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This is 720p, and looks in-game to me. In fact, all of these latest screenshots do. Granted, the original (which was also 720p, by the way) is slightly smoother, but if you think the screenshot you posted, along with the screenshots out now aren't good representations of the game, you're delusional.

But is this market open to independent developers? If not, then which market is?

The PS3 does not even have all advantages than you mention.

Final fantasy is out for the Xbox360 and there is an HD-DVD player out for the 360 as well. According to this link, HD-DVD has more titles, higher sales, and better titles than Blu-Ray titles but its still too early to tell which of the two formats, if either, will dominate.

So what GPU is in the PS3? Is it a Nvidia or an ATI product?

You can't be serious?

For all of the "Buy neither, there is only a marginal difference over regular DVD"...I present the following: http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=483968 For the record, it hurts my eyes to watch a regular DVD after watching an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray Disc.

Gears of war will help the 360 - Not sure what will sell the PS3s. Appears the Wii has Japan locked up - will 2 consoles be able to launch at the same time while the 360 is launching about 40+ local native titles as well (developed/launched native instead of us imports)??

market shrinking? i think not.. Just the Playstation domination haseth cometh to its endeth

Okami is certainly very pretty. I do wish more games went for that style of look (cell-shaded goodness, etc.). I did see one game for the 360 that looked pretty promising though: Eternal Sonata. (It's also called Trusty Bell: Chopin's Dreams in Japan, and is releasing there first) When I first saw the trailer for that game, Okami definately came to mind.

Of course, it'll be a few months (if not a year) before we find out how that game actually turns out to be as good as Okami is.

Also, there IS an "Okami-lookalike" for the PS3, called White Knight. Again, though, it'll be a while before that releases and we see how good that game really is. (And it's probably the only PS3 title, aside from FFXIII that I'm remotely interested in)

That said, I don't think one game alone can "screw over" a console. It's not true for either Okami or Gears of War. I think what's important is the trend of the types of games for a console. Xbox got essentially labelled as a console for mostly shooters, western RPGs (like KOTOR and the TES series), and multiplatform games. And I'd have to agree with that sentiment. Meanwhile, the PS2, being the 800lb gorilla, got everything ... from your standard action/shooter/sports fare, to more "highbrow" games, such as Shadow of the Colossus and Okami. The 360 is starting to look a lot more diverse, which is good, but it certainly has a lot of ground to catch up.

Secondly, the only system that supported compressed textures in hardware was the Gamecube, the XBox and PS2 both had to uncompress their textures prior to rendering a polygon with that texture on it

Given that the Xbox's graphics chip is an Nvidia Geforce 3.something in disguise, it's not surprising that the Xbox does do texture compression. I think the Geforce 2 did, or maybe even earlier.

The original Xbox is pretty much a DirectX 8 device - the shaders are fairly programmable, and are much more versatile than the Gamecube's fixed-function system. It's still utterly crippled these days by the total of 64MB of memory, however - games like the Half-Life 2 port look pretty naff and blurry compared with the PC originals.

It's really not as crazy as it sounds, you know. Think of it this way; the cheapest Blu-Ray player you can find on the market is about $1,000. This does not require any real rendering hardware besides that which shows the video on a screen.

The PS3 on the other hand, has the Blu-Ray technology while at the same time uses the Cell multi-core microprocessor and an NVIDIA graphics GPU that is more powerful than a GeForce 7800GTX. One of those graphics cards goes retail at $500 or so.

$400 loss on every $600 PS3 still sound crazy to you?

The article makes it sound very mysterious, but it seems like the "red ring of light" is just the LEDs on the power switch changing from green to red, indicating a hardware failure. It's been nicknamed the Red Ring of Death.

I have a HD TV, problem is it doesn't have HDMI or 1080p and my case is far from unique. Without those two features you might as well stick with SD DVD's with MPEG2, you won't see much difference. Just buy your 360. It's pretty enough.

Personally, I'm just sticking to a Wii. I'm on a budget and Link is the man.

7. ... No porn, ... 'Nuff said.

Yup, no porn over here, none under here, I can't find any porn over here either.

