Microsoft fires the first shot in the "NEXT" generation.... - Page 87  

But now more money is involved with developers to do that. Your now saying a possible multiplatform Next game will be compatible with the 360 and developed for the PS3, Wii U, Vita, 3DS etc and the cost just goes up. The worst of that is it is slightly better looking than the previous systmes on the new one.

Periodic upgrades describes a PC which doesn't work the same with consoles. Having the option to have a hardrive or Kinect this gen was common sense but based on what I think you saying about periodic upgrades that would be requirements will end up hurting them vs helping them imo.

Shaking things up becomes a choice in risk now. Your saying they need to launch sooner rather than later or/and what you described above all while keeping the business section that has been seeing profit in the last couple of years now drop. MS has the money to do that but they did that with the Xbox as their first entry into consoles. We have had the world economy issue that based on today people still keep buying more 360s, assessories and games than the previous year. I see them sitting back to a point of fiscle reports and declines even after price drops to know when we might see what their next move with next gen will be.

Some of the suggestions here just fly against the face of logic.

Different versions of OS? Letting 360 and NexBox co-exist? The WHOLE REASON why consoles are popular is because it is homogenous. Fragmentation is what killed PC gaming and is what drives game developers for Android nuts.

You want your console to succeed in the long run? You make it CHEAP and SIMPLE for the developers to create the games - so that they can make more money. This is where Sony failed. Their dev kits were TERRIBLE. People bit the bullet (for PS2) because they practically had no choice. But they were more than ready to bolt for another platform when it became viable.

Game developers want more console platforms like a bullet in their head. It just increases the development cost. This is not something they like supporting. ESPECIALLY when WiiU has something so unique like a controller screen which is not a code your can use across platforms.

I understand you guys want a new platform (look! shiny!) And that is all well and good. But at least be honest about why MS should come out with the NexBox now - because you want one. You guys are just lying to yourself when you trot out these "market" reasons for NexBox now. There is absolutely no market-force reason for MS to rush out a new console when Xbox 360 is doing so well. They can take their time to do things right for NexBox and squeeze out as much profit as possible from Xbox360 before it is put out to pasture.

Well I would think MS will be doing a price drop this summer/fall to get more sales before the Wii U launch. That would probably be the best counter to a new console that they can come up with. If the 4GB is $129 or lower it would basically hit the magic price point where the vast majority could afford it. Throw in Halo:Reach for free and people may jump on that deal over the Wii U, or just buy one for the heck of it.

I still fail to see how releasing a new console = death sentence to 360. MS will not stop producing a console that they make money on if they are still selling (unlike the OG Xbox that they lost money on each one). They aren't going to throw away the license fees to COD and other major titles that sell millions of copies on 360 (and still will after a new console). For the same reason Apple sells an older iPhone version even when the newest and greatest is out, MS will sell the 360 when the 720 is available.

All of us own a 360 and we aren't going to be buying another one most likely. The people they are still trying to sell to 360 to aren't "gamers". The people still sitting on the sidelines have NO desire to purchase a system that cost even more than the 360. It comes down to transitioning the hardcore to the 720, the masses will be happy with the 360 for a year or three longer, and people just buying the 360 now will wait many years to upgrade (enjoying discounted games for years). Give people a good reason to upgrade and they will. Bragging rights is a reason for young gamers to upgrade, let alone the new experiences a new console will give us.

For me, I just want something different. I have owned a 360 since a month after launch and I am tired of the 360. It isn't going to magically make greater games with outdated hardware. People can say that these machines have plenty of juice left in them all they want. But I have been playing games that are similar for years now. I don't want GTA5 on the 360/PS3. COD isn't going to get any better until the next console gen. I just don't see gaming going anywhere until the next gen is released. We are stuck in a holding pattern until someone gets the gusto to launch a new console (not the Wii U, lol). All I know is day 1 I will be there with cash in hand to get my new 720 and games. I cannot be alone and I would guess a few million others would love to throw money at MS.

I hate to break this news to you...

"hardcore gamers" are not the main target for NexBox...

