If Rumors Are True, Next Gen Xbox May Not Be For Me

 Hey Guys, there have been allot of rumors going around the inter webs these days about what Microsoft's next gaming machine will be and when it will come out. If the following rumors are true, I can tell you I won't be so eager to pick one up, at launch anyway.

These are Links to some sites with various info, but below are some of the reasons I'm thinking of holding off for a while.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100674839

http://metro.co.uk/2013/04/08/next-gen-xbox-is-going-to-be-expensive-reveal-pushed-back-to-may-says-insider-3587027/



1: Pricing - Popular belief is that they will have two different pricing points. One will be $299 but you must sign up for a two year contract of Xbox live for $10 a month. Currently you can often find deals on year memberships for $50 or less if you wait for the right moments to buy. The other is that it will cost $499 if you get it without the contract deal. At that high of a price I would rather just get a decent laptop, or save the money for a gaming PC.

2: No Backwards Compatibility - A good chance the new system will be using a different processor AMD as opposed to IBM thus making Xbox 360 games unable to be played on the new system. I don' know about you but I really don't want anymore wires and boxes hooked up to an already cluttered area. Give us backwards compatibility.

3: Always On - Rumors suggest that in order to play on the next gen console you will have to always be connected to the Internet, similar to Diablo 3 and the latest Sim City game, this causes problems as whenever servers go down, or even your own Internet, your $500 gaming device becomes useless. Yes I know most of what we do with our current Xbox is online anyway, but why take away the choice for us to play offline or watch a DVD without being connected?

4 Whats the point of spending so much on upgrading a system with a statement like this which I grabbed from CNBC.COM   "The next-generation consoles present only a modest improvement in graphics quality over current generation consoles, suggesting to us that many gamers will be slower to adopt the new technology immediately," said Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities.  

Of course these are all rumors at this point, and we will have to wait until May 21st 2013 for any official news. Add to the fact the first year or so of a new consoles release usually don't yield the greatest results in quality gaming as designers are still learning what they can do with the hardware, so as for me I think I'll give this one a wait, unless something mind blowing comes out that we don't yet know about.