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Xbox 360 Details and NYC Store

Posted by Zonk on from the brick-and-mortar-means-respectability dept.

Gamasutra is reporting on some new Xbox 360 details, released today by Microsoft at the Game Developer's Conference Europe (GDCE). From the article:"Quick voice chat with Xbox Live friends will be available at any time on Xbox 360, even if the player is currently using another game. The game will simply pause and the voice conversation will be carried out - the game automatically mutes any other in-game voice." Additionally, the Seattle Times has piece up indicating that Microsoft is planning on battling Nintendo in the streets of New York City, with a possible Times Square store of their own. From that piece: "A retail store would dovetail with Microsoft's recent efforts to raise its profile in New York, an area that generates more than $1 billion a year in business-software sales for the company. New York is also home to the media giants Microsoft is courting with its software for distributing and protecting music, movies, games and television."

47 comments

  1. What about Live? by Datamonstar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    How do you pause in an online multiplayer game?

    --
    The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
    1. Re:What about Live? by KDR_11k · · Score: 1

      So some random idiot got mod points and decided to mod down the first five posts in this duiscussion? Great, after the metamodding is done he won't get any additional modpoints.

      --
      Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
    2. Re:What about Live? by hollismb · · Score: 2, Informative

      Um, you press the pause button. Just because you pause doesn't mean everyone else has to. You can pause in Halo 2 (while still getting killed) and change your settings, check your friends list, send messages, etc. without a problem. The ideal situation is to simply find a halfway safe corner, and be really quick about it.

      Same thing happens in most other games as well, like Rainbow Six, Splinter Cell, and even in racing games. For example in ToCA Race Driver, pausing the games relinquishes control of your car to the AI, who continues to drive the track for you, albeit at a greatly reduced speed. Some people would actually use this method as a trick to get through sticky turns where you'd be going at slow speed anyway.

    3. Re:What about Live? by meezeh · · Score: 0

      I think it refer's to pausing, accepting/starting a voice conversation with a friend and then to continue playing but talking to the friend at the same time.

      If so, that's great... just like being on a computer and chatting to friends on Ventrilo/TeamSpeak while pubbing :)


      Oh, and by Pause... as another said... you go into your menu and everyone else keeps playing, obviously it's bad wording from MS.

      --
      -- Design. Create. Assemble. --
  2. Confusion by Trusty+Penfold · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "The game will simply pause and the voice conversation will be carried out "

    What's the point of that then? Being able to chat at the same time as you're playing would be a marvelous feature. Surely the XBox360 hardware is up to the task.

    And as for New York, either Microsoft or the reporter are seriously confused about the benefits.

    "showcase consumer-oriented products such as the new Xbox." vs. "... New York, an area that generates more than $1 billion a year in business-software sales."

    Are MS hoping for an Xbox in every office? Or every home?

    1. Re:Confusion by Keeper · · Score: 1

      What's the point of that then? Being able to chat at the same time as you're playing would be a marvelous feature. Surely the XBox360 hardware is up to the task.

      This is a game console, not a general purpose PC. Pre-emptive multitasking isn't used. In other words, the hardware has to be "shared".

      If what you propose is done, how will the game react when you "take" one of it's hardware threads away from it? Depends on the game.

      Now, if a game is written to support chat during the game, pausing wouldn't be necessary. But if the game isn't, you still have an option besides quitting the game.

  3. Just marketing by Red+Flayer · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Wow, it's pretty impressive when the suspected plans of a marketing department are news in and of themselves.

    Is MS working on brand image? Of course, any big player in any retail industry is.

    The real interesting tidbits from the article are:

    The President of China is going to the compound of Bill Gates to meet with him.

    A huge Chinese real estate company might purchase WTC7 to attract Chinese businesses.

    Seems to me like the article about MS was just an excuse to drop a juicy tidbit or two about China-related business.

    --
    "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
    1. Re:Just marketing by Red+Flayer · · Score: 1
      Flamebait? How is pointing out that one of the articles linked to in the summary is simply speculation about the fact that MS is one of at least three companies interested in leasing a billboard space in Times Square?

      News would be: Microsoft leases billboard space in Times Square.

      Or: Microsoft leases retail space in Manhattan for shop.

      Or even: Microsoft enters negotiations for retail space.

      The bits about Chinese business are news. I'm not sure why they are in that particular article, but they are newsworthy.

