I thought it was the ps3 that was talking about a ten year lifespan. get your facts straight before you commence to the bashing....

Microsoft said the 360 Is now on a ten year cycle too after project natal came out at e3

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What does it matter that the DVD is starting to age and capacity is becoming an issue. Are you blind to what Microsoft have been doing recently? Have you not noticed how much they have been pushing online downloads of games? Especially with their E3 announcement of releasing full games for download on the Xbox Live Marketplace!
Can you not see that they are slowly but surely moving towards releasing new releases to the Marketplace?
It's pretty clear that that is what they are doing don't you think?
Just imagine how well Microsoft would do with this service. Especially if they were to take a few leaves from Steam's books.
If games were to be pre-loaded to the console, ready to be played instantly on the day of release?!
Maybe we'll even save a bit of money seeing as there will be no packaging and discs being used. And if Steam is anything to go by, just imaging how popular this service will become if Microsoft were to do it!

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PS3 Homer....The facts are straight! Shane Kim, after the Natal reveal, stated the life cycle for the Xbox will surpass 2015.

This need for people to try to force blu-ray is sad. These people act as if hard drive prices won't come down. As we get to the point where even twenty-five percent of the games require more than one DVD, the ability to make an HD available will become less of a problem too. Blu-ray was not needed. No matter how much Sony claims or feeble minded are will to believe. The are few games that need that much space four years in. You still need only one hand to count them.

It was Sony that pushed the 10 year lifespan, recently MS have talked of a long lifespan for the 360 but something that websites fail to take into account is that first of all Sony's 10 year plan has more to do with promoting the idea that they have a tortoise & hare strategy as a cover story for the fact that they no longer dominate the console market.
Secondly when the 10 year plan is mentioned it doesn't specify whether that includes the overlap of a new Sony console while the PS3 is still in production, as seen with the PS2 right now.
The Xbox 360 arcade is a cheap option for casual & unconnected gamers, it's unlikely that anybody with the arcade model would lose too much sleep over any possible limitations, HOWEVER they do have the option of purchasing a hard drive should their circumstances change.
Grand Turismo 2 came out on 2 discs for the PS1 as did some other memory intensive games, anybody that lived before the invention of DVD will know that multi-disc games have never been a problem, infact it's even less of a problem now as the production costs of multiple DVDs are still less than the cost of a single Blu-ray disc & no consoles had the hard drive option pre Xbox1.

@Dala

"Shane Kim stated: “We firmly believe that the Xbox 360 has a life cycle through 2015"

Again this does not mean 2015 will be when they release the next Xbox, the PS2's "life cycle" is at 9 years right now as it is still in production.
Even if Sony or MS were to indicate the year that for their next consoles release this far ahead it could not be trusted, BOTH companies will launch console at the time they consider right with many factors taken into consideration than can not be acurately predicted far in advance.
Talk of "life cycles" are PR based and not binding, market forces, reaction to competitors & R&D progress are some of the factors that will set the launch dates for new hardware, we can speculate all we want but the timing has not been set in stone no matter what you read.

Wow, I see a lot of Xbots trying to protect its own choice. Chill out will ya?! AS much as I like to download things from the net (my 10MB/s connection is always on...pricey but its good!!!) comon people likes to have a hard proof of its bough item. And thanks to MS poor desing, that makes you buy a MS made harddrive for the X360, that its way too pricey to care about, Arcade buyers are f**** in the download content area. So, being as pricey as a PS23 in the end of the day makes you take a better perspective on things. So......hate the game not the player???

DVD is obviously limiting the Xbox 360. Complaints cropped up in the past and this is what it has come to. Basically it goes to show that Microsoft boasting that DVD was more than enough space for games is simply wrong. And the digital distribution model will only be accessible to a minority of people. Microsoft is thoroughly limiting the accessibility for the majority of people who will not want to waste the limited bandwidth offered by internet providers, nor have the hassle of buying the 360's overpriced propritery HDDs. Multiplatform developers will also not want to make multi-disc games for 360 because there is a royalty fee they have to pay Microsoft if they go over a certain amount of discs...

The PS3 has HDDs on every unit. They are upgradable with off the shelf HDDs that can be found larger and much cheaper than the 360's, and Sony's model distributes digitally and physically, and blu-ray is far more mass marketable than digital rentals will ever be in this decade. Sony is far more forward thinking than Microsoft. The 360 is holding multiplatform games back...

MGS: Rising will be nothing like MGS4, it'll be much more smaller in scale. A proper MGS5 will not happen for quite some time and it'll likely again be exclusive to PS3. Also Rockstar North's Agent is one of their exclusive deals with Sony because they wanted an opportunity to make a game that took advantage of blu-ray. Even Sony's exclusive games are moving far ahead in visuals, scale and content. This is clearly demonstratable...

Who cares about storage..
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"who cares"

Well it seems that Johnno really cares because he spent all that money on a PS3 but has no friends to play with because they're all on Xbox Live.
But seriously, Xbox gamers have no complaints about the games, it's only fanboys who want it to be an issue because it makes them feel better about they're purchase and they want to be on the "winning side".
I can't think of anything more pathetic than supporting your favorite brand console as though it were a football team.
They are just items of electrical entertainment kids, get a life and find something more important to argue about!