The other reason for waiting is to get to the sweet spot for hardware cost where it can be produced for cheap (under $300) while providing enough step up from 360.

There will be a lot of upset people around here when NexBox comes out.

So who is the main target for your imaginary nextbox? Housewives? The elderly?

The same people who bought Wii and the folks who are buying Kinect right now.

There is a reason why all of these streaming services are being pushed so hard by Microsoft.

Even though the Wii was a success and changed the industry, its calamitous drop has shown that its approach is not sustainable long term. Now Nintendo is courting those it left behind with the Wii. This generation has proven that, yes, the audience needs to expand, but that doesn't mean leaving behind your most dedicated base.

MS has done a phenomenal job of swinging both ways, and I doubt they have any intention of changing that. If anything, it's shown just how phony the whole idea that there are two different audiences ("casual" and "hardcore"). Gamers are gamers.

I am still waiting for someone to tell me what an actual hardcore gamer is. Too many opinions as to who falls in that category. Gamers are who will buy whatever system they want to get.

Right. Abandon their core audience of a decade to chase after a fickle group of consumers that they've traditionally had limited success with. That's certainly their plan. That can't possibly go wrong.

That is what people have been saying for the last 4 years anyway. They shouldn't be selling more than what they have if this is the case. They based this on the lack of exclusives that are not on the 360. Again who is their core audience? What is the number how many is in this core audience. Didn't they get a share of PS2 owners during that decade? The Xbox only sold 24 millon compared to 100 millin at the time for the PS2? I really want to know what is the actual break down of this core audience and casual and whatever other categories that people worldwide fall into.

Considering the types of games that sell on the 360, it's a very traditional demographic. You never see kinect or casual games in the top 10 sold or played. It's fpses, racers, RPGs and sports game.

Top 20 played games of 2011:

1. Call Of Duty: Black Ops
2. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
3. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
4. Halo: Reach
5. Battlefield 3
6. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
7. Gears Of War 3
8. FIFA 12
9. FIFA Soccer 11
10. Madden NFL 12
11. GTA IV
12. NBA 2K11
13. Battlefield: Bad Company 2
14. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
15. Battlefield 3 Beta
16. Halo 3
17. Gears Of War 2
18. Forza Motorsport 4
19. Red Dead Redemption
20. Call Of Duty: World At War

Don't tell me they're abandoning core gamers when 100% of their top games are core games. Whoever is saying that is off their rocker.

Are you ignoring the arcade section for Live? Fruit Ninja Kinect, Pinball FX, UNO which has been on there for years. Then the section for the all the Indi games. None of these tell you how many have been sold. Also saying that no Kinect games are in the top ten sold or play isn't a true statement.
This week Fruit Ninja Kinect comes in at number 2 as the most played Live game for the week of Jan 16. Kinect Sports and Kinect Sports Season 2 is 8 & 7 for the week of 21 Jan in the UK. Yeah that is just one country but that still makes your statement incorrect. For all we know they both sold 20,000 combined vs the number game on that list that may have sold 40,000 that week.

http://www.chart-track.co.uk/index.j....jsp&ct=110027

You can even go back to 2010 and throughout 2011 and see Kinect games in the top 10.

My wife isn't this core gamer but will play only Horde mode in Gears of War 3 with the family from time to time. I bet that is the case for all of those core games as well. I don't recall saying anyone was abandoning anything. Simply gamers just want to play.

Here's the top 20 XBLA by sales:

1. Pinball FX2
2. Full House Poker
3. Castle Crashers
4. Fruit Ninja Kinect
5. From Dust
6. Trials HD
7. Magic the Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012
8. Dead Rising 2: Case West
9. Torchlight
10. Toy Soldiers: Cold War
11. Plants vs. Zombies
12. Portal: Still Alive
13. Bastion
14. Limbo
15. Game Room
16. Dead Rising 2: Case Zero
17. Peggle
18. Dungeons and Dragons Daggerdale
19. Battlefield 1943
20. Beyond Good and Evil HD

Arguably 5-6 of those are casual games. By far the minority. Its still the same young male focused stuff.

