21. I don't want the 360 to last more than 5 years.
Games already gross more cash than hollywood.
And in all fairness the time is right to get a powerhouse console out there that can produce graffix that would put the lord of the rings special effects to shame. Games have already more than earned the right to have budgets equal or greater than that of a major hollywood production. An exchange in power is in order, don't get me wrong I love the 360 but, setteling with this hardware for the next 8 years sounds alittle well, stupid. Also not to mention that just because there are 3 consoles right now dosn't mean a 4th won't decide to sprout up in that time. From who you ask? Sega? Na not now anyways but from another company that is proven to be mad with ambition. EA. They are they only company that I see that is actually poised to create a console and make a serious go at it. MS should be keeping thier eye on that company. With thier inhouse games and the companys they have bought along with some key figures in gamming they are a most powerful 3rd party developer that could easly decide to make all thier games exclusive to thier own console.
Other than that, I don't wanna see the 360 go for 10 years due to the 3 year warrenty. Keep the live arcade games and the gamercards flowing to the next console but don't keep the hardware.

Posted at 2:01PM on Nov 7th 2007 by ccc

22. I agree M$ has it ducks in a row, they have an established fanbase, software, Live, XBLA, Marketplace, and so on.

Eventually M$ will need to:

a) Allow developers to use HDD for caching, etc.
or
b) Develop games on HD-DVD

The way it's configured right now, the 360's "nex-gen" lifespan is 2-3 more years

Posted at 2:55PM on Nov 7th 2007 by TORO

23. I am getting ready to jump on the 360 bandwagon. I disagree with a couple of points made here. I don't think you can assume they have peaked as far as how good the games look, look at the old PS2 and God of War II, it was a definate step up from the original version. I think as long as there is a userbase to support this the developers will still be able to push the envelope. I think it will come to the point it's more of the game than how it looks, look at the underpowered Wii, it's doing great yet if you look at the same game compared on the Wii Ps3 and 360 they totally eat it's lunch. I think it's hard to really make statements like 5 or 10 years in the future as they can't possibly know what in terms of technology will be like. I do hope the 360 is around 5 more years, but if they can make a new one that is vastly superior for the same money I can't see them passing that chance up.

Posted at 3:08PM on Nov 7th 2007 by PSP_Amigo

24. This will never happen as long as there are three companies making consols. People are too impatient to wait that long for better graphics and memory. They are all in a race to make the next best thing. They know that if they wait too long that their competitor will beat them to the punch and get a large install base which will make it hard for the last guy in to get the upper hand. This is why on average all consols arrive with in a short period of each other

Posted at 4:56PM on Nov 7th 2007 by angryguy77

25. Hey, at least the CFO has a sense of humor and is totally disconnected from the reality of the X360's reliability problems.

Basically she wears her ass for a hat.

Posted at 6:44PM on Nov 7th 2007 by useedems

26. I can see the xbox 360 lasting a TOTAL of 5 years, not 5 years from now. The 360 has plenty of power for games between now and then, and it'll be time for a refresh by then anyways. Even if Microsoft released the Xbox 720 5 years from now, I'm almost certain that they will be beating Sony to the punch. Either way, the Xbox 360 is positioned to win this generation, and likely the next generation since it already has a head start.

3 other points:
Games will NOT go to HD-DVD on the 360.
Nobody cares if you have 35GB of content on a disc if you only have 512MB of memory to run it in. Increased capacity is used for FMV, not content. Also, why sell a huge game that only a small/insignificant percentage of xbox 360 users can play, when you can simply sell a shorter game that everyone can play for the same price. It's obvious that short games work fine in the marketplace (Halo3, Gears of War) so you might as well make a sequel to gross even more money.

Games will NOT require the hard drive (why would Microsoft sell a new SKU (Arcade) if it wouldn't play all the games)

Microsoft will NOT release an Xbox 360 with integrated HD-DVD and updated graphics. Console game development is successful because it has common hardware platforms. While they may release a console with HD-DVD integrated, it won't be used for games, and the graphics power will be the same.

Posted at 8:24PM on Nov 7th 2007 by c4v3man

27. Makes sense the life-cycle will get longer. I mean, why change? Consoles are here before HDTV is mainstream and as such, there is no big reason to move ahead. From the PS1 to the PS2 we saw a jump in graphics that was quite big and DVD, but really, gaming doesn't go by Moores law (or rule, whichever name is correct).

After a while, console life spans will get quite a bit longer IMO.

Posted at 11:28PM on Nov 7th 2007 by prateeko

28. One thing that MS must do IMO is to at least make there next console 100% with the 360 gamebase out of the box.

Posted at 12:12AM on Nov 8th 2007 by PSP_Amigo

29. 1) Wii is here for a while.... it may not match in power, but it's userbase says it's sticking. They offered something different and it paid off.

2) Have you looked at the requirements of Crysis? It wont need much more then Unreal 3, nor reccomend much more.

3) Games on consoles have been toned down graphically since F.E.A.R. Sorry... that's fact (and I speak having played it on both 360 and PC.. though to be fair, that one did use features only the top of each series of graphic card had.)

4) NO system this gen is going much farther then 5 year.... at least not without SLAUGHTERING everyone else. Developers wont stay with 512 megs of RAM TOTAL (not video or main, TOTAL) that long for graphic intensive stuff. PS3 is even WORSE off because 360 can at least shift the memory to be used as needed... PS3 has 256 for each part.... period. And the Wii is blatantly a starting point. I will bet Nintendo is already on R&D to take the next move (though they will take all that they can with Wii before they move on... as they should as a company).

Posted at 6:39PM on Nov 8th 2007 by LV426