A Jump on the competition

Let me start by saying I own all 3 consoles.  Admittedly, I use the XBox 360 the most, and the Wii the least.  It's not that I like the PS3 or Wii any less than my 360, it's just there are currently more games that I want to play on the 360 (e.g. Gears of War and Mass Effect).  There are many great cross-platform titles (360 and PS3) that have been released (e.g. Call of Duty 4), but the truth is, most of my friends have 360's.  So, if I want to play with them, I have to get the 360 version... :-(

There have been some rumors circling that Microsoft may be planning to release their next next-gen console early (e.g. Nov/Dec 2009).   

I think if Microsoft follows what Nintendo has done with the Wii, it could be a great idea!!!   No, I'm not talking about a Wand controller (although that would be nice!)...  I'm referring to the fact that a Wii is little more than a more powerful GameCube with a revolutionary controller.  As such, the Wii is backwards compatible with the GameCube.

Microsoft could do something very similar.  They could create a new XBox that has a faster CPU and GPU (each with perhaps twice the performance of their XBox 360 counterparts).  This would mean that all of the current development tools and accessories would work on the new console (to be referred to as XBox 4D for the remainder of this blog entry).  XBox 4D would be backwards compatible with the XBox 360 (via hardware).  Microsoft could also fix the mistakes they made with the 360, by including an integrated high definition drive in XBox 4D...  Blu-Ray anyone?

It gets better... Now imagine that third parties could continue creating "current-gen" games for the XBox 360 (which would also run on XBox 4D), and also create games for the new system that would've been either difficult or impossible to create on the 360.  This means games like Metal Gear Solid 4, which I've read (rumor) would require more than 4 DVDs for the full game, could be placed on a single Blu-Ray disk and run on XBox 4D.   In addition, since the XBox 4D would be significantly more powerful than the 360 (and PS3), games like Crysis can be seen in their full PC glory in full 1080P native resolution.

What about your XBox 360?  Well, until there are games that you just have to have, you could stick with your 360...  However, if Gears of War 3 Special Edition were to be released for 4D, you could to take the plunge!!!  Just start using your peripherals and games on the new console, and sell your old one on Ebay!

From a marketing standpoint, Microsoft could reduce the price of the XBox 360 Premuim Edition to $249 (Core $199 and Elite $349), and sell the XBox 4D for $499.  They could market the XBox 360 as their low-end console (competing against the PS2 and Wii), and the XBox 4D as their high-end console (competing against the PS3).  They would need to continue developing software for the 360, while bringing titles that would not be possible to create with current-gen systems to the Xbox 4D.

Below are the specs for the (imaginary) XBox 4D:

Xenon 2 CPU (A performance enhanced version of the CPU found in the XBox 360)

Xenos 2 GPU (A performance enhanced version of the GPU found in the XBox 360)

1GB RAM (compared to 512MB in the XBox 360)

160GB Internal Hard Disk (compared to 120GB in the XBox 360 Elite)

Blu-Ray Drive (compared to the current Dual Layer DVD drive)

Does anyone else see the possibilities that I do?  Or have I gone temporarily insane?