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Xbox 2 to Release in Fall of This Year
GamesIndustry.biz has the news that the Xbox 2 will be launched sometime in late fall of this year. With EA games already working on Xbox 2 titles and rumors of a name for the console in circulation, it looks like the first of the next-gen consoles will be here soon. From the article: "Many have expressed concern that Microsoft is forcing the next generation of console hardware too early, and that the current generation still has much to achieve. The most famous example of this came from then Nintendo of Europe MD David Gosen speaking at an ELSPA summit in London last October, where he lambasted Microsoft for pushing a next generation machine to market in 2005, and even went so far as to question Microsoft's motivation as profit." Additionally, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has Balmer saying that they will "blow by Sony" with their next console.
"Sources".
Right.
Whatever you say.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Uh, hello? What other motivation does a for-profit business ultimately have?
Stupidest. Comment. Ever.
Remeber when Sega thought it would be a good idea to get a head start on the next-gen console race?
Wanna bet that Sony will once again win with their incredible "wait until we have a good machine" plan?
You can't take the sky from me...
Shock! Horror! ;)
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
"and even went so far as to question Microsoft's motivation as profit." Isn't that the motivation of almost all business.
BUT does it run LINUX?
oh, wait...
Microsoft blow? That's nothing new.
Anyone know what the specs are on the upcoming XBox 2? Any truth to the rumor that it will employ G5 processors?
The PC Weenies: 11 Years of Online Tech 'Too
The PS3, according to official statements, will have as much PPC cores as the XBox2.. But will also have 32 SIMD cores.
Come on Steve who are you kidding. Even a monkey can see that you will be pwned.
even went so far as to question Microsoft's motivation as profit.
A corporation? Motivated by profit? All this time I thought companies were supposed to act solely for the greater good of humanity!
and even went so far as to question Microsoft's motivation as profit.
Of course their motivation is profit. It might not be immediate profit but long term squeezing out competition is Microsoft's way of making profit.
I guess I see the guys point but I am pretty sure that profit is the long term goal of Microsoft with the XBox.
Halo 2 released
Doom 3 released
Red Sox win World Series
Hurd reaches milestone
Now, Xbox2 releasing in November
Has global warming started to cool down hell already?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Yup, just like Longhorn was going to be released on schedule.
"The most famous example of this came from then Nintendo of Europe MD David Gosen speaking at an ELSPA summit in London last October, where he lambasted Microsoft for pushing a next generation machine to market in 2005, and even went so far as to question Microsoft's motivation as profit."
Can anyone name a single company on the face of the planet that isn't motivated explicitly by profit?
And Nintendo isn't making video games for profit? Could have fooled me when they were charging 70 bucks a cartidge monopolizing the industry in the 80s.
If there is one place where Microsoft has actually achivieved "Innovation" it *IS* on the xbox and services surrounding it.
I for one am excited to see the potential, excited for the competition and look forward to the "big 3" duking it out.
I also think its funny how people bash Microsoft for being anti competitive in the PC world and then bash them for being HIGHLY competitive in the Console world.
Derivatives of the PowerPC 970 are being used in the Xbox Next and Project Revolution, Nintendo's successor to the GameCube. A sister processor will also be in Sony's PlayStation 3 system. IBM is currently developing the 970MP, which is due out in the 3rd quarter of 2005, and is code-named "Antares". The PowerPC 970MP is said to be a dual-core processor that can scale up to 3.5GHz. This chip should start at 90nm and then graduate to the 65nm process.
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Thanks for that Zonk... The first GamesIndustry.biz link kept me happy with Adblock for a good few minutes.
I'd dread to think what it looks like in IE.
If the rumors are true and we've reached the point of diminishing returns as far as better graphics are concerned then maybe MS is making a smart move here. Xbox 2 graphics are going to be fast enough to support High-def resolutions (1920x1080 & 1280X720) so it should be fairly future proof.
At this point, if the PS3 is late and/or the Cell chip is hard to write fast code for then the MS early mover advantage could be really bad news for Sony. Of course I think Open Source games will be the killer app(s) that spark the beginnig of a PC gaming reniassance and legal nightmare but that's going to take a couple more years.
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
YBox
$7.95/mo, 200 GB disk, 2TBxfer, MySQL, PHP, RoR.
Well... The PS2 is starting to show its age, but its still not dead yet, with companies still putting titles on the market for it.
Gamecube hasn't even hit a ripe age yet.
Let's all remember that the reason M$ is really putting a new console out is to sweep under the rug the original Xbox's poor performance in the areana.
In all honesty, Sony can wait a while to get the PS3 out. Which it looks like they're planning on doing.
Nintendo hasn't said anything, but I'm going to guess they'll wait a little longer as well.
Anyone care to remind Redmond of the Tortoise vs. the Hare story?
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Wonder if bungee will have anything new to add to the XB2 launch. Halo2 sure ended funny.
Gimme that booze you little pumpkin pie hair cutted freak!
xbox is going to solve both of those. Of course they will still need grpahics card optimization and that will be different on Xbox and Macintosh. But clearly the largest obstacles to mac dominance of the gaming world are being removed. Price of course is not an issue here since a top gaming machine will cost more than an equivalent macintoshes--macs are good values at the high end of the market.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
"The graphics, what it can do, the way things look, huge innovation... What is 'Halo 2?' It's the greatest video game ever written."
"...And furthermore, we fully expect Halo 3 to be the most innovative game ever written!"
- Release next-gen console ahead of competitors.
- ????
- Profit!
But seriously, Of course it's profit! Is Nintendo not in business to make money? I know some programmers will work for 'shrooms, but honestly...Why do people buy one game console over another? As we say around here, 'Duh, it's the games.' ... Partly they're great games because they have great graphics, they have great processing, they have great this, they've got great that, but it's about getting great games. [...] What is 'Halo 2?' It's the greatest video game ever written.
I'm sorry, no.
Graphics are nice, but gameplay is what counts. And Halo 2 is just another multiplayer FPS.
I still replay Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphoy of the Night about once a year, and every few months I get an urge to replay Rez intensly for a couple of weeks.
The graphics were an important part of the initial experience, but they are just eye candy, and they get old fast. Why would I still play old games when the new ones have the better graphics? Gameplay? That's right.
You can't take the sky from me...
I just bought an Xbox last week because of Halo2. If you don't make good games for your console, people won't buy it.
God spoke to me.
Can I boot Dyne:Bolic off it?
Doesn't global warming...warm stuff? Cool down hell? Is the water draining off the icebergs seeping into hell or did i miss something?? :)
___ Shout Central - Crushes your nuts!
The phantom was released last week. Unfortunately you probably didn't see it on the shelves because it comes in an invisible box.
When the original Xbox came out, I rushed out to buy it. Unfortunatley, my console had a lot of quality control problems including scratching my games and then refusing to play them. I had heard a number of reports of similar problems but when I called tech support, they would not admit that there were design defects or manufacturing defects. They did fix it but it was an annoying ordeal that I should not have gone through (I was without the console for quite some time). Hopefully this time, they have all the bugs worked out.
Who here cares if the last thing can still be used? We yearn for the next graphics card when we know damn well the last one we had will probably be just fine... because we love the cutting edge stuff. Thats part of being a tech geek.
So now someone wants to put out something better, and we're all supposed to say no! Too early.... let me play with this one longer?
Bah, those who want to play with PS2 and XBox can do so, but I'm going to take a bet that if this is that much better, people will buy it...if not, it will die.
But retraining new tech for the sake of keeping old tech around? Thats counter-slashdot... and the same argument applies if it was Sony or Microsoft, although I'd also sneak a side bet in that if it was Sony, it would be a good thing... but its Microsoft, and people love to hate them.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
The thing that bothers me is that Microsoft's anticompetitive behavior in the PC world directly affects their ability to be so competitive in the console world. Microsoft makes use of monopoly rents to subsidize the losses they accrue with the XBox.
It's a lot easier to spread into new markets when you can siphon profits from a monopoly you hold in another market.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Did previous consoles use a PPC architecture? Why are the XB2 and PS3 using them?
