A rumor has begun circulating—as rumors have been for the past few weeks regarding the new Xbox 720 and PS4 consoles—that Microsoft’s new Xbox may have a “Windows 8-inspired interface,” Luke Karmali for IGN says in a video post on Feb. 7.
“The user interface of the Xbox 720 may be very similar to Windows 8,” Karmali says, citing an interview with former Windows sales VP, Joachim Kempin. Kempin revealed that “he strongly believes the next generation Xbox will sport an interface reminiscent of Windows 8, possibly to the extent that a touch screen will also make an appearance.”
Kempin goes on to say: “I think the other thing they will try, there’s no doubt about it, is it’s going to be more Windows 8-like; maybe it even gets a touchscreen, who knows? Most of what’s in there today really is Windows, right? I wouldn’t be surprised if the next round of interface comes even closer to Windows 8 than it is today."
Kempin feels the move is necessary. He thinks that in order for Microsoft to become more successful, due to the mixed emotions its new OS has received, the company has to “show an evolution in its design process.” Then again, Kempin believes Microsoft’s preoccupation with “the barely profitable console part of the business” is putting Microsoft in danger.
"On the [Xbox hardware] itself there is no profit," he explained at length. "So the profit comes from all the other sources; royalties from game developers, maybe the next Halo version, maybe a new Kinect system and what have you. So when you look at that…God…it is such a small portion for their company. It would really be better if they would just spin that whole thing out and let other people run it on their own and not get distracted by it. For me that whole environment is a distraction for the company. They need to find out how to get this whole PC environment into the 21st century and to have an interesting, modern interface like they have on Windows 8 isn’t enough. It just isn’t. You have to make these devices work together.
“You can breathe some oxygen into that very stressed PC environment by doing it right, but nobody does, or at least not Microsoft so far. It’s frustrating. Think about it; they spend 10 billion bucks a year on research and development but what do you really get for it? A new version of Windows and Office? Hallelujah! And maybe once every three years there is a new version of Xbox. And Halo, you know, is normally a year and a half or something like that and is that good enough? I don’t know..."
For more information, you can watch either Luke Karmali’s video on Youtube, or read the IGN news article.
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