by Adriaan Noordzij
1.) Digital Distribution at the Forefront of the Experience
Rumors of a purely digital, next-generation Xbox have been pretty
standard for quite some time now, but the reasoning behind such an idea
is extraordinarily sound. Although Microsoft certainly won’t want to
find itself responsible for killing brick and mortar gaming stores,
adopting the Steam digital distribution model could do wonders for
gamers. When you give your userbase an easy, efficient, and convenient
way to use your service (in this case, Xbox Live in the future) they
will use it
more. It’s essentially the same business strategy
that companies like Valve and Apple employ: once they’ve got their hooks
in you with a single product or service, you’ll find yourself wanting
to purchase additional products that work well with that particular
service. Microsoft needs to bring digital distribution to game consoles
in a big way, and although Games on Demand was a step in the right
direction, such a concept needs to be at the forefront of the entire
experience.
With the constant shift towards cloud computing, this could be a
serious selling point if purchased games were always available to the
user. No more selling used games, no more concerns of piracy, the entire
market would shift to a more profitable and convenient system that
would benefit everyone. Of course, a disc-based (or, perhaps,
flash-based) option would need to be standard as well, considering that
no matter how great your idea may be, it is impossible to immediately
convert the majority who have settled comfortably into their media
consumption lifestyle. Once you’ve hooked in buyers with the assurance
that they can still do things they used to, should they so choose, only
then do you have the ability to introduce new and markedly improved
alternatives to the former.
The Xbox 360, as it stands, is a pretty solid media consumption
device, thanks to the implementation of apps in the last few dashboard
updates. While this makes the 360 appealing as an all-in-one device, it
often fails to do any one thing exceptionally, due to how each app is
designed and worked into the framework of the dashboard itself. Netflix,
while good, feels detached from the main Xbox experience, which is a
bit jarring. Better integration of each of these media apps into the
core, basic functionality of the next Xbox will ensure that enjoying
your favorite shows or movies will feel more organic, as the new system
will hopefully be designed for such things from the ground up.
As mentioned earlier, Games on Demand was a good idea, but as we all
know, its selection is pretty awful. With the new Xbox, I should be able
to decide between going to the midnight launch of a title, and staying
at home to begin the download process at 12:01 AM. Preordering titles
through Microsoft’s Games Marketplace should become standard, as should
larger hard drives to accommodate the increase in digital content. By
building a digital alternative on console hardware, Microsoft could
actively compete with the likes of Steam and other PC clients to entice
more of the PC crowd to give console gaming a shot. Again, everyone
wins.
2.) Complete and Improved Kinect Integration
While some might argue that the Kinect is a dead platform, the
reality is that many developers just have no idea what to do with it.
Given that the device was implemented into the Xbox 360 several years
after its launch, Kinect could have been substantially better integrated
into the entire framework of the interface. Apps utilizing Kinect
features feel tacked on and forced, and the way that most triple-A
titles implement its technology appear to be mere afterthoughts to the
core experience.
This wouldn’t be such a big deal if the device hadn’t been so utterly
and wildly successful, and Kinect has loads of unrealized potential.
While the limitations of the hardware make it somewhat difficult to
deliver innovative and truly extraordinary experiences, if Microsoft
does a little forward-thinking with its next console, the Kinect could
be almost essential to the ultimate Xbox experience, much like Xbox Live
is almost a necessity to get the most out of your box.
Microsoft needs to take notes from the modding community that has
already begun to do some pretty impressive stuff with the device on
their own, and understand the possibilities of what Kinect can really
hope to accomplish as a supplementary device. To ditch motion-based
gaming at this point would likely be a misstep, and although many
hardcore gamers feel otherwise, it’s only the developers that the
industry has to blame. Kinect games, as with Wii titles, can be widely
successful if developed correctly with the technology in mind every step
of the way. If the next generation of Kinect games brings the level of
immersion and entertainment that Dance Central does, then the sensor
will enjoy a much more critical place in Xbox owners’ living rooms.
3.) Reliable, Sexy, and Future-Proofed Hardware
At this point, it’s likely that nearly every Xbox 360 gamer has
experienced it: the Red Ring of Death. When Microsoft’s earlier models
of the console weren’t RRODing, their disc trays were breaking, and when
the disc trays weren’t breaking, the graphics cards were becoming
unsoldered from the motherboard. The poor design of the launch box put
an enormous dent in the Xbox’s reputation, and soiled Microsoft’s name
for quite some time. In order to ensure that this kind of thing doesn’t
happen again, the software giant is going to need to go into great
detail about the precautionary measures and design decisions that were
made to guarantee that the next Xbox was built to last.
For a good example, examine Apple products. Even though some of the
products from the house that Jobs built tend to look like minor
upgrades, Apple sells them as revolutionary new experiences with
elegantly produced promotional content. Take one look at the new iPad’s
promo video, and you’ll be hard-pressed to believe that its predecessor
is anything more than old news. Microsoft needs to adopt a similar
approach to create a message that the Xbox 360 is basically a big piece
of garbage now, and that whatever new technology they’ve concocted in
the meantime is lightyears ahead of the 360′s now-outdated guts. Instill
some faith into the gaming public to keep early adopter rates high, or
(like most companies tend to do) end up blaming the economy for poor
sales when in reality, the public image is the problem.
Lastly, the next Xbox needs to feature a design that will not only be
future-proofed for trends on the horizon, but also sleek and sexy
enough to retain entertainment room appeal for years to come. The Xbox
360 did an okay job of this, but failed to keep possibilities open for
future tech, such as Blu-Ray and hard drive expansion, which frustrated a
lot of gamers. Whether the new Xbox uses solid state drives for memory
and flash storage rather than optical for games (which, in my opinion,
would be totally awesome) isn’t so much important as is the
ability to
do so easily without too much hassle. If Microsoft, of all people, sees
that there are technological trends that are up and coming, there
should be tech built into the new Xbox that can accommodate that if need
be.
So, what do you think? Does the next Xbox have potential to wow you
with these features? Or is something missing from the equation?