I don't really care when the new platform comes out. The bigger concern for me is if XBOX2 will be backwards compatible. I would have no problem spending the $ if I could play all my old games on it.
Otherwise why would I want to buy one. There are still tons of great XBOX games I want to play and I don't really care to throw out the ones I have. This seems critical to a successful early launch and the long term success. I think the playstation hit the nail on the head when they released their 2nd generation.
The modding instructions come out, so that I can "upgrade" my token Mandrake box?
"God of Rock, thank you for this chance to kick ass. "
It's understandable for MS to want to transition to a new console quickly, with the success of Halo 2 and the Xbox currently having quite a "cool" image it's probably the best time to do it. And at the same time they can get rid of the costly hardware they make a loss on and the piracy issue. Still at least removing the hard drive that makes it harder for Tecmo to start suing its fans for enjoying modding their games...
I think Nintendo especially have a lot to offer on the GameCube this year, with RE4, Zelda, DK Jungle Beat, Star Fox etc.
Xbox exceeded in many ways where many others have failed.
Show me this "poor performance" you speak of and then maybe i'll listen to you.
A bit off topic... but PPC? I keep hearing they'll be using a PPC arch. Correct me if I'm wrong, but 1) Microsoft is not experienced with the PPC arch (okay, MS Works for Mac does not count, nor IE, I mean on the whole), nor is the majority of the gaming industry. Do we really need a waiting period for everyone to brush up on PPC? And how is this in MS's best interest as ease of porting to _their_ operating system becomes further difficult.
First, Microsoft is slammed for not being innovative and meeting market needs. Now Microsoft is slammed for being too innovative. I know this is Slashdot, but I sense a pattern. Whether you love or hate Microsoft, fast graphics and awesome games stand on their own merit.
For the parent poster, I am sorry you will have to buy a new system from Microsoft to be in the latest crowd. If this bothers you, just wait six more months and buy a PS3 so you can use your current games on the (then) latest system.
Some people will complain about anything.
I, as an Xbox fanboy, can't wait for the next gen console to be released, what a splendid day it will be. Hopefully, Halo 2.5 will be a launch title too. God that would be nice!
Let the flaming begin...
The most famous example of this came from then Nintendo of Europe MD David Gosen speaking at an ELSPA summit in London last October, where he lambasted Microsoft for pushing a next generation machine to market in 2005, and even went so far as to question Microsoft's motivation as profit.
I didn't know Microsoft was a not-for-profit organization now. Does all XBOX profit go to tsunami vicitims? Seriously, this seems like a good idea. PS2 came out before the other next gen consoles, and that is how they came out ahead. Microsoft is trying to emulate that. If they can get the titles on it, then they may beat out the other two this time around. But accusing them of doing it for profit is probably one of the stupidest things I have read in awhile. Of course they are doing it for profit...is Gosen and Nintendo doing this from the kindness of their heart? Overall, it is a horrible article with very unprofessional writing. You have to question anyone who uses the phrase "anyone and their dog" when they are writing an article.
On the flip side of all this...bring it on Microsoft. While I won't but an Xbox2 right away (I like waiting for a later rev to get the kinks out and the price to drop) more competition is a good thing. If this causes Sony and Nintendo to innovate more or drop their prices, then we all benefit. I don't understand a lot of people on here who want one company to win (a lot of pro-Nintendo fan boys are on here for some reason). I hope all companies do well so that we have a choice. This always benefits the consumer. Moves like EA getting the exclusive NFL license and aquiring game companies left and right is not encouraging on the software side of things. (Though my friend has made lots of money off his EA stock)
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
But clearly the largest obstacles to mac dominance of the gaming world are being removed.
There's still that little problem of noone owning a mac. But whatever, the xbox dev kits have some similarity to the ppc so lets consider PC gaming over.
. . . not really, but I figured I'd get that one out of the way. :D
with all the hype around the cell processor, it would almost seem that if Microsoft releases without one inside their box too, the release date was too soon.
Maybe the concern is Microsoft's focus on short term profit instead of long term industry viability, but it still sounds like whining.
Ok - the Xbox2 is out in November - Does that mean modchips and hacks in time for Christmas?!?!
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
I thought I saw on the news that Microsoft got in the Cell Processor game way behind sony. Interesting.
I think everyone agrees that the XBox is technically superior to Playstation. Well, most people. But are the games more fun? Not really. All XBox has is a lot of first person shooters, the most irritating Sonic game ever coded, and gorey fighting games that are a lot less fun than say, Katamari Damacy. Although, Dance Dance Revolution is kinda fun . . .
Monster Zero is the reason we cannot live on the surface, but must live forever live underground like this.
Global Cooling will eventually take the place of Global Warming just like the reverse happened in the 70s. When they get more data in the future showing that the Earth is cooling, the theories will switch. Thus, when hell cools down, the global cooling theory will take over for global warming theory.
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I'm quite content with ps2 and even more content that I discovered WOW so i say da hell with xbox :). They can release it yesterday for all I care, still won't change the fact I'm not buying one.....
When the PS3 arrives 1 year later, the Xbox 2 will be (much?) cheaper, have a nice line of games, a larger base of players etc. Sure, the PS3 will have slightly better specs, but what will you pick when you're presented with the choice between a 699 machine and a 349 machine? Where everything else (eventually) points to the 349-machine..
Replace "PS3" with "PS2" and "Xbox2" with "Dreamcast", and we're 5 years all over again.
The DC was cheaper, had a bigger base of games, and yet, here we are, a few years later, and Sega's hardware division is history. Not that MS would ever stop, but their strategy has been tried before, and I don't think the result will be any different.
You can't take the sky from me...
I think it was the head of Nintendo that pointed this out, but when it comes to consoles, it's really about the games. If the next incarnation of GTA runs on a PS3, then a PS3 is what I will own. I don't particularly like Halo, because I find shooters work much better on PC's. So what's to draw me to their system?
Think of it this way: what can the XBox 2 possibly offer me that's new? Sure they can up the graphics performance, hard drive space, etc, but it's really just making it an evolutionary step better than the current system. Furthermore, if raw performance was a big deal, they'd already dominate the market because the XBox outperforms and has more features than the PS2. Hell, even for existing XBox owners the decision will require some thought seeing as old games won't play on the new system (as far as I know).
On the other hand, the PS3 will be backward compatible, add significant processing power, and quite likely add some new features like having a hard drive and output for HD. Those features, of course, already exist on an XBox, but this means people fixated on hardware performance should be turning to PS3 as the better system. So barring some major manufacturing glitches, delays, etc, I see no reason to think the PS3 will be losing market share to the XBox 2.
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I am sorry but this "news" has been around since fall of 2004. We all knew xbox was going to be released late 2005. Now once you give us some half decent new information then you can post it to /. and until then keeps your submissions under control.
P.S. the Xbox 2 is not going to be called xbox 360. They were thinking about that over a year ago. Currently Xbox Next is the most likely title (since they dont want to use xbox 2 because people may think xbox 2 PS3).
where, in order to get the Xbox 2, you had to trade in your current system.
concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
Sure, MS is tough, and their next-gen box will rock. But if the expect to get blown by Sony, they might have another thing coming.
Oh, wait. "Blow". Sorry, my bad.
What Would Sutekh Do?
monopoly!!!
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The one H&E quarterly profit is a phantom, resulting completely and entirely from the release of Halo 2. It will not be repeated. Microsoft got a large spike in revenue since they are the publisher of Halo 2, and it was a fantastically quickly-selling game. This spike was large enough to cancel out their losses from the quarter in which the game was released, hence the profit. Unfortunately this doesn't really mean much of anything. The "profit" from that quarter was absolutely measly in comparison to their general losses, and wasn't enough to cancel out the loss from the quarter before-- if you look over the last six months instead of just the last quarter they lost money in that period. And there seems no reason to believe anything but that the next three months will devour that profit just as nicely.