      I know what my problem was -- I forgot a central tenent of posting on Slashdot: If you think your post might get modded down, you should write that in your post; it will instead get modded up.

      --
      "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
  4. That's handy! by OK+PC · · Score: 4, Interesting

    - Default, game independent 'gamer profiles' on Xbox 360 will include some extremely broad, optional settings which all games will check, including difficulty levels, Y-axis inversion setting, preferred car transmission type (automatic or manual), and a handful of other extremely common game settings. There is then a requirement that game, on its first boot, checks those optional settings, so if the player always uses FPSes with inverted controls, he will never have to reset it in individual game cases.
    This is really useful and innovative. I don't know why they don't talk about it more!

    --
    Did you get that thing I sent ya?
    1. Re:That's handy! by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      I proposed this idea to a few PC games company a few years ago, and none of them were interested at all. It really bothers me to have to change my key mappings on EVERY GODDAMN GAME when I always change it to the exact same thing. Anyway, I'm glad somebody's finally implementing the idea, even if I'm not making any money with it.

      --
      Comment of the year
    2. Re:That's handy! by LordNimon · · Score: 1

      Your mistake was proposing it to the game companies. Any configuration option that is supposed to be common among multiple applications from different vendors should be handled by the OS. You really can't expect the game companies to spend all that effort on a common API and handle all the issue involved with maintaining it.

      --
      And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
      To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
    3. Re:That's handy! by hollismb · · Score: 1

      Woah, that is cool. I wonder if that extends as far as button configurations and sensitivity settings as well. Maybe I always like my E-brake on the 'A' button, and always like my sensitivity set around 5, which it slightly above average (using the Halo scale anyway). I wonder, would that carry over to other games as well...

    4. Re:That's handy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      These example settings seem very narrow in scope and really near useless. How many different FPS and flight sim games do they expect people will be buying for the damn Xbox 360 to the point that relieving the user of the UNTHINKABLE CHORE of having to invert your own Y-axis setting on a per-game basis is going to matter in any significant way?

      Could I enable a setting in my profile that says that I like my platformers and shooters extremely hard, my fighting games moderately hard, and my racing games somewhat easy? How would devs know WTF that means anyways, just by detecting these settings on a system, given that not all games from all devs are made the same cookie-cutter way?

      What settings are available for RPGs, puzzle games, etc.? Are there even any per-genre settings included? If so, if some new genre of game that MS hasn't heard about yet is released, and becomes popular, will more system-wide settings become available? Or is this new system really as stupid as a "pressing up always makes the camera point down in every one of the 300 flight sim games you've bought" kind of idiocy?

      After all is said and done, won't everybody be checking and tweaking their in-game settings on a per-game basis ANYWAYS? I don't know any gamer worth his salt who doesn't at least peek at the in-game settings before jumping into any game that's going to be played for any length of time.

      Useful? Marginally if at all. Innovative? Maybe kind of. Practical? Absolutely not. Frankly, I pity the developers who will have to spend time and resources dealing with such MS-imposed minutiae instead of improving actual game mechanics. Sure, all the console manufacturers have their standards and approval processes, but Microsoft's are ridiculous and show poor focus on what really matters and makes sense. The first and last time MS ever showed any kind of strength in this regard was with the breakaway controller cables that triggered a pause when disconnected.

      Honestly, this would be one of the first things I'd probably disable if I were considering an Xbox 360 purchase. (Currently, I am not.) Just be the box that plays games and let the player worry about how they play each one: differently. Because every game is different, unless you're Microsoft I suppose.

    5. Re:That's handy! by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      Somebody has to, and I doubt Microsoft would have listened to me any more than the game companies did. Who should I have talked to?

      --
      Comment of the year
    6. Re:That's handy! by Delphiki · · Score: 1
      Even if a game company wanted to do this, it wouldn't help much, because a game company can only mandate the feature for their games, Microsoft can do it with for the entire Xbox platform. Even EA, if they wanted to, could only do so much because even the biggest company only makes a minority of the games. Even if other companies agreed to do it, there would be squabbles over the details, inconsistent implementations, etc.

      And unless everyone does it, it doesn't benefit the people who do, so why bother?

      --

      Feel free to mod me "-1 - Angry Jerk".

