development-cycles
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A Mild-Mannered Reporter: So what's the deal with Champions Online?
Let's be honest here. Champions Online is not in a good state. A couple of weeks back I wrote about how expecting a limited-time event to flesh out the game's endgame is silly to say the least, and I stand by that. But there are two issues under discussion here, and the second is "does the game need more content?" The answer, right now, is an emphatic yes. An event isn't the place to go looking for that content necessarily, but this is still a pretty significant problem, and the game certainly doesn't look as if it's fast approaching its fourth year of operation (and it is). So what happened? It's no secret that the game launched to some pretty poor reception, but that doesn't account for the way that the game has been managed since then, especially when its free-to-play conversion has by all indications been reasonably successful. So why is it that after nearly half the lifespan of City of Heroes it still feels like a game that just recently launched?
Chris Lewis talks "next" box
With Sony and Nintendo's next-gen efforts still yet to launch, Microsoft is already talking about the next next-gen. In an interview with Kikizo, the always quotable Chris Lewis, head of Xbox Europe, confirmed that preliminary work has begun on the third generation Xbox:"Of course we're thinking about [the next Xbox]. We're constantly thinking about the next thing, we have to. It's my point about complacency - you can't sit back on your laurels in this business - the consumer won't let you, the developers certainly won't let us. So that's happening right now," Lewis reaffirms. "We keep our development cycles very fast and high, that is the nature of the company and how we operate in terms of research and development, and that's no different than any other part of Microsoft."Of course, Lewis was quick to return the focus to the Xbox 360, which the company predicts will have a longer life cycle than the minimal four years granted the original console thanks to their upgradable approach. It's never to early to start wildly speculating. What are your premature thopes for the Xbox 3/Xbox 720/NextBox? Holodeck please.[Thanks HandsomeTy]