Bungie seems to have been the one good investment H&E has made since the beginning of the XBox. But there is no chance they are going to be able to make the segment float on its own. Meanwhile if you can produce an event which causes a quarterly profit once, this isn't terribly impressive. H&E might as well have put $50 million in a savings account every quarter for a few years, then withdrawn it all at once and said "look! we made a profit this quarter!"
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
1. "blow by Sony" ...
2. undersell products a la Wallmart
3.
4. Profit!
I'm sure this will be WAY better than the Okama Gamesphere.
Cartman *playing GameSphere*: Man, Towelie, you're the worst character ever.
Towelie: Yeah, I know.
Where'd you get that price comparison? From the apple website (which doesn't seem to have a system-configuration checker, sadly) a powermac G5 with a GF6800 Ultra cost much more than an athlon-64 box with a GF6800 Ultra, something like 50% more. The chip might be a little better, but not enough for that kind of price difference - games are more likely to be graphics card limited than CPU limited nowadays anyway.
The problem with apple is software availability (can you even play counter-strike?), price, and image (they just aren't leet...).
By the way, Xbox 2 will presumably use some kind of directX graphics API, and Macs only do openGL. Porting would be much harder than you seem to believe. Plus Microsoft controls the platform, and has lots of leverage with the publishers - they won't let games get ported to a rival software platform entirely if they can help it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I totally thought "Sega" when I read this article. They are going to market real early with their console and a lot of people will be like "Let's wait for PS3." If Sony can bring the PS3 onto the market on schedule, it could be real bad for Microsoft. The way I see it, Sony doesn't even have to beat MS to market, they just can't afford to not meet their announced schedule.
Oh, and if MS is late with the XBox 2, that could hurt them I think. I think a lot of the console market has to do with number of titles you run and also whether you are meeting people's expectations or not.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
I thought it was going to be called teh Xbox 360? That's what engadget seems to think. Even to the point of posting a logo.
Gorkman
If he has show us nothing else, it is that he is truly the voice of reason and rational thought!
I find it a relief to have such a wise and steady voice in the chaotic world of computers.
If there was an article about Bill Gates wiping his nose, he'd be criticised here.
With good reason! Have you seen the brand of tissues he's using? That stuff is made directly from trees!
Responsible people use tissues made from recycled paper. He's clearly mad with power!
You can't take the sky from me...
No one even has beta dev kits yet and they are saying it's going to launch this fall? I'd say that's far from a certainty. Both Sony and MS are waiting to see who blinks first.
Are you responding to me or someone else?
I suspect my post above was unclear, I am sorry. What I was trying to point out is that gamesindustry.biz has no evidence in their article more solid than "according to sources". I was not trying to say Microsoft couldn't or wouldn't or shouldn't release their console in that timeframe, just trying to observe that maybe readers should be aware that this news is not from official sources and should not be taken simply at the Slashdot headline's word. We don't know anything for certain yet.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
The Xbox 2 will still fail miserably in Japan, leaving Japanese game developers working on Sony and Nintendo (with the odd exception of Tecmo). This ensures that no matter what happens, Sony and Nintendo will have a nice lineup of games that isn't just EA's library re-hashed from last year.
Seriously, Final Fantasy 13 on a Cell-powered system. Think about it. Just the thought of Final Fantasy 10 helped kill the Dreamcast, in addition to the PS2's ability to play DVDs.
That reminds me, wasn't there a story about how the Xbox 2 wasn't going to support an HD video disc format? And since the PS3 will... it truly will be the Dreamcast vs. PS2 all over again.
Am I the only one rolling eyes over this? I just can't get excited about new consoles. I currently own all the current consoles, and feel guilty as I hardly use them now.
About the only things that could seem like a major upgrade to me would be improved resolution by requiring an HDTV (not likely to happen), and cheap but effective VR gear like in Sci-Fi (really not likely to happen anytime soon.)
I mean, come on, all the current game systems have many of the same games on them now with little to distinguish them visually and aurally.
Same goes for PC games, really. All FPSers follow the exact same formula, and dispite all the graphical glory possible with Geforce 6800 Ultras and Athlon64 FXs and their ilk, they all boil down to trying to imagine yourself in a virtual world when all you see and experience is coming from the monitor in front of you and the speakers nearby.
Why isn't there true VR yet? A FPSer that utilized immersive, full-body experience would be amazing!
Instead, we just get new super-marketed hype machines that push more polygons than the last models so the eye-candy is sweeter, but otherwise they're the same old thing all over.
I will admit I enjoy many of the games available for the current systems and they weren't possible before them, but I think the real next generation should be a VR gaming system.
(Yes I know the Virtual-Boy was a flop, but that was Nintendo's mistake in releasing "VR" too early on too inadaquate hardware)
You ain't seen nothing yet...
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Where did you see that the PS3 was going to cost $699? I've heard no confirmation on price though I have seen suggestions that they'll have two versions, one that is in that price range, with a lot of extra features like a DVD recorder, etc (similar to the PSX). And a pure game machine in the usual price range.
Keep in mind that Sony will have a lower cost for their hardware than Microsoft will in the long run. Why? Because Microsoft is getting a processor that is only for the XBox. Sony is getting a processor that's going to be part of a lot of different systems. So, they'll have a long run cost advantage. Furthermore, if the Cell's architecture works as advertised, then they should be able to release future Playstations that up performance simply by adding more cells, where as Microsoft will have to do a complete re-engineering. In theory, there might be the possibility of connecting up your PS3 to your PS4 to give you some extra performance.
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who cares how powerful the hardware is....99% of games out today r terrible...they need to innovate in the game design department before making newer hardware. Yet sadly that's how the general public rates a game. Usually the first thing most people say about a game is DEWD CHECK OUT THE GRAPHICS ON THIS!!! OMG I WANT THIS GAME!!! and it's some game about taking a power dump in different restrooms. BUT it has awesome graphics so it sells!!!
Remember the Forbes/Forture article from last week talking about the smell of rot coming from Microsoft? How much longer do you think folks will be using Windows and Intel based platforms? Does anyone think the OS or chip will still be prevelant in the consumer market in five years? How about 10 years? The only way for Microsoft to stay in the game is to innovate. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Microsoft wins the console war. Kind of scary to see the tech edge slipping away from the USA and moving to the contries along the Pacfic Rim.
I think it's nice everyone's all worked up over how much is under xbox2's hood. But what good is any of this, if all it has are 400 sports games, 62 Halo expansions, and maybe (doubtful) an rpg? Sorry, I don't feel the X2 will have anything anyone but either most basic gamer, or hardcore epenis gamer will want. 3rd party rpg titles, backwards compatibility, and random stuff like the uh ... Damacy(sp) game will keep Sony in the lead for at least this next generation. After that however, MS may just get the idea that games sell a console ... but I'd give them a few more years to learn that.
Star Ocean 2/3 > Halo * in my book
If you write your game with only windows and xbox in mind, then its easy to port from one to the other. However if you write your game correctly, its easy to port to any system.
I don't know where you got the idea that PS2 is especially difficult, but PS2 and gamecube development are both as easy as xbox development. I would say gameboy development is "difficult" if you consider low level programming difficult, other than that the level of difficulty is pretty much even across the consoles.
And your first paragraph is just plain wrong. Very few game developers use directx exclusively, valve being the only ones that come to mind. Game development and engine development are no longer tied, so when you make a game you just license an existing cross platform engine and use it, you don't actually write directx or opengl code, its already done for you.
That all 3 people that bought an X-Box in Japan have already lined up to get the X-Box 2! Those wild and crazy Japanese, boy are they nuts!
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
Last time I checked there was still:
...and even:
Yahoo!
Altavista
a9
Ask Jeeves
Lycos
Teoma
MSN
Have a reality check; Google is far from a monopoly. They may be the most popular but that's quite different than being a 2 time convicted monopolist.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
NHL 2005
NHL 2006
The current consoles still have plenty of AAA titles that are coming out and more than enough of a catalog that it would be cheaper to buy the console you don't have now and 3-4 of their big games, plenty of which have seen huge price breaks by now.
