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CNN's Game Over On The 360
An anonymous reader writes "CNN's Chris Morris has taken a look at Microsoft's new system. He calls the system 'good, but not great' in a fairly lengthy, well thought out piece. The article also has an amusing gallery of rejected prototype designs." From the article: "Admittedly, tastes vary - so you could easily find a game out this month that's a 'must have' for you. (We'll have a closer look at the launch games early next week.) But if you're looking for something that's ground breaking and sets the trend for the system (as 'Halo' did with the original Xbox), you're not going to find it."
that's gotta hurt. I expect that's probably the last Microsoft product that CNN gets their hands on early for review.
How can it not be great with 3 3.2GHz processors?!
The first of the next gen video game machines hits store shelves next week. Should you get one?
The short answer: Not on Day One.
What if you plan on making money because of the shortages and selling one overpriced on ebay for an extra 100-500$?
God spoke to me.
X-Box isn't about cracking the best graphics or anything like that... its all about X-Box live and the multiplay capability.
Sony is still working strong on delivering the prettiest stuff. Nintendo is going for revolutionary technology (just look at the controller!).
The odd man out in this situation is Sony. Nintendo is taking a big chance which will (IMHO) cash them into tons of entertainment centers this upcoming year. X-Box has replayability simply due to the fact that you can play the same game over and over online and get a new experience everytime. Sony is just standing still. They either need to make some reliable online play a la Microsoft, go for something revolutionary a la nintendo, or they may be sitting in third place this time next year...
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
That's right, just go ahead and wait until later to get one. Especially if you're in the Redmond/Bellevue, WA area. Don't go out and wait in line for an Xbox 360. Just keep on playing on your regular consoles. Really, there's no reason to get one. You really don't want it now. You want it later.
If you're thinking you're gonna go wait at Best Buy in Bellevue, you're not. It's not worth the trouble. Just pretend it's just another day, and don't go out.
Please wait? The fewer the people that go out, the better the chance of getting mine. And I'm already planning to take Tuesday off of work.
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
'Nuff said.
when he said "good but not great" he was talking about the games, not the system. Poster needs to learn how to read, very wrong statement.
But when it comes to must-have games, the Xbox 360 falls short. While there are several good - and even very good - titles that will be available at launch, there's nothing truly great.
Top 10 Reasons To Procrastinate
10.
It's odd that CNN headlines this "Xbox 360: Good, but not Great." He's saying that there's no killer app launch title, but he has many good things to say about the actual hardware. Launch titles are rarely an indication of what's to come, and with the juice that the 360 is packing, there'll be some great stuff over the next six months.
In the meantime, you'll have to make do with Perfect Dark, Project Gotham, next-gen Madden, Kameo and Call of Duty. Systems have been launched with far less (I'm looking you, Fantavision).
What was so groundbreaking about Halo? It was a great game, but it was simply a first person shooter with a cool story. It was the first FPS with a cool story (Half Life). It didn't have extraordinary graphics. Very good, yes, but not like it embarassed the rest of the genre. Weapons were pretty standard. You got to drive vehicles but that had been done before too. I'm not knocking it but I don't see what was groundbreaking about it.
I consider myself a core gamer and I wouldn't touch this with a 10 foot poll on launch day. I have my reservations about the 360 and to be honest, Microsoft hasn't done enough to get me excited about this launch. I'd pre-order a Revolution right now if I could. PS3 has some time still to either get me really excited or turn me off completely to the PS3.
I remember waiting eagerly for the PS2, Game Cube, and X-box. I couldn't wait for the release of these systems. I don't know if it's the fact that I'm a few years older or if it's the way these systems are marketed, or the fact that they just seem to be more of the same (except for the Revolution). But I'm taking a cautious approach to the 360 and unless things change will do more of the same with the PS3.
"Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
I must be getting old.
Read the reviews of the games. The games visual quality varries drastically (reportadly). Take the GameSpot review of NBA 2K6. If you have a SDTV, it is almost indistinguisable between the XBox and XBox 360 versions (there are slight differences, but nothing noticible). But if you have an HDTV, things look agazing. During replays they say you could easily mistake it for real footage. There is supposed to be tons of animation and detail (ex: the player's shirts get wet with sweat during the course of the game). But while that looks great, they say that the croud and coach look almost like they did in the XBox version (so when compared to players, it is a bit of a visual jolt because of the quality difference). If you have an HDTV, it is supposed to be great.
