Speaker 1: Brought to you by the two thousand twelve Toyota Camry.
Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot Coming. Hello again, everyone, and welcome to
Speaker 1: tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and I'm an
Speaker 1: editor of how stuff Works dot Com. Sitting across from
Speaker 1: me as usual as senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey there,
Speaker 1: Well you know what, Chris, Um, we're getting towards the
Speaker 1: end of two thousand twelve as we record this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, we usually do our predictions towards the end
Speaker 1: of the year, and I just want to say that
Speaker 1: I I predicted a couple of years ago that we
Speaker 1: would be talking about these podcasts unsuccessfully, well not not
Speaker 1: these podcasts, but the the the topic that we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about today, and they still haven't. Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: talking about the next generation consoles now. Now, to be fair,
Speaker 1: one of them has come out, the Wei You Nintendo's
Speaker 1: next generation console. Yes, but I'm I'm I'm so far
Speaker 1: behind in points on this one now I just kind
Speaker 1: of game up on it. Yeah. It's sad because if
Speaker 1: if you had predicted this for next year, you probably
Speaker 1: would have actually won. But um, but yeah, here's here's
Speaker 1: the deal, folks. We are going to do a rundown
Speaker 1: on the next generation consoles, video game consoles. Now, that's
Speaker 1: gonna include the WEIU, which of course is already out,
Speaker 1: so people out there, so of our listeners may have
Speaker 1: one already. I've been playing it and may know all
Speaker 1: about it. But then we're also going to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about the rumors of the next generation for
Speaker 1: Microsoft and Sony's video game consoles. Yes, keeping in mind
Speaker 1: that there are other video game consoles that are also
Speaker 1: due to hit store shelves in the near future. Some
Speaker 1: of them are kickstarter campaigns, and we didn't really go
Speaker 1: into those. Um, those may become major players in two
Speaker 1: thousand thirteen, but we're looking at the ones that are
Speaker 1: the established consoles yep, yep. And of course you know
Speaker 1: Saga's new con Okay, so that's that's a hip. But still,
Speaker 1: so let's start with the WU Yes, the only one
Speaker 1: that's actually out at this point, and as of the
Speaker 1: point and we're recording this, it's uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: end of November. It's only been out for a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks on store shelves here in America. Yep, and uh,
Speaker 1: it's the first console from Nintendo that actually is a
Speaker 1: high definition consoles. One of those things that that Nintendo
Speaker 1: took a lot of flak four when they introduced the Wei,
Speaker 1: because you know, going up against the Xbox three six
Speaker 1: and the p S three graphics wise, it just couldn't
Speaker 1: hold a candle to those systems. Now, Nintendo's argument was
Speaker 1: that graphics are great, but gameplay is king, and so
Speaker 1: they were really backing this idea that because that we
Speaker 1: use these these motion sets are controls and and and
Speaker 1: this new form of gameplay, that it would do well
Speaker 1: in the market, and in fact that we did very well.
Speaker 1: It dominated in the market for quite some time, but
Speaker 1: it also suffered from a reputation. There were that people
Speaker 1: would say they would buy one, they play it for
Speaker 1: a little aisle, and then they kind of set aside
Speaker 1: and it would collect dust like it just it was
Speaker 1: a console that that just didn't get a lot of
Speaker 1: use after the first few months. Even after things like
Speaker 1: that we Fit balance board came out that gave new
Speaker 1: life to the console for quite some time. But then
Speaker 1: again people just kind of from Most of this is
Speaker 1: mostly anecdotal, but you know, you hear the same story
Speaker 1: over and over again, like, yeah, you know, I haven't
Speaker 1: haven't touched in in in a year or whatever. Well,
Speaker 1: of course, uh you know, it goes without saying, really
Speaker 1: that the video games have come such a long distance
Speaker 1: from the days of early paddle and uh you know,
Speaker 1: single button joystick controllers. Um, since it goes without saying,
Speaker 1: I probably shouldn't have said it, but um yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean they did. It's funny because they the current generation
Speaker 1: of game consoles has really sort of defined, uh you know,
Speaker 1: a brand new realm of these devices, because um, you know,
Speaker 1: they're all right in a way. I think that Sony
Speaker 1: and Microsoft decided that they wanted to put graphics before um,
Speaker 1: you know, new kinds of controllers. Nintendo did it the
Speaker 1: other way around. But as it turns out, both graphics
Speaker 1: and gameplay are of crucial importance, and and you see
Speaker 1: that in the in the current generation. It's just that
Speaker 1: they decided to adopt them in different in different patterns well,
Speaker 1: and Nintendo also was known for aiming at a broad
Speaker 1: consumer market. The casual gamers are often the term that
Speaker 1: we use for them, although we've done an entire episode
Speaker 1: where we kind of talked about the the fact that
Speaker 1: these names are really not entirely accurate. But but the
Speaker 1: idea of people who don't normally play video games, uh,
Speaker 1: if you make them, if you make the games accessible,
Speaker 1: then a lot of those folks will start to play.
Speaker 1: And you know, again that was true. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of people who are buying these these devices up
Speaker 1: who wouldn't normally have a video game console. But uh,
Speaker 1: the one of the downfalls of casual gaming is that
Speaker 1: you have a limited amount of interest usually in those
Speaker 1: sort of games like they you can you can lose
Speaker 1: interest in those games fairly quickly, and if you don't
Speaker 1: have a steady stream of them, then that's a problem. Well,
Speaker 1: so the Wi you is is the successor to the
Speaker 1: Wei uh and um it has a new controller or
Speaker 1: there's one new controller you can hook up to a console,
Speaker 1: and then further down the line, they're supposed to be
Speaker 1: support for two of them. But the game pad, now,
Speaker 1: this is the thing that you may have seen. It
Speaker 1: looks like a tablet. It's got video game controls on it,
Speaker 1: It's got a display inside of it. It's a touch
Speaker 1: screen displays resistive touch screen, which means that you use
Speaker 1: pressure to activate the touch It's not capacitance, so you
Speaker 1: can use the stylus or really you can use anything.
Speaker 1: Anything that could create pressure against the screen will will
Speaker 1: register it as a touch. There are some downsides to
Speaker 1: resistive touch screens, one of them being that if you're
Speaker 1: particularly rough with it because of you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: using pressure to detect that touch, it can lose sensitivity
Speaker 1: over time because you can actually damage the components inside
Speaker 1: the screen. Yeah. The UM. This sort of goes along
Speaker 1: in a way with Nintendo's earlier moves on the original
Speaker 1: we because, um, the Nintendo sort of kept the device affordable.