... Sony's hardware is basically just a 360 with blue ray bolted on and a cheap imitation of the Wii controller.

Sorry, the PS3 specs blow xbox away if the two pages I just read are current. PS3 has twice the floating point performance xbox 360 does

"I'm sure it's just that they finally figured out how to compress things properly. To my understanding none of the game gives off a feeling of being cut up or missing stuff." That's because they did a good job. One of my first realizations that games sometime were shipped unfinished was Soul Reaver: legacy of Kain. I remeber reading about all the swords and creatures that was supposed to be in the game. First they ran out of space then they ran out of time. I would have never known that they had those issues if they didn't go into detail about what was supposed to be in the game. I heard they were shipped in part 2.... but I never played it. I lost interest. " Team Ninja made similar complaints prior to DOA4's release and the game ended up fitting less than a full disc while still loaded with a good amount of HD video (30 or so minutes at a minimum). From's game also had a lot of HD video so I suspect the hold-up was better WMV compression software." You're telling me a fighting game (Don't get me wrong... I like DOA4) with only 30 minutes of HD video barely fitting on a DVD9 disk is an example of how a typical JRPG should have no problems fitting on a dvd9 disc? I am going to take thier original comments at face value and hope that they aren't saying anything because they found a work around. If they had to cut anything chances are you would not see it in the final product. The only time you will notice oddities in a games story or graphics is when a dev runs out of time. "I think some devs certainly could make great use of the extra space of HD-DVD or Blu-ray, but I also don't think it's worth the extra $200-300 it adds to the system cost. Not enough devs would take advantage of it, and some of that money would be better spent on something like fancier GPUs that most devs could actually take advantage of (which is basically what MS did with the X360, while Sony seems to have bundled a lower spec GPU with the PS3 that is basically an off-the-shelf PC part). The currently much lower speed of these HD drives is also a negative - Blu-ray only offers about half the peak read speed of the X360's DVD drive, though admittedly it will hit that peak a lot more often than the X360 will hit its own." No one expects the devs to take advantage of it at first but hands down I believe that most devs will take advantage of blu ray entering into the consoles second gen cycle. As far as the lower spec of the shelf GPU as rumored to here, http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/9126/PlayStation-3-G PU-Less-Powerful-than-GeForce-7800/ maybe you will be happy to know that that statement wasn't true and had to be recanted here, http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/9132/PlayStation-3-G PU-More-Powerful-than-GeForce-7800/ Still the PS3 GPU pushes higher numbers and the 360 GPU is more efficent with the USA, keep in mind that the USA is going to be optimized by DX10 functions. It turns out that direct X is owned by Microsoft (shocking isn't it) the USA might not have any advantage on the PS3 because of how the games are made on that system.

"I'm sure it's just that they finally figured out how to compress things properly. To my understanding none of the game gives off a feeling of being cut up or missing stuff." That's because they did a good job. One of my first realizations that games sometime were shipped unfinished was Soul Reaver: legacy of Kain. I remeber reading about all the swords and creatures that was supposed to be in the game. First they ran out of space then they ran out of time. I would have never known that they had those issues if they didn't go into detail about what was supposed to be in the game. I heard they were shipped in part 2.... but I never played it. I lost interest. " Team Ninja made similar complaints prior to DOA4's release and the game ended up fitting less than a full disc while still loaded with a good amount of HD video (30 or so minutes at a minimum). From's game also had a lot of HD video so I suspect the hold-up was better WMV compression software." You're telling me a fighting game (Don't get me wrong... I like DOA4) with only 30 minutes of HD video barely fitting on a DVD9 disk is an example of how a typical JRPG should have no problems fitting on a dvd9 disc? I am going to take thier original comments at face value and hope that they aren't saying anything because they found a work around. If they had to cut anything chances are you would not see it in the final product. The only time you will notice oddities in a games story or graphics is when a dev runs out of time. "I think some devs certainly could make great use of the extra space of HD-DVD or Blu-ray, but I also don't think it's worth the extra $200-300 it adds to the system cost. Not enough devs would take advantage of it, and some of that money would be better spent on something like fancier GPUs that most devs could actually take advantage of (which is basically what MS did with the X360, while Sony seems to have bundled a lower spec GPU with the PS3 that is basically an off-the-shelf PC part). The currently much lower speed of these HD drives is also a negative - Blu-ray only offers about half the peak read speed of the X360's DVD drive, though admittedly it will hit that peak a lot more often than the X360 will hit its own." No one expects the devs to take advantage of it at first but hands down I believe that most devs will take advantage of blu ray entering into the consoles second gen cycle. As far as the lower spec of the shelf GPU as rumored to here, http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/9126/PlayStation-3-G PU-Less-Powerful-than-GeForce-7800/ maybe you will be happy to know that that statement wasn't true and had to be recanted here, http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/9132/PlayStation-3-G PU-More-Powerful-than-GeForce-7800/ Still the PS3 GPU pushes higher numbers and the 360 GPU is more efficent with the USA, keep in mind that the USA is going to be optimized by DX10 functions. It turns out that direct X is owned by Microsoft (shocking isn't it) the USA might not have any advantage on the PS3 because of how the games are made on that system.

