I'm starting to think there never will be an "Xbox Two"..

And that's a good thing..

Considering the idea that there will never be a "Windows 11", this move makes perfect sense.. build a platform and just continually and incrementally upgrade that platform.. Now before you start freaking out, consider the benefits:

Let's say Microsoft makes logical upgrades to the hardware internals of the Xbox One and releases a new version this Fall.. For the sake of this conversation, lets say it will be called the "2nd gen" Xbox One and it can run all new games at 1080p/60fps.. also, let's keep in mind a few base assumptions: that the original Xbox One (and any future Xbox One) will get a minimum of 6 years worth of 100% forward compatibility with newer gen Xbox Ones, developers will target the lowest common denominator of those 6 years, the newer gen Xbox One will have 100% backwards compatibility with all previous Xbox Ones, and that a new gen Xbox One will be released every two years with price drops to the previous gen versions.. That being said, by comparison, let's look at the potential results if the PS4 stays on the traditional console releases of 6+ years for a brand new system..

So 6 years from now, the 5th gen Xbox One would see a release and let's say it can run 4k graphics at 60fps.

And 6 years from now, the PS5 is released and it can also run 4k graphics at 60fps..

Both will be powerful consoles and be priced the same at $399.. But what are the differences?

* The difference would be that every one who has a 1st gen Xbox One and above will still be able to play those same new games that release for the 5th gen Xbox One, but only at maybe 720p/30fps.. Everyone who has a 2nd gen Xbox One and above will still be able to play those same new games that release for the 5th gen Xbox One, but only at maybe 1080p/30fps.. So on, and so forth.. by comparison, PS4 players won't be able to play any games made for the PS5 at all.. at most, devs can make two versions of the game (like they did this gen with PS3/PS4 or 360/XB1 cross-gen games) and launch them both on separate systems.. But with the 5th gen Xbox One, devs could just code for one game and all those Xbox Ones can still play that same game with varying degrees of performance.. With the PS5, devs have to decide to leave PS4 players out in the cold in terms of their PS5 title or to develop two separate games for both the PS4 and PS5..

* Developers for the 5th gen Xbox One will have 6 years worth of Xbox One owners as an install base to target with their new games (in addition to PC gamers that buy from the Windows Store).. Developers for the PS5 can only target early adopter PS5 players..

* for the next 6 years 1st gen Xbox One gamers can either keep the console they have and play newer games at 900p~/30fps or if they feel like upgrading for better graphics/performance, they have the option of picking up a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th gen Xbox One whenever their desire and financials meet a good tipping point.. PS4 players have to stick with what they have for the next 6 years despite the increasing graphical performance of the newer and newer gen Xbox Ones.. PS4 players have no option but to wait 6 years for a PS5 to release.. Period

* I'm going to give Sony the benefit of the doubt and say that the PS5 will come with 100% b/c with PS4 games but considering that it took them 2.5+ years to finally bring basic PS3 functions to the PS4 like friend notifications and offline status, I would not say it's a guarantee that the PS5 will ship with all the functionality and support for everything the PS4 does and it likely will have a brand new OS and UI.. But with incremental upgrades over the course of that 6 years, the 5th gen Xbox One should have no problem bringing over every single feature from the previous console that was released 2 years prior since all the consoles will keep the same OS core (Windows 10)..

* As time goes on, and new tech innovations arise, those tech ideas can be added to new gen Xbox Ones as soon as possible.. It would be along the lines of Apple adding Siri to the iPhone 4 but it wasn't available on the iPhone 3.. If they wanted Siri, they'd upgrade to the new iPhone.. if they didn't care, they can keep the iPhone they have.. It's the same thing with the Force Touch functionality of the iPhone 6S.. if you care about that, upgrade to the new phone.. if not, stick with your current iPhone 6.. This same logic can be added to new Xbox One's every couple years but PS4 owners will be stuck with their same box until the PS5 is released.. Period.. and then PS5 owners will be stuck with it's base features for another 6 years until the PS6 releases.. Period.. This strategy makes the Xbox One infinitely more flexible with any current tech of the times..

And really, the list goes on.. There's plenty of benefits to this model and it's basically the same model used by other tech companies for consumer devices like iPads.. So System Wars, would you still prefer to wait six years for a PS5 or would you like the option to buy a 2nd gen PS4 later this year that can consistently run all new games at 1080p/60fps?

discuss..

I just don't see Microsoft or Sony leaving consoles behind to become a streaming service. I mean people buy consoles for a reason and if they wanted a streaming device like steam then they would probably have a PC instead.

Plus the only way I can see them becoming a streaming service is if physical games die off and we get digital only, that reason is that many parts of the world still have very poor internet speeds. Especially rural areas.

We already know Sony is on board with PS5 in the brainstorming developments, so that's to be expected. Will there be another Xbox console? Well that depends if there's a depending from gamers but the bottom-line is this, consoles exist for a reason.

5th gen Xbox One in 6 years!?

Why would they become streaming services when that cuts out a lot of their profit and puts them in direct competition with steam?

Ya'll are going to get 32X'ed til the end of time.. and love it. LMFAO!

