News
360 to last until 2012, says Microsoft
Tim Ingham May 14 2008, 3:17pm
Comments (7)
Studio boss Kim says company decided against a long-tail strategy with original Xbox – but this generation is a different story
Boss of Microsoft Games Studios Shane Kim has told CVG that Microsoft is confident the Xbox 360 will have a seven-year lifespan.
That would mean the console continuing to thrive until 2012 – seven years after its first launch at Christmas 2005.
Speaking at the Microsoft spring media summit in San Francisco, Kim said it was the plan from the beginning that the 360 had a "long tail".
"We said from the beginning that we expect the Xbox 360 to have a long tail," he said. "Clearly we didn't do that with the original Xbox, which was a strategic decision we made. Admittedly, we don't have any experience doing this, but we're pretty confident 360 will have a long tail."
Kim added that Microsoft would continue to modify the 360’s hardware in that time.
"You're going to continue to see technical innovation, it might be additional capabilities to the current format - but honestly we haven't made those kind of decisions yet,” he said.
"As far as technical limitations? We're not seeing those. I think there's the potential for more multi-disc titles, we've already shipped a few of those already. But I don't think this is so drastic that people will start saying that Microsoft missed a trick with not using Blu-ray. I just don't believe that.
"What we've been able to see with the vast majority of titles on Xbox 360, is the range of experiences that haven't been restricted with the lack of a hard drive and a larger capacity disc."
Comments
“Long-tail big nose”
Posted by: kal - May 14, 5:00pm
"company decided against a long-tail strategy with original Xbox – but this generation is a different story"
Yeah so why the 2 xbox 1.0's I have are in perfect order and the one 360 I own has been sent 3 times already to be fixed or replaced! I bet my Xbox 1.00's still work in 2012 but not even sure if my 360 will hold out the rest of this year!
“360 to last until 2012”
Posted by: Magnus - May 14, 5:06pm
I seriously can't see this happening as reliability issues, although better, are still cropping up and the problem for Microsoft is going to be how to get people to stick with their next console they develop, when reliability is going to be the major issue people will consider when they decide what console to get next.
“Re: 360 to last until 2012”
Posted by: Umm? - May 14, 7:22pm
I really don't see this happening, while the PS3 has a hard drive, and games such as MGS4 maxing out a blu ray disc, the 360 will not be able to compete and have big games created for their console. If MGS4 has maxed a 50GB blu ray disc, the 360 would need over 5 discs! I think he's just saying this to keep 360 sales up when people may be thinking 'the replacement is just around the corner, why buy one now?'
“Re: 360 to last until 2012”
Posted by: Jimothy - May 15, 10:27am
So none of you can see this happening?
We'll see then.
“JIMMY RECKON !!!!”
Posted by: Ryu - May 15, 10:54am
JIMMY RECKON.
new xbox is out in 2010.
“???”
Posted by: Chris - May 15, 12:44pm
This does not say however that a new xbox wont be out before then. simply that they wont be ending production of the 360 until 2012. After all the PS2 still lives on along side of the current PS3.
“Re: ???”
Posted by: MGS4? - May 15, 2:16pm
I doubt, apart from ideas like selling games over live connection replacing discs, that any company has a viable idea for where to go for the next generation. The best thing that Microsoft could do is come up with a way that consumers could write to external hard drives for larger games - multiple disc titles are not all that desirable, and it would not help a company like Rockstar make a bigger GTA.
As for MGS4 filling 50 Gb, based on that series' track record, it will be damned cutscenes, which are known to take up more memory than most aspects of a game.