Rumor: Next-Gen Xbox Will Cost $300-$500, Be Always-Online

[Signa]

There is literally one thing that could excuse all these rumors: It's Microsoft Onlive. Always online would be a requirement just to stream your games to you, and the access to your account would be important too, so that the system knows what games you own.

Other than that, what the fuck Microsoft? Did you forget that you are trying to fill a market, and not just throw a product out expecting people to give you money? Hell, if that worked, I could glue some popsicle sticks together, and ask $30 for "hand-crafted woodworking."

 

[The Great JT]

Always-on internet? I hear "bad idea" being screamed but I don't know from where.

 

[Jesse Billingsley]

"But is that a bad thing?" What The Tech host Andrew Zarian asks Thurrott regarding the always-online requirement. "I don't know," he replies, "because I don't know what it means."

Thurrott lost all credibility in those two lines...

Way to shoot yourself in the foot Microsoft, Guess I'll be buying and Xbox 360 Slim sometime this summer because there is no way I'll be buying a system whose only lifeline is a constant internet connection.

 

[Jaeger_CDN]

I really hope these rumors are just rumors. The xbox hasn't managed to sell itself to me in any of it's incarnations yet. And this has only distanced me further along with that bum wipes tweets earlier last week.

Predictable response though it might be, I'm staying with my PC.

Maybe this is some kind of conspiracy within Microsoft to keep us using windows. :O

Microsoft seems to be doing their best to alienate every sector of their operations. This is pretty much the same as the "la-la-la-can't-hear-you-because-my-fingers-are-in-my-ears" the desktop division is doing with the roll out of Windows 8. The adoption rate is abysmal for Win8 and yet Ballmer and friends are blindly pushing forward. Windows 8's Market Share is Coming at the Expense of Windows Vista/XP [http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/windows_8s_market_share_coming_expense_windows_vistaxp2013]

Pretty much most things they've pushed out the door in the past year or so has barely fizzled on the consumer market and I don't see the new X-box being much different. Microsoft is slowly but surely wandering into obscurity as it tries to play catch up with Apple. Pretty much the only reason they aren't dead yet is that their OS runs around 75-80% of the worlds computers but even that number is starting to drop.

Back OT, I can't see myself paying for their online now while it's optional, why would I bother with a new box that make it mandatory. The only reason I bought my current xbox was for my daughter to play the Dance Central games and it hasn't been online outside the free 3 months I got when I first turned it on.

 

[CoL0sS]

Don't really care about the rumors, but I'm curious - Is $300 and $500 expensive for console launches ? I'm asking because here it's usually around $800, so it could be worse. Also, despite my Internet connection being suprisingly stable (and most people are not that lucky) I consider always-on a terrible idea.

 

[Naeo]

Ew.

Always-online, while a nice idea, has been such a colossal failure (Diablo 3, Sim City) that anyone seriously pursuing it--especially on the whole fuckdamn console--might not pay any attention to anything that happens, ever. I am glad to see a grace period for a dropped connection (hopefully it'll give you a pop-up notice along the lines of "Disconnected from internet, 3 minutes to shut down" or something so you can at least save), but I'd rather see one a bit longer (5-7 minutes). This has pretty much sealed it for me--I will quite definitely not be getting a next-gen Xbox. Especially if there's the bullshit about the Kinect needing to always be plugged in, because Kinect is bullshit. I'll probably put the money towards a new laptop instead--more portable, more usable, more features, and as a few people have mentioned, the fact that Microsoft and Sony seem to be using x86 architecture on their consoles means I probably won't be missing out on many games.

 

[Mikeyfell]

What are they trying to do?
Give Sony a chance to catch up?
Ba-dum Tish.

But seriously this sounds like a terrible Idea.

 

[Username Redacted]

It's interesting to me that Microsoft seems to be trying to ensure that the next console generation is the last console generation. Seriously Sony, this is your game to fuck up. Making the PS4 less pants-on-head retarded than the X-Box 180 shouldn't be that challenging. Something like no always online BS, don't lock-out used games, maybe some PS2 emulation thrown in their and I'm more than willing to overlook your dumb 'Share' button thingy.

 

[Mumorpuger]

I'm hoping the backwards compatibility thing is wrong. Maybe they'll do something similar to what they did with the original Xbox games -> 360. Otherwise, that's a load of crap.

