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I like used games. They are cheaper than buying the original and I can see if I really like playing them without putting out the full retail price. Plus I feel a lot better about buying a game at $50 when I know I can return it my local GameStop and get some credit back towards the latest adventure. But if the rumor that was circulating around the floor at CES 2012 is true, that may not be possible on the Xbox 720. And that wasn’t the only speculation about Microsoft’s next generation game machine.
It is not clear how Microsoft plans to do away with the idea of used games. My first thought would be to strictly have downloadable games that required a full time internet connection to work, something that has been highly unpopular among gamers. This, however, may not be practical for several reasons. Not everyone that owns a game console has the internet (around 75% do) and even those that do may not have broadband capable of grabbing down 4-10gig games in a reasonable amount of time. But this would keep the game in the machine and make it much harder to transfer to another source, essentially making it a one player game. Of course another problem with this is that what happens if your hard drive in the console crashes or your Xbox goes to a red ring of death? Those games that do come on the rumored Blu-Ray DVD would be more casual like those found on Facebook (Match 3 and Hidden Object for example) and would include one owner licenses if whispers hold steady.
Yes, I said Blu-Ray DVD. One of the things that the Xbox completely lags behind against its biggest competitor, the PS3, is the ability to play Blu-Ray discs, which right now is the wave of the immediate future. Putting in these players would certainly help swing the pendulum a little more towards Microsoft. The inclusion would also help in the manufacturer’s goal of the console becoming the complete entertainment solution with Live TV, movies (both on disc and downloadable through Netflix, etc) and games. So I’d say that this rumor is pretty solid.
There is also talk of a new Kinect generation that has a built in processor to take the load off the machine, making it able to handle the massive amount of data much quicker and be more responsive to user’s motions. Given that was one feature that was sacrificed in the original design, it seems likely they would include it in an upgrade. Given the new cameras in the Kinect for Windows, hopefully that will also trickle down to the gaming version as well.
The other details that have arisen is that the Xbox 720 will have new processors, such as a custom chip from IBM for processing and the ATI 6000 series for graphics. It is said that these will give the console 6-8 times the power under the hood than the soon to be released Wii U.
I think if they go the “no used games” route, there will be a lot of disappointed people that will flock to Sony, but other than that, the rest of the rumors sound pretty good if they are true. Guess we’ll find out as time goes on.