Speaker 1: If you'll remember, UH, the early Xbox three sixty and
Speaker 1: PlayStation three consoles were very expensive, uh compared to the
Speaker 1: previous generation, and we started out at around two dollars
Speaker 1: in the United States, and it was Nintendo was able
Speaker 1: to do this by by using off the shelf components. UM.
Speaker 1: And in this case, a resistive uh touch screen, is
Speaker 1: is more affordable when you're building a device like this
Speaker 1: and a touch screen capacitive touch screen, I'm sorry, well,
Speaker 1: and also I mean using the stylist is this is
Speaker 1: again something that Nintendo has done before, and it kind
Speaker 1: of helps keep that that experience stable throughout its its products.
Speaker 1: Not when I say before I'm talking about things like
Speaker 1: the DS. H. Well, it kind of turns this device
Speaker 1: kind of turns your TV into a version of the
Speaker 1: DS because you know, you have the two separate screens,
Speaker 1: one of which is a touch screen, so it's it's
Speaker 1: sort of similar in that in that regards. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a six point two inch display inside this game pad.
Speaker 1: It's got sixteen by nine aspect ratio and uh eight
Speaker 1: or fifty four pixels. The the controller has lots of
Speaker 1: motion detection sensors inside of it, including gyroscopes and accelerometers.
Speaker 1: It's got a front facing camera. It's got a microphone speakers,
Speaker 1: a headphone jack, and I R port for controlling a
Speaker 1: television and other elements. It's even got an NFC chip
Speaker 1: in it, although at the moment, as are as I
Speaker 1: am aware, their Nintendo has not announced why, Like, there's
Speaker 1: no as far as I know as of the recording
Speaker 1: of this podcast, there's been no announcement from Nintendo as
Speaker 1: to how this NFC chip could be incorporated into things
Speaker 1: in the future. Yeah, NFC, your or near near field communication,
Speaker 1: is the same kind of chip that you'll find in
Speaker 1: some Android smartphones that they use to to make payments.
Speaker 1: You store your your information and Google Wallet, which is
Speaker 1: a basically a credit card and loyalty card manager, and
Speaker 1: that information is stored in the on a chip inside
Speaker 1: the phone, and when you take it up to the register,
Speaker 1: you know, touch it to the register, assuming it's you know,
Speaker 1: compatible with this, and it helps you pay for your stuff.
Speaker 1: That's sort of how it NFC has gotten famous. So
Speaker 1: I don't think the uh, the New Week controller is
Speaker 1: going to help you pay for your groceries, but hey,
Speaker 1: you never know, and maybe and maybe that it ends
Speaker 1: up being something where if you have your game pad
Speaker 1: out and about, because it is a wireless controller and
Speaker 1: you can play some games on the game pad itself
Speaker 1: as opposed to like you know, you can you can
Speaker 1: play it on the game pad without the television part
Speaker 1: of the console being active. It may very well be
Speaker 1: that's so that you can share information with another player.
Speaker 1: Let's say that you've got a game pad and I've
Speaker 1: got a game pad. We're both playing the same role
Speaker 1: playing game, and I found a powerful item, but I
Speaker 1: cannot use it because the class of character I'm playing
Speaker 1: is not capable of wielding whatever that ability or or
Speaker 1: item is and then but you have a character who
Speaker 1: could and then we tap the screen or the game
Speaker 1: pads together and can transfer an item from my game
Speaker 1: to your game. That might be one way of doing it. Now,
Speaker 1: that's just that's just a guess. I mean, that's there's
Speaker 1: again nothing that's saying that that's how Nintendo is going
Speaker 1: to use this, if they ever use it at all.
Speaker 1: But it is a that's a possibility. Yeah, there is
Speaker 1: also a poss ability to because the if you have
Speaker 1: a Wei and your friend also has a WE and
Speaker 1: you want to uh um, you know, play a game
Speaker 1: over at his or her house, you can actually store
Speaker 1: information in the weak controller and take it with you.
Speaker 1: Or you can take your week controller over to their
Speaker 1: house and sink it and use your controller, so even
Speaker 1: if they have only one, you can you can play
Speaker 1: games over there. This may be a way of making
Speaker 1: it simple to sink your controller to another device. Um,
Speaker 1: but I guess we'll find out. Uh So, up to
Speaker 1: five people right now can play certain games on the
Speaker 1: Wii U. Five well, four of them are using the
Speaker 1: standard WE controllers, the nun chucking and WE mote and
Speaker 1: uh because that's what the WE could support. It could
Speaker 1: support up to four of those right, right, while the
Speaker 1: game pad is the fifth controller. So certain games allow
Speaker 1: you to play four against one type games where the
Speaker 1: person with the game pad is using the game pad
Speaker 1: to view have a different, completely different view than what
Speaker 1: everyone has on the screen, and to play a certain
Speaker 1: style of game, and the four people who have the
Speaker 1: regular the we remotes are playing a different kind of game.
Speaker 1: And uh, this is the experience I had. I got
Speaker 1: a chance to play with a we You well before
Speaker 1: it came out way back in uh and c E
Speaker 1: s two thousand twelve. So it was January two thousand
Speaker 1: twelve where I got a chance to go into a
Speaker 1: closed door meeting and play with the Wii You. And
Speaker 1: one of the games they played was a sort of
Speaker 1: a kind of like pac Man in a way, uh,
Speaker 1: in that it was the four players were playing these
Speaker 1: these characters who were running around the maze, and then
Speaker 1: the person with the game pad was trying to evade
Speaker 1: the four players. So with the game pad, that meant
Speaker 1: that you were taking on the role essentially a pac Man,
Speaker 1: and the people with the we remotes were playing the ghosts.
Speaker 1: So it's stead of it being under computer control. It's
Speaker 1: under player control, and it was it was not pac Man,
Speaker 1: by the way, that was not the characters that were
Speaker 1: being used in the game. But that's the game today
Speaker 1: I thought of because it's just you know, a more
Speaker 1: of strong resemblance um in the sense that you know,
Speaker 1: you're ring around a maze trying to avoid monsters or
Speaker 1: in this case for people who are possibly monsters, they
Speaker 1: don't know their personal lives anyway. Uh. That was one version,
Speaker 1: and that was really kind of a demo game that
Speaker 1: they were showing off, and it's just kind of a
Speaker 1: proof of concept. But there there have been other uses
Speaker 1: of the game pad too. There's been some games that
Speaker 1: have come out where the game pad acts as uh,
Speaker 1: either a way of getting additional information within the game.