If this turns into reality, MS is really jumping the gun by pushing this for next fall I think.
No sig for you!!
Y'know what. Video games haven't been interesting since Q-bert. Pretty, yes. Technologically impressive, you bet.
Watching the Grammy's last night, I could see the appeal of Usher, Kanye West, Black Eyed Peas, etc. But the appeal felt essentially the same for all three. It's not the music. It's the energy, the hype, the dancing. Musically, it all makes a bland outfit like Los Lonely Boys seem super-creative.
Somehow the experience of hip-hop, video games and recent action films all feel the same. Lots of WOW factor, and nothing else to keep your interest. Honestly, I don't see how anybody feels the need to own more than one item from each category.
So at 52, I have to question whether it's my age or just the cheap commercial culture. My favorite album of '04 was SMiLE, admittedly at least partially as a nostalgia-fest. But you've got to admit that there's at least an attempt at an emotional connection with the music that went into its production. Are today's audiences really satisfied with Las Vegas-style extravaganzas?
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Nobody cares. FPS games are akward and difficult on a console, which explains why the "best FPS on any console" has terrible numbers compared to old, outdated FPS games on the PC. "We made the best console version of a genre that sucks on consoles" isn't the same as "we made the best game ever".
And Bill is paying some marketing folks big bucks for that?
People are sheep, and will buy this thing as soon as it comes out. But they already have an XBox. Since in theory this console will be backwards compatible (no reason it can't be) people are going to be selling there Xboxen on eBay for cheap. I think I will pick up a few, and have MythTV in every room. Now I just need to find some cheap TVs :)
The XBOX 2 won't be released in 2005. Just look at .NET 2.0 and how the release date for that keeps getting pushed back further and further....
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
Writing a game doesn't involve writing ASM, you don't need any advanced knowledge of the architecture you are writing the game for.
I'm sure this has a lot to do with Microsoft trying to bring the PC into the living room also. The 2005 Media Center OS and xbox (with extender) are a great starting combination for Microsoft to try and bring their monopoly into the living rooms instead of just the computer room. The next xbox will connect directly to XP Media Center out of the box, and will bring Microsoft that much closer to not just owning your PC, but your TV also. The all-in-one PC/TV/Tivo/Radio/MP3/Music/DVD/Movie/Game/Monopoly box.
I assmaned - er, assistant managed - at a major EB during the launch of the Dreamcast, the PS2, the Xbox, and the Gamecube. That means that, at least in the geographical area of our store, I knew more about the people buying these systems than Ballmer, the EB President, or any of Sony's focus groups.
It's not all about the games. The Playstation2 launched with zero great games and I do mean zero. You have no idea how many times gamers would walk in our store during the first 3-5 months after the PS2 launch and just stare at the PS2 wall blankly, as if a great game would suddenly materialize on the shelf before their very eyes. SSX did ok, and so did Madden. But otherwise, the launch was dismal. It was such a game wasteland for the PS2 that people thought Onimusha was the best game since Super Mario. To make it worse, there was not only a shortage of systems, there was a shortage of memory cards. Logistically, the PS2 launch was a failure.
Yet, even before the good stuff starting showing up, it was clear that the PS2 was a better system seller than the Xbox. Was it the backwards compatibility? Nope. Most people who bought the PS2 would buy one or two PS1 games, come in two weeks later, and bitch about the crappiness of PS1 games on the PS2 and never buy another. DVD playback probably had something to do with it. GTA3? No - by then (Christmas) it was already clear that the PS2 was doing far better than the Xbox and GC combined.
It was merely that it was named the Playstation. In the end, it was brand, not games. I wish - I really wish - that it were the games that mattered. But in the end, it's not. What's sad is that with the beginning of the XBox, I saw this "it's all about the games stupid" philosophy in the Xbox coporate guard. The good news is that I think XBox2 will do better (and therefore provider better competition for Sony - always good). The bad news? I think the new guys in charge of Xbox know/learned that it's all about the brand stupid.
Further proof? Cf. Sega, who's last 5-7 years, from Dreamcast to 2K sports, has been a battle against brand.
Good games making a system, and bad games breaking it, is a myth. In the end, brand is almost all that matters (And maybe DVD playback).
I think as a good rule of thumb it's useful to disregard everything Steve Ballmer says. Everyone knows he's a MS pumpet and nothing more.
g/pumpet/s//CEO/
Microsoft's motivation as profit.
Given Microsoft's cavalier attitude towards pricing the XBox and indulging Sony in the console price war, I don't think Microsoft is interested in profit...for the moment. Microsoft's carrot has always been marketshare, even to the point of pricing products at zero (Internet Explorer). Microsoft believes that faster hardware = larger developer interest = larger customer interest, or put simply, the console on the technological forefront is the one that wins the market, and thus the revenue, in the long run.
Nevertheless, this strategy didn't work for Sega, 3DO, Atari or the others, so I'm not sure why Ballmer thinks it will work for them. The console market has shown time and again, software -- whether weak titles leading to demise (Atari 2600) or strong titles leading to dominance (Playstation 1) -- is the key. Microsoft's success with the XBox is largely due to Halo and Halo 2, so you'd think they'd realize that the "bleeding edge" cuts both ways.
When the PS2 came out a whole year before the XBOX everyone loved to jerk off talking about how far MS was behind and how they would never catch up. When the sales numbers for the 2 consoles came out and the PS2 won it was a great thing.
Now, when MS uses the exact same tactic and wants to release their game console early it's f**cked up.
But of course, when a European man in charge of a Japanese console's production has something to say about MS it must be true.
I actually think it's BRILLIANT of MS to come out with the console early. Why? Because I've been thinking of getting an xbox to play games on for a while, but since my PC is so much more powerful it's like a step down going to an xbox. If MS can get their new lineup of games, like Dungeon Siege II for example, to run on better hardware with some benefit that either I don't have on my PC or one that is signifigantly cheaper, I'll be buying.
It really sickens me how political we've gotten about things. If anyone thinks Sony has plans for us consumers that are any different than MS has think again. At least with MS you won't have to worry about tentacles coming out of your PC and raping everyone woman within 2 square miles. Be careful with your wallet, but the women are safe with MS!
Xbox's 2004 Success Sets Company Up for 2005
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Microsoft is going to win not because of market share OR higher spec machines.
They are going to win because they have a solid gaming API to give developers a serious thinking on which platform to support.
Did Team Ninja decide to release Ninja Gaiden on exclusive on XBox because it was the next big thing? nope they made that decision soely on the programming API, spend X dollars on developing in house API or spend X dollars focusing on kick ass content?
More developers = more games = more choices on bad games. I don't know about you peeps but I bought my last console on the vast choices of games on the shelf.
When you guys first threw your weight into the console game arena, I have to admit I was worried. I was afraid you would do the same thing to it that you've done to the web browser, the personal computer, and well...everything else you've touched. That is, bury anything interesting or innovative under a huge pile of blood money. It really has ruined those things, and made you guys even bigger and wealthier. But it also pissed some people off. Some smart and innovative people, like the folks at Apple, the screaming millions of Linux contributers, the phoenix that was Netscape and is now Mozilla/FF/Thunderbird. You've inspired huge communities of people to do some great things.
And they're starting to nip at your heels, aren't they?
Back to video games. Well, Sony is Sony. Think the installed base of Atari without the complacency. They are fully aware that you'll devour them if they slip up, so they are trying like hell not to. I would say they've done a good job so far. Nintendo has taken a different tack (though they are still beating you everywhere but here). While people denigrate them for being a "kiddy" platform, they forget that we have such a huge market for games now partly because of the success of the NES with us when we were kids.
Your foray into gaming has ensured we have a top dog (maybe an alpha Aibo?) that stays quick on its feet, and guaranteed Big N will be around for at least another 20 years. I couldn't be happier with that. Please, feel free to remain the limburger cheese of the console business. Continue to turn people like me off with your one hit wonder lineup of games. Fight hard for you status as the console people buy after they already have one of the others. And don't hesitate to milk your installed base for whatever (subscriptions, DRM, feature creep) you can.
