracy. Anyone forget rehash and resign? Thats how I got the Gears 3 Beta, I downloaded it rehash/resign and popped it on a flash drive then to the console and it worked just fine. Not that it was really piracy and I was supposed to get an official code from gamestop and they never sent me it.

 

[Tharic-Nar]

Considering the price of these new consoles when they come out, and considering the hardware estimate, then consider PCs can hook up to TVs... people could just get a PC and have significantly more flexibility. Hell, windows 8 can probably be controlled by a joypad.

Silly people and their consoles... I gave up this generation a couple of years ago. Hardware failures galore, over-priced games, companies that don't care about customer rights or privacy. Most of the games are now available on the PC anyway.

Yes, consoles have a certain element of simplicity, but that's rapidly fading - try explaining digital rights management, why they can't transfer save games from one console to another, why they can't play BD movies over component in HD, why will they not be able to play single player games without an internet connection, and why downloaded content is tied to that console and is unavailable from a different console when it's tied to the same account... simplicity huh?

 

[OriginalJoeCool]

Considering the price of these new consoles when they come out, and considering the hardware estimate, then consider PCs can hook up to TVs... people could just get a PC and have significantly more flexibility. Hell, windows 8 can probably be controlled by a joypad.

When I was in school I used to try to explain that the consoles were just inferior stripped-down versions of PCs that only played games, but I don't think anyone ever got it.

Simplicity doesn't matter a lot anyway. Or quality. Why do some people have to wear super-expensive running shoes that are made in the same Chinese factory as the all the others?

 

[Brett Thomas]

@Article:

Rob, I think we have one other good reason to believe 6-core will be the choice: AMD already makes a good 6-core chip. going to 4 cores plus HyperThreading on this kind of system would actually be a bit of a performance hit given Kinect will require a dedicated thread at all times...and since the GPU maker of choice also already has an x86 6-core that's affordable and an excellent performer, it just wouldn't make sense to go to a 4-core+HT Intel chip.


@Darkstarr:

Please remember that the modding community and second-hand games market, though very devoted, are both very small fractions of the system users at large. Though we "true geeks" will not sit quietly for such egregious anti-legitimate-user methods, it's unlikely that your average gamer is going to give half a rat's ass. For instance, thanks to the Wii, my dad now loves Tiger Woods Golf. It's accessible to him, it's fun, and it's something he can do on a rainy day. The benefits of Kinect will simply add to that.

Most people have their XBoxes and PS3's connected to the internet at all times anyways, and part of the new selling features are a "family friendly" entertainment device that would always be connected. As such, you're unlikely to find a non-techie that's going to give a shit - at least right up until they want to sell a used game, which many people don't do to begin with.

It's part of the benefits that MS can see moving to a more "mainstream" audience instead of just hardcore gamers...not only do you move more systems, you also get a whole lot less whiny people when it comes to rights violations. One only has to look at Sony, which was so successful at selling the PS3 as a "media device" (which it actually excels at) that it was able to utterly castrate homebrew publicly and STILL sell.

We have to remember that we are the minority of the market now. We may be a very vocal minority, but we are the minority. My dad will still play Tiger Woods Golf even it sends pictures of him to the government and tries to RFID-read his credit card, simply because he doesn't know better or care. It's not an inconvenience to him; and until it is, he won't sympathize with a small market share that is already known to be unscrupulous and shady.

 

[Greg King]

We have to remember that we are the minority of the market now. We may be a very vocal minority, but we are the minority. My dad will still play Tiger Woods Golf even it sends pictures of him to the government and tries to RFID-read his credit card, simply because he doesn't know better or care. It's not an inconvenience to him; and until it is, he won't sympathize with a small market share that is already known to be unscrupulous and shady.

I couldn't have said this better if I tried. All the issues we get riled up over here are for the most part non issues to the general public.

 

[DarkStarr]

I still say requiring an always on internet connection is total BS. I know multiple time that internet has gone out for several hours or longer in a few cases which would mean:

A: no internet so not too much to do on the PC

B: no way to even play SINGLE PLAYER games on console

I have to say if it happens I wont be getting whatever the next console is, that is unless I can "remove" that restriction. TBH I think it would be fairly simple to bybass, run a "server" app on your pc that supports many multiple game checks (or one if there is only a general one) and when the xbox is connected correctly then it would play fine. Still that's a huge pain just to play a single player game offline.

 

[TheCrimsonStar]

Seems pretty cool how they may be doing the CPU and GPU setup. Now about the anti-piracy...it's going to fail BIG time. It's WAY too easy to bypass anti-piracy measures and I guarantee within a WEEK of this being released there will be a way around it. It was only a few days after the 360 was released that it was already modded. Hell, I have a modded 360 that allows me to play games copied to another disc. The only mod to the 360: Flashing the DVD drive with a different firmware. That's it. No hard mods or screwing with the 360's OS. It's gonna happen again, just watch.

Note: I didn't buy or copy any of the copied games I have. A friend gave them to me. I don't see the point in paying for copied software.