Speaker 1: So you're playing a game up on the television screen,
Speaker 1: but on the game pad there's more info that can
Speaker 1: help you in your game. In some cases, it's a
Speaker 1: specialized view. I saw there's at least one game where
Speaker 1: you could use it as a sniper scope where you
Speaker 1: held the controller up to the TV and it gave
Speaker 1: you a special view of the the the what was
Speaker 1: going on, So that way you could use that to
Speaker 1: zoom in on somebody and take them out. Um. Kind
Speaker 1: of an interesting thing. I mean, it's again very similar
Speaker 1: to the way that we remotes were introduced. It's an
Speaker 1: innovation in gameplay, and it's it's another nod to how
Speaker 1: a lot of us have gotten used to having a
Speaker 1: second screen whenever we are consuming anything on TV, whether
Speaker 1: it's a video game or a television show or whatever.
Speaker 1: A lot of us have become used to having a
Speaker 1: second screen as part of that experience, and so this
Speaker 1: is kind of incorporating it directly into the console. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Well I read a report that Google came out with
Speaker 1: just a few um, just a short time ago. I
Speaker 1: don't remember exactly how long it was. Um, but you
Speaker 1: know the latter half of and yeah, I mean they
Speaker 1: they basically said any kind of you know what content
Speaker 1: that you would consume in general, pepe are are using
Speaker 1: multi screen, uh multi screen to do it. And uh, well,
Speaker 1: which probably surprises very few people who are listening to
Speaker 1: this podcast, just because we all have different devices and
Speaker 1: different sizes, and uh, it's it's obvious that Nintendo has
Speaker 1: caught onto this too. I'm a little surprised too, because
Speaker 1: I I when I first saw photos of uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the game pad. I thought, I don't know if this
Speaker 1: is gonna catch on. That's kind of a big controller.
Speaker 1: But I get the sense from from reading uh reports
Speaker 1: and reviews that that people seem to like it. Of course.
Speaker 1: It's it's got analog thumbsticks and you know, different buttons
Speaker 1: in key places where it's ergonomically comfortable to play with.
Speaker 1: So um, and I haven't actually held one myself, so
Speaker 1: it's a little it's a little awkward. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you're if you're using it as a controller controller, it's
Speaker 1: a big controller. Yeah, okay, so that's it's big and
Speaker 1: it's a little heavy, so it's it's not the most
Speaker 1: natural feeling controller in that sense. And then on top
Speaker 1: of it, depending on like if you're if you're trying
Speaker 1: to use the screen fun functionality, then I haven't done
Speaker 1: any of that, Like I mean, I've used the screen
Speaker 1: to look at the view to use it as a
Speaker 1: viewfinder or whatever to or to my view within the game,
Speaker 1: but I hadn't used it as a means of inputting
Speaker 1: controls or controlling a character. I would imagine that would
Speaker 1: be a little awkward to just from the way of
Speaker 1: having to hold the game pad with one hand while
Speaker 1: using the other hand to use the stylists or whatever.
Speaker 1: That would be a little uh, that might feel a
Speaker 1: little awkward to me. I don't know, I haven't tried
Speaker 1: it that way. I will say that there there's some
Speaker 1: other things that are are beneficial with the WE U.
Speaker 1: It is backwards compatible to the WEAK, so that means
Speaker 1: all the games that you have on the WE will
Speaker 1: work on the WU. Of course, the game pad functionality
Speaker 1: won't really be there because the games were not designed
Speaker 1: for that. But that's a big deal. But you can
Speaker 1: unhook the old WE and plug the new one in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk a little bit more about backwards compatibility
Speaker 1: when you get to get to some of the other
Speaker 1: consoles or the rumors of sty consoles. Uh. One of
Speaker 1: the big things about it, well, there's two models of
Speaker 1: it too. There's a basic model which has got eight
Speaker 1: gigabytes of storage space, although only three of those gigabytes
Speaker 1: are actually usable. Um. And then there's a thirty two
Speaker 1: gigabyte version where twenty five of those gigabytes are usable.
Speaker 1: The reason why the rest aren't usable, it's due to
Speaker 1: operating system that kind of stuff. Things that are are
Speaker 1: dedicated to the storage, so you can't actually you can't
Speaker 1: overwrite it. Um. It's got four USB two point oh ports,
Speaker 1: including and and all four of those can act as
Speaker 1: an Ethernet port if you have an adapter, so you
Speaker 1: have to have a Ethernet to USB two point oh
Speaker 1: adapter obviously, but they can work that way, so you
Speaker 1: can hard wire it to your network. It also supports
Speaker 1: eight to two point eleven B G or N WiFi. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's got a st card slot. Uh. And one
Speaker 1: of the big big features that as of the recording
Speaker 1: of this podcast still is not fully integrated is the
Speaker 1: TV features. Yeah, and that's uh, that's TV with two
Speaker 1: little lies after the V. But but yeah, actually, from
Speaker 1: what I've seen, Nintendo is really seeing this as sort
Speaker 1: of a gateway to uh, multi function content too, because
Speaker 1: it's not just adding Netflix or Hulu Plus or Amazon
Speaker 1: streaming video. It can do those things, well, not all
Speaker 1: of them as of this moment, but those are all
Speaker 1: you know coming. But it's also adding a DVR function
Speaker 1: and video on demand, so that it's significant. You can
Speaker 1: connect it to live TV, so you can have live
Speaker 1: TV streaming through the we you and that's how you
Speaker 1: can use as a DVR. Um. Yeah, this is kind
Speaker 1: of a getting into this whole idea of the console
Speaker 1: becoming the all in one set top box. Uh. And
Speaker 1: we and again when we talk about the other consoles,
Speaker 1: you'll see that this is a theme that's going to
Speaker 1: be running strong. Um it's you know, it's it's obvious
Speaker 1: that this was gonna be the way things were going
Speaker 1: to go. We've already seen so many moves towards this.
Speaker 1: I mean, all three of the previous generation consoles have
Speaker 1: some streaming media capability Netflix or Hulu Plus or Amazon
Speaker 1: Video or some combination of all three or plus YouTube
Speaker 1: and other other options as well. So this is the
Speaker 1: next step where where these consoles are you know, the
Speaker 1: manufacturers are saying, well, what features can we put in
Speaker 1: there that people want that will help us sell these
Speaker 1: and and give them um uh an incentive to by
Speaker 1: our console over something else, like kind of the same
Speaker 1: way that and the p S three came out. That
Speaker 1: was the first Blu ray player in the United States
Speaker 1: that was available, you know, and it's still one of
Speaker 1: the most affordable and comparatively when it first came out,
Speaker 1: it was definitely very expensive. At the same time, you
Speaker 1: could argue, well, I could buy a Blu ray Player,
Speaker 1: or I could buy a p S three which has
Speaker 1: a Blu ray Player and it's also a video game system.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of the same approach here is saying, well,
Speaker 1: for some people, they're gonna be looking at this as oh,
Speaker 1: it's a video game system. Oh and I can also
Speaker 1: do these things on TV, whereas there are other people
Speaker 1: are gonna be oh, we need a ti Vo essentially,
Speaker 1: but hey, if we get one of these, will have
Speaker 1: a ti Vo that plays games. So and it is
Speaker 1: the TiVo dv are apparently, Yeah, that they've partnered with.