Thanks,
Dwarfgoanna
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
The xbox2 will never overtake PS3. When im wrong, you can quote me.
And what more does an inferior by comparison console have to achieve, besides milking customers who are not willing to wait for the next best thing?
If anything, what this quote tells me is that, while Microsoft wants to profit by pushing the latest and greatest, Nintendo wants to profit by sitting on its laurels for as long as possible.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
...And the winner is IBM! Seriously, with all the nextgens using PPCs they're in a great position since no matter who wins in the console wars they're selling processors. Conspiracy theories may now commence.
^I'm with stupid.^
-Lucas
Did everyone miss the rather scary, sexual connotation used by Ballmer while hyping the Xbox2?
It's going to blow by Sony.
Also from TFA: His voice escalated to a crescendo as the audience laughed and applauded. "I'm feeling a little frisky on this topic right now!" he added.
Whoa there, big boy. Though it did remind me of a good line from Family Guy:
Peter Griffin: Hey, where's my VCR?
Hillbilly #1: Dangit, Buck, I wanna use the sex box.
Hillbilly #2: It's *my* sex box. And her name is Sony.
Hmm i have always wondered what the n64 would have been like if it had a cd drive instead of cartiges. Hmmm that would be a cool hack(real hack as in hardware not software i.e. crack) you know ripping the innereds out of a n64 and adding a cd drive to it or even a dvd drive it would only be worth it if you could build software on the hacked hardware, hmmm why don't the games companys release the old sdk's for the obsalite consoles? i mean wheres the snes and genises sdk's, the software that you used to make the games. There not probabilty relased for any kind of profit based reson maybie just because they dont want anyone to have them or develop software for there old hardware with out there sayso or something like that sigh Anyhow what do you guys think the next consoles are gona look like hmm i'm thinking box shape again with a hint of chrome, heh anyone remember that rummor that the origonal x-box was going to be a giant X heh -Jay
No way will the Xbox 2/Next come out in time for Christmas. Microsoft is trying to force Sony to release their PS3 before it's ready, then release the Xbox 2/Next to one-up them. Microsoft is not a leader in ANYTHING, they follow.
Has anybody seen a SDK for the XBOX 2? Without one, how do you develop software for it? So we're like 10 months away from the purported release date. There was the SDK for the Xbox 12 months before the XBOX 1. Heck, what ARE the titles for XBOX 2? Surely if games are going to be released for it in Novemeber they are already alpha and getting ready to go beta.
No SDK, no titles. No titles, no console. The hype machine at Microsoft is running full tilt to force Sony to release the PS3 ahead of schedule.
So tempting to make a comment mentioning Nintendo dominating video games, Linux on the Desktop, and pigs flying but I already got modded down today in the China article as a troll, so doing it twice might get my hands slapped by the Slashdot gods.
;-)
So I agree, the future dominance of Linux on the desktop is sure to cause a drop in the core financials of Microsoft such that the economic viability of the XBox becomes paramount.
It pains me to say it, I love my XBox.
I'd tend to suspect-- and if this news is true suspect even more-- Microsoft's goal with the XBox2 very much isn't profit. I mean, the "maybe it's profit" bit in the article is still a stupid comment, you're right. But I think the comment's wrong.
The thing is Microsoft seems very willing to do things for motivations other than profit. All of Microsoft's divisions except Server, OS and Office are consistent and heavy money losers. The XBox has been no exception. Microsoft doesn't really seem to ever show signs of minding this. If it's for purposes of expansion, no amount of money wasted seems to be too great.
Now, mind you, Microsoft insists they do very much intend to make a profit on the XBox 2. They claim this has been the goal all along, lose money on the XBox, make it back on the XBox2. But as I said, I'd question this. Here's why.
The chief reason the XBox has been such a money loser seems to be the cost of the console. Microsoft went out and bought a bunch of relatively expensive commodity PC components from off-the-shelf companies to build the XBox from, and the result seems to have been a console so expensive to manufacture that no realistic amount of game license sales that a single consumer might generate could recoup the loss from selling them that XBox. All signs are Microsoft has learned at least some lesson from the XBox that they will be applying on the XBox 2. Leaked information so far indicates that Microsoft has dropped the hard drive and will be contracting to more traditional video game console contractors-- like IBM-- rather than trying to buy PC components (important because IBM, since they're geared for contracting, will be able to lower their prices over time, whereas PC vendors, since they're geared for bulk, if anything raise prices over time-- because who, for example, makes 8GB hard drives anymore?). This by itself would indicate Microsoft is finally in a position to start making money-- though they'd have to make an awful lot to recoup the billions in losses from the XBox 1-- since they seem to be taking steps to manufacture a console that isn't sold at a large loss.
But I think Microsoft has given indication they aren't going to be taking advantage of that position. The problem is the release date. Microsoft has been very explicit that they intend to beat the PS3 and N5 to market-- and if this article is right, they'll be beating it to market by a LOT. But they probably realize at some level that whether they do that or not, they're going to have to retain the technical lead. Microsoft's entire strategy this generation has been based almost entirely on having the best hardware and attracting developers and users through that. They can't change strategies that quickly; surrendering the technical lead to Sony means potentially surrendering a huge chunk of their fanbase from this generation at the same time, if Sony shows even a hint of competence in marketing. This presents a problem. With the XBox, Microsoft had the advantage of two years to tinker with their hardware and let technology improve after the PS2 was released. With the XBox 2, Microsoft will be giving (or expect to be giving) Sony as much of an extra year to prepare their console, plus they'll have to overcome Sony's crazy vector processing ways (which were enough the PS2 was able to almost keep pace with the XBox and Gamecube when programmed by experts, despite being two years older). This would mean that they would have to design the box to be [i]so[/i] powerful that PPC or no, Hard drive or no, it's going to be sold at a loss.
If I'm right about this, and Microsoft does continue selling the XBox 2 at a loss anywhere near the scale of the XBox-- this seems to mean Microsoft simply doesn't, and never has, cared about profit with the XBox, their "it'll make money eventually" profits aside. Microsoft can sell at some loss and still make a profit, of course, technically, maybe, but the chances of this are so shaky it shows profit isn't actually a goal-- just a nice
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
2004 was the first year xbox had a profit, albeit a modest one. Time to march on then.
In the days before the Sega Saturn and Sony Playstation 1, remember the 3DO FZ-1 from Panasonic? When it first came out it was a whopping $700.
Then it dropped to $500...
and make it protable?
Why the hell would Microsoft want to come out with a new system first? Right now they have the advantage of having the most powerful hardware on the market. Announcing that it will be obsolete in a few months isn't going to move Xbox ones, not to mention that it will probably piss off anybody who just got one for Christmas.
If they bring this out in September with a handful of rushed titles, people are going to wait and see if the grass is greener on the Sony or Nintendo side. Well, at least that's what I'll do.
Sony has released so much hype about the PS3 that the kids are whipped up into a frenzy. Nobody is going to buy any new console until they see what the PS3 can do.
I think the PS3 will turn out to be mostly hype. I don't think it will be much faster than the Xbox2, or even as fast. The Cell processor is overrated.
But the kids don't know that. They are easily fooled and have high expectations for the PS3. They are going to wait and see how the PS3 does before they make any new console purchase. Microsoft will be better off releasing their new console shortly after the PS3 comes out and is tested by various websites.
The only reason I can see MS doing this is if Sony isn't planning on releasing before the holiday season, and MS wants to have a system ready by then.
Ahh, if there's one thing I like about the Xbox, it's that it'll be released almost simultaneously in Europe as the rest of the world. I really loathe the Asian thing where the hot stuff is released first in Japan, and then some six months later in Europe and rest of the world. I don't even know when PSP is scheduled to be released in Europe and the Nintendo DS is still a couple of months away...
Read this.