Whoops- I forgot my link:

http://hardware.teamxbox.com/reviews/xbox-360/40/X box-360-VGA-HD-AV-Cable/p1/

The PS3 GPU is made by NVidia

"I'd love to know how the Xbox 360 is a disaster... "

Are you serious?

Can you name a bigger disaster in the history of the console market than the 360?

Worst defects ever for a console by an order of magnitude at least:

http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=451435

Getting outsold by a six year old console for it first 7 months on the market and completely dead in Japan. Backwards compatibility so bad they have given up on even trying anymore. And let's not even go into the weak graphics, jaggies, screen tearing, and so on.

http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=451435

What the fuck are you babbling about?

You suck at damage control.

didn't rockstar do enough damage to THE CHILDREN with the GTA:SmutAndreas? this so called "ping-pong" is clearly a pervert simulator, where you play a big bald weird guy training himself to mollest yet more innocent pigtailed children!

Table tennis doesn't have wide expanses of outdoor scenery. Look at the screenshots available at http://screenshots.teamxbox.com/gallery/1427/Rocks tar-Games-Presents-Table-Tennis/p1/. They can't compete with any other modern engine like UT, Doom, or Source.

For Rockstar, those are good looking screenshots. But why not license something tried and true, something that's good for outdoors. UT comes to mind. Hell, if Bethesda licenses the Oblivion engine, use that.

All those connections (composite, component, s-video and VGA) have one thing in common: they carry the video signal in an analog format. What about digital connections such DVI or HDMI? Will there be A/V packs with DVI and/or HDMI connections? If not, will you consider offering that in the future?

Todd Holmdahl: Xbox 360 will support HD component video output, which is compatible with nearly every HD-ready TV on the market today. We're poised to hit the sweet spot of the HD market at launch and as the market matures, and we will provide an HDMI for our customers when it makes sense. The reality is, you don't need HDMI for HD gaming.

The X360 does not hold up to an uber PC at all.

Have a look at this video comparing a 360 to an uber pc (I'd recommend IE for viewing it I got a nasty error when i tried it in firefox)

and then say that the 360 doesn't hold up to an uber pc at all.

The X360 does not hold up to an uber PC at all.

Have a look at this video comparing a 360 to an uber pc (I'd recommend IE for viewing it I got a nasty error when i tried it in firefox)

and then say that the 360 doesn't hold up to an uber pc at all.

I know (sure think I did at least) see this somewhere like arstechnica.com or something but cannot find it right now. However, here and here are some links at least referencing it. The first is an interview with Todd Holmdahl, Corporate Vice President of the Xbox Product Group at Microsoft so is solid, not sure about the second.

"If true, this project will mark the first American Shadowrun video game in over twelve years..."

"If true, this project will mark the first American Shadowrun video game in over twelve years..."

I see now, it Deception was on the original list, but it didn't actually work, so it must have been pulled early on.