Same here and even if there was I wouldn't buy it since I can play all their games on my superior PC

Cant wait to have 10 Xbox Ones on my living room!

I don't think they will stick with the name XB1 for future revisions, I think going forward they will just call it Xbox.

You guys don't get it do you, SMH.

1. You wouldn't be forced to upgrade everytime a new revision gets released.

2. You could always sell your current XB1 and put that money to help pay for any future revisions.

3. Each Xbox revision will most likely get a minimum of 6 yrs of support.

Think IPAD, but with consoles, and instead of annual revisions they will probably be stretched out 3 - 4 yrs apart.

Xbox One se

Xbox One gt

Xbox One Super

Xbox One lte

Steam isn't a streaming service, Gaikai is and Azure easily could be.

PSN (ex-Gaikai) is Sony's streaming test bed, they're sounding out the concept to see how viable it is.

This is Tomfoolery

There will be another Xbox. Phil Spencer just said they have no plans right now to make upgradeable hardware.

I'm thinking if the Xbox continues to be a thing, it'll closer to a Steam Box, than a traditional Playstation/Nintendo style console. It's the next logical step for them considering they're clearly becoming more interested in the PC market than consoles.

Interesting theory there.

I'm still waiting for the PC 2. I hear it will do HD

That edit as I quoted your post! lol

I just realized. If an improved XB1 gets announced at E3 then nobody is going to give a crap about the NX with the exception of Nintendo fans. Some people were very excited about the possibility that the NX will be more powerful than the PS4, but if Microsoft comes out with a 2.5 - 3 Tflop XB1 then who's gonna choose the NX over an improved XB1 with a much better online infrastructure? The NX will no longer have that edge to get hardcore gamers on board.

I think that would confuse consumers.

And not only that, but a lower gen Xbox One would be a serious bottleneck to the newer ones. When Sony releases a PS5 and it's slightly less powerful than the 6th gen Xbox One, the Bone will still have to be developed for the least common denominator, whereas the PlayStation 5 can have much more advanced games (at least in technical terms like more advanced and numerous AI and larger levels). There WILL be a point where they have to start cutting off earlier gens of the Xbox One and at that point, they've essentially just created an Xbox Two.

It's obvious Microsoft is transitioning away from consoles with their latest moves.

I think he is saying that in the future, consoles are going to have ports to allow upgrades. Look at some laptops that can allow for an external box to give them more powerful graphics.

Oh yea I get it alright, it was a sarcasm, meaning I wont buy an XboxOne, my gaming PC is there for upgrades.

It might be Steam Box 2.

and that sucks too, because I cant play certain games on my ipad2 and I'm not buying a new ipad to be able to play them

Dude your IPAD 2 is 5 yrs old and mobile tech has made huge advances in that time, so you can't expect it to play every single game released on iOS, eventually Devs will want to target higher specs. With consoles the tech isn't advancing at the same rate so they will get a little more support.

The 32X was a completely different platform, this would not be, they're not even remotely comparable situations.

I just wanted to inform all the members of The PlayStation Church that in fact SONY WAS THINKING ABOUT SUCH AN IDEA FIRST. Back in October.

http://www.4gamer.net/games/990/G999024/20151021121/

Another flop for MS

I know, actually I was thinking that MS was going to do that THIS gen before the actual fail reveal.

I was honestly thinking MS would dominate and use an upgradeable console like system from the start of this gen. To me it made sense for them to do it given their PC roots and the start of this gen was the perfect opportunity.

Now, however Sony also has caught on to that idea so MS can no longer get the jump on them using this strategy. If either company do make new systems I think both will adopt upgradeable options like what PC is able to do.

The 32X was an expansion to the Genesis though. You couldn't play 32X games without a genesis to plug into.

I still think this has more potential to be disastrous than beneficial to MS. Changing your brand's focus mid Gen and then complicating the console brand in future iterations is not the way to go. Previous attempts to upgrade console performance have ended poorly. If Sony continues it's console practices against this strategy, most console only gamers would either buy a PC or buy PS5's instead.

The Xbox dumbeddown fps and almost killed Japanese games, it's a shameful console.

The thing about this is that it really seems pointless for MS to do this without exclusives for xbox as a console since it would just make more sense to buy a more powerful and open PC instead.

Now, Sony, it would actually be a huge benefit because they could make way to develop more advanced games and improve exclusives and multiplats that were available on the previous build.

I don't see the benefit of MS doing this unless they start building an xbox brand of PC and drop the console thing all together.

If NX becomes popular and well accepted then that might not be a bad thing. However, if NX doesn't, then it's a bad thing and I'd rather it not happen.

Only time will tell. One thing is for sure, dedicated gaming consoles aren't going away anytime soon. This is an interesting idea OP. I like it.

Yeah, it's not even a remotely comparable situation like I said. The 32X was an expansion to the Genesis that turned it into an entirely different platform with proprietary 32X only games, that of which only like 38 ever released.