Demand for the GameCube last year was hurt by the lack of hit games for the console. - Bloomberg
uters and other news agencies have reported out of Japan that Nintendo's net profit has fallen 43 percent in the latest quarter, and that the videogame maker has also cut its forecast for the full year by more than one fifth, citing a strong yen and weak sales of the GameCube. - Reuters
Only one Nintendo title made it to NPD's Top 10 list: "Pokémon FireRed" for the Game Boy Advance. The company's highest-selling GameCube game, "Pokémon Coliseum," ranked 25th, according to Lowenstein. - Seattle Times
The company now expects that by the end of June it will have sold 21 million to 22 million Xboxes since the product debuted, up from an earlier forecast of less than 20 million. - CNET News.com
The Home and Entertainment division, which includes the Xbox and all games sales, reported sales of the console up 30% on the same period last year... Ferrango
PS: Name one killer game that came with psx2 on launch. Ready to Rumble, Timesplitters.. I think not.
PSPS: I remember having the same type of debate when xbox originally came out. Which just proves slashbotters have no insight on how consumer markets work.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
"Wanna bet that Sony will once again win with their incredible "wait until we have a good machine" plan"
Sounds cute, but it ignores the reality.
on 9/9/99, Dreamcast was released in the U.S. It had been released in Japan close to a year ahead of that.
It was better than anything out there. And in fact, it had an impressive lineup of games at launch.
Sony did the obvious.... they talked about how the next gen console was so advanced that it was a strategic weapon, how it was so incredible that to buy now was foolish because Sony has graphics and games that were beyond incredible.
The intent was to freeze Sega. And it worked.
When the PS2 came out...it was nice. But hardly revolutionary. The PS1 was revolutinary. The PS2 was evolutionary. And despite the B.S. from Sony how zillions of tetrahedorns by multiple cells in real time blah blah blah, you know that the graphics will be better in an evolutionary way, and oh yes, the copy protection will be better.
What we learned was that Sony, by being first has the least powerful console out there, but here's the important part: The current generation is more than powerful enough for any kind of game that anybody has imagined.
So all this about next gen consoles is about marketing, because:
"THE BIG REVOLUTION IS OVER IN VIDEO GAMES. ITS ALL INCREMENTAL IMPROVEMENTS NOW"
Kids are another obvious example of Nintendo's existing niche. I'm a single parent of two 11-year-olds. Nintendo has a huge advantage with pre-teen kids and their parents. You talk about "killer games," and Nintendo has several killer franchises -- Zelda for one -- that work for a family audience. XBox has exactly zero such games or franchises, unless you want to count sports titles which the PS2 is very comparable in anyway. For my money, the limited range of GC sports titles are more than enough to keep Nintendo on the list of choices, for us. PS2 would be second. XBox's selling points actually make me recoil. (Don't get me wrong, I thought Bungie was the best game company out there period before the MS buyout -- but Halo bores me asleep. One more of those? XBox, from my point of view, is pitching itself to a far nastier audience than I ever want to become part of.)
Their Xbox niche is 25+ year old people, which is a growth market. But even if they win that, and even if it gives them an overall win in the console market, that doesn't mean they've taken Nintendo's audience.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
so much for early Windows gaming starters.
"he PS2 is a sleek, slim, well-designed piece of electronics"
a ha hahahaahahahahahahahahahahaa
Haahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahaahhaahahh
I can't stop laughing. I used to work for Phony some years back when the PS 2 was still in development. Everyone thought the PS2 design was some sort of prototype and would be resolved by the time it was launched. No one realised that was actually....it.
It is probably the worst design ever for a home console. It is truly terrible. It is embarrassing.
thanks for the chuckle though
"Sony won't be able to bury them with "Emotion Engine 65 bazillion polygon" bullshit marketing they way they did with Sega."
Don't bet on this when it comes to Japan. They love that Emotion Engine and Super Poly Fighter stuff. Think of the car analogy - what sells for vehicles over there, doesn't necessarily translate to what sells here.
We like'm them big ol' pick up trucks and SUVs. Oh, HELL YEAH!
They, on the other hand, are to be liking vehicles that you are to be having to squeeze into.
The analogy holds true for consoles as well. Xbox is truly a better machine in almost every way to the PS/2, but that doesn't matter to the Japanese. It's all about the games, and it's all about the TYPE of games offered.
HINT: The Japanese will be more interested in Sailor Moon - Rising Fright than NHL: 2006/7/8, etc... Come to think of it, so am I!
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
MS claimed Halo 2 was programmed with the XBox 2 in mind, and that the true Halo 2 experience will be on the XBox 2. So there you have it, assuming you want to buy and play that game all over again and you want to buy the XBox 2 to do it.
.sig: Open Source, Open Mind
I did not play it yet, but from all readings the ending of Halo 2 was "abrupt".
Why such an ending? I think it was a cliffhanger of sorts, and portends Halo 3 as a launch title that picks up where Halo 2 left off and finishes off the story properly.
I don't even think it takes a lot of imagination to see this will happen, Halo (the franchise) has carried them a lot further than they would be otherwise without it.
I do agree the XBox is rather an unappealing fridge at the moment though, it'll be interesting to see how refined it becomes (if at all).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Okama Gamesphere, anyone?
~ I would like to apologize in advance to those of you whom I may one day kill.
EA will make a bunch of games for the XBox2, so will Take Two, but the real question is what sort of support will the japanese developers like Konami, Square Enix, and Sega will do with it. Remember, that in the past generation, Sega is the only one who has done any serious XBox only developement. As far as comparing the Dreamcast to XBox 2, nope, sorry. Microsoft's name in the gaming realm is improving, not like Sega with 3 failed console/console addon's in a row. The other thing with the DC was there were alot of great games, but they were all made by Sega. There were very few really great 3rd party games for it. Microsoft, however, with the exception of Bungie, is almost completely dependant upon 3rd party developers.
"My head hurts, My feet stink, and I dont love Jesus." -Jimmy Buffett
And it wants its commercial back.
..it's the nintendo guy who's bitching about them releasing it too early. You'd think that eventually they'd learn thier lesson. Sheesh
Yeah, EA doesn't have anything but Madden. Oh, wait, they have the exclusive rights to NFL, Nascar, and FIFA. Oh, and there's that fringe game Tiger Woods. Nothing big though. Oh, on second thought, didn't they make a fairly popular game called Goldeneye? It really is stupid for MS to ally with them, and all those crappy games. After all, Burnout 3 was a huge flop, and no one would ever play Need For Speed. It's not like EA created the best selling game of all time, The Sims. Yeah, stupid, stupid Microsoft.
Note: dislike Microsoft, but own 2 PS2s and 2 XBoxes. Xbox has better graphics, PS2 has more good games, not so hot on the graphics. Personally, I'm more interested in good games and gameplay than I am in polygon count.
And remember what I said before? Nintendo was the major brand, yet the N64 was quite a big flop. Why did the two major brands fall so quickly, if the brand is all that matters?
Good point, but I contend it's still the brand. I'm not talking "Brand Loyalty," which is what you're referring to. I'm talking brand. What Nintendo failed to do was develop a brand that grew with their audience. The PSX had. Nintendo marketed the N64 to kids. Look at the design of the system; round edges, colorful buttons. Compare that to the PSX. Straight edges. Looks like a CD player that would have fit into with 5 other audio devices on an AV shelf. Which has to do directly with brand.
Even the games have something to do with brand, so I'm not discounting them entirely. But the games on both the N64 and the PSX built into the brands they had established. Mario 64 and Pilotwings catered to the kid image Nintendo was fostering, and Tomb Raider and Ridge Racer to the all growed up PSX image. Brand.
What might have hurt Xbox in round one is that it just was not an established brand. Those who knew about it kept saying (wrongly) that it was just a PC, or that it would bluescreen every five minutes (again: BRAND). Five years later, and it's clear they've mastered image/brand as well as Sony ever did. What do you always see in the tour bus of bands on MTV? Halo and Xbox. What am I always seeing in tuned cars? Nintendos? PS2s? Nope: xboxen.
Which is why round two of Xbox v. Playstation will be more interesting than one. I love Nintendo will all my gaming heart, but I swear to god this lame ass talk of revolution and changing things is the wrong way to go. Well, right as in creating good games - but in terms of winning the war? They're hopeless. And that makes me sad.