Maybe they've had some success courting casual, non traditional gamers. But it's simply not reflected in their top games played or sold. 360 is a system for traditional gamers. It's not the wii. The nextbox will still primarily target core gamers, or they have lost their flipping minds.

For comparisons sake, here's the top 10 highest selling games in the US.

1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (360, PS3, Wii, PC)
2. Just Dance 3 (Wii, 360, PS3)
3. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (360, PS3, PC)
4. Battlefield 3 (360, PS3, PC)
5. Madden NFL 12 (360, PS3, Wii, PSP, PS2)
6. Call of Duty: Black Ops (360, PS3, Wii, NDS, PC)
7. Batman: Arkham City (360, PS3, PC)
8. Gears of War 3 (360)
9. Just Dance 2 (Wii)
10. Assassin's Creed: Revelations (360, PS3, PC)

Yep, the casuals are really taking over the console gaming market.

Seeing Just Dance right below MW3 is actually pretty interesting.

Yeah. These fad games can definitely sell a ton when they hit a certain tipping point, but they're hardly the industry changing force core gamers feared back when the wii first came out. It's not broken down but I bet the vast majority of those just dance sales are on the wii.

I actually wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of them are for the 360. They are selling a crap load of Kinects and there has to be a killer app behind those sales. But I agree that this game is just another fad, it is simply the next Guitar Hero.

The thing is you keep looking at this like it is JUST "casuals" that play a game like Just Dance or the "core" just play COD. I play Dance Central 2 and COD. What category do I fall in?

I completely disagree. By my reckoning, 4 of the top 5 games would fall in the "casual" category. Which totally shows how bogus such divisions are. It isn't until you look at the top 10 or 20 that the "core" games start to rear their heads. And if you were to look at the top sellers at retail, I'm sure it would skew even more towards the so-called "casual" end of the spectrum. As I said above, gamers are gamers. This whole "casual"/"hardcore" thing is just BS invented by marketing departments.


Seriously. I'd argue that Call of Duty is one of the most "casual" games out there. And folks who play Just Dance? That takes some "hardcore" cajones to own up to playing that piece of sauce.

I'm not labeling gamers. I'm labeling games. A lot of people might play it, but cod is a through and through a traditional "core" game. Just dance is clearly a casual game. The distinction there is obvious. You can call yourself whatever you want. I enjoy peggle as much as the next guy.

The xbox is primarily about those traditional games, and despite the kinect and everything else MS has tried to attract gamers that generally enjoy only casual games (lets call them casual gamers for short) - its not their strength, and they're just not going to turn their back on their prime audience. Thats just crazy talk.

If the nextbox doesn't appeal to the gears/halo/madden/cod/forza crowd, they've made a grievous mistake.

The Xbox will always appeal to the hardcore. That's without question. Same with the original Xbox.

But what made the PS2 so successful was it appealed to everyone. And that's what the 360 has become. It's the most social platform. People who have never owned a game system bought a 360 because of Kinect. My cousin (a pharmacist who has never owned a game system and never played games beyond Plants versus Zombies) bought a 360 because of Dance Central.

If you go back to the launch articles for the next gen systems, everyone predicted that Microsoft and Nintendo would duke it out for a distant second and the major knock against Microsoft's chances was that it only appealed to hardcore gamers.

Microsoft will never abandon the hardcore. It's still where the most hardcore CoD and Battlefield players go, according to number of players and hours played. It still has the greatest number of sales for the so-called hardcore games.

and what is "hardcore" really? Someone that pours 8 hours a day into Magic the Gathering is not hardcore? People who play poker 4 hours a day is not hardcore? I take that as more hardcore than the casual gamer who plays MW3 only on weekends.

COD IMO is not casual. It isn't a game you can pick up and do well with. Most COD players invest days of their life to it trying to improve their play. The casual gamers in my life wont touch it because they can't handle the controls, and forget about the speed of it. Casual games usually have simple controls and are easy to grasp.

The 720 isn't going to appeal to casuals out the gate. Why invest $500 or more in a toy you might play 2-3 hours a week. The 360 will appeal to them for years to come.