It's not cheap, but they didn't mention the Kilowatt, which is basically an exercise joystick. (you have to throw your weight into it, and it's supposed to have some adjustable resistance)

It looks like the company has a less expensive controller coming out, too.

If you search for 'exercise controllers' on your favorite search engine, you'll also find info about products from companies like Qmotions and CatEye.

wiki is incorrect... the sound resource is from Crystal Quest a popuar game that preceded system 7

Apple called it sosumi because they were having fun teasing the Crystal Quest author and the beatles story is nonsence made up years after the fact.

Anyone with a copy of the tremendously popular 1987 Crystal Quest can verify it. The sound effect resources are not protected.

http://www.gamespot.com/mac/action/crystalquest/

the xbox 360 has a semi-faithful version of the 1987 game too!!! :

http://screenshots.teamxbox.com/screen/44521/Cryst al-Quest/

someone should bitchslap the wiki poster that spreads the lies about sosumi (a recording of two zylophone keys on a synthesizer, but the specific two keys being used in Crystal Quest, the duration, etc shows that the Sosumi sound is stolen from the mac game Crystal Quest, not thin air.

Somewhere in Bentonville, Arkansas, in a little office along Wal-Mart's "corridor of doom", a very uncomfortable Microsoft VP is probably trying to keep Wal-Mart from cutting down their shelf space. Microsoft has already committed what Bentonville views as a major sin - not shipping on schedule. A Wal-Mart buyer is probably going to tell them to cut the price. And that's "tell", not "ask". That's how Wal-Mart works.

In general, consumer electronics priced below $200 sells well, but there's considerable price resistance above the $200 point. This is a basic truth in retail. All the previous consoles had to drop below $200 before they really sold well. We'll probably see that in this round.

The PS3 is not likely to launch successfully in the $400-$500 range. Nor is a $1000 Blu-ray player going to sell in volume. DVD players are at $29.95, after all. We'll see $200 within a year after launch. By which time flat-panel TVs will break $200, too.

Microsoft has quietly announced a modest price cut on the XBox 360 in Taiwan.

So, for 2007, look for the $199 XBox 360, the $199 PS3, the $199 Blu-ray player, and the $199 TV you can hang on the wall.

All those connections (composite, component, s-video and VGA) have one thing in common: they carry the video signal in an analog format. What about digital connections such DVI or HDMI? Will there be A/V packs with DVI and/or HDMI connections? If not, will you consider offering that in the future?

Todd Holmdahl: Xbox 360 will support HD component video output, which is compatible with nearly every HD-ready TV on the market today. We're poised to hit the sweet spot of the HD market at launch and as the market matures, and we will provide an HDMI for our customers when it makes sense. The reality is, you don't need HDMI for HD gaming.

http://interviews.teamxbox.com/xbox/1190/Xbox-360- Interview-Todd-Holmdahl/p1/

Well, that doesn't say much. Anandtech doesn't say much either:

Unfortunately in the first version of the Xbox 360, that AV cable port appears to be strictly analog. Microsoft has indicated that they may support HDMI at a later point in time, but that may require a new revision of the motherboard - assuming there is no digital video signal carried over the AV port. On the flip side, ATI has had a history of placing TMDS transmitters on their GPUs, so it may be possible that a digital video signal is present at this connector today, although if it were we don't understand why Microsoft wouldn't offer a DVI/HDMI cable option now.

http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=26 11&p=2

So maybe there will need to be a new revision, but maybe not, because it uses an ATI GPU, and they might have tucked it in.

The xbox 360 is liquid cooled.

http://features.teamxbox.com/xbox/1145/The-Xbox-36 0-Dissected/p7/

MS themselves have stated that the problems are only present in 3% of the consoles, and of those something like 1% have been returned. thats /if/ you want to trust MS numbers. [i dont...] that doesnt mean anything in itself. what that means is that buyers are sucking it up with dealing with the crashes, because kids dont want to go over two weeks without their new console or shiny new christmas present.

theyve sold something around 300,000- 400,000 xboxes, that means ~12,000 [one in 33] are "defective" or crash-prone. keep in mind that these are only people that are actually taking the time to call in. thats a huge friggin amount of crashing considering this is the BEST case, most optimistic, MS pr dept's best case scenario. actual estimates are probably around 5-10%
http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/9943/NPD-Group-Relea ses-Xbox-360-Sales-Data/&docTitle=NPD%20Group%20Re leases%20Xbox%20360%20Sales%20Data%20-%20Xbox
http://www.openxbox360.com/modules.php?name=News&f ile=article&sid=233

i agree that this watercooling deal is overkill, but you cant downplay the fact that MS dropped the ball on properly cooling their unit and power supply.

