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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.
Uh, hello? What other motivation does a for-profit business ultimately have?
Stupidest. Comment. Ever.
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?
Insert Sig Here
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...
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
Missing the point; Nintendo is saying that MS may be doing something detrimental to short term profit (selling next-gen hardware early, thus reducing returns on current-gen investments) in order to take market share from competitors, thereby (hopefully) improving long term profit potential. Nintendo is notorious for eeking out every last bit of return from products before moving to the next generation (think gameboy), so it's understandable why this may irk them.
- Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.
Dude, this is Slashdot. If there was an article about Bill Gates wiping his nose, he'd be criticised here.
Trying to rationally discuss anything relating to Microsoft on Slashdot is an excercise in futility.
-Turkey
The Dreamcast wasn't a bad system. But Sony then released a better system: backwards compatible, better controllers, plays DVDs, etc.
Microsoft attempted that strategy the first time around, but focused on system stats as their definition of "better". Their original controller was a nightmare (and how long did they deny it? Now it's a collector's item, despite their repeated claims that it was perfect), you had to pay extra to unlock the built-in features (Sony did that too, but quickly realised the error of their ways, and by the time of the north american launch, DVD playing was standard out of the box).
Of the current gen, none are utter crap. The Xbox does have slightly better graphics, if you're looking real close, and the Cube has a bunch of lil' gems of games. But since they're in a pissing contest, I think Sony's strategy will get them ahead again.
On the whole, aside from the backroom exclusivity deals, the console wars are good for us gamers, they're trying damn hard to get the best hardware they can, and so devellopers get a good base on which to devellop (hopefully) good games.
You can't take the sky from me...
However, the Nintendo Revolution will not have DirectX, unless something has changed that I didn't know about. The X in Xbox came from DirectX, the abstraction language that almost all windows game programmers use(with the exception of games from id that use OpenGL).
The whole point behind the xbox was for it to be a "console for the developers". It lets people who are used to writing PC games, which includes most studios, to begin writing games immediately for a new console with a minimal learning curve.
From what I understand, the PS2 is INSANELY hard to write software for, and I imagine the gamecube and the forthcoming revolution are/will be the same.
Microsoft really has done a good thing for once by making a device that just plays games and basing it off of a common abstraction layer.
With all that said, if it isn't compatible with my current games, I'm definitely going to hold off buying it until I see what the cell processor infrastructure has to offer. Why buy a console that can't play all my games until I can compare the Xbox Next, the PS3, and the Nintendo Revolution.
I'm sure everybody thought $500 was too expensive for what is essentially a walkman, but then along came i-pod and fooled us all.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
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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Well, Sega had some major issues with the Dreamcast. (The "Edge" here is Xbox vs. PS3).
First off, it was NOT a DVD player. The PS2 arrived at a critical time where a lot of younger folk still had not had a DVD player and you couldn't get many DVD players under the $100-150 range. So, presto, you buy a $249 console (or whatever it was), and now you've got a DVD player as well. Edge: Slightly Sony. The PS2 might have next-gen DVD media, but who has the hardware to support it? Unless next-gen displays come down to earth levels ($1,000-$4,000) no one will care to adopt this. See, for example, SACD.
Second, by the time the Dreamcast was out in the US, the PS2 was only a month or two away from being released in Japan. Had Sega really hit the market a year before, they could've gobbled up a lot of market share from the aging, ailing N64 and PS1. But when "9-9-99" hit everyone had seen the PS2 videos and knew what was around the corner. Edge: Unknown. This all has to do with expectations. In 1999, everyone knew the PS2 would be insane. Will the PS3 be "insane" compared to the Xbox 2? We'll know this year.
Third, the Dreamcast had no backwards compatibility (to what? the Sega CD?). The PS2 did, so automatically you had a very nice, large game library to play with. Edge: Unknown. Sony, I assume, will have PS1 and PS2 compatability in the PS3. The jury is still out on Xbox 2 having backwards compatibility.
Fourth, EA did not have EA Sports on the Dreamcast. You couldn't play Madden or NBA Live. Now, for most people here, these are non-titles. But a very very large amount of people play these, and face it, Sega didn't have it. If EA continues with Microsoft, the Xbox 2 will have a market advantage come this fall. If you want to play the cool sports games, you need to get the Xbox 2, or settle with the slower version on the PS2. Edge: Microsoft.
