- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Frankly, I think Microsofts been slipping rumors in to see what people's reactions are (both in the industry and consumers). Microsoft is just playing the little... crap-disturber, stirring the pot to see what comes out. It's the business way, or I should say "The industry's way," of doing a little recon.
In my opinion, they will have to put in backwards compatibility into their next-gen box, it's become the staple for consoles yet-to-come. Anyone with half a brain in Microsoft (which is the majority, teehee) is probably saying the same thing. If they don't... well they'll have a lot to answer for. And if they intend on keeping up with the Playstation 3 (which also will most likely be backwards compatible, if not with Playstation 1 then 2 surely) they'll have to put this feature in.
This guy makes an interesting rebuttle to the very same rumors. (06/23/04 post, scroll down a bit till you see the headline "Xbox 2 Jumping The Gun? No")
As for the Xbox live scenario... well that's a tough one... I very much doubt they'll shut it down right after the release of the Xbox 2, if they intend on making a whole new network for multiplayer gaming from scratch. More then likely, they'll simply reuse the existing framework and build off that (like seperate xbox live patches, and features for the old and the new consoles [the new haveing all the better looking stuff of course])
As for competitive play Xbox vs Xbox 2 over xbox live. It'll most likely be possible, but you won't be able to play Xbox 2 games over you Xbox console of course...
[Edited on 6/26/2004 1:02:09 AM]