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It's reasonably close to that description, anyway.

So your argument is that Microsoft didin't "ruin" the game by causing it to be changed from a MMORPG to a FPS?

From the article you linked to at http://www.planetxbox.com/features/diary/halo/0514 01/:

Microsoft offered to acquire us and make us one of its internal development studios for the XBox. [....] The decision to move to Microsoft and work on the Xbox lead to one more decision, to focus more on the solo-player campaign than we had previously planned.

So Microsoft buys out the company, and then the company has to release their new game to the XBox. The XBox doesn't support MMORPGs so they have to switch it to FPS. In other words, if you admit that Microsoft stipulated "only that it would come out on XBox first", the implication is that Microsoft made Halo *not* be a MMORPG.

About every other line of that system specs chart has a major inaccuracy in it. I'll go through some of them in order (refer to the chart to see what I'm talking about).

In the "CPU" row, it only emphasizes the clock speeds of each CPU. The fact is that a PowerPC chip accomplishes quite a bit more per clock cycle than the P3 does. The GC and Xbox CPUs are very nearly evenly matched.

The chart doesn't have a date on it, but many of the items that have been marked "N/A" in the GameCube column refer to specs that have been known about for months - and in some of these categories the GameCube unquestionably outdoes the Xbox specs. For example, the Xbox will be able to apply 4 textures per pass; the GC will do 8; the planetxbox chart lists "N/A" for the GC.

Two lines down the chart lists memory bandwidth for each system - xbox 6.4GB/s, PS2 3.2GB/s, GC 3.2GB/s. This is totally misleading, also - for the latter two systems, this number depends on which piece of memory you're talking about. The GC has up to about 12GB/s of bandwidth to some of its texture cache, for instance.

Next the chart lists raw polygon counts - which are usually meaningless - and the number listed for the GC is just incorrect because Nintendo has never even released raw polygon counts precisely because these numbers are so meaningless. The 6-12 million number the chart is using is not a raw polygon count; it assumes one is applying 8 effects layers and real-time lighting. Several developers have commented that this number is conservative by a factor of about two. In other words this line of the chart compares apples to oranges.

Next the planetxbox chart gives fill rate figures. Even considering 2 textures this is hardly a realistic number; PC gamers for years have had to learn to ignore the raw pixel fill rates claimed in the specs for 3d graphics cards. Include z-buffering, alpha-blending, texture-mapping, MIP-mapping, etc... in real life the fill rate will literally only be a fraction (think 1/5 or so - possibly much less) of the 4000M pixels claimed. The Xbox is still quite good in this area, but there's no reason to cherry-pick irrelevant engineering specs in order to demonstrate it.

I'll stop here. I have to conclude that planetxbox's chart is mostly useless as a comparison tool. Just to make matters clear, I have high hopes for the xbox, and even imagine it has a great shot at edging out the PS2. But there was no need to lie with numbers in order to make this point.

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About every other line of that system specs chart has a major inaccuracy in it. I'll go through some of them in order (refer to the chart to see what I'm talking about).

In the "CPU" row, it only emphasizes the clock speeds of each CPU. The fact is that a PowerPC chip accomplishes quite a bit more per clock cycle than the P3 does. The GC and Xbox CPUs are very nearly evenly matched.

The chart doesn't have a date on it, but many of the items that have been marked "N/A" in the GameCube column refer to specs that have been known about for months - and in some of these categories the GameCube unquestionably outdoes the Xbox specs. For example, the Xbox will be able to apply 4 textures per pass; the GC will do 8; the planetxbox chart lists "N/A" for the GC.

Two lines down the chart lists memory bandwidth for each system - xbox 6.4GB/s, PS2 3.2GB/s, GC 3.2GB/s. This is totally misleading, also - for the latter two systems, this number depends on which piece of memory you're talking about. The GC has up to about 12GB/s of bandwidth to some of its texture cache, for instance.

Next the chart lists raw polygon counts - which are usually meaningless - and the number listed for the GC is just incorrect because Nintendo has never even released raw polygon counts precisely because these numbers are so meaningless. The 6-12 million number the chart is using is not a raw polygon count; it assumes one is applying 8 effects layers and real-time lighting. Several developers have commented that this number is conservative by a factor of about two. In other words this line of the chart compares apples to oranges.

Next the planetxbox chart gives fill rate figures. Even considering 2 textures this is hardly a realistic number; PC gamers for years have had to learn to ignore the raw pixel fill rates claimed in the specs for 3d graphics cards. Include z-buffering, alpha-blending, texture-mapping, MIP-mapping, etc... in real life the fill rate will literally only be a fraction (think 1/5 or so - possibly much less) of the 4000M pixels claimed. The Xbox is still quite good in this area, but there's no reason to cherry-pick irrelevant engineering specs in order to demonstrate it.

I'll stop here. I have to conclude that planetxbox's chart is mostly useless as a comparison tool. Just to make matters clear, I have high hopes for the xbox, and even imagine it has a great shot at edging out the PS2. But there was no need to lie with numbers in order to make this point.

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I'm really starting to hate articles like this, which are published with little effort to verify facts. Throughout the whole piece, the author keeps saying that developers won't sign on with the X-Box because of XXX or YYY.

Look at the X-Box developers list -- these companies are either already making games, or have signed on to DO game exclusively.

Another reason that the PS2 and GameCube won't be any competition is, well, pure numbers. The system specs of the X-Box, in a handy chart comparing them to the GameCube and PS2.

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CitizenC

I'm really starting to hate articles like this, which are published with little effort to verify facts. Throughout the whole piece, the author keeps saying that developers won't sign on with the X-Box because of XXX or YYY.

Look at the X-Box developers list -- these companies are either already making games, or have signed on to DO game exclusively.

Another reason that the PS2 and GameCube won't be any competition is, well, pure numbers. The system specs of the X-Box, in a handy chart comparing them to the GameCube and PS2.

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CitizenC

Sure, here is the list of X-Box developers, as you can see there is well over 100.

The list of 3rd party developers for Gamecube can be found here. I think you mis-interpreted what I was saying about the GameCube (or I didn't express it well enough). Whilst the GameCube will DEFINATELY have AWESOME games which I and I'm sure many many other people can't wait to play, it will lack a surge of games which is what seemed to put the PS1 ahead of the N64 at the time. Whilst alot of the PS1 games were crap you have to understand that the average gamer is not even hardcore enough to recognise the quality of a game often and therefore choose quantity over quality.

The PS2 is getting a new model with a HD in Japan this week and it will also be sold as an addon at an unspecified later date.
My main point was that X-Box would recieve better sales due to the sheer number of developers compared to other consoles, innovative or not.

Check out PlanetXbox for Micro$oft's reply.... something about those pictures being "concept art mis-labeled as screenshots". Yeah, just an accident... sure. ;)

I found this on planetxbox

(quote from Bungie's Doug Zartman)

"Well, you gotta understand that there have been countless rumors of people buying us over theyears - Eidos, GT, Acclaim - and we've developed a policy of not fueling those mills by commenting on the rumors. In general, if you haven't heard something from us, it isn't true."

(end quote)

Does that mean anything? well, not really, I guess, but at least it's a semi-official statement. Man, I hope it's not true.

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