What will the new Xbox use?

[American Gunner]

I seriously doubt that the next generation of Xbox consoles can survive using the regular DVD format. So my question is, what do you guys think they will use in the new system?

 

[EightySix Four]

Big hard drives and a (hopefully) fast internet connection.

 

[Slick5150]

Well, if it comes out in 2013 as rumored, you'd still probably have to have some kind of a physical media option. Wouldn't shock me though if they went to some kind of a system where you could goto a store w/ an SD card in hand (or something like one), buy the game which dumps it onto your SD card, take it home, transfer it to the Xbox which then locks it to your account. Or you could just buy it and download it straight from your Xbox.

Game companies want the used game market to go away, so moving to a Steam like system where there's still an option of going to the store to get a game without downloading it yourself would do it.

 

[American Gunner]

See, if they go all download, I will hate it. Our little town only has 1.5 mbps download available. So, I would pretty much be screwed.

 

[Drako]

I would guess no rotating media, and some internal flash based storage. And a USB 3.0 interface for USB 3.0 thumb drives.

 

[American Gunner]

I would guess no rotating media, and some internal flash based storage. And a USB 3.0 interface for USB 3.0 thumb drives.

This is kind of what I thought. I doubt they will want to pay to use Blu-Ray, but DVD just doesn't have enough space anymore.

 

[Anubis]

last i checked its only 7$ per unit to licence BR, but i really dont see MS doing it. streaming/DL only wont work because there are far too many out there with crap for a connection

flash media is too expensive at the sizes required to sell games on thumbdrives


IMO they should bring back HD-DVD and use it for games, they get the storage they want + its harder to pirate as almost no one own a PC HD-DVD Drive

 

[QuikWgn]

Definitely encrypted flash media of some sort and probably an platter harddrive if launched in 2012, or an SSD if launched in 2013.

 

[Corporate Thug]

I understand that it may be a HDD or a SDD, but what media will be used to get the games onto the internal storage? does anyone think abandoning physical media altogether is an option at this point? I can it on a hand held, but not just yet on a console.

 

[PingSpike]

I'd say no way that a SSD is going in there. Even with two more years SSDs are going to still be expensive, and aren't we talking about solving coming space issues here? They're going to want a 500GB drive at least I would think.

I don't think abandoning physical media can happen now or even in two years. Maybe outside the USA, but the US is a huge market. Some statistics on the percentage of xbox 360s that actually connect to xbox live more then once every 6 months would be of interest here. I suspect that a large portion of them are connected to low bandwidth connections or never connect at all. Try selling a lot of games when you have to push 8+ gigs or something over a DSL connection. I wouldn't be surprised to see a steam/cloud like system as an option but unless they have no competitors they'd be giving up a lot of sales going on digital distribution.

That said, I'm not sure what a better physical media choice would be. $7 a bluray sounds pretty expensive honestly. I don't know what wholesale prices on flash memory is but I can't imagine it being a much better deal than bluray. If you stuff a huge hard drive in the console I actually don't know how much of a burden installing from multiple DVDs would be. Didn't a lot of games in the 90s use CD swapping, and that was a lot worse situation than installing to a hard drive once.

Is it possible to still use HD-DVD like some one suggested? Cram a bluray/HD-DVD combo drive in there.

My guess is flash drives, probably of a proprietary design. I would think they would still want a bluray drive though because they seem to want to sell the xbox as a media device, not just a game console.

 

[Corporate Thug]

I'd say no way that a SSD is going in there. Even with two more years SSDs are going to still be expensive, and aren't we talking about solving coming space issues here? They're going to want a 500GB drive at least I would think.

I don't think abandoning physical media can happen now or even in two years. Maybe outside the USA, but the US is a huge market. Some statistics on the percentage of xbox 360s that actually connect to xbox live more then once every 6 months would be of interest here. I suspect that a large portion of them are connected to low bandwidth connections or never connect at all. Try selling a lot of games when you have to push 8+ gigs or something over a DSL connection. I wouldn't be surprised to see a steam/cloud like system as an option but unless they have no competitors they'd be giving up a lot of sales going on digital distribution.

That said, I'm not sure what a better physical media choice would be. $7 a bluray sounds pretty expensive honestly. I don't know what wholesale prices on flash memory is but I can't imagine it being a much better deal than bluray. If you stuff a huge hard drive in the console I actually don't know how much of a burden installing from multiple DVDs would be. Didn't a lot of games in the 90s use CD swapping, and that was a lot worse situation than installing to a hard drive once.

Is it possible to still use HD-DVD like some one suggested? Cram a bluray/HD-DVD combo drive in there.

My guess is flash drives, probably of a proprietary design. I would think they would still want a bluray drive though because they seem to want to sell the xbox as a media device, not just a game console.

weren't blur ray drives similarly expensive when sony incorporated them into PS3? In two years, I think SDD @ 50 cents/gig is attainable, making a 500gb SSD $250, similar to a blue ray drive @ PS3 launch, no?

 

[Anubis]

That said, I'm not sure what a better physical media choice would be. $7 a bluray sounds pretty expensive honestly. I don't know what wholesale prices on flash memory is but I can't imagine it being a much better deal than bluray. If you stuff a huge hard drive in the console I actually don't know how much of a burden installing from multiple DVDs would be. Didn't a lot of games in the 90s use CD swapping, and that was a lot worse situation than installing to a hard drive once.

its 7$ per console not per BR disk

a 16GB USB thumbdrive costs ~$15 - and games are only getting larger. sure they would get a bulk discount but its still a signifigent cost

putting a SSD in the console is pretty pointless, HDD read loadtimes are really not an issue its the disk read times that really slow things down.

