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Xbox 360 Launch to Face Several Hurdles
JamesO writes "Microsoft's J Allard has said that the Xbox 360 will be released in differing versions over the next five years. "It's something we're not ready to announce yet," he said. "I don't think it's a one-size-fits-all [approach] over the next five-year horizon." Relatedly JamesO writes "Microsoft is saying that anywhere up to 40 games could be released for the Xbox 360 during its launch period, but which of those will make or break the console's launch? Pro-G choose their ten most important Xbox 360 launch games. Not the ten best launch games, but the most important for the success of the Xbox 360."
Who wants to buy my preorder?!
I put a down payment for an XBox 360 under the assumption that WHAT THEY HYPED was what would be in the unit. Not some pie in the sky, it'll have HiDef DVD next year and then the year after that we'll introduce XBOX360 3.0 which, as you all know, is when Microsoft gets it right so hooo-baby, get your preorders in for that one, and oh sorry about that built-in wireless router but that was too expensive.
I completely and totally understand that some features may change from preorder to launch. But all of this hype now about different consoles and such and I'm ready to just drop the whole thing until they actually ink the final shipping product features.
Fool me once, shame one you... fool me twice...
One things for sure, it'll be a LONG time before I preorder any Microsoft game system again.
I figured out Microsoft's tactics on this! Beat all the other companies to the market by using a soon to be out of date system! It's brilliant! Take the money from R&D and pump that into advertising...next thing you know cha-ching! They'll actually release their real system around the same time as PS3....but not before they've sold millions of the "basic" systems. Hey Bill....high five!
I would be pissed off if I bought version 1 of the X-Box, and then find out that X Game 001 only works on version 4 and above because it requires a HD. If games are compatible across all versions, I think this would still make consumers less willing to buy the X-Box. Why would I buy an X-Box now when version 2 with HDTV could be out in two more months?
Until there are games and the final hardware version is released, I think I am just going to stick with my PS2 for at least another couple years until the HD-DVD/Bluray and platform wars are decided.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
What if Microsoft's plan is to give every single Xbox 360.v1 owner a coupon for a free HD-DVD drive by mail? It could make sense, economically, if the difference in cost between the HD-DVD changes enough over the course of two years. Two years from this Christmas, then, Microsoft launches the Xbox 360.v2 with the HD-DVD drive and all Xbox 360.v1 owners are told that they can send in a copy of the bottom of their Xbox to receive their free HD-DVD drive upgrade. It could save a lot of money I think, and not cause the Osborne effect or the Sega CD effect.
Kameo and Ninety-Nine Nights are the only ones that aren't sequels. The rest, on the other hand...
It seems that the market is fucked up in such a way that the only thing companies can come with are SEQUELS. Same happened for the PS2, and now it's going to happen for the Xbox 360 and PS3.
I suspect the reasoning is that Madden, every year, is either the #1 or #2 top-selling game in the US market, if not the world. That seems pretty important, whether or not the Japanese like the game.
Oh, and in case you weren't aware, the US gaming market is much larger than that in either Japan or Europe. All the talk about how Japanese consumption defines the success of a console is based on a) the fact that every console designed and/or produced by a US company since the Nintendo has sucked compared to its competitors and b) just plain old fallacy. For example, the Saturn, a console made by a Japanese company, did pretty well in Japan yet tanked everywhere else. The end result of that was creating a situation where Sega ran out of money to compete.
It might ALSO be worth noting that the list is generated based on the US launch titles. There are titles being developed that, so far, are only planned for release in Japan. There are Japanese RPGs, soccer games and others being developed specifically for Japanese Xbox 360 customers.
Short version: Your criticism is based on little but thin air.
Seems to me that Microsoft would prefer that you refresh your X-Box 360 each year with a new $200 purchase to get the latest technology.
I wonder if they'll have lifecycles on the older X-Box 360s and, over the next 2-3 years, kill Live support for the earlier generations of X-Box 360s that lack hardware of the most recent ones.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
About Perfect Dark. Just the other day I was wondering why Rare had stopped making games. When checking their website i realized why. Damn M$ bought them too and now they're only making games for xbox. First Bungie, then Rare. Makes me sad...
Baldur's Gate 1 (circa 1998): 500 megabytes
Baldur's Gate 2 (circa 2000): 1.2 gigs
NeverWinter Nights (Circa 2002): 2.1 gigs
Knights of the Old Republic (2003): 4.0 gigs
2005: 8 GB
2007: 16 GB
2009: 32 GB
2011: 64 GB
2013: 128 GB
The PS3 is released in 2006, so it will be 7 years old in 2013, which is reasonable for a console's lifetime. (Except for Microsoft's, which life only 4 years)
This is exactly why Nintendo is still around. They have never tried selling revisions of their hardware boynd the standard versioning of the system (see gameboy). Even when they did, like with the gameboy camera and printer, they were wildly successful because Nintendo knows how to do gaming right.
Sony and Microsoft are both failing horribly at this game and will soon be pushed out of the market by their own profit whoring.
This is like the wal-mart issue: the international megacorporations (Sony, Microsoft) are trying to push the little guy who's been in the industry since the beginning (Nintendo) out of the market, but at least this time the little guy is going to win!
Work sucked, until it became unemployment, when it became slightly more tolerable. -Tet
Yes, but the XBox does. Therefore one would expect the 'new and improved' XBox to not have less functionality.
And since the post I was replying to indicated the XBox was "just like a PC", the lack O' hard-drive (eventually, maybe, sorta, they haven't decided yet) could change that.
The fact that other machines in the past didn't have functionality doesn't change that the versions in the future shouldn't be downgrades.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.