You can't really go on about how blu-ray is better because it stores more when you realise that it is horribly slow at random seeking. This is why despite all the content it can store you still have to do mini-installs when playing MGS4 and why resistance had so much duplicated data filling the disk because it was faster to block a whole levels data together.

All that the 360 is getting caught out on is not having a hard drive as standard. DVD was needed because otherwise game load times would be cripplingly slow.

But considering the hardships they had with having an expensive hard drive in the first xbox and the PS3's inability to drop in price pretty much proving that would be the case again, it was the right compromise. It's not great, but it was a decision that had to be made.

Microsoft would be better served into focusing on getting bigger, cheaper storage to be plugged in and loosening the rules about games needing to be runnable just from the DVD.

Hey Dan,
Read your first and last paragraph and reconsider what you just typed. ;P

Hang on a sec. Think about MGS4. How many frickin installs did you have to do to play the game?

That was the ONLY thing i hated about MGS4. Even though these discs are (according to sony fanboys) better for gaming than the DVDs, I would MUCH PREFER, to swap a disc over within 10 seconds and continue playing the game, than wait 10 MINUTES to install another part.

I think most people would agree with me on that.

And just to clarify, I own a PS3, a 360, and a Wii becasue i simply want to play the games i love, and am not a fanboy for any system. Also, i am not saying any particular system is better here. I'm simply a realist and can see what's right in front of my eyes. We're discussing the digital media format here, and not what console is better.

Would one person who thinks Blu-ray was needed name 10 games on the 360 that needed Blu-ray. Not games Sony claims needed it(MGS,Heavenly Sword). But games that actually needed more than one disc.

when did develop turn into gamespot system wars?

Ok the.
Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Infinite Undiscovery, Star Ocean: The Last Hope, and The Last Remnant, thats five that are out t moment of the top of me head, forza 3 and final fantasy 13 will definitely be multi discs. I think the trend shows thatRPGfans come out the worst in multidisc 360 games, granted itsprobably a lot of fmv, but if the FMV is part of the story and its part of the game it doesn't matter if you think its a waste of space its still what the the developer had in mind for the game.

But RPGs can be organised over multiple discs. It's not like you're switching discs all the time, just when you get to a certain stage.

I'm quite grateful for this because it means I can install just one disc at a time so I don't fill my hard drive up.

So far, just Forza and Rage. But even id said multiple discs are fine, it just costs them extra in licencing to go over a certain amount so they did some compression instead. MS should definitely be loosening that rule too.

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Okay. I have two things to say. First of all, this whole external Blu-ray drive stuff is stupid anyways. At least for gaming. You will not EVER be able to use an external drive for playing your games because the connection speed would never match up to the drive speed unless Microsoft spends a huge amount of money on their own type of connection. You need faster read speeds for games, unless Microsoft wants longer loading times, they won't do it.

My next thing I have to say is that no matter how you look at it, downloading or streaming 1080p movies will still not be the same as having the actual Blu-ray disc. They MAY be able to get it to look very close to the disc version, but you will NEVER have uncompressed 7.1 surround sound. Something will always be compressed. I cannot believe that nobody ever cares about sound. It's always about the visual quality. There's a lot more to a movie than just video.

The 360 was not built for the future. Its an upgraded Xbox. The temporary success Microsoft has experienced will last long. There are more games on PS3 that showcase the need for bluray for games. Games such as: FF13(360 to use 4 discs), LittleBig Planet(40 gig game and barely any load times) Resistance (17 gigs). Multi-Plats are coming out better on PS3 these days anyway. Wake up X-Bots, its time to play b3yond.......

So some games have to come on more than one disc, what's the big deal? Every disc/disk based system since the dawn of the floppy had had multiple disc/disk games at some point. Only unbelievably lazy people would have any issue with swapping discs. I'm probably one of the laziest people on the planet, and even I don't have an issue with it. Anyone who does must be really pathetically lazy.

To be honest, I like games coming on multiple discs, I bought Blue Dragon day one because of it being on 4 discs.. It just feels more value for money there.. If Microsoft were bothered though, they should have enabled the HD-DVD to read the second disc of a game...

"There are more games on PS3 that showcase the need for bluray for games. Games such as: FF13(360 to use 4 discs), LittleBig Planet(40 gig game and barely any load times) Resistance (17 gig"

Not to challenge this, but don't a lot of games on Blu-Ray physically need to be cached to the HDD? 'a la Metal Gear.....

IF your web sight is so tech driven you should dig up the truth behind the real rumor that Microsoft and Toshiba have had major advancements in the Dvd 2.0 profile, and with compression are now getting 30gig to disk, "yes" a new Dvd that works in all xbox360 Dvd drives, Forza 3 was meant to use this disk but there is still some testing to do but who knows what the future brings

I find that difficult to believe that Forza 3 really has more than 9GB of game assets. I bet this has something to do with in-game audio. Basically, there's enough room on one disc for all the game assets, but they can't fit the cutscenes and more importantly in-game high-quality "radio station" audio on the disc.
It's likely that arcade owners will have the game, but not the music/"radio stations" and maybe some cutscenes.