    7. Re:That's handy! by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      I thought of that. My plan was to write a DLL, or library of some sort, that any game developer could plug into the game really cheaply and easily, and one good enough that they'd have no reason to build their own keyboard sensing code. And, of course, it would read the keyboard config from the central location by default. If you made the developer's job *easier* and added a feature at the same time, it would be easy to get a lot of studios to adopt it.

      Even if it only worked for games from a single company, it'd still be a heck of a lot better than we have now.

      --
      Comment of the year
  5. Heh... by Otter · · Score: 5, Funny
    Microsoft is planning on battling Nintendo in the streets of New York City...

    I can't shake the mental picture of a 200 foot tall Donkey Kong slugging it out with a giant Clippy. Whoops, there goes the Apple Store!

    --
    What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
    1. Re:Heh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I prefer the photoshopped picture of Master Chief Killing Mario.

    2. Re:Heh... by Elranzer · · Score: 1
      Additionally, the Seattle Times has piece up indicating that Microsoft is planning on battling Nintendo in the streets of New York City, with a possible Times Square store of their own

      Don't they mean "battling Sony"? Sony is the one, not Nintendo, who has its own retail store in New York. That and, time and time again, Microsoft keeps saying Sony is its biggest competitor, not Nintendo. Sony and Microsoft seem to just be going after each others' throats this time, both laying off Nintendo.
    3. Re:Heh... by calibanDNS · · Score: 1

      Both Sony and Nintendo have a retail store in Manhattan. The Nintendo store has lots of games available to play and is completely focused on gaming, whereas the Sony store has very little space devoted to the PlayStation brand.

    4. Re:Heh... by KDR_11k · · Score: 1

      There's also a Nintendo store in NYC.

      --
      Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
    5. Re:Heh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A couple of months ago, Nintendo's Pokemon Center New York expanded to become the Nintendo World Store, Nintendo's flagship retail store in the U.S., to go along with the ones they have in Japan. It's quite prominently located in Rockefeller Center.

      As for MS and Sony seeming to be at each other's throats, it's only be feigning disinterest in Nintendo that they've been able to fool people into thinking that Nintendo doesn't exist. In reality, Microsoft's closest competitor is Nintendo. Both MS and Sony would have very much to lose if they actually did ignore what Nintendo was doing. Neither are that stupid.

      That said, MS has to do something about New York. Sony and Nintendo (and Apple, just to step out of gamer mode for a sec) are already there in force, and there's nothing to lose and everything to gain by, literally, setting up shop there.

  6. Oh come on, what's next... by Winterblink · · Score: 1

    ... a big Microsoft blimp constantly cutting in front of the Goodyear blimp at football games?

    --
    "I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
    -Hoban Washburn
  7. Holy crap... by SeekerDarksteel · · Score: 0

    5 posts and 4 are modded Flamebait....who the fuck gave Bill Gates mod points!?

    --
    The laws of probability forbid it!
    1. Re:Holy crap... by KDR_11k · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Now it's the first five. Apparently it's just some idiot who wanted to mod some people down randomly. I wonder if you can lose mod privileges because of five moderations that get slammed in metamod?

      --
      Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
  8. Possible.. by BlackCobra43 · · Score: 1

    Considering the amount of hot air at MS.

    --
    I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
    1. Re:Possible.. by $mooth · · Score: 0

      Boooooooo

  9. Quota by Palshife · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Uh oh, Zonk's behind. I mean, we've got a Nintendo post, a pointless hobby post and an XBox360 post. Still missing the one about Halo, the one that talks about some console dying, and another lame hobbyist article.

    Hurry Zonk! Only 9 hours left!

    --
    Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
    1. Re:Quota by rAiNsT0rm · · Score: 1

      Yeah that dude has got to be one of the worst scourges of /. in all my years. Having run two news sites in my past I know the job, and 'ol Zonk wouldn't have lasted two days with me.

      I hope his children are born with one testicle, including the females.

      --
      http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
  10. Xbox... and other hardware? by Goyuix · · Score: 1

    MS is definitely most famous for software, which I am sure would be prominently displayed, but I would love to go check out the latest version of their keyboards and mice. MS does make some pretty fine hardware (software is certainly up to a more heated debate here).

    Of course this is all really just marketing, and I don't forsee myself going to the store, even if in NY, so what do I really care....

