E3'07: Microsoft Conference Yields Few Surprises News

Added:Wed 29th Jun 2011 11:55, Post No: 611

@Peter Corr: You'd be surprised actually. I've done TVG's news on a daily basis for nearly 4 years now, and the amount of rumours that end up having some kind of relevance to them is higher than you'd think. I'd maybe estimate it somewhere in the realms of 30-40% of rumours are at least based on something that was true somewhere along the line.

The real problem is the Chinese whispers effect: after a few drinks at a press event, one journalist tells another journalist something they overheard on a recent studio tour, and the whole thing ends up getting misconstrued and overblown in a rumour article. It's why the sources are often referred to as "familiar with the matter" or "close to [the developer]" etc.

In my career, I've held back a handful of potentially huge rumour articles like this (which have turned out to be vaguely true in the end, I might add). It's usually been because my 'source' told me with confidence that I wouldn't report it, or because the story would have been poorly verified and potentially inflammatory unless it was more substantiated. However, many other journalists would just report these kinds of stories anyway.

In terms of the speculation on new consoles that you're referring to, no rumours are going to force console manufacturers into rushing a new system out of the door. One of the Next Xbox rumours suggested that Microsoft has been working on a new system since 2006, and this wouldn't surprise me at all. My boss and I looked through Nintendo's R&D spending a couple of years back, and it's eye-opening to see how R&D spending ramps-up quite a few years before a new console's announcement.

A good rule of thumb is that you can expect a console manufacturer to at least be in the planning stages for a new system within 2 or 3 years of releasing its current machine. If Microsoft hadn't been sketching out ideas for its NeXtbox by 2008, then I'd be very surprised. Make no mistake, there will be a new Xbox machine somewhere within Microsoft's Redmond HQ by now. The only question is whether or not it's in the hands of developers at this point as well.

As far as rumoured images of new consoles are concerned, you're right - more often than not they tend to look nothing like the final product. There's a couple of reasons for this: fake images can be easily mocked-up by NeoGaf users with far too much time on their hands, but also a new console's design goes through numerous prototype stages before it reaches its final form. Rumoured images may have been accurate at one point but simply didn't end up reflecting the final design.

Added:Tue 28th Jun 2011 15:43, Post No: 609

@Peter Corr: This is the game industry. Publishers and developers will deny whatever they want and call it rumour and speculation until they officially announce it themselves.

That's how it works. They will deny accurate reports to keep their publicity campaigns intact, or because they're under non-disclosure agreements.

For what it's worth, I find this latest round of rumours pretty sketchy anyway, which is why I wrote a couple of paragraphs at the bottom voicing doubt on the whole thing.

I had initially put up resistance to reporting on this latest round of Xbox 720 rumours but, as the rumours started to mount up, I thought it was at least worth bringing it to our readers' attention. To reiterate though, personally I'm sceptical and I think that's reflected in the tone of my writing.

Added:Tue 28th Jun 2011 14:43, Post No: 607

...you stole my term "nextbox"! ><.

Added:Sun 08th May 2011 22:10, Post No: 605

now thats just a childish and quite poor responce from what your making out to be a mature adult, i clearly stated there is less chance of getting an infection by using legal web sites however nothing is hacker proof "learn to read please". google OS is or might not even come to light for at least a few years yet and dont expect linux to steal any of microsofts market share, if it really bothers you that much get an apple mac but really is there any need for the quite silly argumenton a gaming website.

untill you grow up and act your age please stop filling up these pages with your hate, if you dont like microsoft fair enough your not alone but for the people that do like microsoft please stop trolling them its just childish and the only one your showing up is your self.

i dont see any other music producers or games developers with such petty responces such as yours, they have more important things to do than going to gaming websites and sending childish replys, quite obviously you have quite a lot of time on your hands as most developers/music creators have their own blog sites in which to chat when they have some spare time.

Added:Sun 08th May 2011 20:40, Post No: 603

jesus post 600 did your rattle fall out of your pram and post 602 your right post 600 is a hypocrite, the playstation has been hacked loads of times, just cause all the times before sony didnt shut its servers down dont mean its better or hasnt been hacked lol, the only poeople who get seriously bad security breaches in windows and internet explorer are morons who download illegal digital content, the security provided with windows is secure enough for people who dont partisipate in illegal activity such as illegally downloading games, movies, music and software.

if you just bought official software, games, movies, music ect you would have far less chance of being hacked, im not saying you wont get hacked just there is far less chance of it happening, nothing is hacker proof you moronic hypocrite.