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Squilliam on 01 January 2010
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JaggedSac said:
Nice thread. A couple of questions for you.

Are you suggesting that games be made to work for both the original 360 specs and these enhanced ones? Perhaps a few that are enhanced only? This could be an issue with developers unless MS develops software for easy development and handling of the two different sets of game assets. This would not really be an issue for first party 360 or third party PC/360 games, but console only multiplats would probably not utilize the higher end specs of the enhanced 360s unless Sony released a newer console or enhanced specs for the PS3 as well. Perhaps it isn't an issue.

What possibilities with Natal will the current 360 specs not be able to handle?

The Xbox and Xbox 360 use a Microsoft proprietary API. Since everything passes through the Microsoft API they can be sure they can offer consistant results that the software expects even with different hardware in use. In addition they can cause the hardware to react in a different way to the same program and without any extra input from the developer. So they could push out a different result, like for instance they could take Halo 3 and turn it into a 3D game without the game engine itself noticing any difference because they control the API and hardware and dictate to some extent how programs are to be written.

You would not need different assets to render a game engine which was 720P on the Xbox 360 to 3D 1080P on the Xbox Natal (resolution changes need a little developer input so only future titles) and both Xbox 360 and Xbox Natal users would be experiencing the exact same content but rendered in a slightly different way.

Microsoft is an iterative company, they don't tend to make sweeping changes to their product lineup. Updated hardware is a cautious first step towards 3D and to full HD output without the risk of a full blooded new architecture. The closer the hardware is in performance and architecture between hard generations (Xbox 1 -> 360 being different architectures) the easier it is to support both. Windows Vista would be Xbox 360, Windows 7 would be Xbox Natal and incorporate both forward thinking and full backwards compatibility.



Tease.