Nex-gen consoles: what do you want to see?

The internet is great for a lot of things but it's also a great repository for gossip, rumour and speculation, and this week the net has been going CRAZY with all sorts of rumours on what the successor to the Xbox 360 will be like.

"It'll have this," reports one site that has been speaking to a source close to the project. "It'll have that," reports yet another site that has also been talking to a close source. Just how true is any of the speculation?

Rumours coming out this week suggest the next Xbox will come with a Blu-ray drive, which makes a great deal of sense, and some form of anti-used games ability that will prevent it from playing second-hand games, something that sounds less true but could be something big game producers would back. Big name publishers have been trying to put a squeeze on the used games market for some time now so if a console did come with something that somehow prevented the playing of used copies of games they'd be behind it (how would it work though: would they use a single-use registration key for each disc perhaps?).

It's also rumoured that Microsoft's next console will have a graphics processor six times faster than Nintendo's Wii U, itself rumoured to be twice as fast as the current Xbox 360 and expected  to be released in major markets "in time for Christmas this year", and come with the next generation Kinect sensor built in.

I can see the move to Blu-ray as a positive one for the next Xbox as Blu-ray discs can hold up to five times more data than the DVD, which is what the Xbox 360 uses - something that would be a good move for future releases, especially now with games getting larger and more complex and graphics becoming more realistic.

Have you noticed, though, how I haven't called the successor to the Xbox 360 "the Xbox 720"? Nobody is referring to the next Xbox as that except games media. Microsoft have never suggested the next console will be called "Xbox 720".

I've said it once, I'll say it again, though: Nintendo's Wii U is too little too late to the HD party and I strongly believe that by the time it's released both Microsoft and Sony will have revealed information about the successors to their current generation consoles. The Wii U will be outdated by the time Microsoft and Sony release their next consoles.

There is also more speculation that Microsoft's next console could actually be a tablet-based solution and run Windows 8, if information coming out of this year's CES is anything to go by. Sony, however, has been extremely quiet about its plans for future consoles, saying that it isn't planning on showing anything off at this year's E3, but I'm not so sure.

Almost a year ago, I did a blog about future console designs and featured one by then Massey University industrial design student Hannah Yu, who had come up with a concept for a future games console called deux.

Yu said deux, pictured here, was  portable and featured a projector and a 3D sensing camera incorporated into the one unit. "It creates a controller-free gaming experience for the gamer, using infrared light to track points on the gamer's body, allowing the player to interact with the game in a variety of gestures,,she said. The unit can be recharged wirelessly by placing the console on to a charging dock. Is this the future of gaming consoles?

Mircosoft has been reported as saying, as it always does, that it doesn't comment on "rumour and speculation" but what do you, as gamers and the potential buyers of the next-generation consoles, want to see in new consoles? If you were able to influence the designers of the next generation of home consoles what would you tell them you want? (PC gamers, you can take part too - just don't turn this into an "I already have the best gaming machine around: it's called a PC. Consoles suck" flame war please.) 

Stuff you might want to also read: Game Junkie is on Twitter and you can email him here. You can also hear him on Kiwi FM every Tuesday chatting about video games with Glenn Williams, and, if that isn't enough, he has another gaming blog here. Check it out.