Quote:
Originally Posted by thestand
An extremely interesting report out yesterday. The hot rumor is that the new console will be without a disc drive, and that all games will be sold digitally, and a solid state storage system is in the works. But Kotaku had heard that the new system will have Blu-Ray, so there's seemingly two competing rumors. I wonder if there's a chance that it will have a Blu-Ray drive, but Microsoft will not support games on Blu-Ray, meaning developers will have to distribute digitally only.
Both reports say that the console is 100% on track for a 2013 release, with a debut at this year's E3 still very possible.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/exclu...xt-xbox/092534
http://kotaku.com/5891850/the-next-x...e-a-disc-drive |
DuMB, and not happening, for so many reasons.
1) Build a console/entertainment center that can't play movies? Most people still have their movie collection on physical discs (DVD or BD). Why would Microsoft completely eliminate it's console from being a multi-purpose entertainment center like that? No way.
2) Backwards compatibility. Being able to play 360 games on the console when it first ships is huge, considering the inevitable small library that comes with a next-gen system. Need backwards compatibility. At least for now.
3) How big is this HDD going to be? Some people have MASSIVE collections. I would assume, and it's probably a safe assumption, that these next-gen games would take up more HDD space than 360 games, by a decent amount. How big of a SSD would be needed, and what would the cost to Microsoft be? A freaking lot. 1-2 TB for sure would be necessary I would think, considering they are shipping 250 GB 360's now. I mean, the price on those would be astronomical for Microsoft. Just not happening.
4) Marketing with Best Buy/Target/Wal-Mart. No way would they want to sell the consoles at their stores if there wasn't the ability to purchase games as well. That's where those stores make their profit, not on the console themselves. Their profit margin on consoles is so slim, it's ridiculous. They would need to sell games to want to stock them on their shelves.