How Can 360 Win This Gen? Be More Like PS3

Internet to appear on Xbox?

If you’re anything like us, you’ll have grown tired of unplugging one console from the back of your television and amp just to watch programmes on the BBC’s iPlayer. Though slow in arriving, Microsoft’s forward strategy might just lend a hand with that, besides changing the mobile and PC landscapes beyond all recognition.

Thanks to some ballpark maths and comments recently made by the head of Microsoft’s mobile wing, Andy Lees, many are concluding that we’ll soon see identical operating systems across all Microsoft devices. That is to say, one that resembles the Xbox 360 dashboard almost entirely. Considering that the 360’s ten-year life cycle, enhanced by Kinect, and the three year one of Windows 8 conclude during 2014, it has been suggested that Microsoft’s following OS will cover all of its devices in some Apple imitating cross-promotional move. It also, potentially, brings the 360 in line with the internet browsing features of Sony’s PS3 (along with a few others) and will also, hopefully, provide an experience that’s more stable and worth using over other devices such as an iPad laptop. Currently, the PS3′s features are expansive, but lack quality in some areas. By bringing the 360 up to speed with the industry and its rivals, it removes any need to argue over the feature sets between systems.

Said features will apparently include not only the 360’s successor’s operating system, but the sharing of ‘core technologies’, including Internet Explorer. Ultimately, the actual raw processing power at user’s disposal will become lost in an ether of noughts and ones, the focus instead a common interface through which users can pick up activities and drop them across various devices. While we doubt this’ll mean full mouse and keyboard support to settle gaming’s second-longest running flame war, it seems Microsoft are starting to welcome features that don’t require a pay gate. This can only be welcome.