Anyone who seriously believes that project natal is going to realistically extend the life of the 360 to 2015 is smoking the really good stuff. Seriously, it's a gimmick. Nothing more. Imagine trying to play a TES game with this. If MS seriously thinks this is the answer, then they are committing financial suicide as far as their gaming division is concerned. While this may appeal to casual gamers and may be something interesting for a while if done correctly, it will not last. They will need a new console before then to appeal to the more serious gamer. Think about how dated the machine already is, and then think about what kind of games will be possible on the PC by the year 2015.

i dont know i read that on wikipedia.org and also think about world of warcraft very long lasting game all xbox has to do is ad mods to make it better like natal just like the expansions of WoW

Natal doesn't even ship with its own independent processor, meaning that it's stealing 10-15% of the 360's processing overhead just to function. So it is possible that a Natal 360 will perform to a lower standard than a 360 without Natal. Whether or not it will be as successful as Microsoft would have us all believe is unclear. But most of the sites I know that are watching Natal are less than enthused with what they see.

Not that TES will use Natal anyway.Todd Howard is http://www.thatvideogameblog.com/2009/02/06/todd-howards-thoughts-on-wii-its-a-toy/ calling the Wii "a kid's toy," and it's clear that he views the motion-control craze as a fad. As do I, personally.

Not sure how it would affect timelines. As much as I would like to, I can't deny that console lifetimes will have a major influence on announcements and releases.

Microsoft and Sony have both been saying their consoles will have 10 year lifespans for a while now. That may mean they'll simply keep supporting it while new consoles are out, but I'm pretty sure new consoles wont be released until we're about a year or two away from the 10 year mark. I really doubt new consoles will be out in 2013 or even 2014, so if Bethesda has already started developing TESV, I don't think it will come out anywhere near the release of the next generation of consoles.

Well, then I guess Beth only has 2 options really. Release the PC and console versions simultaneously, the console version being a significantly scaled down version. Or this game doesn't get released for another 2-3 years. I'm pretty sure Beth will want to release it across all platforms simultaneously.

Considering we know absolutely nothing about TESV, I don't know why you think the console versions would have to be scaled down. Plus, it doesn't seem likely that it will be released until 2012 anyway. I don't think Bethesda will have a problem with releasing a game near the end of the console's life cycles, as I doubt any next-gen consoles would be revealed until 2013 anyway.

read my previous post, post 122. Of course this is all speculative, but given Beths history of trying to push hardware to their limits whenever a new TES game is released, i'd be very surprised if they didn't do it this time around, especially considering the advances that have been made in the PC market since Oblivion's release. Todd has mentioned in the past that his vision for game immersion is "realism", referring to cutting-edge graphics.

They can't wait 3 or even 2 more years of paying staff and not making any money. No matter how well their next game does a 5 year gap between fallout and tes V would have to be a loss of money.

Good point. I personally believe it will be a fall 2011 or early 2012 release.

While it is likely that changes in technology and changes in the size of Bethesda will increase or decrease the amount of time it takes Bethesda to make, I still think it's a safe bet to use their past release schedule for speculating. Of course, you're right, everything we say here is just speculation based on little scraps of information like trademarks, previous development cycles and speculated console lifetimes.

One thing I feel very sure about is that there will be an announcement this year. In the last decade, we've never had a year where we didn't know something about what's going on at Bethesda in regards to TES and Fallout (not including published titles like Fallout: New Vegas). When Morrowind was released, the year after that we didn't know about their next game, but we did know they were making DLC. Then the year after that Oblivion was announced. After Oblivion was released, we knew they were making Oblivion DLC and developing Fallout 3. When Fallout 3 was released, the year after that we knew they were making Fallout 3 DLC. Not a year has passed in the last decade where we didn't know anything about what Bethesda is doing, and if they don't announce something this year, it would be genuinely shocking.

I agree with that.

Is that why Oblivion's streets reflected enough light to cause snow blindness? And all the NPCs had jowls/fetal alcohol syndrome?

It's my opinion that "realism" relies much more on art design than processing power. I think a new designer or two would make the realism jump more any amount of technological improvements.

BUT as far as consoles go...if Xbox really wants to increase the lifespan on their game, they will need to release some kind of peripheral that would convey extra data processing. It seems the PS3 is better on this front, but they also invested a lot more money and even with it's pricetag they still lose cash on each one sold. A 50-100 dollar add on could bring the xbox up to speed for the next generation of games.

Oblivion obviously had it's technical annoyances, among other issues. But graphically speaking this was still a big jump from Morrowind. In fact, when it was released, it was definitely the most detailed forests I'd ever seen. I do agree that good artwork could assist in making the game better. But if you look at many of Todd's quotes, it still sounds like he wants to push the hardware. Personally, I wish they would focus more on the game play.

As for the console life expectancy, I'm all for anything that can help extend the lifespan. I just don't know if adding a pheripheral is the answer.

Todd Howard and his team is definitely pushing the hardware, but this time they are rebuilding the engine from the ground up basically to have a more efficient, optimized, and stable engine with the ability to use better graphics and utilize different systems better such as the animations. I know that because Todd Howard said, "We're redoing large parts of our basic technology." He also told us that they are "very aware of the technical deficiencies" of their games. He said animations was one example of this, and that they are making the animation system much better.

I highly doubt Bethesda is making ESV for future consoles. They are probably long ways away.

That is is good to hear. I wonder how that effects the development of another TES game though? It's a pretty broad statement, but if he means what you think he means, the time line of when they are "redoing" this technology is critical. They will most definitely be doing this to support a TES game and this would need to be done before they can really start major development on the game.

There's definitely going to be a longer development cycle of ESV compared to Fallout 3. I imagine that Fallout: New Vegas will be widely promoted by Bethesda Softworks, then once it's released at the end of this year, ESV will shortly be announced afterwards.

Yeah, I think it's obvious that a TES game will take longer to develop then a Fallout game. Todd's comments, "We're redoing large parts of our basic technology" is a big piece to the puzzle in my opinion. When did he make this statement? Got anything you can link up?

It's on the first page, in the op.

Dote! Must a missed that. I guess it would help If I read through the original post thoroughly. :facepalm:

I've just finished reading an article about FONV and in it it suggested that one reason Obsidian was making the game could be that Bethesda was working on TESV. Is this just speculation or do they know something? Personally I think it's speculation.

Maybe this thread is more appropriate.

What article were you reading?

Well I'd say it's pretty obvious it's just speculation, because Bethesda would never just confirm TESV in a magazine article, they're way too secretive to do that. But it would make sense that one of their reasons for letting Obsidian make New Vegas would be so that they could satisfy Fallout fans while they focused on a new Elder Scrolls game.

yeah, i think that makes perfect sense, even though I don't think it's fair that Fallout fans get back to back games while TES fans have to wait 4-6 years between games. :rolleyes:

Though you have to take into consideration that Fallout is a brand new IP for Bethesda, and they've only made one game, while TES is their series. I think Bethesda would be much more reluctant to give a developer outside of Zenimax Online and Vir2L a chance to make an Elder Scrolls game.

Besides, New Vegas is using many many assets from Fallout 3, so they aren't even making the game from the ground up. I don't know how many ES fans would be in love with the idea of a brand new developer doing that with Oblivion.

Official XBox 360 Mag.