New XBOX 360?

A rumor going around the web lately is that Microsoft will be releasing a new console, possible an updated XBOX 360, that will be made specifically to work with their anticipated motion gaming device, Project Natal. Project Natal was their motion capture camera that was announced at E3 last week. The way it works is that it uses a camera, plugged into the XBOX 360, put at the base of your TV and recognizes how people move in front of it along with face and audio recognition. It was stated at the Microsoft E3 Conference that Project Natal will work all XBOX 360s.

The problem with this is that if they are making a new console to work with Project Natal and also work with all XBOX 360s, then it probably will not work as efficiently as we want it to because its being made for one specific combination of hardware. If Microsoft wants this to succeed, they should spend their time and money on making Project Natal work on the hardware that is already in circulation.

To put this into perspective, lets talk about the other console’s hardware refreshes. Nintendo has had one version of their Wii and Sony has had two major version, one with backwards compatibility and one without. The XBOX 360 has had about 4-5 major hardware combinations because of all the ones affect by the Red Ring of Death and the later E-74 errors.

With all these iterations of the XBOX 360, it might be wise to make a completely new system specifically for Project Natal that can take advantage of the hardware more efficiently. But Microsoft did announce that the XBOX 360 is less than halfway through it’s life cycle and with announcing Project NATAL, they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. After the announcement that Project NATAL will be available on all XBOX 360, it seems that Microsoft will have to release a refresh to the 360 hardware so that there is at least one system that can have optimal settings for Project Natal.