Like a lot of people I end up buying both.
No, it didn't. But on the other hand - neither of them had (reasonably) unlimited gobs of wicked cash so they could tell all of us how great the thing is while saving the earth or just playing volleyball just to stare at real-like boobs.
After all, this is consumer market - and regardless of how wicked cool device you have on the shielf, nobody will even take a look at it unless they will be repeatedly reminded how it is called* - just so they remember the name when they are in the store. Something with long-term memory of consumers, I suppose. Solved with marketing. Or friends that jump around you in extacy when you are in the store.
---
* I know, one will be tempted to tell me about iPod. But think about the name. Four simple letters. Catchy spelling. This was not a lame - "play-station" or even "x-box". Everything has an X-something. How am I supposed to remember x-what was I supposed to love? TV! MTV ADS!
I followed Square . . . Who cares about the brand?
Apparently, you.
Square are not gaminig gods (cf. Bouncer). Yet you referred to the brand, not even a series of games. It just so happens that Square sold you on their brand even better than Sony or Nintendo. But, even with that you're in the minority by following a publisher (save, perhaps, EA Sports). Secondly, Sony owns Square, at least in theory. So you're still connected to the brand of Sony, yes?
The Dreamcast was doomed from the start because third parties like EA announced they were never going to support it. Like it or not, EA's sports titles are a huge factor in console sales. While the hardware is a factor, it's software that makes or breaks a console's success.
-G
www.pixelstatic.com
I'll wait for the Phantom Console... It should be out about the same time as the XBox 2 (according to sources).
I hope this thing bombs like Donald Rumsfeld. Unless it's fucking photorealistic I don't care. I don't need a "new" thrown at me just for the sake of making a "new" console.
My Greatest Heist - Muisc partly inspired by the unbeatable Qwantz
Dreamcast didn't have DVD. Same boat.
XBox2 will be released only a few (3-6) months before the PS3 is released in Japan. It will carry Blu-Ray, which is just like the PS2 using DVD as its medium. It will "one up" the XBox2 bigtime. Same boat.
The XBox2 will more than likely NOT have backwards compatability. The processor AND graphics processor are so different it isn't even funny. I suppose they could do a dual chipset box, but short of that, I dont think we'll see much compatability.
It looks to me like XBox2 is headed to the Dreamcast way. Certainly E3 or before will clear this all up.. But it will be hard.. Even moreso now that GTA4 has been announced as an exclusive for PS3 already.
Actually, if I recall correctly FFX wasn't even announced when the PS2 launched. MGS2, yes, although that was a long ways off. Honestly, if there were titles that were pre-emptively driving system sales, it was the Bouncer (sadly) and GT3. For that period of after Christmas to the spring following, there was very little game expectation. I should know, because EB employees are partially evaluated on how many preorders a store gets, and it was hell to get anyone to preorder a damn thing for the first year or so after launch.
Besides, even the expectation - if it had an impact at all, which I say it didn't - was part of the branding. You said yourself that "everyone knew that Sony had the developers lined up," yet in the beginning Microsoft had nearly as many developers lined up as Sony did save perhaps Square (this is in a pre-GTA3 world where Rockstar mattered). People believed that Sony would bring them good games. Moreover, if game expectation had anything to do with it, gamers expectations for Xbox Live from Microsoft may have countered it slightly.
Listen, I want to say that it's about the games, but that's just not true. Even the expectation of good games for a system is part of branding, image, and identity.
Okay, flaming subject aside... ALL 3 major consoles, and Apple's Macintosh, will be based on PowerPC Architecture.
What does that mean for Intel? It sure as hell doesn't indicate even Microsoft's confidence that their processors perform well in low power/high output environments.
This is interesting.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
It's not like EA created the best selling game of all time, The Sims
Actually, it's nothing like that at all. Maxis was the developer of The Sims, EA was just the publisher. In fact, few of the original titles in the series you named were actually developed in-house at EA, as you might know if you had even rudimentary knowledge about how the game biz works nowadays. Here's a quick listing of some quality games and their original developers:
The Sims - Maxis (Purchased by EA during Sims development, project almost cancelled)
Goldeneye - Rare (Now owned by Microsoft)
Need For Speed - Black Box (Purchased by EA, 2002)
Burnout - Criterion (Purchased by EA, 2004)
EA doesn't create. EA buys, strip-mines, and casts aside. They're significantly worse than Microsoft on almost any scale-- demonize Microsoft's monopolistic tactics if you will, but at least M$ still creates innovative products and don't treat their employees like shit. Compare that to EA-- worst working conditions in the gaming biz, and they do things like acquire exclusive rights to produce games from the NFL.
If you like good games, you should hate EA. They're the worst of the worst, a solely short-term-profit motivated corporation with no vision, integrity or class. EA is dedicated to mediocrity, and that's all there is to it.
That's the reason why I'm still a fan of Valve's Steam Content Distribution idea, despite all of the short-sighted bitching about minor issues that I see right here on Slashdot. The best way to ensure good games is to cut out out the middlemen and nuke the overhead, because the biggest obstacle to the release of quality games right now is the publisher. Reliable pay-to-play online distribution does just that.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
If I remember right, the Saturn was an overly complex machine with two processors among other things, making the cost involved with backwards compatability prohibitive even if the console were popular enough to merit it. I agree about the game library though, the US market got nothing really good except Nights, while Japanese games like Radiant Silvergun are selling for the equivalent of over $100 each.
I couldn't agree more. I stopped buying EA games last year, but I did make 1 exception: Oddworld. Does anyone else find it ironic that Oddworld games are now distributed by a company like EA?
Free electronics!
If I want to play XBox 1 games, I would buy an Xbox 1, not an XBox 2.
There are strong rumors that the PS3 will be unveiled in late March, to beat MS and Nintendo to the next-gen punch. If true, Sony is doing the exact thing MS is being accused of. Who knows when manufacturing and distribution would start, but it looks like MS is really just trying to keep up, rather than any sort of preemptive action.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Microsoft have the money and the power needed to take technology for the next level. If you want to use a bad equipament as ps2 or other stuff, you are trying to hold the evolution process of the world. I think that as microsoft is not very strong in game business this kind of strike could really put her int a very good position in the next few years. I hope that communities don't blow away this opportunity of be taken for the next level, with XNA Longhorn and XBox 2. The quality of life provided by the technology rises a lot, if you want to be smart and bet in technology thats fine. But don't try to hold technology in worst levels as keep using a 500mhz processor as if it is ! I am a game developer and I need to maximize everything to get some good resort in ps2, using a new technology means, easier was to create best games. Think about that and don't go trough the mood.
Microsoft is not a monopoly because anyone on Slashdot says so, but because it has been proven to be a monopoly in federal court.
So Google is not a monopoly, but Microsoft is a monopoly. That seems logical to me, given the facts.
As for your assertion that all companies do this (pay for ancilary products with the main product), that's not the case. Many public companies run divisions as separate profit centers, which must sink or swim on their own.
I've tried to put logic into my argument, and hope that it meets with your approval.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Because you are retarded. Seriously, what are you smoking? Compare anything about the systems, the PS2 comes out way ahead. I wonder if I could get modded up for pretending the atari 2600 blows away the SNES.
If I can hack it to run Linux like my XBox 1.
Otherwise it can stay on the shelf with all the other Microsoft products i'll never buy.
Seriously, the Xbox is a really useful device with the addition of a general purpose OS - It runs freevo over wireless LAN as a media front-end, streams MP3 radio, rips DVDs and even runs a MIDI sequencer for me.
I also use it to browse the web on occasion on my TV.
I don't actually own an XBox game (I have a PS2 for that) but I certainly spend more time playing movies and TV etc. on the XBox than i do playing games on the PS2.
If the XBox2 has even half the security holes and hackability of the XBox1 then i'll be happy.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
You forget to note that XBox outsells Gamecube in America and Europe. And guess what, they are bigger markets than Japan.
Wait, what?
