The future of Xbox: the paths to the next generation of video games

Microsoft made a very risky bet in the video game industry ten years ago, when it launched the first Xbox Yes to that first step It was followed by an Xbox 360 that justified the commitment and consolidated the brand among the greats in the sector. Now it is inevitable to look to the future, to the next generation of consoles. Xbox 720 is the rumored name for the next step in the family, but which way could it lead? Today at Xataka Windows we analyze some industry trends and confront them with what we would like to see in the new Xbox

The technological leap

There is no doubt that the longevity of the last generation of consoles has been holding back the technological developments of the PC game. Both Xbox 360 and PS3 have been on the market for a long time and, although they are already fully squeezing their potential, the change of generation should bring a very powerful technological commitment. There has been talk of twin graphics chips to reduce the stress that 3D puts on the graphics and other rumors have insisted on 16-core CPUs (linked, for example, to the bet that they want to boost with Kinect).

Be that as it may, it seems clear that AMD will provide the processor and its will also be the graphics (a revision of the 7000, only, as rumored, or a bigger coup?). At the moment, all are siren songs until the actual specifications arrive.

The physical: or the industry in the mist of the cloud

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The big question for the next generation of consoles is whether or not they&39;re going to kill the dealer. Or, rather, who is going to be the first company to take the risk. Let&39;s remember that Sony, with PSPGo, tried it, and they paid it well>"

But it's a far different thing to lamely push an update out of an already moribund console than to jump right in with an entirely new model. In what format will the games arrive? Put Blu-ray as a physical disc but boost digital direct sales through Xbox Live? Or launch directly into the disappearance of the records and mortally wound the stores?

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A priori, the first scenario, that of a physical medium in decline that coexists with increasing digital sales, seems like the scenario most likely for the new Xbox. And while Sony does seem to be betting, with Gaikai, on a PS4 with cloud gaming, Microsoft has not announced steps in this regard."

In any case, the industry here is still at a critical point, even at a time of widely varying possible mistakes. And we will also see what is true about the rumored anti-second hand system of the new Xbox.

Cross-platform: one ring (green) to tie them all together

After the dilemma between digital and physical, the other big change that the next generation consoles have to face is not to please the graphics whores, but to achieve that the entire ecosystem is united.

Although Microsoft is already making progress in this regard (not radically, as we will see in our Windows 8 Special in a few days), the next generation of Xbox has to bet radically on cross-platform play : Windows Phone and Xbox being able to complement (Wii U style, with screens that add extra qualities to the gameplay) or PS3-PSVita mode.And an online where PC and Xbox Live are connected (at least for games purchased through the Windows Store)?

What there will not be, except for surprising movement, is that portable Xbox: the market for small consoles suffers the onslaught of smartphones and there it is better to use what is known (Windows Phone as a gaming platform) than to enter quicksand.

We already know the other part of transmedia: SmartGlass and Xbox applications on different devices.

Storage: SSD input, no

The new generation has to arrive hypervitaminated when it comes to storage. Although, as I mentioned, it is very delusional to think of a console without a physical player, it is not unlikely that the commitment to digital makes us think of a high-capacity hard drive

Let's take into account, for example, that some of the games from the last part of Xbox 360's life already need two or three discs to work. If you have to install them on the hard drive, they already eat up a good portion of the storage. And if we think that that Blu-Ray that PS3 already has as a physical disc can enter and we consider an ostensible graphic improvement… we are talking about more than many GB per game

Now let's move that same thing to downloads and purchases from Xbox Live. It's obvious we need more hard drives, and that amount of space coupled with the price contention that next-gen consoles will need to succeed makes it pretty delusional to think about SSD as the technology of choice… despite the noticeable performance improvement it could bring.

The new Xbox as the perfect media center

One of the attractions of the first Xbox over its rivals was that it was designed to become the center of our living room, not only for games, but also as a media player (it's also true that it's better thanks to community modifications).

This has to keep growing even more: Xbox Live will enhance its audiovisual options, as it has been doing in recent years, with new channels and applications, but the step remains to make it even easier for our PC content to be played without much detour on Xbox.

We could also see an Xbox as a DVR or even the arrival of other players to complement the internal one: Is an app store where Plex is a dream? or XMBC make an official appearance? Perhaps not so much seeing how Windows 8 or Windows Phone have fully embraced the market for small applications.

Always connected

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Another of the great leaps of the Xbox and its successor Xbox 360 was online gaming It&39;s good to play together, said the slogan and With &39;Halo&39; as a flag, first, and the subsequent explosion of FPS in this field (or &39;COD: Modern Warfare&39; exploiting this path for millions), the industry has already made it very clear that it is interested: put any title online, whether justified or not."

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However, for the the new Xbox we expect full integration with the web. Synchronization of experiences (movies, games, game storage); constant connection with social networks; Xbox Live as desktop>"

What about the possibility to integrate Skydrive within the experience as user storage? It seems more unlikely, in the same way that, as we have commented, the game in the cloud, without buying or downloading, with OnLive-type subscriptions, does not seem an immediate objective of Microsoft.

Other probable (or dreamed) improvements

Among other possible improvements of the new generation, some seem basic, others fit within Microsoft's strategy in video games:

• Kinect 2 included in the basic package and improved in its motion detection conditions in environments with several people and different lighting. Of course, with the basic interface of the console focused on Kinect.
• A quieter device (great workhorse of the Xbox 360 in its successive appearances).
• A more agile Xbox Live for developers (and thus encourage more independent development).
• 1080p visually, integrated Skype for all kinds of communications.
• Backward Compatibility to play Xbox 360 games.

The question that many ask themselves is: Is a new generation of consoles really necessary? Although it would be long to debate, for a Complete post, I think that, seeing many of the points commented, at least for Microsoft it is clear that it is.

Xbox 360 was born at a certain time and the video game industry always burns fast. It may be that this time a jump in power is not the most striking of this new generation, but the very way of playing on consoles has changed in these six years so much so that the next Xbox needs to be different and have been thought of in a very different way than the one that gave life to its predecessor. Between 2013 and 2014 it is likely that we will see these new ideas about the video game.

(All the images that accompany this post and that are not from the Xbox 360 itself belong to fakes and/or recreations of the still non-existent new Microsoft console)

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