The rumor has been around for a while, but now its official. MS did not give any details about the hardware yet. Rumors are saying the system will follow Nintendo's lead with a small upgrade in power for the next console.

New Xbox in 2010 Confirmed by Microsoft

To avoid any confusion, it's just a new version of the Xbox 360, not a completely new console.

oh big deal. the xbox 360 arcade pack is getting a memory boost.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

It worked for Nintendo! May work for them.

microsoft doesn't need the help.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

Yeah, because neither Sony nor Microsoft would love to have a share of the new market that Nintendo brought into the picture.

/sigh. I'm hoping to get a glimpse of a few of the next-gen game systems soon. Hardware is starting to leave them in the dust a bit, honestly.

What're the predictions for the new lineups? 2012?

more like 2013 or later.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

next-gen seems to come along awful fast these days...how long is this generation of consoles going on?

four years.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

is that long to you Van?


.

I read somewhere (forget where now) that they were shooting for a 7 year life cycle between console generations.

7-8 years is an appropriate life cycle for consoles, imo. Considering the last generation of consoles didn't last nearly that long (PS2 released in Japan in 2000, Xbox released in 2001 to the North America market), I think 7-8 years is actually generous. I'm not sure they're going to wait that long, but I actually hope they do.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

They may be shooting for that, but technology upgrades faster than it used to. We went from the NES generation to the SNES/Genesis in 7 years in 90-91, then with some crappy 16 to 32-bit systems in between to the Playstation/N64/Saturn era in 95-96. PS2/Gamecube in 00-01, then finally the current generation starting in 05-06. I'd wager that the complexities of getting a solid, cheap-to-build(but at least mostly reliable) machine that they can distribute to the masses in an era that demands sustained high performance would be part of the problem with the delay... but I wouldn't be so naive as to ignore the fact that they do not want to turn customers(and, indeed, 3rd party developers) off by releasing one every couple years.

We'd be late to get new stuff in 2012, but I will admit they have invested a lot into these 3 systems as their respective companies' main gaming machines... moreso than any previous generation, especially now that gaming has become mainstream.

But they're definitely showing their age. When you load up a tricked-out PC the difference between that and the consoles is massive from what I've seen. I think we have perhaps reached a point where most gamers are satisfied with graphics that at least somewhat realistically portray textured 3d environments, something which all of the systems can do fairly well.

We still have a long way to go... I'm not sure if I should be happy or sad that most gamers will readily accept subpar performance because they either don't know that there's better out there, don't have the money, or worse don't care. On the one hand it's nice not to have developers scrambling all over the place in a shorter time interval, on the other it's unfortunate to see the acceptance of delay for quality.

I honestly don't think that the companies have even begun to reach the limits of current console hardware (nintendo excluded...its not much stronger than a gamecube) so we have a long time to wait before we see new hardware.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

PS3 is rolling out new firmware in order to harness a lot more capabilities to the current hardware. We won't see real next gen consoles till 2012 at the latest I think. Probably longer. For a lot of people, consoles are just an irritating box they have to buy to play the games they want to play. Until then, I expect them just to keep tweaking what's already there.