Speaker 1: I didn't see that. Yeah, that was according to a
Speaker 1: seen it. So yeah, it's um it. On paper, it
Speaker 1: sounds like a pretty strong console, even though I will
Speaker 1: say also that the reports I've read, the reviews views
Speaker 1: I've read have suggested that the HD quality stuff really
Speaker 1: just brings it in line with the current generation of
Speaker 1: the Xbox three sixty and the p S three. Well. Yes, so,
Speaker 1: in other words, it doesn't look like they've leap frogged
Speaker 1: the other consoles and gotten a head start. They're more
Speaker 1: or less in line with the other consoles. As far
Speaker 1: as the graphics quality goes right. Well, to be fair,
Speaker 1: we haven't moved to ultra high definition yet. So well,
Speaker 1: that's that's about as far as they could go in
Speaker 1: that department. I do I do hear that we're gonna
Speaker 1: see a law of ultra high definition TVs at CS. Interesting.
Speaker 1: I hear that, Well, there is there is one crucial
Speaker 1: piece of the puzzle, if you will, That is uh,
Speaker 1: that is Nintendo's and um, the others haven't have had
Speaker 1: varying degrees of success matching, and that's the Nintendo specific characters.
Speaker 1: Having the license and and link um really helps Nintendo
Speaker 1: same as UM. So yeah, I mean there's so many
Speaker 1: properties that belong to Nintendo that you can't get anywhere else. Um.
Speaker 1: And of course that was sort of a criticism in
Speaker 1: a way. It's funny how that has been leveraged against
Speaker 1: Nintendo too. Well, well, it's just you know, family games.
Speaker 1: It's not the hardcore, serious gamer type stuff. Really. It's
Speaker 1: kind of unfair in a way to say that because
Speaker 1: the hardware itself is game agnostic. But you know, people,
Speaker 1: people haven't been the developers haven't necessarily gone after that
Speaker 1: market encoding for the we the original we so Nintendo
Speaker 1: may need to to court those kinds of titles if
Speaker 1: it wants to be to reach out to a broader base.
Speaker 1: Now that it's got the graphics capability and a different
Speaker 1: kind of controller, what will they get? Well, the biggest,
Speaker 1: the biggest, The biggest criticisms I tend to hear are
Speaker 1: that the only gay games. This is over generalization, by
Speaker 1: the way, but that the games that are worth playing
Speaker 1: on the Nintendo systems are the Nintendo games, the ones
Speaker 1: that have these these characters who have been on Nintendo's
Speaker 1: roster forever. But that people say, well that gets hiring.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know how many times am I
Speaker 1: going to have another Mario game. On the flip side,
Speaker 1: you know, if you look at the games that have
Speaker 1: been ported over to the Nintendo that are also available
Speaker 1: on the other consoles, the argument I tend to hear,
Speaker 1: or frequently anything else, is oh, well, if I'm going
Speaker 1: to get that, I'm going to get it for my
Speaker 1: PS three, or I'm going to get it for my
Speaker 1: Xbox three sixty. I'm not going to get it for
Speaker 1: the Nintendo um because that I prefer the experience on
Speaker 1: these other consoles, which means that Nintendo has to rely
Speaker 1: even more heavily upon the it's it's proprietary characters because
Speaker 1: those are the ones that are selling games. Um. On
Speaker 1: top of that, one of the one of the downfalls
Speaker 1: of having these interesting controllers is that, uh, it does
Speaker 1: create a challenge for developers who have to figure out
Speaker 1: how to develop a game that uses these sort of controllers. Um.
Speaker 1: And again this isn't something unusual. I mean, Sony with
Speaker 1: their move and and Microsoft would connect have had issues
Speaker 1: with developers creating games that really take advantage of those
Speaker 1: devices and that appeal to gamers. I mean, that's that's
Speaker 1: the real trick, is not just making it so it
Speaker 1: works with the hardware, but also that the gamers want
Speaker 1: to play whatever it is they create. So, um, you know,
Speaker 1: Nintendo has definitely got some challenges ahead of it, and
Speaker 1: I'm honestly, I am not certain if the WEIU is
Speaker 1: going to be up to uh to meeting those challenges.
Speaker 1: It's early days yet, so it's hard to say. There
Speaker 1: may be games that come out that are so innovative
Speaker 1: that it really turns things around. But let's let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about the next one. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: the the successor to the Xbox three sixty. I've heard
Speaker 1: three different names so far besides the code name. The
Speaker 1: code name for that console is Durango. Apparently, Yeah, they've
Speaker 1: they got that from a developer who posted something about
Speaker 1: that on on Twitter, and that post was later removed,
Speaker 1: so apparently that that may be accurate. Of course, people
Speaker 1: have been calling it the Xbox seven twenty. That's the
Speaker 1: most That's the name I hear most frequently, just the
Speaker 1: double of the three sixty. He worked for Atari, With
Speaker 1: Atari did it, I don't know if it worked well?
Speaker 1: What about so then yeah, that's one of the names
Speaker 1: I hear. I also hear Xbox Infinity. Yes, and I've
Speaker 1: also heard that it would just be called the Xbox,
Speaker 1: so kind of like Apple's iPad is the new Xbox,
Speaker 1: it's just the Xbox. Um. I don't think the Xbox
Speaker 1: part is going away, so I think we're safe with that.
Speaker 1: We the rumors. Now, this is all based on rumor.
Speaker 1: There's been no official announcement from Microsoft. As the recording
Speaker 1: of this podcast, it is clear that they're working on it. Yes,
Speaker 1: no that that we were all sure of anyway, but
Speaker 1: now we know a little bit more of the or
Speaker 1: at least we suspect a little bit more about it.
