360 Launch Lineup Released

Gamespot reports that the much-discussed launch title list for the Xbox 360 is now available. The list, from the article: "Amped 3 (2K Sports), Call of Duty 2 (Activision), Condemned: Criminal Origins (Sega), FIFA 06: Road to the World Cup (Electronic Arts), Gun (Activision), Kameo: Elements of Power (Microsoft Game Studios), Madden NFL 06 (Electronic Arts), NBA 2K6 (2K Sports), NBA Live 06 (Electronic Arts), Need for Speed Most Wanted (Electronic Arts), NHL 2K6 (2K Sports), Perfect Dark Zero (Microsoft Game Studios), Peter Jackson's King Kong (Ubisoft), Project Gotham Racing 3 (Microsoft Game Studios), Quake 4 (Activision), Ridge Racer 6 (Namco), Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 (Electronic Arts), Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (Activision)"

Comments

What a bunch of junk

[voice_of_all_reason]

Half of them are sports clones. These are the games you'll see in 2 months in the bargain bin for $10. Why not just release the 4-5 decent games and have a stellar-rated lineup then filling up the shelves with crap?

Not exactly

[the computer guy nex]

Despite what the Anti-MS'rs will say below, this is an impressive lineup. It has a little something for every crowd that the Xbox360 is targeting.

RPG/Adventure - Kameo, probably the best launch title out there. Great game.

FPS - Call of Duty 2 and Perfect Dark 0. Quake4 and GUN probably won't be as good as these.

Sports - NFL NCAAB Soccer NBA. Won't have much extra functionality than their old-gen counterparts but will look great graphically.

Racing - NFS Most Wanted, Project Gothem, Ridge Racer.

With titles like Dead or Alive4 and Elder Scrolls 4 not far behind Microsoft has done a fantastic job. They will have over a million available on Day1 (over 4x what PS2 had at launch) and will sell out.

Re:Not exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

"Despite what the Anti-MS'rs will say below, this is an impressive lineup. It has a little something for every crowd that the Xbox360 is targeting"

What about people who want a unique gameplay experiance? The XBox 360's line-up is almost entirely sequels of copies of clones of original games.

What about people who like RPGs?

What about an entire 1/3 of the worldwide gaming market (Japan), what games apeal to them?

The XBox 360's line-up is great for 18-24 year old men who are only interested in sports games and FPS games; Kameo and King Kong pretty much the only games that actually addresses a broader audience than that (and King Kong is comming out for Gamecube, PS2 and XBox). The XBox 360 seems like the perfect platform for people who bought an XBox and were really happy with it; anyone who saw no point previously probably has no incentive to buy one now.

Re:Holy sequels Batman!

[Red Flayer]

If I were a game publisher and I was risking a ton of dev $$ on a game for a new console, and I was pretty certain that the game wouldn't have a markedly upgraded appearance over late-gen games for the previous console...

You can bet I'd publish a low-risk title like a sequel. Especially until my dev team was able to make better use of the next-gen capabilities.

Re:Titles

[Grey Ninja]

The GameCube racing games are much better than the other consoles. The others could catch up if they stopped focusing on realistic-type racing. Yes there are fantasy racing games for the Playstation but the GameCube racing games blow them away IMO. It's all a matter of perspective. And for the record, I would rather play Gran Turismo than anything on Xbox, as far as realistic racing is concerned.

Re:They're LAUNCH titles.

[mrgreen4242]

Uh, Halo was an Xbox launch title. It was THE Xbox launch title. Aside from PGR1 it was pretty much the only game worth buying from the XBox launch, as I recall. Also, I think you meant to say give ALL THREE consoles time. People who act like this is a two horse race (and presumably discount Nintendo as a non-player) are in for a suprise, I think. Unless you mean to say give them both a chance to see which one gets to sit next the Revolution everyone buys for the unique first party games?

Re:Sports games, racing games, FPS...

[Delphiki]

I think you missed my point. Every launch has a ton of sports games. So what? Lots of people enjoy sports games. You said there are two or three games you might consider buying. Yeah, that's not a lot, but there's something that you might be interested in. It's a launch line up, every player isn't going to find 10 killer games to buy. More games are coming out, so you just have to find enough games to play until something else you like comes out.

I'm going to get a 360 soon after launch and will probably only get two games, which will be plenty until more games come out, which they obviously will. Not everyone is going to go nuts over this launch line-up but some people will and a lot of people will be able to find at least a couple games to get excited about.

Re:No originality here

[Gulthek]

What's your case? What system do you think had a stellar launch/lineup?

Remember how many games the SNES opened with? The N64? the Playstation?

Re:Holy sequels Batman!

[Blakey Rat]

Two points:

1) In what way is King Kong unoriginal? Was there a video game based on the original movie that I'm not aware of? Just because it's adapted from a movie script doesn't make it unoriginal... see the Chronicles of Riddick or Spiderman II video games for proof.

2) Though I definitely expect to see half of these games on ebay for $30 right after launch since they're forcing you to buy the games with the systems.

You don't say who "they" is, but Microsoft isn't forcing you to buy games with the system, nor are the vast majority of retailers. Your gripe is with EB Games, GameStop and other game-specific stores that require bundling deals for pre-sales. Don't spread FUD.