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Xbox 2 Plans on Schedule
Thanks to GamesIndustry.biz for their article regarding the manufacturing plans for the Xbox 2. "Speaking at a press conference, senior vice president Kenneth Kin said that ... manufacturing plans for Xbox 2 chips is 'proceeding according to plan,' scotching recent murmuring about a possible further delay to Microsoft's schedule for the system."
Reassurance on next-gen development progress
A representative of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, the company tasked with fabricating the chips being used in Microsoft's next Xbox console, has told the media that the development of the console is proceeding to plan.
Speaking at a press conference, senior vice president Kenneth Kin said that the firm's manufacturing plans for Xbox 2 chips is "proceeding according to plan," scotching recent murmuring about a possible further delay to Microsoft's schedule for the system.
TSMC has been tapped to develop the core chipsets for the Xbox 2 platform, including ATI's GPU chip, which the graphics company said was nearing the end of its development stage earlier this month.
It's believed that Microsoft is planning to launch the Xbox 2 in late 2005, which would give it a significant headstart over its rivals, as neither Sony nor Nintendo is expected to have a new home console ready until 2006.
Xbox 2 - which is reportedly codenamed Xenon in the development community - will feature multiple IBM Power5 processors, an SIS motherboard chipset and the aforementioned ATI graphics unit. Early development kits for the hardware have already been sent to selected developers, based on Apple PowerMac G5 units running a custom version of the Windows NT kernel.
All they need now is to find the jade monkey before the next full moon.
Nintendo: $149 DS!
Sony: Slimmer PS2!
MS: Err... umm...
You know, I agree. I played Halo right through and it was just so damn repetitive I almost went insane. Some features were nice but it really lacked imagination. It just felt like it was over long. Compare that with something like Call of duty on the PC which was a hell of a game but felt very very short. Thank goodness for the expansion pack.
I just don't get why so many people rave about Halo like it alone justifies getting an Xbox. Of course, lets see how people feel about their Xboxes when the next version of GTA appears in a few weeks only for the PS2.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
Um, it's a multiplayer game. It's pretty unfair to play it as one player and then conclude that it's repetitive. That's like saying that you played Street Fighter 2 or Madden against the computer a few times and found it boring. It may be true, but it's not really a fair judgment of the game.
I'd rather be lucky than good.
It is true that 90% of current Halo fans still play it only for the multiplayer. However game magazines were also raving about the single player campaign. For example, this is what gamespot had to say about the game:
This doesn't seem to me like a comment regarding the multiplayer, does it?. I still don't know if the reviewer was receiving oral sex while he was playing or something: Some of the game's areas were so poorly designed that they are only marginally better than the first era in Daikatana. While not a terrible game as a whole, (as you said, the multiplayer game is better than the single player) the reviewers did seem to be pretty wrong with this one.
I have to disagree; I really enjoyed to single player, so much so that I actually played the entire game through in a single sitting(!), and I subsequently finished it several more times with friends in coop mode, which is a LOT of fun.
I do agree that the game is repetitive at times, but that's the only complaint I would make, and the story was engrossing enough that the repetitive level design didn't bother me. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what makes the game so good despite it's flaws, but it remains my favorite FPS game ever, and considering that most of the flaws were due to the pressure to release the game in time for the xbox launch, I think it's safe to assume that halo2 will be even better.
Why does everybody on Slashdot trash everything that Microsoft ever did like it's worse than slime, but celebrate the X-box because of Halo and some other mediocre games? Why does everybody overgeneralize like that? Everybody in the ENTIRE WORLD. Overgeneralizing CONSTANTLY. It's like all they ever do. Always and all the time.
& I wish I knew the password to your heart . . . &
Despite what some may think, everybody on Slashdot doesn't think exactly alike or have the exact same opinions about everything. The people bashing Microsoft aren't necessarily the same people praising the Xbox.
Because everything Microsoft does or seems to do is worse than slime (kinda hard to defend Windows when it has more bugs and viruses than a fat, unhealthy kids summer camp). But Microsoft somehow managed to do a good job with the Xbox against damned near impossible odds. Oh and Halo's not the only good game for the Xbox, just like SOCOM isn't the only good online game for the PS2. Get with the times.
Dumass.
That would be dumbass, dumbass.
blog
Why does everybody on Slashdot trash everything that Microsoft ever did like it's worse than slime, but celebrate the X-box because of Halo and some other mediocre games? It's totally antithetic. The X-box is praised (when it's praised) for a number of reasons-- the games, the graphics, the ease of modding and ability to turn it into a desktop. And I'm glad it's praised. It means some Slashdotteers are open-mided and realize Microsoft isn't just Windows, and that we don't have to declare everything they produce "evil" because we don't like their OS. Anyway last time I checked there wasn't a mandtae on what we were supposed to think. There are people here who seem ready to forgive Real, for God's sake...!
my password is private, but unchanged.
Why does everybody on Slashdot trash everything that Microsoft ever did like it's worse than slime, but celebrate the X-box because of Halo and some other mediocre games? It's totally antithetic.
The X-box is praised (when it's praised) for a number of reasons-- the games, the graphics, the ease of modding and ability to turn it into a desktop.
And I'm glad it's praised. It means some Slashdotteers are open-mided and realize Microsoft isn't just Windows, and that we don't have to declare everything they produce "evil" because we don't like their OS.
Anyway last time I checked there wasn't a mandtae on what we were supposed to think. There are people here who seem ready to forgive Real, for God's sake...!
my password is private, but unchanged.
When the Nintendo 64 gained momentum two years late, it was a complete failure. The XBOX is three years late and this is success?
Maybe our flaming Xbox fanboy is actually named "Mr. Dumass."
The name's Dumass. Alexander Dumass.
(sorry)