Now take Tony Hawk's American Wasteland. With SDTV, it looks like the XBox version. At HDTV, it looks worse. That's what Gamespot says. The low resolution of the textures become apparent, they shimmer, and the models obviously have low poly counts (they mention it especially with the story footage scenes, as opposed to in game). This is what quick & dirty XBox 360 ports will often look like, I bet. If the game isn't designed for the system (or next gen) then it will probably look like this.
But the most important thing I've taken away in all the reviews is while things look beatuiful, there isn't that much difference if you still have a SDTV (like me). While I will buy an HDTV one day, it really sounds like buying an XBox 360 wouldn't be worth it right now for me (on a pure graphics basis). A killer game would be one thing, but they don't have any killer-apps for me yet (I want to play PGR3, but not that much).
I wonder how much this trend will continue. Will later games (1.5, 2nd gen) look better at SDTV than current games (excluding a little anti-aliasing), or have we reached the end of what SDTV can show us. My guess is the first category (because with games like Shadow of the Colossus you could have higher poly counts on the large monsters), but we'll see.
I've only seen the 360 in real life for about 5 minutes playing Call of Duty 2 on a 20" screen at Best Buy. While it looked nice, it looked just like any PC game to me (given: Call of Duty IS a PC game, so I realize that).
We'll have to reserve graphics judgements untill more native games come out (the few that are designed for the 360 like PGR3 are supposed to be amazing). But this SDTV thing is something I think more people should be aware of. I wonder how many people will plug in their 360 and their copy of Madden or NBA 2K6 and say to themselves "I spent HOW MUCH for this? It looks just like my XBox" because they only have a SDTV.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Project Gotham Racing 3 is the killer app for a lot of racing fans. Granted that group of gamers is not as large as the FPS fanbase.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
When will Microsoft drop the price on the original XBox?
I agree that out of the box on release the 360 will be far from stellar, but thats to be expected. A system like this takes time to mature. Programmers have to gear up for a new platform and so on. There is definately no reason to jump on this especially at the high price. I would wait till Sony and Nintendo release theirs thus driving down prices.
gasmonso http://religiousfreaks.com/The title of this New York Post article - Don't Buy the Xbox 360 - pretty much sums up that paper's attitude toward the system. It's another interesting read.
Successfully condensing fact from the vapor of nuance since 1998.
Who cares out the next gen consoles, good games for the current consoles are being released like crazy so they can release before the new console wars if you haven't been noticing.
With so many good games on the XBOX and still good games coming out for it im going to wait a year or two before picking up the 360. Maybe the PS3 will be out and blow away the 360 by then too.
You can get a XBOX for $150 and play Doom3 and Half-Life 2 on it. Same gamea but not as pretty as the PC for 1/10 the cost of buying a gaming pc.
That's gotta hurt. I'll bet that the last time Slashdot accepts a submission from that person (NOT!).
I played Call to Duty on XBox 360 in a best buy and I have to say the game play was incredibly good. The only frustration I had with it was that I couldn't figure out the preset controls.
The game was smooth, very intense and very detailed. The resolution was absolutely insane. It was waaaay better than the original xbox, so I don't quite understand where this guy is coming from.
There are some people who are quite simply PS2 religious and maybe this guy is one of them.
What does weight have anything to do with the quality of the original Xbox?
They made the PSU external for the 360, now reviewers are complaining about that. I personally could care less if the damn Xbox weighed 10 lbs as long as it does what its supposed to do.
And the article says "it's probably worth waiting a bit."
Why? Will prices drop after the holiday season from $300/$400?
On a seperate note: This article doesn't mention it, but others have said that MS may switch from a 90nm mfg process for the CPU to 65nm. I understand how this benefits MS, but nobody has explained how/if it'll benefit the consumer.
Would it be better to wait for a 65nm cpu core since it should use less energy and generate less heat? Since it'll be a rev2 or rev3 design, I assume they'll have worked out any first run hardware issues.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Xbox 360: Good, but not great
Right there in bold in big letters at the top of the article.
The 360 has a disastrous lack of solid launch titles. Nothing is revolutionary.
They have no Halo.
They have no Elderscrolls.
