Yet More 360 Details

NubKnacker writes "With the launch of the new Xbox 360 not far away, Chris Satchell, boss of the Microsoft developer group spoke to Eurogamer.net and GamesIndustry.biz. There, he reveal a lot of information about the hardware, the operating system and the new Xbox Live functions. From the article: 'Microsoft also plans to have kiosks available - presumably in game stores and other public locations - where you can download content. Whether this will be to the detachable hard disk itself or a memory card is a detail that wasn't clarified.'"

Comments

Nintendo Revolution Rumor

[poningru]

What I dont understand is why isnt Nintendo releasing any of their revolution tech specs as leaked. The obvious advantage is ofcourse that people will go 'hmm Revolution looks cooler than xbox369 do I want to use this pretty cool console or should I wait till couple of years and get a really kickass console'

Re:Nintendo Revolution Rumor

[rAiNsT0rm]

Oh, they will. Except it Nintendo doesn't really use lame "leaks" they go straight for your balls. Sony and MS use all the hype and obfuscation and viral marketing and leaks. Nintendo just walks softly and carries a big stick when they want to.

TGS is coming up soon, Nintendo will be stealing quite a bit of thunder I'm sure. I also look for them to actually beat the PS3 to market when all is said and done. Nintendo knows that no matter how badly MS wants to break into Japan, they never will. I have many friends in Japan and the actual interest is so low it's akin to their excitement at belly-button lint. Nintendo also knows that even if they do release last that most people will have played the launch titles for their new "uber" systems and be bored and will pick up a Revolution in addition to their 360/PS3... while families and enthusiats will gladly wait it out.

Nintendo is actually really well positioned in this war. MS and Sony are banking on competing formats of media (of which only one will win), different architectures, and are actually helping to ensure mutually assured destruction. Nintendo actually has to do very little but continue to slowly release information over time to build to a successful creshendo.

Re:Nintendo Revolution Rumor

[Gogo0]

Some speculate that Nintendo will do their big reveal right after MS's opening keynote at TGS this month. The main idea is to let the initial ps3 and xbox2 hype die down and then have the spotlight solely on them at some point in the road.

If Nintendo does reveal the Rev at TGS, who do you think all the coverage will be on? And since the hardware for the ps3 and xbox2 were revealed at e3, I think Nintendo will debut the Rev with playable games. Then suddenly all the coverage isnt about how three consoles debuted and one was less powerful, its about how Nintendo's Rev games are more fun than a Gears of War video.

Re:Nintendo Revolution Rumor

[RoyalBoyle]

Has there ever been a Slashdot article about Xbox360 that doesn't start out with a slew of Nintendo fans claiming how Revolution will be superior???

Re:Nintendo Revolution Rumor

[DeadScreenSky]

They said the system will be about 2x as powerful as current systems in tha face of others claims of 10x+ power. That took balls and again it was the truth, not just for them but for everyone. The next gen systems will be about 2x as powerful. Just as is the normal case. Truth.

Huh? I can't think of a console example where this was actually true. The SNES was certainly more than twice as powerful as the NES, the N64 was far more than twice as powerful as the SNES, and the Gamecube was more significantly powerful than the N64. The same is true with Sega's various systems, Sony's systems, and by all accounts and visual media so far MS' systems. You can see this both in raw hardware console stats and/or actual game performance. Sequels are the best way to confirm this behavior - look at something like Mario Kart DD, which runs at more than double the framerate of MK64 with considerably more complicated and complex graphics. Assuming we can trust Bizarre Creations (and I think we can), one simple bridge in a specific PGR3 course has more polygons than an entire course had in PGR2 - it is also running at least double the framerate, a much higher resolution, with significantly higher texture quality, more special effects, and a ridiculously more complex lighting model. Sure, there are always underperforming games for every console, but those aren't the examples you use to determine how much stronger the hardware actually is. Can you list any actual major counterexamples?