And yes if MS wants to market it as anything other then a pure gaming device it will have to have a BR player in it IMO

 

[vshah]

i don't think BR matters that much. xbox seems to be doing ok with netflix/hulu and zune videos.

 

[American Gunner]

i don't think BR matters that much. xbox seems to be doing ok with netflix/hulu and zune videos.

I don't think BR is a big deal, but I don't see a lot of people being happy switching discs in the next generation. I just think that they will need a way to sell their games using something other than a regular DVD.

 

[Corporate Thug]

i don't think BR matters that much. xbox seems to be doing ok with netflix/hulu and zune videos.

the hardware is so cheap, why not toss it in there? I have a 360 and I decided to buy a PS3 because (at the time) stand alone blu ray players were ~$150, so it made a lot of sense to go w/ the PS3.

 

[PingSpike]

its 7$ per console not per BR disk

a 16GB USB thumbdrive costs ~$15 - and games are only getting larger. sure they would get a bulk discount but its still a signifigent cost

putting a SSD in the console is pretty pointless, HDD read loadtimes are really not an issue its the disk read times that really slow things down.

And yes if MS wants to market it as anything other then a pure gaming device it will have to have a BR player in it IMO

Oh, pfffft, $7/console? They should just suck it up and use that then.

 

[Ross Ridge]

weren't blur ray drives similarly expensive when sony incorporated them into PS3? In two years, I think SDD @ 50 cents/gig is attainable, making a 500gb SSD $250, similar to a blue ray drive @ PS3 launch, no?

Unlike pretty much every other computer technology, flash memory doesn't have long term history of steady price declines. There not a lot of reason to believe SSD prices will decline that much in the next two years. It's possible they could even go up in price.

I think the only real question is what sort of optical media a hypothetical new Xbox console released in the next couple of years would use. The capacity limit of DVDs haven't been much of a problem throughout the Xbox 360's history, but it has become more of an issue lately. I think Microsoft might go with some sort of semi-proprietary format based on Blu-Ray (or maybe HD-DVD) technology but that doesn't require licencing the entire suite of patents. Microsoft really doesn't like to be feature deficient with respect to their competitors, but I think they're still going to be reluctant to hand even a small victory to Sony by licencing Blu-Ray in its entirety.

 

[Gooberlx2]

I think Microsoft might go with some sort of semi-proprietary format based on Blu-Ray (or maybe HD-DVD) technology but that doesn't require licencing the entire suite of patents.

In this instance, the drive could be bluray capable as well, just requiring an optional license purchase from the store. I think it really depends on how hard MS wants to push their console as a media center device.

 

[Corporate Thug]

Unlike pretty much every other computer technology, flash memory doesn't have long term history of steady price declines. There not a lot of reason to believe SSD prices will decline that much in the next two years. It's possible they could even go up in price.

I think the only real question is what sort of optical media a hypothetical new Xbox console released in the next couple of years would use. The capacity limit of DVDs haven't been much of a problem throughout the Xbox 360's history, but it has become more of an issue lately. I think Microsoft might go with some sort of semi-proprietary format based on Blu-Ray (or maybe HD-DVD) technology but that doesn't require licencing the entire suite of patents. Microsoft really doesn't like to be feature deficient with respect to their competitors, but I think they're still going to be reluctant to hand even a small victory to Sony by licencing Blu-Ray in its entirety.

What makes you think SSD prices will go up? I'm not exactly sure how much they cost when they were first released by surely they were more expensive than $1/gb no? Haven't we already seen a nice decline in prices?

 

[fbrdphreak]

You guys have your heads in the clouds. Physical media will not go away. Games will not come on Flash storage. DL games will become more popular. Blu-ray is a VERY logical option and is far more likely than something off the wall like Flash sticks or SD card.

HDDs will be standard. SSDs are not needed and too costly compared to HDDs. WiFi will be standard.

 

[American Gunner]

I don't know the legal ramifications, but what if Sony says no to letting MS use Blu-Ray in the next xbox? Can they legally do that?

 

[EightySix Four]

I don't know the legal ramifications, but what if Sony says no to letting MS use Blu-Ray in the next xbox? Can they legally do that?

Yes, of course they can.

 

[Ross Ridge]

What makes you think SSD prices will go up? I'm not exactly sure how much they cost when they were first released by surely they were more expensive than $1/gb no? Haven't we already seen a nice decline in prices?

I'm not saying they will go up in price, just that the price of flash memory has gone up before, so it could happen again. Sure prices are cheaper than they were a long time ago, but prices haven't fallen in a straight predictable line since then. They've gone up, down, and mainly sideways.

 

[Anubis]

I don't know the legal ramifications, but what if Sony says no to letting MS use Blu-Ray in the next xbox? Can they legally do that?

they can but i dont think they would say no to all that money

 

[American Gunner]

Yes, of course they can.

So, from a strategic stand point, why wouldn't Sony just say no to cripple the competition? I am sure MS could throw HD-DVD in the new system, just to use the extra space on discs, but it wouldn't be Blu-Ray.