They're left with Perfect Dark Zero (which at this point, being so close to launch and seeing no hype, we can only assume will be underwhelming), and Project Gotham (which most people already know will look stunning and be collecting dust within a week).
This is something of a disaster for MSFT, but not in anyway unpredictable. As someone who has worked closely with Microsoft for the last 10 years I've grown to understand how they make decisions: Its all about platform extension and repeat revenue streams. Very, very little thought tends to go in to creativity, design and consumer appeal. Microsofties tend to scoff at those things, holding instead to the belief that a superior business model leads to a superior product line. (What they forget is that they are now in the entertainment business and people could give a crap about their business model.)
More unfortunate for MSFT is the fact that Oblivion, one of their biggest system-sellers (if not *the* biggest) will be released for PC months before 360. Anyone who followed the Morrowind release knows why this is a big deal: The PC version was better supported, and had an enormous user community creating free (and amazingly good) mods for the game. That history, combined with the earlier release will cut deeply into the initial appeal for the 360.
I'll probably get a 360 -- next Xmas -- when there are some games to play.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
The article isn't talking about the console so much as the games that are available at launch. Here are the quotes in context. Jesus editors, biased much?
We get shinier graphics for this new generation. Ooo, aah, whatever.
The generation before this (the N64 and Playstation) definitely needed obselescence. The Playstation had pitiful graphics and hardware, while the N64 had no space for anything useful.
Yes, this next generation will allow for shinier graphics, but the clarity of the graphics of the current generation already allow for pretty much the same games this new generation can have.
So what now? Will all games at least look like Doom 3? So now we can have four players playing Doom 3 on XBox 360? More people are still going to play Halo than Doom 3--I play Halo more often than Doom 3. Most, myself included, won't care that much that Halo will now look like Doom 3 (except brighter) once we're playing.
At least the Revolution is attempting something--you know--revolutionary (pun intended).
The current generation should just stick around for a little longer to give developers more time to work on more games (especially considering the enlengthening game development time), and just demand higher quality. This goes especially for the XBox, which is the most powerful of the three systems.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
The 360 has a disastrous lack of solid launch titles. Nothing is revolutionary.
Launch titles have never been revolutionary. What revolutionary title did the PS2 launch with? The Gamecube? The Dreamcast?
360 is launching with a very competent lineup, though no (as the CNN article pointed out) killer app. It's hard to imagine that the same people who bought the original Xbox for Halo and PGR aren't going to buy the 360 for Perfect Dark and PGR3.
Revolutionary games will come in the second year and beyond, as they always do.
I would have to say that the launch titles are ok/good and probably worth it for anyone who can afford it. I will be getting mine, but I have disposable money and already an HDTV. Why would microsoft waste a huge launch title like Halo 3, when they really need to save that one for the launch of the PS3! Come the PS3/Revolution Launch, Prices will drop, and they will drop the biggest title Halo 3 then. Its going to Hurt Sony!
Online gaming would never work without a central system like xbox live. I mean, look at the PC. Nobody ever plays PC games online. Why? Because PCs don't have xbox live. They just let each game do their online thing however they want. Obviously nobody wants that, but sony is doing it just like the PC anyways.
... or do half of those concepts look like George Foreman Grills???
I am Spartacus
Setween Sony's CD rootkits and Microsoft's ... well a lot of things, what can a gamer buy without feeling like they are feeding THE EVIL.
I guess that evil spawn a whole new game storyline soon.
...or at least underrated. CNN has about as much relevance in this matter as Dvorak.
So yes, his comments are correct. If the games really suck, so does the system.
Even Microsoft admits the first Xbox was ugly. ("It was big," Xbox's Peter Moore said in August. "It was the Humvee of consoles.")
No, it was more like the Aztec of consoles.
"And Microsoft continues to extend its lead in the online console marketplace."
They don't have a lead, Sony does. By a very large margin. "Close the gap on its competition" maybe?
I beg to differ.
The N64 had at least one revolutionary title at its launch.
Launch titles have never been revolutionary. What revolutionary title did the PS2 launch with? The Gamecube? The Dreamcast?
Super Mario 64 on N64. Enough said.
$60/pop? I haven't played a game in the past couple of years that was worth $60, especially on a console. Anyone going to pay EA $60 for Madden x360? Screw that. It's not like the games at release are ground breaking. No sequal is worth $60, no matter how pretty it looks.