It's even just a simple Moore's Law type of evolution. If new consoles come out every 4+ years they are simply going to be more than twice as powerful as their predecessor unless the manufacturer really screwed up somehow (or potentially went really cheap, which is what seems like the possible scenario with the Revolution).

An easy example is the PS2. As you know, the PS2 has 40 or so megs of RAM inside of it. The PS1 had a little more than 4 megs of total RAM. The CPU saw a similar boost, going from 34 to 295 mhz (while also being able to do more per mhz). That's just how hardware evolution over that kind of time period works. Sure, you generally won't get the 10X factor that the specs suggest for actual games (though you do occasionally get more), but that's the truth of all hardware spec comparisons. There's simply no way the PS2 is only 2 or even 3 times more powerful than the PS1 - even crappy Simple 2000 games manage to demonstrate this fact.

Witholding information about an unfinished product is not hype. Sure it generates interest, but that would be like the zen form of hype. "The hype is not to hype." They've basically stated the TRUTH from day 1. But people are so not used to this approach they have to read more into everything.

How is constantly bitching in public that gaming is getting stagnant ("oh, except for us, we care about INNOVATION!") and then naming your mystery console "Revolution" not hype? Teasing people with that kind of name for years while only giving small amounts of info out is completely and utterly a form of hype.

It's great that you obviously love Nintendo and that love makes you happy, but try and keep some basis in reality for the rest of us.

Controls

[AsiNisiMasa]

You can specify, for example, that you prefer to invert the right analogue stick camera control and this will then be picked up on in any game you play.

Well that's certainly a plus. I always worry when a new game comes out wheter or not I'll be able to use the controls that I'm used to. It seems like a silly thing to worry about, but my worst fears came true when they took jumpy out of Halo 2. What were they thinking? These settings should encourage more of an industry (or at least, console) standard, I think.

On another note, with the XBox 360 so much like a PC and cross platform gaming planned, how long is it before there's a serious problem regarding the use of mouse versus a controller? Even if the cross platform games don't bring up too much of a problem (perhaps they're MMORPGs), but what are the chances somebody gets a mouse working on their console? That would give them quite an advantage in something like an FPS.

Ring o' light

[timmahtron]

"The "ring of light" around the power button highlights which wireless controller is being used, highlighting player one's activity in the top-left quadrant. When the console is laid on its side, it senses this and starts using the top-left quadrant as you see it with the console laid flat. What's more, the ring of light motif is spread throughout the Xbox 360 interface, so you can see which player pulled up the "Guide" page as you're watching a film or playing a game and, in the words of Satchell, "slap him"." That last little part cracked me up. Find out whodunit and administer the whopping. My current Xbox is modded and no Xbox Live for me, but I did have it prior to getting the chip. I might hold off and just use the regular old box for a while. The new Live features look pretty impressive.

Re:ENOUGH ALREADY!

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

Zonk works for Nintendo. By the time the Xbox launches, everyone on /. will be so tired of it, they wouldn't dream of buying an Xbox but wait for the Revolution instead. It's all part of the Grand Plan.

Various thoughts

[alvinrod]

On the issue of cooling - Satchell said he thought the system had three fans (he said he wasn't sure but thought it was three, so we'd open to correction on that one), and we couldn't hear them at all as he spoke. When you play a DVD, it powers down to just one fan. It's "a lot" better than the "wind tunnel" alpha kits, he said.

I'm not 100% sure, but I thought that the Xbox 360 used water cooling. Given that they're using some varient of a PowerPC chip, of which the latest versions run to hot to make it into a laptop, and have the clock speed cranked up as well, I wouldn't be surprised if they were using a water cooling system. Can anyone verify this?

DVDs can be played even if you don't have the remote control, unlike Xbox 1.

