I think the 360 has another 3-4 years in it's life so they don't need to make plans now.

I doubt that there isn't any plans for a future successor...companies are constantly looking forward and planning ahead. This current generation of consoles though seems to have marked a change from the usual 5 year hardware refresh cycle from before so I think that the gap's between console launches while just keep getting longer. :\

I can't be the only person thinking that this just means they're gonna reveal a new XBox at E3 2011.

Seconded.

i don't think microsoft would be throwing out another console shortly after the release of the kinect+slim, i'm in agreement with robby, probably not for another 4-5 years till we see the next xbox console.

They don't have a need to. Everything in the industry can currently be supported by the 360, and the 360 does it well.

There is no way another console will be announced at E3 next year, you guys are on crack who think so.

The reason why everything can be supported by the current consoles is because they're being limited by the current consoles.

The sooner we see another set the better it'll be.

You never know. Life works in mysterious ways, specially in the game industry. Of course it's a silly guess, but who knows? One thing I'm sure of though, MS will be launching their new platform before Sony.

i still think it won't be for several years, releasing a console less than a year after the slim/kinnect come out, this isn't nintendo=-)

One of the reasons I think they're waiting is for the mass adoption of DX11 tech and reduction in size. When they get something akin to an i7+GTX580 setup in a reasonable size and for cheap, then we'll see the next wave of consoles. PC's usually have been the first with innovations in regards to hardware.

Good point. i7s are already getting somewhat affordable and with the new cards the old DX11 compatible ones will drop soon too.

Actually now that I think about it, I couldn't care less when the next gen comes. As long as the games that come out are good I don't give a damn... I think graphics are becoming way too important and gameplay is becoming less important.

New advancements in technology (not just graphics) helps fuel bigger and better game engines though. The Gamebyro engine or cryengine certainly wouldn't have been possible on an old i486 CPU :P

That's one way to look at it.

But no matter how you slice it, the games I always end up coming back to are games from the PSOne and earlier because back then, they were just awesome and by today's standards games like Chrono Cross, Neverwinter Nights, Chrono Trigger and Secrect of Mana are still better than more than half the crap that copmes out nowadays.

I've never been able to hop onto older games with the same value someone who actually played through that generation has. While I do like some older games, it seems like nostalgia has a large part to do with it.

Regardless of what MS says, I think that they will just wait for Sony to give a release date for their PS4 then I think MS will jump right on it, just to get their next gen console released first.

YBox anyone? :p

Why do you think that? MS has pretty much shat all over Sony with this generation's home consoles in terms of unit sales and game sales.

Well, they purposely rushed the release of the 360s just to try & get the sales ahead of time before Sony released the 3s, so why not do it again, put the fact that they killed Sony in terms of sales to the side just to focus on the companies themselves, as far as I'm concerned MS doesn't have to worry about Nintendo, I think Sony is their best competition as far as "gaming wars" goes, I can't put-down Nintendo, I just don't care for Nintendo but I could say the same for Sony, I'm more of an XBox fan but I can also so say the company themselves, in my opinion, don't care for their customers just the "almighty green" as to say, they didn't bother trying to eliminate the RRoD just to, as stated above, get their sales before Sony, this is just my opinion, some may feel otherwise.

What?

Better engines do not mean better game play qualities though.

All an engine really means is a bigger working area for better aesthetics - non of that depict the true "fun" factor in games. Making an egine that allows a game to have physics like in the real world doesnt mean shit if the game isnt fun.

*cough*GTA4*cough*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Drp9o4E7G7U

Well... everyone loves GTA cheats :)

GTA Ballad of Gay Tony was absolutely amazing Josey.

Call me out for it but San Andreas was one of my favorite games ever

San Andreas was the shit.

I must be one of the few that didn't like San Andreas.

Out of the ps2 era GTA games, my favourite was 3.

Sure 3 lead the way for the genre but I feel like it was just the first stepping stone for better versions.