I view HC players as people willing to spend whatever is needed to play the greatest system out. They are willing to go through the drought of games that always occurs the first 1-2 years of a consoles life. OG Wii gamers I knew sold their consoles after a few months because they were bored with it. Say whatever you want about MS not caring about the HC, but I have given MS thousands of dollars this Gen. I own a catalog of games that is crazy by many peoples standards. I pay full price for games the day they release, happily. To ignore the millions of people like me is insane, and if they do I will choose the console That best supports my gaming needs.

I gladly support MS because they offers the best console for me. My PS3 gets some action, but nowhere near the time the 360 receives. If Sony comes out with an insane system besting the 720 I will just move over to the dark side. I don't care who gets my money as I don't own stock in either company. I want to play great games and someone will make a system for me.

for me the 2 biggest things i would like to sony do are....
1. CONTROLLER, that is one of the main reasons i play on 360
2. online... party chat, etc..

All Sony needs to win me back is to produce a system that isn't the same as every other system out there. The PS3's ultimate fail was that it didn't do anything better than the 360 (EDIT: Game wise and yes we can debate this) Even GT5 is hardly much better than Forza.....and THAT is saying something. (again, debatable)

Devil in the Details? Forza/GT5 Sure...better models in one, better physics in the other, more interior cockpits in one, better exterior lighting in another....its all a series of tradeoffs....there is no best one.....some people just want the absolute most detailed models you can get, they don't care if you are racing on the track from OUTRUN......they want to see the car...others aren't like that, so its all about what you want.

To me at least, I prefer Forza because GT5 is turning into too much Car Porn for me......the washing, the oil changing....hell i don't do that crap myself in real life, i don't want to do it virtually!

The PS2, Xbox and Gamecube were all very different systems......I do long for some differentiation...these days you know the PS3 version or the 360 version come down to exactly two things: Which controller your prefer and if you pay for LIVE or not.

sony had some of the best exclusives of this generation...

Killzone.....but that is kind of where it stops for me. When people were going nuts over LBP and Resistance, I just saw an average shooter and a really, really "niche" quasi-platformer.....but again I dont want to derail this tread with a pissing contest....I'm sure there are people who think the Sony stuff is the only stuff worth owning, and that is fine, everyone has a preference.

PS: I always own both systems so "exclusive" doesn't really mean much to me....

The Uncharted series says hello. Then You have God of War (the entire series) Infamous 1 and 2, MAG was fun... Sony has a lot to offer this gen.

Oddly enough, unless you import, MS has the better JRPG lineup, at least until Ni No Kuni hits. (still hope Namco wises up and releases all of the Tales of games in English on the PS3, Vesperia was missing a lot of features on 360)

I HUMBLY STAND CORRECTED. You are absolutely right........ps thanks for leaving out Metal Gear, I really didn't think it was all that. MAG though? C'mon......Ratchet and Clank and Sly Cooper remakes I'd put above that. I wonder if Twisted Metal will be any good.....the first game was so epic, and even though the second game was great it was already becoming cartoony and a bit silly....

I still have my Twisted Metal PS1 in the original black plastic shell case....the only original PS1 game I held onto. just due to its sheer Epicness.


Ok now you're just talking gibberish...

I just read off what was on my shelf, most of my games don't have cases anymore and I didn't feel like looking through a CD binder. I could have sworn I typed Ratchet and Clank though...

I actually need to play the Sly Cooper games... Got past the first boss in the first one and set it aside. And I too hope that Twisted Metal is fun, It's been too long since I played a good Vehicle Combat game.



Tales of Vesperia is my favorite RPG this gen, I played through it 3 times in a row and I am pretty sure it is why my 360 RRoD just a few weeks later. I just ran out of stuff to do way too quickly (and the Coliseum constantly stating that Team Battles will open soon...) Can't wait until I can play through my Japanese copy.


Anyone else play so many games this gen that they just can't keep track of them? I'm quite enjoying this gaming overload the last few years.

I've bought used games twice. Purchase, put away, a year goes by, purchase again...put away...see second copy already in cabinet. Engage FacePalm.