Why We Can Expect The Next Generation Xbox Next Year

Speculation of a new generation Xbox have been around for quite some time now, with articles predicting when it will be released or what’s going to be new with it. Here are my thoughts though as to why I think we will see a new Xbox next year.

• One of the most popular franchises on the Xbox, Gears of War has always been developed by Epic games both single player and multiplayer.  However with the next installment Gears of War: Judgment, People Can Fly, the studio behind Bulletstorm, is developing the single player. The multiplayer is still being developed by Epic games, but it is possible that Epic are planning to hand over the rights of Gears to People Can Fly, so that Epic games can concentrate on developing a new IP for the next generation. Now whatever happened to Fortnite? If you think that sounds far fetched, only recently did the same thing happen to Bungie where they handed the rights of Halo to 343 industries and now Bungie are developing a new IP

• Another important aspect of Gears of War: Judgment is the release date. Gears 1 to 3 have always seen a release of either September or November and the public have generally had to wait at least a year before they got their hands on it. So why is Judgment being released February 2013? One obvious theory is that the next generation Xbox could be released later that year, so they don’t want to conflict with its sales.

• A big criticism of Microsoft’s conference this year at E3 was the lack of new IP’s seeing as Microsoft is generally the one to provide them. If the next gen Xbox was to be revealed at next year’s E3, then there is no better time to show off new IP’s, even better than that would be exclusive IPs.

• For a lot of people Watch Dogs was the game that stole E3 this year and for good reason. Along with some genius gameplay mechanics, the game looks absolutely gorgeous and looks to have some intriguing multiplayer functions possibly a MMO. Is the game then to technical evolved for this current generation? I know the game was running on a high-powered PC, but could we also be looking at next gen graphics the same as Star Wars 1313? The same with the online function, if it did have a similar system to an MMO, then surely the current gen couldn’t do it. Yes there has been DC Universe on PS3 but that did not have the graphics of Watch Dogs. It has been slated for a release sometime in 2013 on PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 but could that be a diversion?

• If it doesn’t come soon then could it be too late? With the Wii U being released supposedly this year, Microsoft would have to bring out some pretty special games to have a chance in the market. People are expecting high value games these days that dare to do something different and sooner or later, this may not happen if we carry on with the existing tech.
• Lastly could Halo 4, Forza Horizon, Fable the Journey and Gears of War: Judgment be a farewell to the 360? Let’s be honest no one was expecting a Halo 4 or another Gears of War game to come around so soon.

What do you think of all this? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.