@CaptainHerlock These are dev kits, or so the story says, so you're probably looking at a small, custom, specialty run, with strict controls, NDAs, extra stuff for devs, and all that happy stuff (ie, not even remotely final hardware yet). Now, imagine when its time to mass produce them, and what matters is just cranking the systems out? Then they'll be made in China.
@lifemeister @DVONvX The 360 is doing fine. Its a relatively inexpensive format now (unlike when it came out), so the next Xbox having a Blu-Ray drive isn't unlikely at all. Now, it might not play Blu-Ray movies (that's another set of royalties and would interfere with streaming revenues), but for games? It would be nice at this point. Of course, I firmly believe that harddrives need to be standard - the 360 Core/Arcade has been the biggest hold-back on developers, since they cannot assume a harddrive will be there :(
@maximumbarmage That's honestly a good plan. The PS1 (heat, drive), PS2 (drive, class action filed), Dreamcast (heat), and Gamecube (heat) all had launch problems, but with online not being as popular then as it is now, they went mostly unreported. The 360 got slammed because news of its problems were so easily reported and investigated by the gaming community.Buying a system at launch means you're paying the most money, getting the least reliable version of the hardware, have the worst game selection, and the most uncertainty of the system's ultimate worth. The longer you wait, the lower the price gets, the better the hardware gets, the more games you have to choose, and the less risk in terms of the console's viability. Anyone buying a 360 or PS3 know pretty much know what they're going to get, unlike someone buying a launch system!
@WarGameJunkie @pez2k_ The original XBox pad was poorly received, the future revision did better. The 360 pad is great except the d-pad is still poor, and I wouldn't say its good for fighting games (usable is debateable).I think they changed the harddrive on the 360 because people figured out how to mod their own drives to work with the 360. Usually, most changes to consoles to thwart modding and such are under the hood (Sony had a ton of PS2 models, but you'd never know it from the outsides). I would agree with you with Sony, though... I think upgrading drives is too hardcore a feature to matter (sadly, the 360 sorta confirms this), and with online/cloud storage being so cheap, they might utilize both online and local storage (convenience, anti-piracy, etc).
@pez2k_ To be perfectly honest: I like hardware subsidization. I don't want to pay the full price of a system, especially at launch (the 360 would've been an estimated $125 more in that case, the PS3 ~$800), or the price for a few years down the road. It is, honestly, a reasonable trade-off in my opinion.
@pez2k_ Entirely possible, although it is worth noting that the original Xbox lost money hand over fist, and both systems were subsidized (ie, consumers didn't pay the full price of the system). Also, all the bits and pieces were just as much for retailers as accessories are high profit items for stores, and part of the 360's success is in how money its been able to make for business partners.
Plus, don't forget, the PS1 and PS2 had extras like memory cards instead of built-in storage, multitaps, harddrive, despite having other systems not going that route (3DO had internal storage, no multitap needed, N64 and the Dreamcast didn't need multitaps for 4 players, Dreamcast had a built-in modem, etc). It took viable competition for Sony to try tricking out a system from the get-go (PS3), and even then the original 20g PS3 lacked wifi with neither model coming with HDMI (granted, Sony was losing $200-$300 per PS3 at launch depending on model).
@hadlee73 Well, honestly, if its like the cell phone industry? People don't want to pay full price. How much is an off-contract iPhone, Android or any other smartphone? The consumer assumption is "I need a phone, I want a nice one, and getting it on contract means I don't have to pay $400, $500 or even $600." Even cheapie, "free" phones/smartphones with 2 year contracts cost around $200 without one. Subsidies have really helped grow the cell phone market here by lowering the initial cost of entry significantly. Now, almost anyone can get a cell phone. I think one statistic has nearly 50% of American adults has a smartphone. By 2008 census numbers, that's over 115 million adults with smartphones! And I believe subsidies have a LOT to do with that. Lets be honest: allegedly there's 67.2 million 360's worldwide. If Microsoft can get cell phone numbers in the US, even throughout the world, by this model? 1q2012 saw over 390 million cellphones sold worldwide (not sure if that includes smartphones or not), and over 140 million smartphones sold. That's a single quarter. I doubt they'll get numbers that good, but selling even a tenth of that has GOT to look tempting to Microsoft. They sold 1.4 million 360's this past quarter, half of what was sold last year, and they're currently the sales leader. By the time those folks want a new system, maybe the next Xbox will be ready and on contract...
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