Tom's Hardware Reviews the Xbox

steddyj writes: "Tom's Hardware released this article which looks deep into the Xbox, its peripherals, and just about everything from every angle, and compares it to the PS. Incredibly detailed article."

Comments

MS Tactics

[Alien54]

I can think of several things in this bit that people will disagree with:

Microsoft has made a study of the situation. Its activities as system provider and manufacturer of office automation products alone will not be enough to keep its dominant position. Bill Gates understood early on that tomorrow's stakes will be based on communication, whether it is on the Web or interactive TV. However, Microsoft's difficulties in establishing a monopoly on the Web are well-known. Government regulators even feel endangered by media manipulation, and this has created a rather hostile relationship between the regulators and the corporation. The alternative? To tackle this challenge from the other end. And launching an Internet-ready console seems quite sensible within the scope of the company's global strategy. Microsoft has all the necessary resources at its disposal: it produces games and designs systems. But above all, it is has the best programming kit in the world with DirectX. All that's left is to assemble the console, connect it to the Internet and, once again, everything is in place to be the leader in the online gaming and communication market of tomorrow. Without a doubt, the final goal is, on one hand, to dominate massive multiplayer gaming and, on the other, to integrate this console into an Internet-connected living room. On the practical side, in order to build the console, Microsoft chose the obvious: it turned to PC components, which it masters through Windows and Direct X.

Although I can see this easily how the world is, at least according to MS.

feh

Re:Microsoft knows security!

[bitrate]

Dare I say there's no need to? All of the games are set to work in N.A. already...so why mod it?

There have been hacks already to try and change the HD (which is unrecognizable by any file system, even Linux) and assorted other things, (including a USB controller patch-in), but no need for a modchip.

Once the Xbox gets released in Japan or Europe, watch the rapid proliferation of modchips for the Xbox then.

Perpetuation of Nintendo myth...

[rkischuk]

"Sony practically has a monopoly with Playstation 1 and 2, especially since Sega has abandoned Dreamcast and withdrawn from the market, and Nintendo has settled for Game Boy."

Implied: Nintendo is not a player in the console market.

"Nintendo... attacked the market with the GameCube. This console, based on an ATI graphics chip, surprised the whole world with its capacity. However, it targets a younger audience that remains faithful to the Nintendo tradition with its Mario Kart-inspired key titles."

Implied: Nintendo is only for Pokemon and Barney loving children.

Good God - it seems like any time anyone mentions a Nintendo system, they need to put in an aside about it being for kids. You never even see a shred of a veiled compliment suggesting that Nintendo might focus on gameplay, and not on making the most "mature" game. The mass media seems intent on further pigeonholing Nintendo every chance they get, is it any wonder that they are perceived as "kiddie" and that it's tough for them to shake the image. Photorealism and gore have their place in games, as do style and gameplay. When it comes down to it, the latter two have the bigger influence on my enjoyment of a game. Even on a Nintendo system, I'd rather play the latest Mario game than Turok 12, because while one has the wow/blood factor, the other is much more polished all-around.

I'd like to see media writers focus on the enjoyability of the games, for just once, instead of leaning on the tired-but-apparently-mandatory "Nintendo is for kids" appositive.

Re:Perpetuation of Nintendo myth...

[iapetus]

And how soon they forget - wasn't all that long ago that *Nintendo*, not Sony had a monopoly on the console market.

Still, Nintendo have shown that even with this child-friendly aura around them and without quality third-party support they can do perfectly respectably in terms of sales figures, and make more profit than their competition, so at the end of the day, who cares?

Re:Perpetuation of Nintendo myth...

[mythr]

You're right. Nintendo did earn my respect and loyalty back in the NES days -- then they threw it all out the window when they put out that junk heap called the Nintendo 64.
There were only 4 games that I could remember that were worth playing on it, and the rest were stupid things like Banjo Kazooey, and the hundreds of Mario clones. I liked Mario back in the day, but there is only so much that a guy can take...
Take a look at the Gameboy. At first, the games were interesting.. Then came the cheap Game Boy Pocket, and with it, Pokemon. It's amazing what a silly fad like that can do to profits. It's just too bad for Nintendo that it didn't die out. Most games for Gameboy nowadays are Pokemon or clones of it, and/or remakes of games most people already own.
Remaking old games is all well and good, but something should be added to them besides just putting a done-to-death character in a 3D world and making him collect a new type of item...
If you like Nintendo -- Good for you. But don't pretend that they didn't earn their place in people's hearts as Kidtendo. Maybe they'll be smart and focus more on their Metroid line. (I think it's their last hope :))

Re:Perpetuation of Nintendo myth...

