Microsoft May Drop the Spring/Fall Updates for the Xbox 360

Microsoft has definitely had a busy Tokyo Game Show. With announcements left and right about Tekken 6 or about the New Xbox Experience, the company is getting the hype going around about their updates and products. During this convention, John Schappert, corporate vice president of Microsoft, spoke about the Xbox 360 update development cycle for Spring/Fall. He said that this schedule might not apply after the launch of the NXE, the biggest and most elaborate update to have ever worked on.

“I don't know if we are going to tie ourselves to a spring/fall release schedule as much,” said Schappert at the TGS. “I think one of the things that I worked with the team with when I joined -- let's do a big release. Spring and fall sounds like there is a lot of distance between the two but there is an awful lot of... it's pretty hard to make a new dashboard because you have to certify it against every revision of the hardware, and there's a bunch of different specs. It's a pretty time-consuming and challenging thing to do. Which is why we only did it twice a year.”

He developed the idea that in order to bring new updates which vastly improve the user experience, more time is required for the development and testing of these updates. “I like staying focused on bigger and more impactful releases, so maybe it will be twice a year, maybe less frequently,” he said. “You know, to be determined. I think it's going to be more about: What's the next big launch? What are we bringing? When can we bring it? How can we do it in a big way?”

But most of the ideas which will be employed for the next update are already in place, “Don't worry. We already have plans well into next year about what we're delivering next,” Schappert added.

It definitely seems like a good idea. In order to bring updates which actually help the user and simplify the gaming experience, time is a key factor for the developers.