New toys and fresh face for Xbox
- Published
Kinect recognises gamers' movements and speech
When Xbox 360 was launched in 2005, its rivals were Nintendo's Gamecube, and Sony's Playstation 2.
Microsoft was a generation ahead, and titles including Gears of War and Call of Duty 2 gave gamers a reason to upgrade.
Five years down the line, with the PS3 and Nintendo Wii on the scene, the Xbox 360 had begun to look a little dated.
Its cream-coloured box was reminiscent of early desktop PCs.
The lack of build-in WiFi proved a constant frustration to many owners.
And some potential buyers found themselved drawn to the PS3 with its built-in blu-ray player.
New look
Microsoft unveiled the new-look Xbox 360s at the E3 convention.
Microsoft has finally addressed some of those issues.
The new-look Xbox 360s is significantly smaller than existing models, with glossy black plastic replacing the cream.
There's 802.11n WiFi - that's the fastest version with the longest range. It also works with older b&g standards.
Crucially, the hard drive is increased to 250GB.
Microsoft seems to be avoiding the issue of not having an HD disk system by focusing on downloaded media.
Movies and games are as likely to come down your internet pipe nowadays as off a Blu Ray.
It seems unlikely we'll see any update to IBM's Xenon processor until the Xbox 720 (or whatever it is called) appears.
Kinect
Kinect gives Xbox gamers a chance to behave like Wii owners.
Both Xbox 360 and PS3 have come late to the motion control game, having allowed Nintendo to dominate for four years.
Sony is due to launch it's Move controller in late 2010. It looks like a black Wiimote, with a coloured ball stuck on top.
Microsoft's offering is Xbox Konect, formerly Project Natal.
The system scans body movement and voice patterns, allowing users to interact with their console.
It is billed as the next step in the evolution of game control, but is clearly aimed at expanding Microsoft's user base to non gamers.
Expect more Wii-style fun, family games on Kinect, rather than Call of Duty-type titles.
Long life
The expected life span for a games console these days is 10 years.
PS2 launched in 2000 and can still be found in its slimline variant.
By that measure, Xbox 360 is now middle-aged.
However the hardware is holding-up better than many expected.
For all Sony's boasts about the PS3's core processor, most users are hard placed to score one machine over the other, in terms of performance.
Xbox's huge catalogue of games has also counted strongly in its favour.
Kinect probably won't mature fully on the 360 platform, but it should establish a wider user base for Microsoft's next machine.
- Published8 June 2010