Yeah, sure, you can do all that or just do..
b) Get a wireless adapter for it

FYI, Silver does not allow you to play for free on all weekends, only on "select" weekends (I'm not sure how often they occur).

"7. I heard that the Xbox Live Silver service will allow me to play multiplayer games online on weekends. Is that true?

Yes and No. It is not true that Xbox Live Silver users will be able to play multiplayer games like Xbox Live Gold members every weekend. However, Microsoft plans to allow Silver users to play multiplayer games online on special weekends similar to when HBO has free programming weekends."

from:
http://features.teamxbox.com/xbox/1245/Xbox-360-FA Qs/p5/

I agree. Another example of Microsoft's "clever" marketing. What's interesting though is that Gates made a comments back in July saying they were looking at incorporating HD DVD. teamXbox has a story on it here

The PS3 will support HD-DVD out of the box so Microsoft will have to support it at some point next year just to keep up with the PS3.

You're thinking of unified shading.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q= unified+shading+rendering+xbox

http://features.teamxbox.com/xbox/1145/The-Xbox-36 0-Dissected/p3/

It's her face itself that is creepy. Come on, just look at it!

http://hardware.teamxbox.com/movies/2738/Xbox-360- Scratches-a-Disc/ Looks like another law suite in the works....damn defective consoles. oh..wait...didn't read the instructions "IMPORTANT: To avoid jamming the DVD drive and damaging discs or the Xbox 360 console: -Remove discs before moving the console or tilting it between the horizontal and vertical positions. -Never use cracked discs. They can shatter inside the console and jam or break internal parts. -When the console is vertical, do not use discs that are smaller than standard DVDs and CDs." Guess they should have included something about not placing your 3.2 GHZ CPU and 500 W PSU in the same unventelated drawer under you TV or burried in 3" shag carpet under a pile of cords. Yeah, you ship 1/2 million of any product and there will be some defective ones. To amplify the defective issues is also the fact the MS sold all 1/2 million units on the exact same day - hell, same morning. None of that is indicative of a flaw in the design and has more to do with the manufacturing process - and you don't need a 6Sigma black belt to tell you that. I am really just in awe of how easily the media, and more so /.ers, put their all trusting faith into forum posters and polls - none of which are not crediable news sources last time I checked. MS hating, like so many of you love to do, is one thing but at least have some validity and not just stupidity behind your hatered.

I can't give the exact power requirements of componentsbut reading some of the marketing / reviews it's quite clear that the xbox360 has power requirements more like a desktop than a laptop.

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=59 050

The video includes the phrase "water cooled cpu heatsink solution"
There is some hardware info at http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-x-1985-x-x-x but not detailed enough, more at http://hardware.teamxbox.com/articles/xbox/1144/Th e-Xbox-360-System-Specifications/p1/

However if you look at the sales blurb it comes with batteries and can be used for short durations without the psu.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 BVZF12/qid=1133131491/br=1-4/ref=br_lf_t_rz_4//002 -6045166-7514423?v=glance&n=14330501&s=toys&m=A3UN 6WX5RRO2AG
# Includes: Xbox 360 System, additional Wireless Controller, a Play and Charge Kit, a Rechargeable Battery Pack, faceplate

Some of the forums like this one have posts from people who have spoken to MS tech support, and xbox support said the incidents are much higher than expected and replacements won't be available until at least January. They also confirmed that most problems are due to overheating.

First, just because you don't see any symptoms, does not mean your equipment is not suffering from the excess heat. You could just be shortening the lifespan of your components without any current noticable clues.

