Highly, highly doubt it but thee's some strange designs there that I thought you'd like a look at. http://engadget.com/entry/9253838747326816/
And it WILL be backwards compatible. God knows how they managed it though http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/6754/Xbox-2-Backward-Compatibility-Update
I was gonna do the same post! I think the second picture isn't that bad, I kind of like the milled/rivetted steel look. Knowing how big the original XBOX, I can't imagine how big the new one will be. That "leaked spec sheet" hinted that it wouldn't have a hard drive, but I can't see that happening, as that was a genuinly good feature... even if it was a throwback from its PC origins. If I had the tools/money I would try to do an XBOX mod with laptop parts, and a huge heat pipe/external power supply, and see how small I could make one.
The backwards compatibilty is a nice bit of enginering but those 2 designs looks horrible, both still big boxes without any design, maybe microsoft should have had a look at the cube to see that power can be built into a small body.
I think the designs are great. I'm fucking sick of consoles that look like consoles. I'm sure we'll get another boring ass design./
I don´t think X-box current game library justifies backwards compability but what do I know.. PS to PS2 compability was a very smart move by Sony to keep the Sony zombies errrm zombies ;-)
Maybe it's just me but the artwork above XBOX 2 reminds me of some other companies logo. I've been trying to remember but I just can't remember. Does someone else recognize it because I'd really like to know if I'm going insane?
Exactly right. If that tech they talk about in the second article is to be used in Xbox 2, then emulation will be used to run Xbox 1 games. Look at this: I'm not a programmer, but to me that sounds like a standard interpretter-style emulator. Highly optimised dynamic recompiler? Something like that? I would have thought an interpretter would be too slow, even on 2x3ghz PPC or whatever Xbox 2 will be. Emulating 733Mhz x86 has got to be a nightmare. Anyway, the important thing is that this is a software rather than hardware solution, which is predictable: incorporating Xbox 1 into a "system on a chip" solution would be almost impossible due to the number of licensees involved. It'll be very interesting to see what compatibility they manage to get with an emulator.
uh well, the first design is really boring , but the second one isn't that bad. sure , it look a bit like a toy , and copy a bit the game cube in a way, but i like the steel desing, that look different than the old plasitc design. i love the first logo better , though. i don't think miccrosoft will scrap the hdd idea, i think its a very interesting feature, you can save and somes games could use it as a suply of memory. i think the future of gaming consoles is with the hdd , not without it...as well as online. just take a look at sony , they try to add the ps2 hdd on the market, because they know its a good feature.... but i don't think they will really succed to implant it, add-ons aren't really good , the ps2 modem wasn't that bad , but i don't think alot of players will pay a 130$ hdd that have no certain future... just like the 64dd , or the 32x,...
Well lets just hope MS doesn't take legal action. Transitive isn't contracted by MS, thats why they can say they can make software that will work on the XBOX 2 to play XBOX1 games.
another link Here is another link for the backward compatible: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=4429 l8r
I love concept art like this. Also, I think backward compatability is a great idea. Even if the current game library isn't good to some of you , a lot of other people are very happy with the games out for XBOX, and backward compatability can be a major selling point. BTW, Here is another design I found