I don't think it's plausible that Sony will go the way of Nintendo or Sega. At the same time, I can't see Microsoft getting out of the home gaming market. What IS interesting is the issue of piracy. It greatly affected the Dreamcast and the Xbox, neither did well. But (until recently), that was not the case with the PS2, nor the case with Gamecube. So it doesn't seem to be a primary effect on market position.
I think it is realistic to say that Nintendo will NOT be getting the top spot and will be a No. 2 or No. 3 competitor.
So, no, I would not place any bets on Sony being guaranteed to win. I'm not biased either, I have both systems (and got them both well after release).
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
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)
This may be true in a Macintosh fan's wettest dreams. Superior hardware has almost nothing to do with viability as a gaming platform. It's all about market share. Go back to 1986, when the Amiga was the big thing. It had graphic and sound capability beyond any other home PC for it's time. It was not, however, the premier gaming platform becuase there simply wasn't enough market share for every game developer to start making Amiga games. 90% of the games on the shelf were for "MS-DOS". It will take far more than the Xbox's use of PPC chips for the Mac to be a viable gaming platform for any but the most successful and widely distributed games (let alone a dominant gaming platform).
Furthermore, the fact that the xbox ran on wintel hardware didn't mean that the xbox games were easily portable. They ran on a special version of DirectX that was incompatible with Windows DirectX. Games like Halo, which were ported to Windows were ported by third parties, and the backend was a ground-up port. It wasn't just a simple recompile.
The marketshare dictates other issues as well. For example, most peripherals are developed with Wintel in mind (not because Wintel is a technically better or worse platform...it has nothing to do with that -- it's all market share). So when nVidia or ATI crank out their latest graphics card, they have Wintel in mind. The Mac is sort of an afterthought and it tends to show in pricing. Apple went the extra mile by using open standards for their hardware, but you're still paying a premium for Macintosh verisons of Wintel hardware. It's not because they require many hardware tweeks to work -- the hardware is essentially identical. It's becuase the company has to expend the same amount on driver development and support, and the returns are limited. They'd rather stay competitive in the larger market (Wintel) than have to make the Wintel users subsidize the Mac development and support -- hence the premium on Mac graphics cards.
If you're buying a PC and honestly intend to use it with gaming in mind -- the Macintosh is probably the wrong PC for you. Forget about your allegiances for a second and just look at the software that's out there. I had to face this same issue when I finally ditched my Amiga in 1996. Maybe in 10 years, things could change, but buying a Mac today with the thought-in-mind that it's going to be a dominant (or even viable) gaming platform within its lifetime does not seem realistic to me. I strongly disagree with your statement that this removes the largest obstacle -- or really had anything to do with why Macintoshes aren't dominant gaming platforms.
-Turkey
DirectX is a factor, but it's not as clear cut as you think. The next generation of consoles will gets it's speed from having multiple processors. This is because we've essentially hit the wall for processor speed. If we'd kept pace with the jumps in CPU speeds we had in the 90's we'd be up to a 8-10Ghz CPU by now.
.Net, etc.) will have to take a hard look at how they are doing things.
That being said, directX is not going to address the fact that writing code that actually takes advantage of the multiple CPU's is not easy. Even seasoned developers find this kind of programming hard. You have to deal with a whole range of bugs that aren't a factor with single CPU aware programs. This is has been covered by slashdot a number of times. As the common PC moves towards SMP developers (Java, C++,
While it is true, the XBox is easier to program than Playstation, it should be noted that the success of the Playstation was because Sony provided a well crafted SDK and development platform. It was reported that the Playstation was much easier to write for compared to Nintendo and Sega at the time.
To sum up, your plan of waiting and seeing is a good idea. And I think it's the plan that Sony is counting on.
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).
Because...
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I think the current hardware on the PS2/GameCube/X-Box is more than enough to make great games for the next year or so.
That works out well then, considering "XBox 2" won't be coming out until late this year (at the earliest) and both PS3 and Revolution aren't coming out until sometime in 2006.
And even with new consoles being released, there will probably be games released for current-gen consoles for at least the next 2-3 years. There won't be as many, but it's not like your PS2 or XBox immediately becomes worthless the minute a new console comes out.
I am inclined to agree with the statement that the only reason M$ is doing this is for profit.
You really think Sony and Nintendo do what they do for anything other than profit? Sure they'll talk about the artistry involved in creating games and how they're inspired to push the limits of technology, but that's mostly PR. All three companies want to own the video game market and make as much money as possible.
Sinch
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.
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