News
Rumor: New Xbox Will Be Forward-Compatible
It's Like Backward-Compatiblity, Only in Reverse.
by 00.19
This morning, I was told to check out a story on the next next-gen Xbox by some crazy spaceman who kept mumbling about the website XboxEvolved, and how the robots were just behind him in the time tunnel. After slapping the crazy person, I realized I didn't want another SkyNet on my hands, so I better check out this story. Apparently, the next Xbox (which is supposed to be out some time between 2010 and 2012) will not only be backwards-compatible, but it's also going to be forward-compatible. Just what is forward-compatibility according to XboxEvolved?
Forward-compatibility means that games made for the Xbox 360 are made even better thanks to the features and hardware of the next Xbox system. This isn’t a side effect of textures being cleaner and upscaled resolution, this is a new animal completely. Imagine playing Gears of War 3 on your Xbox 360 it looks and plays good right? Well imagine that the year after it comes out you go out to buy the next Xbox and it looks even better, it plays even better.
Oh, well that certainly makes no sense. Not only am I supposed to imagine that I just bought Gears of War 3 for my 360, but I'm also supposed to imagine that one year later, I bought another system to play it on even though it clearly still works on my original 360? And all this is so the game looks and plays better? How does that even work? First of all, keeping in mind this is all hypothetical future nonsense, if Epic knows that a new Xbox is coming out so soon after GoW3, they would be developing that game to launch with the newer system. At least, you'd think they would. I can maybe buy the graphics being sharper, but there's no way they could be better. Games are developed to run on the console's highest possible settings. The site claims this is more than just upscaling, but also had this to say:
It could also be compared to playing the PC game “Crysis” on a mid-range setup, updating the videocard, and seeing a world of difference.
Clears that right up. As to how 360 games will play better on this supposed system, the details aren't as clear. Actually, there are no details at all. But at least it doesn't look like Microsoft is planning to build a nationwide computer defense system, thus no chance for any AI to turn on the humans. I'm chalking this thing up to crazy future speak, and will regard this with the smallest possible amount of possiblity.
Related Articles:
TGS 08: New Xbox Experience to be Experienced on November 19th
E3 08: Themes On The New Xbox Experience
E3 08: First Screenshots of "New Xbox Experience" Released
Comments
Soooooo, they're trying to say that current generation games will look better on a newer, better, hardware release? All that really means is that the next XBox console will be backward compatible with the 360's library. This isn't really good news. This is mediocre news that is going to become common knowledge.
umm ok.. the graphics part i get, yes it will look better, we get that.. i am with you though on the plays better and i am curious how it plays better. Also Gears of War 3 would not be made for the 360 if the next xbox will release a year later, i am sure they would hold off that game and make it a launch title for the next xbox.
@Voyou:
Probably higher frame rate and thus better, smoother game play.
Best photoshop ever. I mean, I'm not sure why Yakov is a borg, but I love it nonetheless.
true true raccoon
Forward compatibility? Nice spin.
Haha, forward compat would be if xbox 361 was able to play xbox 362 games. In other words, still makes no sense.
its just another way of saying its backwards compatible.