I'm guessing that this is the reason for the increased price in the controllers. According to the price lists on the major sites, wireless controllers were $50, and wired were $40. I'm guessing that price hike is mostly due to royalty fees necessary to include DVD functionality since MS doesn't hold the patent. That's why the Xbox couldn't play DVDs out of the box. It looks like they've given the controllers the necessary functionality to play DVDs as well, driving up the cost slightly. I'm wondering if it wouldn't have just been better to build the technology into the console though? Maybe I'm off the mark on this one and MS is just raising prices to make more money.

iPods are detected by default, as are PSPs, and by our watch it took about 2 or 3 seconds for the Xbox 360 to notice they were there. With an iPod plugged in you can play music direct through the Dashboard software, with visualisations, or you can play a slideshow of photographs.

That's a pretty nice feature, although you can just plug an iPod directly into a TV for a slideshow. I don't know if running through the Xbox 360 to a HD TV will result in better visuals or not though. I'm also interested in what interaction the Xbox 360 will be able to have with the PSP beyond what is listed.

Xbox Live will allow you to play in various Zones - there will be causal, pro, family, and underground (where "anything goes") and perhaps more - and these will allow you to go for whatever kind of experience you like.

I'm pretty big on this feature. I just got Xbox Live a short while ago so I could play with my friends online. I've noticed there are a lot of assholes on Live and would like to avoid them if possible. The current Halo 2 scene on there is generally not something for young children. It is funny to hear someone yell, "I'm going to skull rape your mother!" to someone and blast them with a shotgun, but it's probably not something I'd want any of my children to hear or repeat.

The wireless networking adapter plugs into the USB 2.0 port on the back of the console and is "like a small pack of cigarettes" in terms of size.

I'd like to know if third party wireless network adapters will be able to work. Right now I've got my Xbox on the wireless network in my apartment. I could probably just use the current setup and run a cord from ethernet jack to the wireless adapter, but it can get a little laggy at times, especially with the poor internet service. But at $99, the adapter from MS seems a little expensive.

You can plug in a keyboard but this is for text input only - including in massively-multiplayer games. You can't use it to play games and that was a design choice.

Probably a good choice. If you could get a mouse and keyboard to play an FPS, you'd probably have an edge over gamers using controllers. Point and click sniping is a lot easier than manipulating analog sticks in my opinion. It might be nice to give people the option of playing with a keyboard and mouse though. This would open up the console to more traditional PC games like RTS and other FPS games. Just don't allow keyboard//mouse users to play against controller users.

Likewise, the System blade allows greater control over family settings. Micros

Re:Various thoughts

[Keeper]

I'm not 100% sure, but I thought that the Xbox 360 used water cooling. Given that they're using some varient of a PowerPC chip, of which the latest versions run to hot to make it into a laptop, and have the clock speed cranked up as well, I wouldn't be surprised if they were using a water cooling system. Can anyone verify this?

It uses heat pipes. It is liquid cooling in the sense that fluid transfers the heat to a different location. The pipes trasfer the heat to fins in the back of the unit (where the air is cooler, and you have better airflow).

I'm guessing that this is the reason for the increased price in the controllers.

Nope. You don't have to pay a license fee based on the number of remotes you have ... With the Xbox1, you paid it with the dvd remote (which is why that stupid thing was so expensive). With the Xbox360, you pay for it when you buy the unit.

I don't know if running through the Xbox 360 to a HD TV will result in better visuals or not though

Yes, it will.

Right now I've got my Xbox on the wireless network in my apartment. I could probably just use the current setup and run a cord from ethernet jack to the wireless adapter, but it can get a little laggy at times, especially with the poor internet service. But at $99, the adapter from MS seems a little expensive.

Having a built-in wireless device isn't going to make your connection any less laggy. The $99 adapter is an 802.11a/b/g device, which is one of the reasons why it is expensive. I'd personally stick with the ethernet->wap solution.

I'd like to see a system similar to a PC where each user signs on and has certain permission levels

That's essentially what they're describing.