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Microsoft is ending Xbox 360 production more than 10 years after its debut

venturebeat.com

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Re: Microsoft is ending Xbox 360 production more than 10 years after its debut

#71

Post by asimuvPR »

developer2 wrote: post #66
asimuvPR wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never really understood Microsoft wanting to be the center of the living room. Its just a weird concept to me.

I think the "aha!" moment for this is, today, still another 30-50 or even many more years away. I could ramble on for hours as to what I want the future to look like, but suffice it to say it really would be what we generally refer to now as the "automated home of the future". The largest obstacle right now is branding and current technology. Every individual company is vying to meet all your needs. Microsoft wants y…

Weird, I'm actually building a system to do just that. Alpha should be out in early May.

Re: Microsoft is ending Xbox 360 production more than 10 years after its debut

#72

Post by FussyZeus »

asimuvPR wrote: post #50
FussyZeus wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as a 360 owner, I think it had more to do with a really good selection of launch exclusive titles that kept people coming back. The original gen 1's were not of great quality at all, even beyond the RROD issues the console felt cheap and poorly made, the power supplies were insanely large and generated a ton of heat, etc. Microsoft sold the 360 with good exclusives, which is what Sony then did with the PS4 w…

I never really understood Microsoft wanting to be the center of the living room. Its just a weird concept to me.

I totally get the concept, the problem is the execution is always terrible. The one has extremely similar problems to the PS3 because they both try to be a ton of things they didn't need to be. The PS4 is much better, Sony learned it was better to be great at one thing than to be ok at one thing and suck at a whole bunch of other things, and hopefully Microsoft will learn that too.

Re: Microsoft is ending Xbox 360 production more than 10 years after its debut

#73

Post by sogen »

buckbova wrote: post #7

PS2 went on for 13 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_2 > Sony finally announced that the PlayStation 2 had been discontinued after 13 years of production – one of the longest runs for a video game console.

ah the PS2, what a sturdy built console, a department store nearby kept selling those for years (like pancakes)

Re: Microsoft is ending Xbox 360 production more than 10 years after its debut

#74

Post by ekianjo »

Aleman360 wrote: post #43
draw_down wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe... but I saw recently that the PS4 is outselling the Xbox One two-to-one. I'm not on top of that world enough to know all the reasons why, but the "ring of death" could be one.

That's more likely explained by the fact that PS4 launched $100 cheaper and is more powerful.

Its more about brand recognition than anything else. Now they are at parity pricing and they still dont close the gap.

Re: Microsoft is ending Xbox 360 production more than 10 years after its debut

#75

Post by daveidol »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #57
sremani wrote: post #2

I am not a hardware guy, but honestly, they should mini-fy XB360 and make it appleTV competitor but with a huge game library.

If it wasn't going to eat into Xbox One sales, I'm sure Microsoft would consider it. The Xbox 360 makes a far better media center than the Xbox One does. The apps on the 360 crash less then on the One and dealing with crashed apps on the 360 is much more reliable. For example, when your YouTube app crashes/hangs on the Xbox One, returning to the menu does nothing as the app pauses/runs in the background. You can hit…

If you quit the app with the menu button then it is quit completely. Essentially, the "home" functionality works just like on iOS or Android. You're right that it is not always intuitive in situations when an app is hanging/frozen, but I'm not sure why you have to open other apps to get it to quit - I've never had that problem.

Disclosure: I used to work on the Xbox Live team at MSFT but no longer do.

Re: Microsoft is ending Xbox 360 production more than 10 years after its debut

#76

Post by Eric_WVGG »

pdabbadabba wrote: post #63
MichaelGG wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that why they can bombard the entire UI with ads? Every single page has tons of ads, and MS misleadingly only notes one of them as "Advertisement" (autoplay video). I disconnected my Xbox360 from the Internet because it's faster that way, and cleaner. I see the Xbox One is pretty bad, too, and this "ads everywhere" has leaked into Windows 10 (though you can turn them off a bit).

> this "ads everywhere" has leaked into Windows 10 (though you can turn them off a bit). Where? I've been using Windows 10 everyday for months and haven't seen an ad. There was that one time that something resembling a Tomb Raider ad was served to users' lock screens, but I never saw it myself and I've never seen anything else. Maybe it depends on which version of Windows 10?

lock screen, start menu, "growl" notifications…

Re: Microsoft is ending Xbox 360 production more than 10 years after its debut

#77

Post by emehrkay »

asimuvPR wrote: post #24

IMO, the amazing thing about the 360 was how they were able to successfully continue selling it in spite of having the ring of death issues[0]. I know people who would go and buy a new machine when theirs died without thinking about it twice. One even gave me their 360 when the ONE came out. Microsoft sure knows how to build brand loyalty. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_technical_problems

There has to be some sort of record set with regard to the number of units sold vs the chances the unit would fail. It seems like everyone's xbox 360 would fail, no one was immune.

Re: Microsoft is ending Xbox 360 production more than 10 years after its debut

#78

Post by chipsy »

asimuvPR wrote: post #50
FussyZeus wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as a 360 owner, I think it had more to do with a really good selection of launch exclusive titles that kept people coming back. The original gen 1's were not of great quality at all, even beyond the RROD issues the console felt cheap and poorly made, the power supplies were insanely large and generated a ton of heat, etc. Microsoft sold the 360 with good exclusives, which is what Sony then did with the PS4 w…

I never really understood Microsoft wanting to be the center of the living room. Its just a weird concept to me.

It's brought on by being a big company that wants to leverage existing customer bases into new markets. Both Sony and Microsoft engaged in the "platform strategy" in the last two generations, while Nintendo sat back making traditional gaming consoles, focusing on building their own market rather than invading an existing one.

Basically, the console brand, to MS and Sony, is ultimately a tool that can be used to build a potentially bigger empire. Share and revenue prospects come before whether the experience makes sense, and in the echo chambers of such large companies, it's easy to fashion a story where every consumer is hungry for all of this stuff and wants a single source to deliver it.

Re: Microsoft is ending Xbox 360 production more than 10 years after its debut

#79

Post by ekianjo »

barbs wrote: post #68
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nintendo's Family Computer (aka the Nintendo Entertainment System in the rest of the world) was released in 1983 and only discontinued in Japan in 2003. Even after that they still repaired consoles until 2007.

Sega's 8-bit Master System console is still being sold in Brazil. http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/brazil-is-a-video-game-...

Who makes them now though?

Re: Microsoft is ending Xbox 360 production more than 10 years after its debut

#80

Post by vhost- »

sogen wrote: post #73
buckbova wrote: post #7

PS2 went on for 13 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_2 > Sony finally announced that the PlayStation 2 had been discontinued after 13 years of production – one of the longest runs for a video game console.

ah the PS2, what a sturdy built console, a department store nearby kept selling those for years (like pancakes)

I still have one sitting in front of me. And it's for one game: Metal Gear Solid.
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