Xbox pull confirmed at retail and by publishers

Will the next Xbox be backwards-compatible? That's all I need to know.

I hate the idea of wanting to buy the successor because of what I think Micro$oft's plans are for it in the long run, but I hate the idea even more of the games I like on the current machine going to waste if it dies on me, unable to buy a replacement.

many rumours have suggested that the xbox360 wont be backward compatible, but even nintendo are going down that route now, so it would be strange if microsoft didn't do it (especially if they are canning the original xbox).

seems an odd strategy, cutting off the supply of the old generation of console, while sony keep churning out psOnes as the PS2 carries on outselling them all. Micro$oft ought to be able to produce the hardware more cheaply now, and releasing it in a smaller (psTwo style) case wouldn't have been a bad move.

This Site likes to Lie doesn't it?

The next XBOX hasn't even been made PUBLIC YET!

having been hanging around spong for damn near a year now i can safley say they do not lie. The fact that they might have information regarding something you dont know about certainly doesnt discredit them in any way and historically (for the past year or so) they have been suprisingly acurate.

although they are biased against everything that isnt sony.. WHERE"S THE OUTRAGE ABOUT SONY'S DEAD PIXEL POLICY, YOU BASTARDS?!??! :D

p.s. MichiyoYoshiku is a lip dripping, nose runing, chest beating, george bush looking, sun of a hamster!

there, that aughta start some posting!
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I still Call BS on all their XBOX news

I feel sorry for microsoft, they will never beat sony. They are coming out with xbox 2 or whatever they call it too soon. Sony is sitting playing their cards and waiting for microsoft to show their hand first. Sony will stomp microsoft to the ground and no more microsoft consoles. Come on people microsoft is throwing in the towel already even though they have the most powerful console. Ps2 is inferior to xbox and gamecube but they are on top because they have the best games, that's what counts to us gamers. Sony has a huge library of games from ps1 to ps2 and now with ps3 being backwards compatible it's a done deal.

I beg to differ. SPOnG's story along with the news last week from MCV (which is about as reliable as is gets) definitely indicates that Microsoft is clearing the decks for Xbox 2.

Just look at the whole situation; in Europe alone MS is aiming to get a million Xbox 2 units ready for Christmas. This means the units will be in stores in October, November at the very latest.

Microsoft is going to need every bit of production resource to avoid an embarrassing shortage for Xbox 2, such as that suffered by PS2 and latterly the PSP. Why waste the production effort on Xbox?

What makes you say that? This site NEVER lies.

We f**k up occasionally... but to err is human, to forgive is divine. To walk around calling people liars is just s**tty and pathetic!

I feel sorry for Sony; all those sales and no respect from the old guard of gaming.

They're not throwing in the towel, merely halting production on the current machine to allow for faster production of the new machine- an idea Sony should take to heart, with their terrible record for getting enough units to market for launch.

I got rid of my PS2 a year ago, and have yet to find a reason to regret it. Not a single game has come out for PS2 in that year that makes me miss my machine. Fantastic catalogue my arse; there's only been about 8 titles on both platforms released so far i'd consider essential to play, and some of them are playable on other machines. If the catalogue of games is so great, how come the only game on these supposedly fantastic machines to get a 10/10 is Gran Turismo? The GTA games are overrated, the Final Fantasy series has lost its spark, and it is still to produce a decent face for the company!

Microsoft don't really care how many houses have a playstation in; by making their machine affordable, they can get theirs in the same houses. Plus, it's Microsoft. You think they really care? It's just another market to have a hand in to them.

As for PS3... Sony must really hate its developers to keep making their job harder like they do. It's almost as if they're trying to drive smaller companies out of business with their ridiculously complicated architectures. Cell's worse than Emotion Engine, and that's saying something. Why do you think so many small companies with famous staff have signed to Xenon exclusively? Could it be that simplicity of programming, with easy emulation using modified Macs allowing for better testing?

Sony love being late to the party; this time, with their two rivals already talking some impressive talk (and those leaked EA pictures that are supposedly Xenon quality) they may wish to consider joining the fight from fresh.

