if there is any truth to this rumor, i dont think MS would be so stupid as to kill an entire market. it seems more likely to me that it would be capable of both physical media, and digital.
Well, if you think about it, they already have cloud saves. And with everything going cloud (netflix, onlive, blockbuster, etc...) I personally won't be surprised.
1) They can make you buy it again for more money. 2) Cartridge/Hard Memory. 3) Cartridge/Hard Memory. 4) Cartridge/Hard Memory. 5) Cartridge/Hard Memory. 6) Wait, what? Its actually far easier to dupe a disk than it is to steal a well-coded game from a locked, closed network via download. Also, Cartridge/Hard Memory. I don't believe this, because there is literally no support for it. But it is not unreasonable.
It's one of the reasons people on t3h interntz think this whole thing is happening; so MS can quash the used-game market as they, essentially, make no more money from used games. I thought you of all people would be up to date on this ****, Pac.
They said no disc drive. You forget that cartridges are a viable option, here. You can buy used cartridge games too. However, if they were getting rid of the disk tray, I'd assume they'd be getting rid of physical formats altogether, which would be a whole new level of retard.
I don't know how involved Microsoft is on that as it affects the other publishers more. Microsoft gets its money from its OS market, its xbox hardware, and is trying to break into the mobile phone market. Halo is essentially the only franchise Microsoft fully owns and they don't publish nearly the same volume of games that EA, Activision, THQ, Disney, etc do. Therefore used games sales are much more a problem to the third party publishers that do not own a platform and their money is completely driven off of game sales. All of that is derivative however because all of a sudden after a month this thread gets activity but no new news on the matter which is what I'm talking about. I haven't heard any new rumors on this issue so used games are fine for the time being. Microsoft aren't the ones making online passes or content only unlockable from a new game purchase.
Maybe they're just not going to be utilizing disk trays because they're more expensive to be implemented, as opposed to cartridges. I think that sounds reasonable.
Sorry, should have said "game developers" instead of "they". But you get my point, they're all bitching because they're not making enough money or some ****. But you're right, I doubt it's true because no one has heard diddly-squat about it for more than a month since IGN made it up.
Something none of you really spoke about is performance. Physical media that spin are slow. Hard Drives can be slow. If you look at gaming from a PC level, how it requires graphics processing west of 2GB to get the best performance, your read/write speed needs to be over 100MB/s to produce the data quick enough for the GPU to process it. Basically... the Xbox 360 is likely providing a read speed of about 35MB/s currently which is it's limit. This is why installing games on your hard drive is quicker which would likely give you a boost of somewhere between 40-60MB/s read speed depending on how high quality the hard drive actually is. Basically, what i'm saying is. If Microsoft want their next console to completely dominate the market in performance like the PS3 was supposed to, while keeping the console relatively cheap. Getting rid of the physical media, and changing the storage mechanism to something higher spec (Like SSDs (Not likely as extremely high in price and degrades too quickly), High-Speed USB 3.0 with a maximum transmission of 625MB/s, PCI-E 16x v3.0 with a transmission speed of 16GB/s) could drastically improve console gaming and make it rival PC gaming which is something Microsoft are likely to do. More data in a game = better games, faster access to that data means better games, running more smoothly. Imagine Reach with no FPS lag and flawless graphics? As technology advances, games get better in general, but they get bigger as well. So the consoles need to get access to that data much quicker. You can only use old methods of media for a certain amount of time before it just slows everything down and kills it....
Stevo, one word. Cartridges. Here is a picture of a cartridge. 5 bros. And they're super. Your argument is invalid.
You make a good point, Stevo, but if they were to completely abandon the DVD/Bluray approach for their next console, they'd need to provide an option for people who still want to play their old games and watch DVDs and Blurays. Possibly an external ODD ala the HDDVD hardware they released, but give it a USB3 or PCIe connection for speedier transfer of information for gaming, whichever is cheaper. It would suck to have to buy an extra piece or hardware to play the games I already have, but if it came to that I'd probably fork out the cash. Either that, or just use my 360 until it dies, then wait for the hardware to come down in price, if it wasn't exceptionally low-priced in the first place.
games on USB3 is a fairly bad idea economically speaking. A USB stick costs a hell of a lot more than a disc. However, packaging costs could be reduced (but that seems unlikely, as companies seem to have a set size of cases, even in terms of M$ point cards) But on the other hand, given the amount that these games sell for, when added to the cost reduction of mass production, it is stil an economically feasable idea. But people want to maximise profits, so I feel that we are stuck in the age of the disc tray until internet coverage is universal.