Hey Lumtaru,
Read my second paragraph that started with "But seriously" and reconsider what YOU just typed. ;P

If you wanna be a smartass without looking stupid it pays to read comments properly.

The problem is there like in case on Forza, but there is a very simple solution just give us all cheap and larger HDD. Guys all PC gamers store their games on PC they dont cry why since they have cheap HDD.
I would suggest tha MS should start giving 500 Gb, 250 GB and 160 GB HDD and there prices should be affordable, I myself have bought portable 250 Gb HDD for PC but Xbox HDD (120 GB) Is too costly it jsut not afforadable. Plus 120 Gb is still not enough.
Ms should give us a choice and this problem would be no more.

Guys, get over it.

Microsoft will never pay the BDA a dime in royalties.

With big hard drives so cheap you can expect a new big Xbox dive to come sooner rather than later (especially as we are now to see full game downloads on XBL).
The 120gb drive is already too small.

Multiple cheap, reliable DVD9s are fine by me - and anyone who bought the lowest spec version of Xbox cannot expect to always get the full spec experience.
It's as simple as that.

The surprise for me is that this has only happened once, so far.
3.5yrs in that's not bad at all - and with the enormous total number of all the rest of the Xbox games that work perfectly well with the Xbox Arcade catalogue this means nobody can seriously & honestly claim Arcade owners are being short-changed.

(It's not just an Xbox thing either, 20gb PS3 owners that still have a 20gb hard drive installed may one day find themselves having problems with bigger and bigger Blu-ray games that install to the hard drive)

Besides, the Xbox 20gb & 60gb hard drives are hardly bank-breakers now if this bothers you.

Personally I already have a quality stand-alone Blu-ray device (far superior to the PS3 - it's multi-region for everything and bitstreams HD audio properly).
I honestly don't want any money I put into a game console wasted on a cheap BD drive.
With digital distribution and (far far) cheaper hard drives it's really just not needed for gaming.

Xbox is gonna start dying. Heres why. Digital downloads of games which looks like the way MS will have to go to keep up with the almighty PS3 - and that is a problem!!

why you say?
1. it take up space on the HDD
2. once downloaded - thats it - you cant trade it, sell it etc
3. you cant beat going out and buying a game with that new game smell and ya booklet and the cover graphics - you just cant.
4. yeah - pack ten games into a box if you want ms - what about the chavs that have arcade models and no space to install games?

MS - as always are arrogant and presume everything will go their way as they just throw money at it.

I for one know which way this will go - people are learning that sony have true vision and are offering a balance console - which is miles ahead of the 360.

money says ms bring out a *** add on drive for the ***sixty once they realise this.

PS3 again showing ms how its done - RROD anyone? lol

"Why you say?"

I bet no one did. We've had this discussion.

FanboyLOL

Well I just can;t believe we are still having the same age old debate whent his thread started about the 360's DVD format.

Fanboys on both consoles do my head in !! Lets just get real and stop the mines bigger than yours attitude !!!

I own both and have no reason for any favoritism to either console but due to simple things like proper working voice chat, quick updates and downloads (the PS3 takes an absolute age to do a system update or download large games) etc the 360 gets used all the time for gaming while the PS3 sits and gathers dust. END OF

I do however agree and Microsoft need to admit they lost the war with regards to disk format and start looking at a way around this although now highly improbable the introduction of a blueray installed drive version is the obvious answer but who knows whats on the horizon. Digital distribution of games for consoles is still in its infancy and is a long way off replacing physical media. Blue ray definatly won the war against HD-DVD but with the silly price still of blue rays and the blank media etc they are also a long way off replacing DVD as a format.

New compression technology has been developed for Xbox 360 by Allegorithmic, it's called procedural textures and allows developers to shrink data up to 70%. While it doesn't solve the problem completely it gives developers a huge boost.

The technology is also on development for PS3, it's said it will allow incredible effects such as animated textures and it's part of what Sony calls 4D, a term used for ultra realistic graphics.

I strongly disagree when people say only a few games require multiple discs, actually many developers have to make cut's on games and limit their ambitions because everything they have is a 9 GB DVD.

As we know Xbox 360 enjoys better support from industry simply because they have better sales than Sony, as result most projects consider 360 the real lead platform. In other words Sony's powerful Cell and huge space that blu-ray provides are not pushing Microsoft in any way. The ones who are really pushing Microsoft are developers who will tell you games will always require more space.

Super Nintendo/ Genesis Cartridges, Psone/Saturn CD, PS2/Xbox DVD, PS3 Blu-ray.

So to complain about Xbox 360 DVD 9 limitations is not crazy, it's just natural, remember N64 vs Psone? Storage space does matter.

Can't you just install multi disk games on on HD therefore getting rid of swapping disks around?.