Publisher greed is going to bite them.
Why is this getting so much press? CNN isn't exactly a bastion of gaming news. There's a similar article from the New York Post getting circulated today. I'll stick to Gamespot and Joystiq when I want to hear an opinion about the video game industry.
Xbox 360: Good, but not great. Right there in bold in big letters at the top of the article.
Perhaps people should read the article before flaming the Slashdot editors for not doing so. Or at least read as far as the article title.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
If Microsoft wants to Beat Sony and dominate, they are going to have to capitalize on the online play. The orginal xbox was a good first step, with the 360 they really have to step up. I don't see this happening. I was a PC gamer than went over to xbox live, and I can tell you there are problems, fairly big problems. The first problem is how things are run. PC games typically have servers, you don't just connect to what ever PC has the best connection or whatever. In xbox live you are essientially running a non-dedicated server on a 700mhz Machine with an MX video card. Whuptidoo. This is why games are usually limited to 8 players or less. Some games function ok with 16-24, but those are rare, and never more that that. I want to play with 32, 64, 128 other people damnit. Not this 8 player BS. Sure The 360 will be more powerfull, but its the same exact non-scaling problem. So it will be better, but in the long run who knows.
Also with local hosts, and non-dedicated servers you get the infamous Halo standby cheats etc... Whenever a player on a team is also the server you can bet there this will be a problem. The cheating has to be minimaized to a reasonable level or people will just not play.
MMO, get them! Get them now! Sure it might take some kind of keyboard/mouse add-on, but you got smart people at Microsoft, figure it out! I don't just mean Final Fantasy XXI or whatever it is called. #1 Sony already has that... big deal. They had it awhile ago. To my knowlege it is only popular in like Korea etc.. Get some World of Warcraft, some City of Heros/Villens, hell you got a Marvel Licence, use it!
Anyway I had another point about online play but I cannot remember it right now. BUt online play is especially important at the beginning as MOST people do not have a HDTV, and while it would be nice MOST are not going to shell out the 2000-4000 dollars to get one. Thus all you graphical enhancments mean nothing, so you have to provide something else, and that something else is new features and equivelient online play as PC.
I know for myself I am thinking of going back to PC rather than 360, it just seems to make more sense. I am on wait on fence mode right now, so something better happen in the next 6 Months to a year or you will lose people like me.
I would hardly consider the Xbox 360 launch lineup disasterous. Sure there's no Halo or Mario 64, but there have been plenty of successful consoles with mediocre and even poor launch lineups. The PS2, easily the most successful console ever, had probably the worst launch lineup of any console ever (anybody remember Fantavision?).
For nintendo! Now bring me the goods!
The beatings will continue until Morale Improves!
When even the paid shills who get advance copies of a system to write reviews about are ambivalent in their reactions, you know it's a system to avoid.
It is funny reading the review, and trying to pick out which paragraphs are genuine and which are cut-and-pasted from the MS press release to pacify Microsoft.
"Sic Semper Path of Least Resistance"
I predict they'll go for about $25 a piece, maybe less (not a bad deal, considering they can run linux). I'll be the first one begging my friends to give me their old systems, and if that fails, ebay should do the trick.
Oh, yeah. BTW, don't go out and buy an old xbox right away. wait till about a month after christmas, when everyone and their grandmother will have the 360. Then you'll start seeing the price really come down.
Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
Judging by the fact that you used that expression correctly, you don't fit into the demographic here.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Something I have been wondering about is how many PC games there are out there that may have been released for the original XBox if the SDK were easier to use. As I understand it, Microsoft has made the 360 SDK a pleasure to use. Might we see a wave of what were previously PC-only titles get ported to the 360 as game houses catch on? Sony's vast library of games is one of its big selling points. It looks like the potential is there for Microsoft to take the titles crown from them.
Come on, who would have bought a PS2 if there had been no Fantavision?
Initial thoughts were that it was negative, but on re-reading, it's just the title that gives the wrong impression, and in this case the impression seems solely weighted on whether the console has any killer games at launch.
Now, whether halo came out at the X-Box launch or 3 months later is a moot point, either way it would still have been a success. The gameboy initially had Tetris, but long after its launch, Pokemon came along midway through the console's life and totally revitalised it.