[clontzman]

Dunno... a friend of mine bought a GC and had to buy two of those teeny 512Mb memory cards just for the four games he had (Madden is quite the memory card hog). That brought his purchase to $250. So for $50 more you can have a more powerful system that has ethernet built-in and can play DVDs AND outputs true Dolby 5.1 audio (not Pro Logic II) and doesn't require memory cards. Hmmmmm....

I'm not saying the GC isn't a very powerful system. It's just that the price differential isn't as great as people make it out to be once you add in those $%#^@ memory cards.

Re:Tom's Problem

[krogoth]

They aren't entirely wrong to do this. The best (most readable) column width is about 65 characters - after that it becomes more difficult to read. They could put two columns, but this is better than having a full page of text like most sites do.

Tom's VaporWareGuide

[aphor]

I was repeatedly dissapointed on each and every repetitive page of prediction after prediction of what the XBox *WILL* be and what it *WILL* do, and how cool games *WILL* be. It all adds up: Xbox is SUPPOSED to be the coolest console ever, but even Tomshardware.com can only say that it's SUPPOSED to be the coolest console ever. There is precious little hard empirical truth to demonstrate any of the projections made in the pages. Here's what I mean. If these way-cool features are really available, where are the games that demonstrate them? How do we know it works as described? If a feature never appears in a single game you want to buy, then it doesn't add to the value of XBox does it?

Having read a good many well informed articles there, I kept clicking the next page links thinking Tomshardware was teasing me before he got to the meat of the article, but I wore through 2/3 of it before I gave up looking for the gritty pull-no-punches analysis. This is NOT journalism, it's advertisement, and it's wrong to print it without the "Sponsored by Microsoft" disclaimer. I will never feel the same about Tomshardware again.

I've read past Slashdot flames toward Tomshardware, but I had to reserve judgement for myself. Granted, I deserve it; you told me so., but please try to add something more if you reply to this.

Exhaustive in its irrelevance

[fondue]

Great... another in-depth article by someone who knows a great deal about hardware but sadly nothing about games. Just some of the problems (note that these mistakes are being made time and time again, while articles are quick to hype up the elements Microsoft percieve they have strengths in: playiing into MS's hands by carelessly ignoring the gapiung holes in their 'strategy'):

Network Gaming is *so* important: It didn't save the Dreamcast though, did it? The PC will always be the superior online gaming platform, unless the Xbox suddenly grows a keyboard, a dozen well-established MMORPGs, and a modding community. Also, bear in mind that Allard's "broadband vision" will exclude the vast majority of gamers especially in Europe (only 50% can get broadband in the UK, at a massively optimistic estimate).

Discounting Nintendo out of hand: The largest games publisher in the world, the only games company to make a consistent profit throughout the market 'downturn', a company shipping a console at half the price of the bloated Xbox. They're not aiming it at kids- no Nintendo console ever has been- they're aiming at *everyone*. If you think a game is 'kiddie' because of its graphics, you shouldn't be playing games, you should get a hobby you can easily understand.

None of the games covered were evaluated by any metric other than their 'dazzling' (640x480) graphics. No games were compared to the benchmark titles in their genres. (As always, DOA3 is taken on face value to be any good- which it might be if Tekken, VF, Soul Calibur didn't exist.) Blinkered, to say the least.

It really is Atari all over again. The pushing of gimmicks like the Game Voice is especially reminiscient of a company floundering for a new angle, while ignoring the fact that they need decent games and have priced themselves out of the market. Outclassed, outgunned, only selling to the most credulous of casual gamers. I'll be picking up a Gamecube, then a PS2 if I have any spare cash, then upgrading my PC, then picking up a DC with a dozen quality titles on ebay, before even considering an xbox.