Speaker 1: For example, UM rumor has it that it will have
Speaker 1: a sixteen core CPU UH and probably UH and possibly
Speaker 1: dual graphics cards running off of a m d S
Speaker 1: seven thousand series of graphics cards, so dual GPUs to
Speaker 1: help handle all that graphics processing. Although some of that
Speaker 1: the wording around that is a little confusing, but this
Speaker 1: is not unusual. I mean there are plenty of folks
Speaker 1: out there have gaming rigs that have dual GPUs in them.
Speaker 1: On top of that, supposedly going to have eight gigabytes
Speaker 1: of RAM UH that it will have incorporated into the console. Again,
Speaker 1: based on rumor, UM the successor to connect, so it'll
Speaker 1: be a more advanced version of connect. Some people are
Speaker 1: just calling it connect to I don't know what they're
Speaker 1: connecting it to what. Apparently it's already part of the
Speaker 1: console UM. I've also heard that it will support some
Speaker 1: form of second screen capability, which doesn't surprise me. I've
Speaker 1: got UM Xbox smart glass on my Android tablet. It's
Speaker 1: I'm not supposed to have it on my tablet, but
Speaker 1: I do. Thank you side loading, but a smart glass
Speaker 1: lets you control your Xbox somewhat through the tablet, so
Speaker 1: you can do things like navigate to various features. Um.
Speaker 1: I can see that being built in more from the
Speaker 1: ground up with the next Xbox. Also, there's rumor that
Speaker 1: I might one day support something similar to the Google
Speaker 1: Project Glass, where augmented reality glasses will become a possible
Speaker 1: uh peripheral for this. Um. Whether or not that becomes
Speaker 1: something that is worth picking up or if it remains
Speaker 1: in the realm of a curiosity, remains to be seen.
Speaker 1: We've seen plenty of video game peripherals come out that
Speaker 1: promised to really revolutionize the way video games are played
Speaker 1: and then not often to dough power glove cough, well cough,
Speaker 1: virtual boy cough. Okay, okay, well they'reeically that was its
Speaker 1: own thing, that wasn't an add on. Well, this the
Speaker 1: next Xbox, whatever it is. There are some also very
Speaker 1: interesting rumors that there may be a version that is
Speaker 1: not really aimed at the hardcore gamer. There might be
Speaker 1: two versions of this device, one of them being a
Speaker 1: more simple set top box that is capable of gaming,
Speaker 1: but isn't really a gaming dedicated gaming console. Interesting. I
Speaker 1: have not heard that part. Yeah, um, from what I
Speaker 1: have read and they don't really know, but they're they're
Speaker 1: looking at the possibility that it will be more of
Speaker 1: a sort of a casual gaming version of the next Xbox.
Speaker 1: So I might have like it might have some access
Speaker 1: to apps that you might find on say Windows phone, right,
Speaker 1: but it's you scaled up to be on a television experience,
Speaker 1: so you can play you know, Angry Birds on your
Speaker 1: on your Xbox. Yes, and I've I've also been been
Speaker 1: reading that there may be some pieces of Windows eight
Speaker 1: that find their way into the DNA of the next Xbox.
Speaker 1: That one surprised me too much. I think that they
Speaker 1: would definitely try and and get a sort of cohesive
Speaker 1: look across all their platforms so that you have a
Speaker 1: very identifiable experience. Again, like if you look at a
Speaker 1: Windows eight machine, or you have a Windows phone, or
Speaker 1: you have the Xbox, that you can tell that all
Speaker 1: three of these things belong to the same general family
Speaker 1: of of operating systems, even if they aren't, you know,
Speaker 1: completely seamlessly connected. At least the I can easily imagine
Speaker 1: the look being similar. And that that's kind of Again,
Speaker 1: if you look at the Xbox interface right now, it
Speaker 1: does not it looks similar to the Windows eight tiled
Speaker 1: UH interface. It's not not quite the same, but you
Speaker 1: can tell that they are, you know, related. I've also
Speaker 1: heard that it might have a Blu Ray player, which
Speaker 1: would be a big change. Now that's a big thing
Speaker 1: because of course Blu ray is UH is technology that's
Speaker 1: licensed by Sony. Sony owns it, so Microsoft would have
Speaker 1: to license this technology from Sony to have it included
Speaker 1: into their consoles. And historically Microsoft wasn't too crazy about
Speaker 1: the idea of giving money to a competitor in order
Speaker 1: to use this technology. In fact, Microsoft backed a different
Speaker 1: high definition standard, you know h d DVD back in
Speaker 1: the day. They had an HD DVD external drive that
Speaker 1: you could buy for the Xbox UH. Now, granted that
Speaker 1: standard did not last the test of time. Chris and
Speaker 1: I got to watch the Death of That firsthand at Cees. Yes,
Speaker 1: amazingly enough, you can if you go way way back
Speaker 1: in our archives you can find one of our early
Speaker 1: five minute episodes on on HD DVD versus Blue Ray.
Speaker 1: I really wouldn't bother although it's five minutes. I mean,
Speaker 1: come on, what else are you gonna do. Some people
Speaker 1: think it may be priced very competitively too, around two.
Speaker 1: If that happens, that is crazy, I would I am.
Speaker 1: I am highly skeptical that they're going to be able
Speaker 1: to deliver. I mean maybe maybe the most base model
Speaker 1: they can manage, like a four gigabyte you know, although
Speaker 1: even then you are you're talking about the device again.
Speaker 1: This is also a device that's got supposedly going to
Speaker 1: have an a V port, which would allow you to
Speaker 1: watch and record broadcast TV. So we're using it like
Speaker 1: a DVR, just like you know, we talked about with
Speaker 1: the we you it looks like the next generation of
Speaker 1: Xbox will have similar functionality build into it. And um,
Speaker 1: that means to me that that you would want to
Speaker 1: have a nice, big hard drive because in many cases,
Speaker 1: at least on the in the case of content that
Speaker 1: you're buying from the uh the Xbox Store, you are
Speaker 1: buying it and normally downloading it to your device, so
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have enough storage space there. So you can
Speaker 1: do that a few times. I mean, I've got games
Speaker 1: that require downloads of a sizeable nature, or at least
Speaker 1: a saving information of a sizeable nature to my hard
Speaker 1: drive in ordered me to play it. For example, Halo four.