What I'm saying is that the killer game doesn't need to be there at launch, just in the first half of the console's lifespan. In any case, good software makes a console, not a single title.
I also think he may have missed the point of the online and media capabilities of the 360. He mentions them with a great deal of enthusiasm, yet seems very blasé about them; to me these are some of the most exciting areas of the 360, especially when it's coupled with a Media Center PC and MP3 players to give you a digital entertainment center. The X-Box Live community is already a proven success and if Microsoft expand on this, they really do have some serious clout against Sony who have yet to roll out a coherent first generation online community for the PSX platform.
All in all, I think the 360 will be a big success, and ultimately one where Microsoft has played on equal terms with other contenders, but as I mentioned earlier, it's the good software that has to make the hardware shine, and I suppose I'm almost glad that that's out of Microsoft's hands...
No. That honor probably goes to Goldeneye on the N64. Which was made by Rare, ironically. Another games company bought by Microsoft.
If I had an HDTV I'd be all over this, but I don't, so I don't. Halo, KOTOR, Jade Empire at HD resolution without lag could be super w00t, but what are they launching with? Halo 3 woulda been the sale maker for me. The current xbox has good enough 5.1 sound for my 5.1 rig, don't need extra speakers yet.
Also, I wonder if Costco is gonna have the $399 kit (or some variant) at launch? Something to keep in mind..
And I'm pretty sure my nephews will get it for XBoxmas, so I'll bring over my compatible games and let 'em see what they've been missing..
I had hoped that I would be able to plug a USB harddrive in and watch and listen to the enclosed content. Apparently the 360 is not powerful enough to do that. It needs the Media Center PC to "stream" the files to it.
Pardon my ignorance, but there's some basic media-center functionality they could add to the 360 to get my money instanteneously; mp3, dvd, and avi playback (with divx and xvid support).
I currently use a PC that gives me adequate 480p input to my 65" HDTV, but if I could get 1080i support on that sucker for playing avi files I've downloaded, I'd be ecstatic. And if it played mp3s with visualization at 1080i, it would be a great party machine.
Forgive me if the 360 is already supposed to do this stuff. From what I've seen, the games *look* nice so far, and the UI is pretty. With the ps3 so far off, I don't see how the 360 could really fail... If the ps3 were coming out within a few months, it would matter. Until then, every gamer that wants something new for Xmas is going to *have* to go with the 360.
What kind of stupid biased idiot buys a video game system for the video games?
Launch titles have never been revolutionary. What revolutionary title did the PS2 launch with? The Gamecube? The Dreamcast?
The PS2 launch lineup:
Armored Core 2 (Agetec, Action)
DOA2: Hardcore (Tecmo, Fighting)
Dynasty Warriors 2 (Koei, Action)
ESPN International Track and Field (Konami, Sports)
ESPN X-Games Snowboarding (Konami, Sports)
Eternal Ring (Agetec, RPG)
Evergrace (Agetec, RPG)
FantaVision (SCEI, Puzzle)
Gun Griffon Blaze (Working Designs, Action)
Kessen (EA, Adventure)
Madden NFL 2001 (EA, Sports)
Midnight Club (Rockstar, Racing)
Moto GP (Namco, Racing)
NHL 2001 (EA, Sports)
Orphen (Activision, RPG)
Q-Ball Billiards Master (Take-Two Interactive, Simulation)
Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2 (Midway, Sports)
Ridge Racer V (Namco, Racing)
Silent Scope (Konami, Shooter)
Smuggler's Run (Rockstar, Racing-Adventure)
SSX (EA, Sports)
Street Fighter EX3 (Capcom, Fighting)
Summoner (THQ, RPG)
Swing Away (Paradise Golf in Japan) (EA, Sports)
Tekken Tag Tournament (Namco, fighting)
TimeSplitters (Eidos, First-Person Shooter)
Unreal Tournament (Infogrames, First-Person Shooter)
Wild Wild Racing (Interplay, Racing)
X-Squad (EA, Action)
Not a huge number of classics, but I would argue that SSX was pretty revolutionary and it's still fun today. The only game that really sort of approximated what it did prior to that was 1080, but it wasn't nearly as tight.
