"We're barely into the Xbox 360's third year, and already titles are supposedly slipping into the "Next-next-gen"?"

I believe it would be safe to assume that anybody who regularly reads this site (or just about any other) knows full and well that the Xbox 360 kicked the PlayStation 3 around the playground last year. Naturally, it just makes sense. Sony's dynasty was untouchable last generation, so Microsoft decided that a year-long head start against the competition would level the playing field and force Sony to release their new console—possibly before it was ready. The PS2's one year jump on the opposition did a lot to secure that six year lead. Xbox and GameCube didn't have a chance. The PS2 secured the early adopting chunks of the core gamer market and the lion's share of the third party developers in the first year, and then captured the casual market after a price drop the next year while the other two guys were launching their new machines at full price.

Microsoft had reasons to kill the original Xbox when they did. After Halo 2 and the largest media hype storm of any video game in history, the Xbox had more or less peaked. There was nothing left to say or do that could meet that level of commercial insanity. Also, the machine was poorly built from a production standpoint. The Xbox was made mostly from off-the-shelf PC parts rather than a strict proprietary design. This made cost-cutting difficult and kept Microsoft from cutting a profit from hardware sales. Microsoft wanted a chance to do it right, and with the Xbox 360 (as of fall 2007) they finally turned a small profit. The Xbox was Microsoft's time to learn on the job, so obviously they wanted a chance to start over and play the game right once they knew what they were doing. Gamers appeared willing to let them off the hook that time, so life moved on without much being said about the early death and wasted potential of the first Xbox. Now that Microsoft knows what they are doing and are making money with the 360, you would assume the 360 has a nice long shelf life ahead of it, right? Don't blindly assume that Microsoft intends to follow the old unwritten rule of a 5-6 year hardware lifecycle now that they are industry streetwise.

By the time of the original Xbox's third year, rumors began flying around that Microsoft and some of their software partners were already canceling planned releases and moving them into development for the machine's successor (the Xbox 360). Remember Rare's Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero? Both of those were planned (and nearly completed) Xbox games that got the boot to next-gen because they made quick and easy launch titles. They paid the price graphically as well. It took a good nine months or so before the public started to actually see some next-gen games that truly reflected the worth of the $400 console.


Perfect Dark Zero was one of several Xbox games canceled for the rushed release of the Xbox 360. What 360 games are being canceled now for its potentially rushed successor?
Well, now it's apparently starting to happen once again. Just as we have barely stepped into 2008, EGM's usually reliable Rumor Mill section is making mention that, "a secret unannounced first-party sequel originally planned for the Xbox 360, is now going over to the next Xbox". Though the most high profile, EGM isn't the only media outlet to have heard and reported this rumor. It's becoming common knowledge throughout the gaming media. We're barely into the Xbox 360's third year, and already titles are supposedly slipping into the "Next-next-gen"? The media has barely begun to stop actually using that "next-gen" buzzword term to describe our current machines (a couple of which just celebrated their "first" anniversary), and already Microsoft is possibly gearing up to drag the term right back out of the closet before the dust even has time to settle? How can this be?

"The 360 is just not as future proof as the competition because of Microsoft's flawed decision to shotgun a launch to beat the PS3 to market. Microsoft knows this, yet they again appear to favor discarding their hand rather than play the game out."

Microsoft (and their user base) is still paying the price for the last preemptive console launch. The hardware was not ready for the market. It had not been fully stress tested and the nearly 40% (and climbing) failure rate proves this. Several high-profile launch titles had to be fabricated (eg: stolen from the previous console or the PC) to have anything worth launching because true next-gen products were not plentiful enough to stand on their own. The 360 is also not nearly as future-proof as its most comparable rival—the PS3. The PS3 is more powerful, has more features, produces less heat, is more reliable, and took a gamble on a next-gen video format that has apparently paid off with the imminent death of HD-DVD. Sure, Microsoft had all the right cards while the PS3 fiddled, but Sony made a big dent in that lead during the Christmas '07 shopping season as the alternative to people who couldn't find a Wii. That momentum has been building since with the price drops, and is sure to pick up speed with such a stellar 2008 lineup.

Let's not forget that Microsoft was reportedly gearing up to release a 360 redesign finally incorporating an HD-DVD drive. If HD-DVD had been included with the Xbox 360 from day one, there is a chance that the next-gen video format was may have turned out differently. There's also a chance game developers wouldn't feel cheated by the lack of a next-gen storage medium compared to PS3's Blu-ray. Sadly, Microsoft was two years too late in making that commitment. The 360 is just not as future proof as the competition because of Microsoft's flawed decision to shotgun a launch to beat the PS3 to market. Microsoft knows this, yet they again appear to favor discarding their hand rather than playing the game out.

The market suffered greatly from the last early transition. Sure, Microsoft and Nintendo may already have been ready to pull the trigger. Nintendo was faced with a console (GameCube) that was a dead horse at market that, while still profitable (thanks to great hardware engineering), had no future in sight. Microsoft had a machine that, although still doing well at market, was unable to crack a profit due to poor hardware engineering. Both were ready to start anew, but Sony wasn't. The PS2's continued mass-market success (and forthcoming boost thanks to an upcoming redesign) proves that there was much money left to be made, and games left to be played. It hurt the gamer to have to invest in a new console sooner than they should have, and it hurt Sony when they felt forced into a new platform iteration before they were ready. Let's also not forget the third parties that folded or merged to protect themselves from the sudden jump in game development budgets.