Be Excellent To Each Other

New Xbox will use skype for it's voice chat.

I guess we should have seen that coming.

Anyone else see this?

http://www.mcvuk.com/index.php/news/rea ... ny/0109577

Basically an analyst has had a right go at MS saying that they can't develop a business model and have never made any money from its entertainment division so will sell it off and it will be downsized.

I think they got up on the wrong side of the bed.

"Cherished retro brand"...

Xbox spec leak maybe.

Look promising

It's OK, probably punching about as hard as a mid-range gaming PC is at the moment, but obviously with the benefits of a fixed architecture in terms of getting more bangs for buck.

Should certainly deliver what the 360/PS3 most certainly could not, which is 'next-gen' graphics at 1080p@60FPS.

PS4 is quite a bit more powerful, though.

Wasn't the PS3 more powerful on paper too?

Yeah but they haven't gone for some crazy architecture that no one can be arsed to get their heads around this time though.

It's conceivable that the PS4 will run games at a sort of 'VERY HIGH' setting whereas the 720 will be on 'HIGH'.

Blu Ray makes me dubious.

Why?

No one knows, it's just what happens; wave a BR disc at DavPaz and he instantly becomes sceptical about anything you say.

Dubious, not sceptical.

I'm surprised that Microsoft would go with blu ray if it means Sony getting a slice of the pie

They're not that dumb. Microsoft cut deals with competitors all over the place. They'd be utterly cutting their noses off to spite their faces not to include blu-ray. I have, however, heard rumours that there might be plans to restrict lower models so that despite having a blu-ray drive they won't actually be able to play blu-ray films, or perhaps to only allow that functionality to XBL Gold subscribers.

I'd like a silent mode for media playback and extender mode.

That'd be nice

If they do this, and if Sony redesign their control pad, then Microsoft can go fuck themselves next generation as far as I'm concerned.

Hasn't DocG explained the whole Bluray thing about five times? The new Xbox will have Bluray. Sony aren't the only company who will benefit by way of licence fees, etc. it's not as blatant as that.

Both consoles are dead in the water as Bayonetta went to Wii-U.

Yeah. You need Gold to access Youtube (which has ads), Last.fm (which has ads), even Internet Explorer requires Gold. Presumably, even though all communication will be done through Skype on the next Xbox, wanting to use video chat or join a party chat will require Gold (which has ads).

I know. I read it too . I'm still expecting Microsoft to worm out of it somehow.

I resigned to gold and tried the 4od app. The quality of the resolution was sub-par.

I've found the 4OD stuff to be a bit hit and miss - it really depends what your watching (whereas the iplayer stuff looks great) - probably just down to the quality of the streams they are using.

It could be worse of course. You could be using 4OD on the PS3.

It always reads as FOD to my eyes. This makes me smile.

Chances of sony redesigning their control pad are slim I would have thought. That would be the same as admitting they've been getting it wrong for the past 15 years.

Ooh, proper media streaming with full codec support would be nice.

You won't get it from Sony. You might from MS, but I wouldn't hold your breath. At all.

I know. But it'd be nice.

Personally (and I'm aware I'm in the minority here), I'm hoping a new Xbox or PS3 doesn't have too much focus on the non-gaming side of things. I'm not interested in various apps or media streaming, I just want to play good games. If it's just going to be same same plus more shiny stuff, then I'll be passing. Unless of course the new Xbox has backward compatibility for when I wear out my 360...

I have a HTPC to do all my media stuff, I want my consoles to be consoles.

Whereas I'd rather just have one box that does everything. All the gubbins needed to run games should cope easily with doing all the media stuff so why the hell not?

I want my console in 2014 to stream media, do skype with video, play games at 1040p at 60 fps, operate silently and be under £250.

I totally agree but i think that the next consoles are going to try and continue to do everything else and its easy to do some basic work and then make it look as if you have a lot of stuff on the machine 'from the start' so it will do media streaming and all those other bits because then it makes it look as if you can do loads of stuff with it - and people will ignore the fact that there are only 8 games and 4 of them are the exact same as the version on the PS3 / Xbox apart from a few stills which are a higher resolution.

If you compare that back to old console launches when you could get the console and 3 games at the start its a bit different

(Despite the fact that the SNES launched in the UK months later than the US or JP dates it still came with a Mario and the only other games you could get were F-Zero or Pilotwings - that was it)

I heard that the new Xbox has an HDMI out and in, the in for recording stuff from another source. Implies home media focus.

Leave the technical stuff to the big boys, Mali.

is that not a good thing, then? My telly does 1040i, which apaprently isnt as good as 1040p.

EDIT "Make shinier and smoother" will probably cover it. And, for gods sake, spend money on script writers and story editors.

I'm not convinced it does, Mali.

I just hope they bring out a new version of 1040° Snowboarding, it was great that game.

Malia has a tiny bit of tape on the top of his screen. About 40 pixels wide

You only have to load up the 360 dashboard. Games have taken a backseat and sit alongside all the other stuff that Microsoft are trying to push instead. I suppose at least the apps are developed by third parties so at least it's not too much of their own resource that they're throwing at it. I don't know if the start-up time of the 360 is affected by having all this extra support or it's just the Kinect fluff they included, but I just want to switch on the console, either choose from my XBLA games (or buy new ones), play a 360 game from disc or watch a DVD.

Like I say though, most people probably want it to do everything else too.

It must be a northern thing, not those soft southerners who need 40 extra pixels.

How about a console that comes with a control pad and a remote. Switch on with the pad = gaming interface. Use the remote = media interface.

They should pay me.

Or jsut shout "XBOX! Game!" or "XBOX! Console" and it would do it.

"XBOX! XBOX! XBOX!!!!! Fuck it, I'll use the remote"

I dated this lass once, when I were younger. She had a clio RT. Anyway, we were driving about in it somewhere for some reason and it had a voice activated stereo. She would say "Radio, louder" and the volume would increase, and "Radio, quieter" and the volume would decrease and "Radio preset up". It was really impressive, for 1997. And it worked with my voice , too. I've been in other cars and they haven't had that.

The problem is that it whatever it does in the media space, be it software, remotes, whatever, it'll be just about good enough in terms of user experience. It'll have missing codecs, adverts all over the place, noisy, etc...

I want the best possible user experience, hence I build a HTPC to my spec and use XBMC tailored to how I want it, and buy my own remote from a company that knows how to make universal remotes properly.

Sure, a lot of people will be happy with something that does 90% of what they want, but fuck those guys, 90% IS JUST FAILURE BY ANOTHER NAME!

My VW had that.

I just twiddled the knob instead.