What Microsoft wants to do is allow the console to be upgraded using what I would assume is a removable module that houses the APU and RAM, likely a back or side slot loaded unit that can be snapped in and out to replace it with a more powerful module. All games will be generational backward and forward compatible as the OS, API and architecture doesn't actually change, just the internal hardware will. This will eliminate the need for generations, obviously there will have to be cutoff point like every three upgrade unit releases where the original hardware will no longer be able to handle a brand new release, but it will be as simple as going to the store, buying a module, replace yours with the new one and you're good to go.

We'll see how it goes, I know one thing and it's that each month they keep making these updates like the one I have now soon will have 16 player party chat, new achievement tab in new guide, etc. The point is that they are constantly updating the Xbox One OS, at a much faster rate than they did with the 360, so whatever the next Xbox is, whether a completely new separate console or incremental hardware upgrades, it needs to keep those same OS features. It was rough the transition between 360 to Xbox One, we still cannot play background music on XOne like we could on the 360, and it felt like they started over from scratch with the XOne. I think that is one of the things they will avoid with XOne and that's great.

You mean like Vita.

They'll release a new one the X360 1 like an X1 but spins like MS pr.

NX will be the last physical console ever made by any of the big three.

That still sounds like a terrible idea to me.

No, in MS's case like Zune.

consumers aren't confused when there's an iPhone 5S, iPhone 6, and iPhone 6S all available at the same time.. I guess consumers will totally give up on Apple and their shenanigans when they release the iPhone 7 on top of all that too right?.. way too confusing.. /s

are you saying that gamers, some of the most informed purchasers of tech, can't figure out the difference between an a $299 original Xbox One and a $399 2nd gen Xbox One?.. (I'm just throwing out pricepoints for the sake of argument).. if you can figure out the difference between the iPhone 6S and the iPhone 7, this is no different..

and yea, i'm sure that if this strategy was to take place, that any given Xbox One version will have forward compatibility for at least 5 years.. for instance, you cant run the latest version of iOS on the original iPhone right? so after 5 years, the original Xbox One more than likely couldn't run games made for the 5th gen Xbox One.. But the PS4 wouldn't be able to run PS5 games either so it's still an equal playing field from that standpoint.. the difference would be that developers can have the massive install base of 2nd-5th gen Xbox One owners to target versus the extremely limited number of PS5 early adopters..

And yes, at that point, the lowest common denominator would be the 2nd gen Xbox One versus the PS5.. but that hasn't stopped developers from making games that have minimum requirements on the PC versus having ultra settings.. the game would have the same gameplay but the 2nd gen Xbox version could run at 720p-1080p/30fs while the 5th gen Xbox version would run it at 4k/60fps.. this isn't rocket science and this is nothing new for every part of the tech culture other than consoles..

I just like how we started this generation with infinite cloud power and now we're at incrementally updated hardware power.

cloud processing doesn't depend on hardware.. do you think the cloud can't be a benefit for PC gaming?

That's not a fair analogy.

In this case, iPhone's are clearly labeled as successive devices. iPhone 7 is a step ahead of iPhone 6. And iPhone 6 is a step ahead of iPhone 5. Whereas we're going from an Xbox to an Xbox 360 to an Xbox One to Xbox One to Xbox One and so on. You can't see how this would be confusing? I'm not saying it would be difficult to figure out, but I am saying from a mass appeal standpoint, this would initially confuse the consumer base.

And now you essentially have an Xbox Two.

It's an interesting idea and I'm curious to see how MS may pull it off, but it breaks down here because at this point it isn't one console to rule them all. You'll still end up having to upgrade because this affects more than just resolution and frames per second.

Do we really even know what cloud processing can or can't do? The problem is, and has been since the XBone was unveiled, that MS has been answering the PS4s tech advantage with talk.

Infinite Cloud Power = obvious talking point going nowhere

DX12 = more talk going precisely nowhere

Hardware upgrades = pretty hard to make a case that this isn't more of the same

..and worse, it's precisely the kind of thing that opens the door for developers to make games that simply can't or won't work on the original system, which makes the XBone a console without a cause.

And they have also essentially defeated the purpose of owning a console.

it is indeed a fair analogy.. it would be up to Microsoft to figure out a naming system but that doesn't change the fact that yearly hardware revisions are common place in every other area of tech except consoles.. this is neither a new concept or a difficult concept for people to grasp.. do I think Microsoft will release a new console every year?.. I doubt it.. but an upgraded console release every two or three years would be awesome..

and sure, 1st gen Xbox One owners would have to upgrade by the time the 5th gen Xbox One comes out but 2nd gen Xbox One owners wouldn't.. that's still 4 generations worth of Xbox One console owners for developers to target.. this is vastly superior to the current tradition where developers can only target the early adopters of the "Xbox Two"..

For example, when the iPhone 7 releases there may be apps and features announced that are no longer supported on iPhone 4.. that doesn't change the fact that developers can still target all the iPhone 4S, 5, 5S, 6, 6S, and 7 owners.. that's vastly superior to Apple just releasing one phone every 7 years while the rest of the tech world passes them by.. and then when they finally release that new phone, developers can only target the owners of that new phone since it's running an entirely different OS and requires entirely different development tools.. In what world does this strategy actually make sense?.. it was fine in the past when gaming consoles and PC's were the only places to play.. but with smartphones and tablets become more and more powerful, it's time for a change..