 

[Jesse Billingsley]

Don't really care about the rumors, but I'm curious - Is $300 and $500 expensive for console launches ? I'm asking because here it's usually around $800, so it could be worse. Also, despite my Internet connection being suprisingly stable (and most people are not that lucky) I consider always-on a terrible idea.

The Xbox 360 launch was like 200-300
PS3 was like 300-600

So not really unusual.

 

[EHKOS]

Huh...I never really believed it, but here we stand. On the cusp of letting the companies win. While I'm still in my right mind, I'll never buy something that's always online. Well, time to get to that backlog!

Captcha: foul smelling
Yes indeed captcha, there is something foul smelling in the air

 

[Stick Antolini]

You know what this rumor tells me? Sony is going to feel the love again! They deserve something after all of the events they had to deal with in the PS3 generation of consoles, especially the PSP, PSP Go!, and now possibly the Vita (though the Vita still looks like it can make a comeback as it's getting some good games over the next few months).

you may as well add the PS Vita to the list...

Whenever I come here, it always makes me feel like I'm the only person who actually has games to play for the Vita. I mean hell, I am in the middle of 3 different games after just recently finishing a fourth one and with Soul Sacrifice coming out at the end of the month I'm not going to have enough time to finish them. =P

(The games, if anyone is curious, are, Persona 4 Golden, Dokuro, Genkai Totsuki Monster Monpiece and just finished Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus)

 

[Something Amyss]

Don't really care about the rumors, but I'm curious - Is $300 and $500 expensive for console launches ? I'm asking because here it's usually around $800, so it could be worse. Also, despite my Internet connection being suprisingly stable (and most people are not that lucky) I consider always-on a terrible idea.

The last Xbox launched at 299 for the core system (no HDD) and 399 for the one with the HDD.

The last Playstation launched at 499 for the cheapest model.

These are pretty safe estimates.

 

[poiuppx]

The more we hear, the more I feel comfortable in pre-emptively giving the award for this generation to Sony. Good job coming in first in a race between the BigBrother-Box and a home console whose software sales lag behind the freaking PSP Vita. I'm sure you feel, um, proud. No, that's not the word I wanted to use. Richer. Yes, I am sure you feel richer.

 

[Lightknight]

Thurott also confirmed rumors of the next Xbox's always-online requirement, which was strongly hinted at earlier this month by comments on Microsoft executive Adam Orth's Twitter. Thurott claims the system's notes specifically state that the new console "must be Internet-connected to use." The console reportedly stops functioning if its internet connection is dropped for more than three minutes.

Always on... Unless Sony also does this then there's NO way I'm going to buy into this. That's really unfortunate. I've been enjoying my 360 and was hopeful regarding the next gen. I will not buy systems and games that are reliant on the internet connection and a company's network. Both can go down and during a game that could mean bad things.

Most surprisingly though is the revelation that a new Xbox 360 console will be released alongside the next-gen Xbox. Microsoft is planning a $99 "Stingray" Xbox 360, which Thurrott claims is because the next-gen Xbox will not be backwards compatible with Xbox 360 games.

How is this surprising. The 360 bet hard and failed regarding the HD-DVD format. Of course the 720 won't be backwards compatible. It'd require an entirely different disk drive to operate. I called that the day Bluray won out.

 

[TKretts3]

Meanwhile at Nintendo and Sony...

However, in all seriousness, I simply cannot fathom how anyone at Microsoft would think that this could be a good idea. If they use the internet there, they would know how long a loss of connection would typically last. If they had people who could listen, they would hear customer backlash and argument. If they paid attention, they could see what happened to SimCity.

SimCity was a complete failure at launch because of it's always-online DRM, and that was just a game. Not everyone who owns a particular console will play the same game at the same time, but a whole LOT more people will own the same console and try to play it at once. If SimCity was a disaster, an always-online console will be a catastrophe.

 

[MPerce]

Innocent until proven guilty, of course, but....it's definitely not looking good.

If this ends up being true, I'm very interested to hear Microsoft's reasoning and market strategy behind it.

 

[DarthSka]

Looks like I'll be going with the Wii U/PS4 combo this generation. This just seems too stupid to be true, but these rumors are just one right after the other and all saying the same thing. Plus you know, that twitter fiasco.

 

[Osaka117]

The PS3 had a lot of trouble this gen with the "599 US dollar!" to all the hacks, so it's only fair that Sony pass off the poo poo baton to Microsoft for the new gen.