  11. Re:MS Paid For Karma Bombing Slashdot by EGSonikku · · Score: 4, Insightful

    OK, i'll bite this troll. Ever consider that maybe some people (even geeks!) might actually be interested in the 360? I mean, the hardware seems nice and the launch games look good to me. Though a lot has been made of the price, $400 doesn't seem bad to me, since I usually import consoles at much higher prices than that. Is it 'retarded' because YOU say so? You don't speak for everyone, and it's difficult to deny the original XBox did better than most had predicted (including myself). Drop the conspiracy, i'm sure MS has better things to do with thier time than karma bomb slashdot, unless you have some kind of proof, I would stop talking out of your rear. I guess my point is, the fanboy'ism on all sides it out of hand. Why do people need to defend consumer products so vigorously? Buy whatever you like, but there is no need to publically belittle anyone who thinks differently/ -Robert Petersen (Proud owner of just about every console ever)

    --
    - "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
  12. Store? by Gogo0 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What would the Xbox store even have in it??

    Nintendo has over twenty years worth of games, consoles, handhelds, toys, characters, and history.
    Microsoft has two consoles, one recognizable character, and no history.

    I wonder how microsoft will spin that to have something that rival's Nintendo's "store" (it is more like an exciting museum that you can buy stuff in than just a store).

    1. Re:Store? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "What would the Xbox store even have in it??"

      This is one of those things that illustrates just how badly MS has failed in the console market.

      Five years and they have nothing to show for it other than fucking Halo. A library of games and IP so bad that the lack of backwards compatability is considered no big deal.

      Blah,blah,blah MS/xbox 'brand building' 'building a base' ...

    2. Re:Store? by Delphiki · · Score: 1
      Umm... how many memorable new characters have made their debut on the Game Cube? As games mature, there become less and less new memorable characters, because games no longer require cartoon mascots. In ten years, who's going to remember who Carl Johnson is? I'd guess not many people, despite the fact that he starred in a hugely successful game.

      The Xbox has a ton of great games. I'd still take the PS2 catalog over the Xbox catalog, but I'm buying an Xbox 360 because I suspect in the next generation they will have a better catalog. Apart from Halo. Just because Nintendo has more first party titles, does that mean they're more successful? They sure didn't sell more consoles. Excluding the GBA, but that's a different market altogether.

      And if the Xbox was such a miserable failure, how about the PS2? The games people will remember from the PS2 era were made by Rockstar and others, not by Sony. How many memorable characters can you name from Sony's IP?

      If you really think MS failed that badly in the console market, you are what is commonly referred to as a dumbass.

      --

      Feel free to mod me "-1 - Angry Jerk".

    3. Re:Store? by buffer-overflowed · · Score: 1

      One. Viewtiful Joe. Third party game at that. Followup game was kinda weak and may have killed the franchise. I sorta blame it being ported to the PS2 for that. Well that and Capcom kinda got tinges of Megaman syndrome(beating a franchise to death: see Capcom) with the sequel.

      Cartoon mascots mainly form brand loyalty. Adults come back to the Zeldas, and Samuses, and Marios partly due to nostalgia and partly because the brands are strong. The average fans of those franchises are either young and thus idenitifying with the cartoon or in their mid-late 20s at this point.

      Ehhh... the XBox kinda proved one thing to me. Third party devs make or break a system and they go to where the money is(either players or cash incentives). So the smart move is to buy at launch based on 1st party dev houses or wait for the market to crystalize.

      Which pretty much puts Sony and MS out of the running for me, at least for the first year. But then again, I don't see anything special about Halo.

      --
      The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
    4. Re:Store? by supabeast! · · Score: 1

      An Xbox store isn't about sales, it's about marketing the Xbox to tourists. The Xbox store will probably be a lot like Sony's Playstation store in the Metreon - a room full of crappy games, with most of the people inside just truant schoolkids playing games for free.

    5. Re:Store? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd still take the PS2 catalog over the Xbox catalog, but I'm buying an Xbox 360 because I suspect in the next generation they will have a better catalog. Apart from Halo.

      You're buying an Xbox360 because you suspect the next generation will have good games? You are what is known as a sucker. Would it actually kill you to wait until your suspicions bear fruit?

      Just because Nintendo has more first party titles, does that mean they're more successful? They sure didn't sell more consoles. Excluding the GBA, but that's a different market altogether.

