Slashdot Mirror
State of the 360
IGN is reporting on The State of the Xbox 360, detailing information on the next-gen console since this past E3. From the article: "Coming into the home stretch here, it's clear Microsoft has had its fair share of problems. The MTV event, though brilliantly conceived, was a hype-without-substance infomercial that impressed nobody, especially the most important people -- gamers. At the actual MTV event, I did an informal poll which revealed that three-fourths of the people attending were there only to see the Killers. E3 was underwhelming to put it mildly, and the summer months proved to be vacant of everything but rumors, leaks, and more rumors and leaks. The Tokyo Game show helped Microsoft's cause a little, and Microsoft finally revealed its Japanese pricing and the worldwide release dates, leaving one major news announcement left open - the day-and-date launch games. Apparently, Microsoft and friends are still working on these last details."
IMHO, Nintendo is the only one coming with something remotely interesting.
You, sir, need to be shot.
And the masses cried out, "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0!"
Even the Dreamcast 360 label seems a little silly now. The Dreamcast was another dead before it hit the shelves console, but I don't think Sega could have had more disasters with their Dreamcast pre-launch if they had tried.
I don't think we will ever see a console launch disaster of this magnitude ever again.
Going all the way back to the 2600, I can't think of any console that even is in the same league as the 360's year long release and launch fiasco. Jaguar, CDi, Dreamcast...none of them are close to MS's 360 disaster.
While strolling through the EA Tiburon campus, I overheard a few things about the XBox 360 development units. It seems out of the 10 (or so) Dev Kits that Tiburon recieved, 7 of them had something serious wrong with them. Now granted these are beta kits, and not expected to function perfectly, but 7 out of 10 that could not so much as operate at all is a bad sign for even betas.
I also overheard this quote, "If the release version is even twice as good as these beta dev kits, you will never see me throwing down for one."
I am praying that there was just a bad string of chips, or the parcel was run over by a forklift before being delivered, but if they are correct, then I forsee a very rocky release.
Colonel Cranium this is Rectal Reconnaissance, we are on a collision course sir, Abort Abort!