Speaker 1: If I want to play multiplayer on Halo four. I
Speaker 1: had to install a rather sizeable file on my hard drive,
Speaker 1: and I have one of the My Xbox three sixty
Speaker 1: is an older one that has a very limited hard
Speaker 1: drive space, so I actually had to go in and
Speaker 1: delete stuff so that I could play on multiplayer and
Speaker 1: have ten year olds kill me and yell at me
Speaker 1: and foul language. I had to delete things for that
Speaker 1: privileged people anyway, so I could I could see maybe
Speaker 1: the lowest tier possibly coming in at three. But man,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's it's hard for me to imagine based
Speaker 1: upon the things we're talking about here. Well, yeah, that
Speaker 1: and that underscores the difference in taking off the shelf
Speaker 1: components versus going cutting edge like these specs suggest to us.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you when you're gonna put that kind
Speaker 1: of hardware in there, you would typically expect that, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: cutting edge hardware has gone and cost you know more
Speaker 1: than Hey we've got We've had these for five years now,
Speaker 1: it's no big deal. Sure you can. You can have
Speaker 1: these for twenty bucks. Um. They've also said that they
Speaker 1: would support ten A DP three D content, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's pretty impressive. Downside, did you hear
Speaker 1: about the DRM. No, I did not hear about the
Speaker 1: DRM rumored. Again, sure wouldn't surprised me. It's unfortunate. But
Speaker 1: there's rumor that the games you purchase will be linked
Speaker 1: to your Xbox. Yes, yes, I did hear that, right,
Speaker 1: so that it essentially kills the second hand game market.
Speaker 1: You would not be able to you know, you could
Speaker 1: sell your games to someone else, they just couldn't play them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is actually probably going to be a
Speaker 1: good segue into the next generation PlayStation because they're saying
Speaker 1: the same thing about Sony's next console. That these that
Speaker 1: Sony and Microsoft are both looking at this UM as
Speaker 1: an option. Yeah. Now, now, the information I read about
Speaker 1: Xbox suggested that it may even require you to have
Speaker 1: a persistent Internet connection in order to play these games,
Speaker 1: which I object to. I don't think that's I don't
Speaker 1: like the idea of having to have a persistent Internet
Speaker 1: connection to prove that the game I'm playing is one
Speaker 1: that I bought. Now, this one also kill the rental industry.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't be able to rent a game because once
Speaker 1: someone had liked that game to an account, that's it. Yes,
Speaker 1: but it does offer a convenient um alternative to uh
Speaker 1: to the doctrine of first sale. That's part of the
Speaker 1: copyright laws here in the United States. So you know, literally,
Speaker 1: if you buy something here, you know, off the shelf,
Speaker 1: you have the right to sell it to somebody else
Speaker 1: if you want to. You give them your book or
Speaker 1: your DVD and they give you, you know, whatever you
Speaker 1: ask for it and that's it. You know, you have
Speaker 1: the right to do that. Now, Um, this is there's
Speaker 1: nothing illegal about doing this. It's just kind of a
Speaker 1: sneaky way of getting around it. Um not even really
Speaker 1: all that sneaky. It's it's right there out in the open.
Speaker 1: But it's a clever, let's say, clever alternative to that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, Sony has has been um, you know, rumored
Speaker 1: to be thinking about that. They even you know, in
Speaker 1: the current generation. I know that a lot of people
Speaker 1: have said that they are looking at that. But you know,
Speaker 1: this is not unheard of in PC gaming as of
Speaker 1: now either. Well, we've and we've heard plenty of stories
Speaker 1: of people getting up in arms over these kind of
Speaker 1: practices where you know, the idea of having to continually
Speaker 1: have a persistent Internet connect in order to just play
Speaker 1: a game, even if the game itself has no Internet
Speaker 1: connectivity element to it, like a single player standalone game,
Speaker 1: and yet you still need an Internet connection because of DRM,
Speaker 1: not because of the game. Uh seems to some people,
Speaker 1: I include myself among them, to be excessive. Also, it
Speaker 1: does tend to encourage people to find ways around it
Speaker 1: because they don't want to deal with that sort of stuff,
Speaker 1: which arguably you could say that in certain cases, DRM
Speaker 1: in fact encourages piracy, and in the sense of, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, if I have to go through great lengths
Speaker 1: just to play this game that I have legally bought,
Speaker 1: or I could just go through this other way and
Speaker 1: the easy way where someone's cracked it for me, I'm
Speaker 1: going to take the easy way, because why would I
Speaker 1: put myself through that kind of frustration? And I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, I know people who have gone and purchased
Speaker 1: a legal copy of a game and then downloaded the
Speaker 1: diversion because they wanted the DRM free one. They didn't
Speaker 1: want to cheat the company out of money, but they
Speaker 1: didn't want to deal with the DRM right, and then
Speaker 1: there are always going to be a handful of people
Speaker 1: who do it, not even though it may be harder
Speaker 1: for them to crack the system simply because they're irritated
Speaker 1: at the people who put it out. Yeah, there's some
Speaker 1: people who will do it. They're always people like that.
Speaker 1: And then of course there are always people who just
Speaker 1: don't want to pay for stuff. I mean, there are
Speaker 1: people like that, and those are the those are the
Speaker 1: people that DRM is supposed to be targeting and targeting
Speaker 1: the people who would just steal. But there's so many
Speaker 1: people who don't want to steal. They just don't want
Speaker 1: to deal with all that frustration. So it's it's a
Speaker 1: it's a complicated issue. Of course, we've talked about d
Speaker 1: r M in the past, so well let's let's really
Speaker 1: we've done. Do you have any more about the Xbox
Speaker 1: that you wanted to talk about before we move on?
Speaker 1: We can make this a transitional point again. Um. Rumor
Speaker 1: has it that this device, the the next Xbox, could
Speaker 1: be out as soon as the end of the holiday shop,
Speaker 1: but I'm seeing that it's more likely that it will
Speaker 1: hit in like the next PlayStation. I haven't seen anything
Speaker 1: that suggests it will be out in but um and
Speaker 1: in fact, I've seen rumors that Sony may be packing
Speaker 1: it in after the PS three. But the PlayStation four,
Speaker 1: or there is another code name for it, Orbis Orbis,
Speaker 1: which you might wonder, why would you call it orbits? Well,
Speaker 1: you know the PlayStation has Sony has the PS vita, alright,
Speaker 1: so it's just life. That's the that's the handheld. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's life, and that Orbis's life. Orbis is a circle,
Speaker 1: so Orbis Vita would be circle of life, yes, and
Speaker 1: it moves us all. Yeah. So when you when you
Speaker 1: get the console, the first thing you have to do
Speaker 1: is climb to the end of a precipice and then
Speaker 1: hold it up and all the animals will bow down
Speaker 1: before you, and then jeremy irons will attempt to to
Speaker 1: take over the throne, as we have seen so many
Speaker 1: times before. Anyway, down in there yet anyway, So the
Speaker 1: PS four or orbis, Yes, Um, we don't have as
Speaker 1: many details. Again, it's probably gonna have a a CPU
Speaker 1: that's capable of up to uh sixty four threads, which
Speaker 1: probably be again, probably a sixteen core processor with multiple
Speaker 1: threads per core if I had to guess. Um supposedly
Speaker 1: a twenty eight anometer based a m D Southern Islands GPU,
Speaker 1: although other rumors suggested a m D A ten a
Speaker 1: p U. So it all depends on which set of
Speaker 1: rumors you're looking at. And that's sort of an off
Speaker 1: the shelf part. Yeah, and in fact that's that's an
Speaker 1: older that it's an older it's an older chip, and
Speaker 1: it's one of those that I've read some reviewers who say,
Speaker 1: if that, in fact is the chip that goes along
Speaker 1: with this console, I don't see how they can deliver
Speaker 1: upon these other promises they've made without without some other
Speaker 1: heavy duty graphics processors thrown in there. Um, it's going
Speaker 1: to have probably going to have between eight eight and
Speaker 1: sixteen gigabytes of RAM, so possibly more RAM than the
Speaker 1: Xbox uh two fifty six gigabytes of storage, a blue
Speaker 1: ray drive, which is no big surprise. On One thing
Speaker 1: that could be a surprise is that it could possibly
Speaker 1: support four K resolution playback. Four K is ultra high definition.