      Nintendo is more successful than MS, yeah. They're in the black, they've been at this for decades, and their latest offering, the DS, is selling more than all other consoles and portables combined in Japan right now. You don't get to discount the GBA as a Nintendo property, it's part of the same market and you know it.

    6. Re:Store? by Gogo0 · · Score: 1

      Uh, did you mean to reply to my post, or another one?

      Umm... how many memorable new characters have made their debut on the Game Cube? As games mature, there become less and less new memorable characters, because games no longer require cartoon mascots. In ten years, who's going to remember who Carl Johnson is? I'd guess not many people, despite the fact that he starred in a hugely successful game.

      I didnt say Nintendo debuted any new characters with the Gamecube, I said they had a long line of established characters.


      The Xbox has a ton of great games. I'd still take the PS2 catalog over the Xbox catalog, but I'm buying an Xbox 360 because I suspect in the next generation they will have a better catalog. Apart from Halo. Just because Nintendo has more first party titles, does that mean they're more successful? They sure didn't sell more consoles. Excluding the GBA, but that's a different market altogether.

      I didnt say that Nintendo was more successful because they have more first party titles, I said... well, i didnt say anything about this at all.


      And if the Xbox was such a miserable failure, how about the PS2? The games people will remember from the PS2 era were made by Rockstar and others, not by Sony. How many memorable characters can you name from Sony's IP?

      I didnt say the xbox was a failure (or even a miserable one), nor did I say that sony had memorable franchises. in fact, i never mentioned sony.


      If you really think MS failed that badly in the console market, you are what is commonly referred to as a dumbass.

      I suggest you read posts before you reply to them, lest you look like what is commonly referred to as a dumbass.

    7. Re:Store? by Prophet+of+Nixon · · Score: 1

      Who is Carl Johnson? The only really memorable game character I've seen in years was Jade from BG&E, although Garrett from the Thief games was a decent character too.

  13. Fixed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I mod'ed some folks back up that deserved it.

  14. Re:MS Paid For Karma Bombing Slashdot by vertinox · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why do people need to defend consumer products so vigorously?

    Oh geez. Didn't you watch the indoctrination video when you became an American consumer? You know clause #2: It is your duty as a consumer to pick a brand and defend your choice and support this one brand of product to the death! Failure to do so will mark you as a socialist commie bastard who doesn't support capitalist competition...

    Anyhoos....

    I could explain this phenomenon as something called consumer loyalty. Many consumers will take offense when told they didn't pick the brand that had the best options which implicates that they were just ignorant people for failing to buy a superior product. I think many people often feel attached or relate to their physical possesions as an extension of their persona. If you insult their car or home or favorite brand of beer they feel personally offended.

    I think some of this has to do with corporate advertising and consumer mentality of america.

    Personally, I'd like to own them all if I could... Oh wait a minute...

    --
    "I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
    -Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
  15. old school by llamaxing · · Score: 2, Funny
    Microsoft is planning on battling Nintendo in the streets of New York City


    Why not duke it out old-school style and breakdance? I mean, even the non-gamer is gonna wonder why Master Chief and Mario are bustin' out sick moves in the middle of Time Square. I know I would! =)
    (marketing at its finest, folks)
    1. Re:old school by Bega · · Score: 1

      Why not duke it out old-school style and breakdance? Why not... take a game of duke nukem forever instead and see who wins? Oh? ...nevermind.

      --

      THIS IS THE INTERNET. PLEASE PICK UP YOUR SERIOUS BUSINESS SUIT AT THE FRONT COUNTER.
  16. Re:MS Paid For Karma Bombing Slashdot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What did you say about my Mac?!? You're just jealous because you've never used one. You're not used to it. You can't wrap your head around the elegence of the metaphors Apple uses...

    </bad joke>

  17. Re:MS Paid For Karma Bombing Slashdot by yoyhed · · Score: 1
    I looked at the source for your comment, here's what I found:

    elegence

    --
    WHO NEEDS SHIFT WHEN YOU HAVE CAPSLOCK/ DAMN1
  18. Re:MS Paid For Karma Bombing Slashdot by yoyhed · · Score: 1
    I looked at the source for your comment, here's what I found:

    <bad spelling>elegence</bad spelling>

    --
    WHO NEEDS SHIFT WHEN YOU HAVE CAPSLOCK/ DAMN1