I hope not another video game crash would be the end of the industry not to mention new and innovative ideas would never be realized. Nintendo might've been able to save the industry back in the 80's but if a crash happens now I dont think any company would be able to save it again.
Fun fact: there were two competing teams for the original XBox. That which we have now was headed by Seamus Blackley. The other? The WebTV team. Now you may notice we don't exactly see advertisements for WebTV anymore. It isn't dead. AT&T has a service known as U-Verse that uses Microsoft "IPTV Technology". Thing is the set top boxes for U-Verse were made by Motorola which is now owned by Google. I'm hoping to see an update for my box that uses Android but I won't hold my breath. But it does lend credence to the possibility of a STB.
Dean Takahashi's book "Opening the XBOX" clearly explains this as well as other interesting tidbits related to the development of the original Xbox system. Give it a read. Might help you to understand and appreciate how difficult and costly it is to bring a new hardware platform to the masses.
The webtv tech is used everywhere, those guys revolutionized video compression and IPTV tech Fun fact: the same people behind it made the XBAND, and those are now the ones pushing OnLive
XBOX360 has a limit of 4GB on files stored on the harddrive, because it's FAT based (FATX) so unless a new chunks/chained container format is developed for XBLA, it's impossible to publish games larger than 4GB on the XBLA format (or DEMO for what that matters). They developed an split format container that they introduced with NXE, which is used for Game On Demand titles and for the internal install of DVD-ROM games.
Makes me wonder if MS can release a new update with is in XFS (NTFS)? or is the boot sequence not allowing a Filesystem change? or do I dont understand the Bugs and dificulties related with ntfs ? Is a new Xbox changing its file system? are Blocks comming back?
If ever a thing was to happen; you would have to spend an ungodly amount of time to convert FATX to XFS, or you would have to format - neither of which MS can explain easily to simply provide games 4GB+.
I think Microsoft won't have 2 different CPUs, that would cost too much to design and manufacture. Instead, it will be just like the original 360 consoles: One will come with a hard drive, one won't.
According to IGN, the new Xbox will be out in time for next Xmas. The GPU will apparently be based on the Radeon 6000 series. Sounds quite plausible to me I suppose.
They're also claiming it's going to be 6 times more powerful than the XBOX 360.. I still never believe these flying words.. All bullshit usually.
I know right? back in the day, all sorts of exotic shit adorned the board..but nowadays they're just off the shelf parts crammed in a neat package, and soon not even that
The rumored GPU is an AMD 6670. Which is laughable in the PC market. Already outdated too.(will be even more outdated once console is released if it actually uses a 6670) Better GPU's can barely handle current games @ 1080p let alone constant 60fps at 1080p. Forget it's touted "DX11 functionality" when from reviews of the GPU say http://www.futurelooks.com/gigabyte-hd-6670-oc-1gb-video-card-review/2/ This card can barely run Resident Evil 5 @ max settings+no motionblur @1080p60 at more than 50fps. (which is fine if you were to cap it at 30, but that's besides the point) Well at least it'll probably have 1GB V-RAM which will hopefully stop the texture rape that most current generation console games are forced to do.
These are probably more false rumors. I just wish Microsoft would say SOMETHING to get these people to shut up.