You sure about that? The Emotion Engine is probably the most loathed processor in gaming.

Cell is still based on PowerPC technology, with the Cell being a software layer. The base technology is very well supported. Sony have promised to produce extensive libraries for the PS3 and give software developers some support.

There are two factors that make the xbox expensive for M$ to produce. The HDD and the GPU as they signed a fixed price licence deal with nVidia and nVidia are now making the chip cheaper but M$ are still paying the same price per chip even though they have lowered the price of the xbox. nVidia are making a mint :)

The nVidia chip is also the problem with the backward compatibility with the xbox as they do not want to give technical details about how the chip works to M$ or ATI.

With regard to how hard the PS3 is going to be to program for.... very, IMO. As the programmer/compiler has to handle the parallelism that is inherent in the chip and any new piece of kit always takes a while to get used to using.

Also an interesting point made by EDGE in this months issue is the fact that Sony have not confirmed how many CELL processors will be inside the PS3... if there are multiple CELL processors it would be a nightmare to all but geniuses to program for, coding for a parallel chip that is running in parallel, debugging that s**t could fry your brain!

I'm with the Doc on this one. Every site like every human on the planet is capable of getting things wrong sometimes even Spong but I personally have been here for about 10 months or so and they have made hardly any errors.

It's just a case of the pot calling the kettle black when they are really the same colour.

Michiyo, just do what I do sometimes, take all information with a pinch of salt. If any news is wrong Spong will do their best to correct it a.s.a.p. I do find it really interesting how some folk point out the negative side with this site and when Spong do bag a big scoop first no credit is given. (Other sites sometimes are even guilty of this)

As for Xbox production stopping I think it's a shame but seems MS are trying to cut their losses with Xbox. Problem with this though is that I personally don't have an Xbox and I'm now confused whether to bother buying one. And with DS, PSP etc that decision is made harder.

Sony and promises... two words that don't go together.

Remember they promised the PS2 would be 'just like jacking into the Matrix'?

I live just down the road from one of the Sony studio's with PS3 kits and well. They are a very good studio technically, but even they are struggling to get their heads round how its gonna work and apparently the software library is useless because they don't understand how it would work with it.

As for who will have the last laugh. Microsoft will. Why? Because I would have honestly thought that after the way Nvidia acted with Microsoft no console manufacturer would have gone near them... oh well 5 years of losses for Sony then.

You know, I see this and the "Toy Story in real time" quote loads, but I never see any links to interviews to back them up.


Given that IBM have already ported Linux to the Cell, they must have a compiler that works for the Cell architecture. It's a quick step to produce libraries that will handle most of the scheduling for the developers. Maybe these libraries aren't in the hands of developers like your friends yet?

I'm sure Sony will learn from last time and make sure the PS3 is easier to program for than PS2. If not, IBM and Toshiba may slap their hands for tarnishing the image of the Cell.


Microsoft?

They got into a bad deal with NVIDIA and got shafted! They've lost backwards compatibility due to that deal and their falling out with NVIDIA. They haven't made a single dollar from their Home Entertainment division yet. They've had to stop production on XBox to try and drum up support for XBox360.

I don't think they are in any position to laugh at the moment.

Didn't Game Studios make a profit last quarter?

I can't see the PS3 being that hard to develop for. The volume of games on the PS has always been one of it's attractions, and Sony will want to maxise that. It won't take Sony long to knock up excellent development kits for Cell, considering that it's based on exiting technology and that IBM has already developed compilers etc for the processor. Also, remember that more and more games are middleware based.

If anything Microsoft trying to force developers to use a Microsoft-only XNA will cause problems. Developers want multiplatform titles that will work on all systems, no those using an Xbox/Windows PC-specific backbone.

Sony have a lot more power over nVidia than Microsoft. They've shifted over double the number of PS2s than Xboxes, and can afford to bargain.

The key to the next generation will be market share. Getting a large enough share and forcing others out so that developers will support your system. I can't see Sony and M$ having problems; it's Nintendo I'm worried about.