Speaker 1: This is the step above what are HD sets currently
Speaker 1: are able to display. There's some people out there who
Speaker 1: have four K sets already, very few because they're incredibly expensive.
Speaker 1: We're talking like dollars for a TV set. But the
Speaker 1: one of the big problems is that there's not a
Speaker 1: whole lot of ways to get content to display at
Speaker 1: four K doesn't do you any good if you're you know,
Speaker 1: if your computer can or or television can display a
Speaker 1: four K image, but you're only getting ten A resolution
Speaker 1: feeds in there, it doesn't help you. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: my eyes will even go that high. Everybody looks like
Speaker 1: eight bit blocks to me right anyway. Um, so that's
Speaker 1: but that's the big rumors that it could support four K.
Speaker 1: That doesn't really surprised me either. Sony is big on
Speaker 1: on high definition TVs and it would. What would surprise
Speaker 1: me is if I go to c E s in
Speaker 1: and if I don't see a lot of four KSE
Speaker 1: sets over in the Sony booth. I'm imagining that several
Speaker 1: of the boots will have four K sets. We've seen
Speaker 1: them already in previous C YES shows. I've seen four
Speaker 1: case sets already. Um. They tend to be the you know,
Speaker 1: prototype model that's standing alone. It's something that's not necessarily
Speaker 1: meant for mass production, but it's more like a sign
Speaker 1: of the things that are to come, like a like
Speaker 1: a concept car, yeah kind of. Yeah. It's one of
Speaker 1: those things where like, okay, well these are this is
Speaker 1: these are features that we will eventually roll out into
Speaker 1: the sets that we put on the on the store shelves,
Speaker 1: but right now it's just kind of this is a
Speaker 1: an example. Um. It also would be the first Sony
Speaker 1: console that could support ten a d P three d uh.
Speaker 1: The PS three could do seven twenty P three d um,
Speaker 1: and Uh. Beyond that, you're talking about a lot of
Speaker 1: potential performance issues anyway. Um. It's one of the big
Speaker 1: warning signs is that, uh, you know, if you've got
Speaker 1: a p S three and you want to play PS
Speaker 1: two games on it, you're kind of out of luck.
Speaker 1: It sounds like the PS four or Orbis or whatever
Speaker 1: is going to follow that same trend and that it's
Speaker 1: not going to be backwards compatible. So if you have
Speaker 1: a lot of PS three games and you get a
Speaker 1: p S four, you're still gonna need that PS three
Speaker 1: if you want to play those old games, because this
Speaker 1: one is not going to be able to play them,
Speaker 1: or at least again, that's according to rumor, and just
Speaker 1: like we were saying a minute ago, it does sound
Speaker 1: like the games will have to be authenticated through the
Speaker 1: Sony Entertainment Network when you purchase them. So when you
Speaker 1: purchase a game and you load it into your your
Speaker 1: PS four for the first time. It's going to prompt
Speaker 1: you to to authenticate the game through the Sony Entertainment Network.
Speaker 1: That game will then forever be linked to your Sony
Speaker 1: identity essentially, which means that you will not be able
Speaker 1: to play that on someone else's device signed in through
Speaker 1: their identification. So yeah, that's that could be a problem.
Speaker 1: I mean, I would imagine that you would be able
Speaker 1: to sign in under your I I D on another
Speaker 1: machine and bring the game with you, so you can
Speaker 1: still play it on another person's machine as long as
Speaker 1: you were signed in under your name. I believe that's
Speaker 1: that's the way I interpreted this. But you would not
Speaker 1: be able to purchase a used game and play it
Speaker 1: on your machine just or rent a game. You wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to do either of those things, just like
Speaker 1: with the Xbox UH disturbing trend. In my mind, I
Speaker 1: don't like that. I mean, I understand entirely why the
Speaker 1: companies want to do this, because that's a market they
Speaker 1: do not make money off of. Right, So if I
Speaker 1: buy a game brand new and then I sell it
Speaker 1: to UH to to read, you know, a store that
Speaker 1: turns these around offers pre owned games and then Chris
Speaker 1: comes in and who buys that pre owned game. Well,
Speaker 1: the the shop makes money, but the games distributors and
Speaker 1: manufacturers they don't make any money off of that second purchase,
Speaker 1: not directly, all right. They can through other means, like
Speaker 1: if there's downloadable content that can continue the game's um
Speaker 1: functionality and features, then the person who buys the second
Speaker 1: hand game may go on to buy DLC that could
Speaker 1: that could help. Or if the company owns stock in
Speaker 1: whatever the retail establishment is, they could make money that
Speaker 1: way too. But yeah, of course, um there's uh that
Speaker 1: also sort of overlooks the people who buy older games
Speaker 1: to complement their newer the stuff that they buy off
Speaker 1: the shelf too, or somebody who wants to get into
Speaker 1: a universe and they start with game one in the
Speaker 1: series and they go, oh my gosh, I love this,
Speaker 1: this is great, and they go out and buy the
Speaker 1: new ones. You know, when they come in, they that
Speaker 1: that those are the intangibles that I think these companies
Speaker 1: overlook that. Um, it's spreading the property around, it's spreading
Speaker 1: the the intellectual content around and gets other people hooked
Speaker 1: on it. But there's you know that that's that's their decision. Um,
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of long tail when it comes
Speaker 1: to video games. I mean, yeah, there is some. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm one of those video game owners who very
Speaker 1: frequently I end up buying games well after they've been
Speaker 1: out for quite so. I mean I got Skyrim a
Speaker 1: year after it came out. Yeah, and you know what,
Speaker 1: if you haven't played it before and you still love it,
Speaker 1: I'd see no problem with it. I got Portal after
Speaker 1: Portal two came out. Yeah. It just it just it
Speaker 1: makes it difficult because the way the video game industry
Speaker 1: works is they're trying to turn through those games pretty
Speaker 1: quickly and hit that initial big rush where you get
Speaker 1: a lot of people buying the game, and then you
Speaker 1: want to do that again with the next title. And
Speaker 1: there's limited storage space. I mean, there's limited limited shelf
Speaker 1: space and stores and although I mean I buy almost
Speaker 1: everything online, but never mind that anyway, there's limited shelf space.