Second, the problem with most consumer AV cabinets is that they are designed for form, not function. IOW, they are made to look pretty in your living room, not safely house your equipment. Sure, a DVD Player, cable box (non-DVR), cd player, and basic receiver will live just fine in one of these cabinets, but you start putting things that generate real heat in there, and you're asking for trouble!

Shorting the lifespane of my components? Right, I've had my Xbox in that cabinet on the same shelf for about 4-years now without a problem, my XB360 is a couple days old.

IMO, MS should have designed the XB360 in a larger case with more cooling. Instead of consumers having to drill holes in the back of their cabinets and putting in fans, maybe they should have just added a fan or two to the original design.

The plain fact is that the XB360 has some heating issues. I mean, you have a three-core 3.2Ghz PPC and an powerful ATI 5xx GPU in the size of mini-itx you're gonna have heating issues, the blame shouldn't be on consumers side for over-heating due to a fundamental design issue, because if you plan on selling tens of millions of consoles that people will use them in a variety of enviroments.

Why issue isn't an isolated one, TeamXbox has a stickied post on their forum for other XB360 owners:
http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=391764

That's what I thought, but the following post (from this page) makes it sound like they're having more problems than expected:

makaveli87 said:
"Ok I phoned tech support, I was on hold for about 40min. The first guy didn't really know what he was talking about, he kept trying to tell me to do things I had already tried like unplug everything or "read the manual" so he connected me to someone else. This guy seemed like a gamer or he at least knew what he was talking about. He told me that they were having several problems with the launch consoles, the hdd problem, overheating, something to do with the HD to SDTV thing on the back, game disks being scratched , problems with the operating system and a few disk read errors.

He said the overheating problem will be the most common and that this is what I have. (If your console turns off or the screen freezes 90% of the time its an over heating issue. If you get one of the error screens its and OS problem.) he said for both of these problems they need to replace the console and that it would take 6-10 weeks!!! I asked why and he said that they are experiencing more problems then hey had hoped and that he is supposed to say 6-8 weeks, but last week he was telling people 4-6 and those people would be waiting until mid-january. He wouldn't go further into that though. He did tell me that I could hold onto the system and use it as much as I can for 2 or 3 weeks, send it in then and I would still get it back 6-10 weeks from now.

Anyways the warranty covers any of those major problems I stated above so that's good. I guess #1 on MS list is to sell all of their consoles to new customers and let the people with problematic ones wait until after the holidays."

"Ok I phoned tech support, I was on hold for about 40min. The first guy didn't really know what he was talking about, he kept trying to tell me to do things I had already tried like unplug everything or "read the manual" so he connected me to someone else. This guy seemed like a gamer or he at least knew what he was talking about. He told me that they were having several problems with the launch consoles, the hdd problem, overheating, something to do with the HD to SDTV thing on the back, game disks being scratched , problems with the operating system and a few disk read errors.
He said the overheating problem will be the most common and that this is what I have. (If your console turns off or the screen freezes 90% of the time its an over heating issue. If you get one of the error screens its and OS problem.) he said for both of these problems they need to replace the console and that it would take 6-10 weeks!!! I asked why and he said that they are experiencing more problems then hey had hoped and that he is supposed to say 6-8 weeks, but last week he was telling people 4-6 and those people would be waiting until mid-january. He wouldn't go further into that though. He did tell me that I could hold onto the system and use it as much as I can for 2 or 3 weeks, send it in then and I would still get it back 6-10 weeks from now.
Anyways the warranty covers any of those major problems I stated above so that's good. I guess #1 on MS list is to sell all of their consoles to new customers and let the people with problematic ones wait until after the holidays."

According to this link: http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=392599 14% are defective. I know it's by no means scientific nor hard fact, but 14% is a pretty bad early indication.

apparently team xbox started a poll. Very small sample but 15% of xbox 360's are freezing. It will be interesting to see what happens to the percentage as the sample grows.

http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=392599

These guys have a fairly big list going too.

Seems like they got 1699 Parts of the x-box to the market:

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/18/ 156253

and it seems to be the same in other forums too:
http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=391764

And the obligatory review links: one, two