Is what the evil guy from Fast and Furious says after the ADD kid fires off his nitrous...
"Too soon, Junior."
Microsoft looks at this situation and sees, "The only reason we lost is because we weren't entrenched first."
Which is utter BS. So now they're making one of the classic mistakes in a 3-system race, and that is to launch early.
When you're the first one out of the gate, and more than half of the competition is behind you...people are going to wait to see what comes next, because only a very, very small percentage of the gaming population has enough disposable cash to plunk down $300 + 2 games 3 times within the span of a year.
The other foolish mistake is to launch at a higher price point, which Microsoft will undoubtedly do, since Sony and Nintendo can just launch afterwards, and undercut.
I'll reserve judgement until after E3, but at this stage of the game, I'd kiss the XBox goodbye.
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
>Phew, and that strategy of getting the console
>out early so it grabs vast amounts of market
>share worked so well for Sega, 3DO, Atari and
>so many others, right?
Hey jacka$$, did you also know how underpowered (and overpricesed) those consoles were compared to their competitors back in the day?
Xbox2 isn't going to be visually any different than PS3 and won't cost more than the PS3.
You can take this one to the bank.
So I can expect this around March or April?
Not everyone lives in the northern hemisphere you know.
"3rd Quarter" is just as easy to say as "Fall".
Homonyms are fun!
You're driving your car, but they're riding their bikes there.
Release what? Do we need a hazmat team standing by? Or just some clean towels?
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
Because for every 359 people who buy a PS3, someone will buy an X-Box. ;-)
Whereas the Xbox and GameCube give you a graphics API to use, to develop for the PS2 (without using RenderWare or other middleware) is basically equivalent to writing your game *and* writing your own version of Direct3D/OpenGL *and* writing your own driver-level code to drive a somewhat screwball (although endearing) architecture and work around some rather glaring limitations in the hardware (e.g., lack of color*color blending, hardware clipping, have to fake out zfail by reversing the entire zbuffer with sprite strips, etc, etc). Testing out a new vertex shader on the Xbox can take five minutes, whereas even with a good set of macros, writing and debugging a new PS2 VU microprogram can take hours if things don't go well.
The only reason that PS2 games look "about" as good as Xbox games is that developers spend much more time working on PS2 technology due to its far greater market share. Also, since content creation (3D models, animation, texture maps, sound music) and QA/approvals/marketing/licensing make up a pretty huge percentage of the cost of developing a title, the extra hours of PS2-specific programmer sweat/pain doesn't act as a huge additional cost in the big picture. However, uncounted scores of programmers who have sacrificed their sanity to coding for the "Emotion Engine" will probably have to be buried in concrete in a few years after the PS3 replaces the PS2 and all their hard-won skills become useless...
PS2 shipped out a year or so before Xbox...
Yes, PS2 has bad launch titles. But it had no competition in its generation at the time. By the time GC and Xbox shipped, PS2 had many good titles, SSX had been out for months. Furthermore, Xbox shipped out with truly awful games, low availability and a mutant controller. GC did better on the games, but there was no Zelda or Mario platformer (only a lousy Luigi game and the great Super Smash Bros Melee) for the platform for a quite while. Super Monkey Ball was great, but it couldn't carry a platform.
Gran Turismo 3 had been out for months for PS2 before MS shipped their first Xbox. SSX Tricky (for PS2) was out right as Xbox came out. And barring Halo (which I thought sucked, but that was not a universal sentiment), Xbox didn't have a game worth buying the platform for until Mechassault came out about a year after launch in 2002.
PS2 was successful because when it sucked, it's biggest comptition was PS1. And by the time any real competition game along, PS2 had a lot of solid titles. Being able to play PS1 games and DVDs didn't hurt either.
For the record, I never liked Onimusha. I preferred Resident Evil, which was even more stupid than Onimusha.
I don't care how good Sony is, $700 price tag for a machine is suicide... Neo Geo anyone?
Don't forget, the Neo also had $200 games. The system was never meant to appeal to the general gaming public at large. Better comparison would be the 3DO? It too had a similarly hefty pricetag, but games priced in the same range as the other consoles'.
That mentioned, I don't think I've ever seen succeed a console that was promoted as more than a game machine (if not "... and it plays games too!") Exception maybe a DVD player, but people actually wanted a DVD player, nobody ever wanted a multimedia device, they just want to play games.
One of my friends sold off all his Megadrive (Genesis) stuff to fund the purchase of a 3DO, thinking it would be the next big thing. Boy, did he ever regret that move...
Please the XBox was hardly an exercise in profit, and lets face it if they have up'd the spec of the XBox2 to anywhere even near that of a current PC they will lose money hand over fist with the XBox2 as well. It is about buying market share, nothing more. If they get enough then they will squeeze the market, pay attention that is how Microsoft has always worked.
How many of you out there have your XBOXs 'chipped' - I personally don't because I have prefered to live in the land of legal XBOX IP's - but many friends who don't take such advantage of the Live service (which has been on the whole weak until Halo 2) do.
The amazing thing is that their chipped XBOX's with the modded hd's and their ports of MPLAYER and ffmpegx make for perfect medis center boxes- servers for mp3's, dvd rippers, btclients, and everything else you could want (complete librarys of classic MAME games for parties and the like) all in their little $200 console.
Microsoft really missed out, in that they are spending time and effort building bloated aggrivating Windows Media Center PC's all for the sake of DRM and an OS no one wants anywhere near their playback devices-
Microsoft could have DRMed the XBOX (boo hoo) and killed the console market if they had seen their device as a sucessor to the DVD player, CD player and computer like some adventuresome hackers did. If they droped the WinMediaPC and went this route with the Xbox2 they would definately see a plus to their marketshare.
If of course the consumers didn't get so upset by the DRM licencing strategies that they threw them out the 'window' and wend OSS.
SPOnG revealse this in mid January as part of their Exclusive Need for Speed story.
-- I like the cut of your thinking, young man. - me.
When the PS3 decodes video streams for the scene skip game there won't any lag or dropped frames. And then a giant Chochobo will kill me.
What a sad, fucked up world you live in.
Surrounded by losers like you? Guess so!
Get ready for more grief loser, Sony is about to 'get lucky' all over again with the PS3.
Okay, I'll go over this again just for your benifit (as you don't get it):
The point is not that I have greif - I'm not stupid enough to believe the marketing BS that surrounded the PS2 and I'm not stupid enough to belive it about the PS3 (If you believe the cell chip will make possible cinema CGI quality graphics in real time thats your problem).
So, to recap I'm not dumb enough to buy one, ergo I don't get greif.
I'm sure muppets like you will love it though.
Unbelievable graphics? Gimme a decent steering wheel and force feedback already!
otherwise how could it have managed to stand out from all of the other FPS' avalable on the system?
Because all FPS's suck on consoles, Halo included. Also, a lot of first and third person shooters are 'XBoxized', like Theif 3 and Deus Ex 2, and have tiny tiny maps.
I hardly see how they will blow by sony if sony is going to use the Cell processor designed to get many teraflops. Links: Tom's Hardware about Cell Processor Cell Processor Explained Google News on Cell Processors Forum Topic about Cell Processors
Student Research and Development
From the parent:
"Many have expressed concern that Microsoft is forcing the next generation of console hardware too early, and that the current generation still has much to achieve."
To me this says, "Microsoft is being innovative, and the others do not want/ cannot compete. They feel they can get more profit from the older systems before they have to move on."
You say: Since Sony has a fab plant, they are original. Since Microsoft only has software, marketing and lawyers; they are not origninal. Who's fab plant are they using if it is not their own? Could it be a second tier plant in Taiwan or Mainland China? If Sony exceeds demand to production, could it be the same plants they will use?
You are so boring and tiring. I am sure that it is interesting to know that every two years, Microsoft will have a new hardware tweak for xbox, but that will put them behind the power curve. PS3 is already over due and to have xbox compete with them in a year is ludicrous. The market will eventually assume a rythem of xbox, then sony, then xbox, maybe nintendo, but definately sony..etc.