Speaker 1: So you don't you don't you know, you can't have
Speaker 1: every game that was ever published out forever, right right,
Speaker 1: Well you you could, but not on a shelf. Um.
Speaker 1: And that that's the problem is that, you know, because
Speaker 1: of that whole nature of the industry. Then you've got
Speaker 1: this uh this this quick turnaround, and it means that
Speaker 1: you know, once you have a game come out, a
Speaker 1: few months after the game's come out, you're already thinking, Okay,
Speaker 1: we gotta get something else out there, because uh that
Speaker 1: that one's going to get pushed off the shelf pretty
Speaker 1: soon by all the other games that are coming up
Speaker 1: from all the other other companies. And I do see
Speaker 1: Sony and Microsoft both being touched by this in ways
Speaker 1: that Nintendo wouldn't because Nintendo is more of a closed system. Um,
Speaker 1: you don't just become a Nintendo developer. If you want
Speaker 1: to sell a Nintendo game, you kind of have to
Speaker 1: get Nintendo's blessing to do it. Whereas with Microsoft, there
Speaker 1: very familiar with people copying Windows, making pirated copies of Windows,
Speaker 1: making pirated copies of uh, you know, computer games, because
Speaker 1: of course it makes games for for Windows machines as
Speaker 1: well as for the Xbox. Sony has Although Sony is
Speaker 1: famous for its units not working very well together, Sony
Speaker 1: has music, Sony has movies, and are they familiar with
Speaker 1: people copying those very much? So, so it makes sense that, um,
Speaker 1: the companies that are more likely to tie these these
Speaker 1: titles into their con souls. Um, you know it makes
Speaker 1: sense that they will be first to do that over
Speaker 1: a Nintendo. Now, Um, there are people who thought, or
Speaker 1: still think in some cases that, um, the PlayStation three
Speaker 1: and Xbox three sixty are the end of the line
Speaker 1: for consoles. Um will this be then? Will this be
Speaker 1: the last the last generation of consoles? Will this will
Speaker 1: the next generation be the last generation? It's hard to say,
Speaker 1: but it's clear that they're this convergence between the set
Speaker 1: top box and the gaming box the gaming console. Um,
Speaker 1: they're moving together. Now. I don't know that people like
Speaker 1: Boxy or Roku are likely to release a gaming console.
Speaker 1: But and then there's also the question of could this
Speaker 1: eventually move to the next step where it's all incorporated
Speaker 1: directly into the TV set? Yeah? And which case? Then
Speaker 1: you think, all right, does this mean I have to
Speaker 1: figure out which set I want to buy because I
Speaker 1: happen to love playing the Xbox version of games for
Speaker 1: Sony version, or or our computers where we're going to
Speaker 1: be watching our TV, in which case you could make
Speaker 1: a computer game which appears on the same screen as
Speaker 1: your TV. Or will it all go to a tablet.
Speaker 1: I think that these things are still very up in
Speaker 1: the air right now. Yeah, I think I think it's
Speaker 1: good for another I think we're we'll have another another generation,
Speaker 1: other generation, and that these questions will all be asked
Speaker 1: and and prodded. We're gonna see a lot of experimentation
Speaker 1: in the in the industry to see how consumers respond
Speaker 1: and do they like the idea of having this sort
Speaker 1: of portable experience across multiple devices or does that not matter? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think too, I think that this this generation
Speaker 1: will come out Yeah, yeah, until we until we see
Speaker 1: how those questions are are answered. I think we're pretty
Speaker 1: safe knowing that there's gonna be another another series. So
Speaker 1: it would be interesting to see if and this is
Speaker 1: just fooling around on my part. I don't know anything
Speaker 1: about this, and I'm not saying that there will be,
Speaker 1: but it would be interesting to see if Apple is
Speaker 1: interested in doing this simply because well, they had the Pippin,
Speaker 1: which built miserably um, but they also have, of course,
Speaker 1: the the iPhone, the I Pod, Touch, and the iPad,
Speaker 1: so could those be used as a second screen for
Speaker 1: a console. I mean, they're already talking about their pretty
Speaker 1: heavy heavily weighted rumors. Let's say that there will be
Speaker 1: an Apple television, could be rumors for a couple of years,
Speaker 1: but yeah, exactly, just like they were for the iPad.
Speaker 1: So I wonder, could there be I've learned that lesson. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: and I don't know. I have no idea, but it's
Speaker 1: just kind of you kind of wonder, with all these
Speaker 1: weird things that are happening in the industry, whether Apple
Speaker 1: might consider it at some point, well, at any rate,
Speaker 1: were with all I think that I think that pretty
Speaker 1: much sums up all the rumors and news we can
Speaker 1: we can say at this time for the next generation
Speaker 1: of consoles. I am very curious to see how it
Speaker 1: plays out. I've definitely been holding off on buying a
Speaker 1: new Xbox three because you know, I've said, like I've
Speaker 1: got a limited hard drive space line. I thought about
Speaker 1: buying a new one because they're not that expensive right
Speaker 1: now comparatively speaking, and especially during the holiday season of
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve. But but the knowledge that there could
Speaker 1: be a new one out by next year, a new console,
Speaker 1: and hopefully one that's backwards compatible, although we don't know
Speaker 1: for the Xbox one right the other um that has
Speaker 1: me hold holling off a bit because I kind of
Speaker 1: want to see what comes out and uh and maybe
Speaker 1: I'll just use that money towards the new console, especially
Speaker 1: if it's because that would be insane. Alright, guys, well,
Speaker 1: that wraps up this conversation. If you have any topics
Speaker 1: you would like us to tackle here tech stuff, please
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