Upgradeable Xbox 720 vs. Cloud

It has been an amazing month for news on the next-gen games consoles, and one that has seen official responses from both Microsoft and Sony, which concerned the E3 Xbox 720 and PS4 rumors hitting popular gaming websites. The names are obviously not yet known, although codenames are being widely used in connection with these next-gen machines.

There are a number of ways Sony and Microsoft could market their next-gen consoles when it comes to cloud vs. high spec hardware – We could see an Xbox 720 and PS4 push specs to the limits in an effort to be powerful enough for many years to come, or they could include an option to upgrade certain hardware in the machine. We might even see something completely unconventional after seeing the progress OnLive is making with cloud gaming, which could be a mix of horsepower and cloud gaming.

How much of a threat is OnLive to the PS4 and Xbox 720? Google partnering with OnLive has only helped the service progress into our living rooms, which means high graphic gaming built into televisions without the need for high spec hardware. This would theoretically mean an upgrade to next-gen graphics wouldn’t need new hardware, and could prove a real threat to Microsoft and Sony in the living room environment where broadband is readily available for connection to the cloud gaming platform.

Then we have devices like the iPad 3, new iPod’s and iPhone’s, Android devices and other portable platforms with apps that can connect to OnLive for cloud gaming, which can be a more attractive option for casual gamers. When these devices include LTE 4G then the connection to cloud gaming would become almost the same as the living room, which only helps services like OnLive gain market share.

Upgradeable games consoles for the hardcore gamer – if you’re like us then giving up a dedicated machine for gaming would be hard, and something you might not be ready to do for many years. The PS3 included an option to slot another laptop style hard drive inside, having upgraded a few PS3′s it proved extremely simple to-do once the machine screws were undone.

The Xbox 720 needs upgradeable elements that allow us to not only slot in a standard hard drive for a really cheap storage upgrade, but also slot in memory to give a needed boost a few years after the Xbox 720 has been released. This would solve many issues where developers have lacked needed memory this generation.

Upgradeable Xbox 720 vs. Cloud – we’re sure you have a number of ideas for a “Next Xbox” that can be upgraded, so feel free to share your ideas in the comments. Also the cloud option could be an addition, although some analysts believe it’s a viable service that could replace consoles in the future, as we know them today. This month has seen a number of predictions and one of the strangest came from the CPO at Gaikai, which was made while a panel looked at how games consoles are in trouble, in their opinion. Nanea Reeves predicted that not all the main console brands will make another generation, and this statement seemed a little wild in our opinion. Feel free to share your thoughts on that.

Another article looks at the financial argument for an upgradeable Xbox 720, which would let you add more memory, a better GPU and faster CPU. While their idea sounds interesting and could allow Microsoft to create a new revenue stream by offering upgrades to consoles, would it be engineering problems or politics that could stop this idea becoming reality?

There are many considerations for next-gen gaming and bloggers share a range of views on this very topic, especially when it comes to a single console future. In our opinion competition is needed for innovation and quality, although not everyone agrees with that. You can read some great points on why a single console future is a bad idea in this article.

One rumor that upset a few Xbox 360 gamers involved the possibility that used games might not be supported on the Xbox 720, which you can read more about here. We heard some solid details on Next Xbox production earlier this week, which can be seen in this article.

Would you like an upgradeable Xbox 720 or do you learn towards the OnLive approach?