The Slashdot Hive-Mind Hath Spoken

[JimPooley]

XBox = Microsoft = Bad, OK?
And to think Bill Gates is drawn as a Borg...

Personally I'm reserving judgement until it's been out for a while, there are more games available and I've actually seen one in action.

Re:You live in Switzerland?

[Max von H.]

That's a lame excuse, as almost everything else is almsot the same price here than in the USA (give or take 15%). Since the introduction of the Euro, electronics prices seem to have gone down in the EU (which is only 2 miles up the road for me). Furthermore, MS has an even wider hegemony on european markets than on the US one and obviously is trying to cover its US losses with an outrageous pricing policy in Europe. It will only encourage parallel imports of both the consoles and the games, the way it happened with the ps2 until the price went down and/or was available in quantity.

For your point of view to be valid, everything should be overpriced consistently, which is not the case.

/max

Re:I worry about that hard disk, though...

[FeTrut]

A valid point, however i think the bigger reason for console games being less buggy is that the developers know EXACTLY what hardware they are developing for, and all the hardware components are designed to work together smoothly, unlike the PC market which is far more fragmented in this respect.

I got to the end of the article...

[Saturn49]

...and I was horrified by this comment:
"As far as the games, things look good as well. As of now, the choice is enormous and there is no lack of good titles."

25 games is enormous? Give me a break. I thought Tom's was generally not-biased, but they tiptoed over the edge on this one. Every other review of the XBox I've seen said the games are standard, and boring, with the exception of Halo. 100 games is good selection. 2000 games is enormous. MS will be lucky if their game selection reaches "good" by next X-mas.

Re:Japan

[garagekubrick]

Great points all, but missing out on what it really means. The Japanese games market is stagnant right now, but the fact is the real killer AAA 1 million shipping console games almost always come from Japan.

The real problem is that MS is going to flood the console market with lazy PS2 ports, and games developed by fledgling PC development houses. Console gaming and PC gaming are two totally seperate beasts, psychologically, aesthetically, and in terms of what they deliver to the home audience.

Sony's real genius was in marketing the PS family to 18-24 year olds - they're the ones who created what we now call casual gamers, the wide installed user base who only purchase big event titles and franchises that are known. People looking for a thumb candy fix, and not a tactical simulation of group dynamics in a shooter environment. For better or worse, this completely changed the market for games and how successful a title can be.

I'd like someone to name for me an American videogame character who resonates in pop culture as deeply as Mario or Lara Croft or Solid Snake. American game development has never excelled at these concepts, rather excelling at heavy titles. Japanese designers seem to understand the aesthetic of creating knowable characters and the simplicity of console interfaces and games.

What failure in Japan means is no future Metal Gear or Final Fantasy for Xbox. That's what will kill the system.

And we're also forgettting Europe, one of the fastest growing games markets. Having lived over there with friends who worked in games, let me offer this as a warning to any console creator in future: Never, ever, ever, ship a console in Europe that doesn't have a name brand soccer title with licensed players. At least they got this right.

In fact, the more I think of Xbox the more it reminds me of Dreamcast. Hell, they even managed to rip off the controller and make it worse. Two many crappy titles that confuse the consumer when groundbreaking titles appear on the system, and a lack of AAA third party titles that are known franchises.

And yes, I own an Xbox and a PS2. It's a very powerful machine with great capabilities. And the number one biggest thing they did wrong - the controllers. They're enough to convince me to forget the machine. As much as I like Halo, it's a PC game and it shows. Imagine playing that over the Net right now, coop, in a resolution I choose, rather than on a dodgy split screen, and with a mouse to aim no less. That's the Xbox's biggest problem. The best title is a PC game, and it shows.

Re:Japan

[mr3038]

And we're also forgettting Europe, one of the fastest growing games markets.

Well, at least in Finland you can be pretty sure that Xbox is going to flop. In the US you see Xbox priced at $299 which makes it equally priced to PS2. In the forthcoming Europe release Xbox is going to be £299 that is 479 euros. Compare this to 300 euros including 22% tax for PS2 in Finland right now and it's a no brainer to get PS2. In the US, I would definately get Xbox because it clearly has better hardware and therefore I could expect longer usage time from it without extra investments.