There were also some good niche titles in that list, such as Silent Scope, Kessen, and Dynasty Warriors 2. The 360 launch is lacking quality niche titles to draw in those who aren't all about sports or FPS games. The PS2 also had *two* triple-A fighting games; the 360 has none.
Here's the Dreamcast launch list:
* Airforce Delta | Konami | $49
* Blue Stinger | Sega | $49
* CART Flag to Flag | Sega | $49
* Expendable | Infogrames | $49
* House of the Dead 2 | Sega | $49
* Hydro Thunder | Midway | $49
* Monaco Grand Prix | Ubi Soft | $49
* Mortal Kombat Gold | Midway | $49
* NFL 2000 | Sega | $49
* NFL Blitz 2000 | Midway | $49
* Pen Pen Tri-Icelon | Infogrames | $49
* Power Stone | Capcom | $49
* Ready 2 Rumble | Midway | $49
* Sonic Adventure | Sega | $49
* Soul Calibur | Namco | $49
* TNN Hardcore Heat | ASC | $49
* Tokyo Xtreme Racing | Crave | $49
* TrickStyle | Acclaim | $49
You'll never convince me that Power Stone was not revolutionary, Sonic Adventure wasn't the best platformer of its time, and Soul Calibur was not the best fighting game ever made. Beyond that, again a good mix of mainstream stuff (NFL 2K being the best sports title available at the time) and niche titles (HotD2, TXR, etc.). The 360 just doesn't have the mix right, and it's lacking *any* true standouts.
It's also worth noting that the Dreamcast launch had a much better proportion of original titles to sequels than the Xbox 360 does.
The GameCube I might grant you, although at least the GameCube did have some of Nintendo's best franchises represented (though no Mario) - and it had one of my favorite games of all time, Super Monkey Ball. Show me that kind of silly fun in the Xbox 360's launch lineup.
I would agree with those that say the 360's launch lineup is relatively weak. It's not the worst I've ever seen (go back a few years and you'll find systems that launched with only 2 or 3 games total!), but it's not great by recent standards.
Perfect Dark 0, with 50 person throw downs? Oh. Yeah. That's in the above and beyond catagory. And there's the difference between the guy who writes about people who play games, and people who play games.
When I had it I the next big thing for me was to get a computer (C-64) and I haven't looked back. I think the games are better and cheaper on a PC.
Never had the slightest urge to get a console again.
Now that Sony is matching MS for evil, I think I would have to get a Nintendo if I did.
The XBox was quite paranoid about refusing to run "unsigned" code. Unless Microsoft's really dumb, the hard-drive-resident emulator programs will similarly refuse to run if they've been modified (and thus no longer match Microsoft's cryptographic key). So a virus could probably only effect modchippers. Here's what makes me more curious:
:)
The XBox backwards compatibility is handled by a series of small emulator programs installed on the hard drive, and distributed by Microsoft either on CD or over XBox Live (your choice).
I cannot help but wonder, how long until someone manages to make some kind of pseudo-VMware program that allows you to run the XBox 360's XBox emulators on a Macintosh, or a Playstation 3? I'd probably be willing to modchip my PS3 if it meant I could play KOTOR
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Xbox miles ahead.. its "extend its lead in the ONLINE console marketplace"
id say the first fps with a cool story is system shock or possibly ultima underworld.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
Hehe, well, wait until oblivion comes out...i'm not a console gamer, but i'll probably buy a 360 just for that game ;)
one of them reminds me of the AMD design for a rugged computer...
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
The xbox which has been out for four years with a hard drive hasn't had a virus.
Why would there be an concern abotu virus infiltration? The PS3 would have the same problem if (and ps2) by your logic with the exception it would be network centric but still a threat.
Turok: Dinosour Hunter used the c-pad for walk / stafeing before Goldeneye was released.
Download Opera 9 (in the BETA forum)
I'm not sure why a vanilla article like this, which is reproduced on many non-gaming sites, is slashdot worthy? The article is written by a person whose comments seem to stem from reading other web sites about Xbox 360's, and not from the perspective of actually owning one. Nor does the target of this article seem to be an actual gamer than it does my father. Admittedly the gallery is nice, but it's been featured in the past by many gaming sites, in much higher resolutions.
I've played on the XBOX360 and I can say that the graphics are not as phenomenal as one would expect from a next-generation system.
The graphics are about the same as a modern day computer game with the latest graphics card and cpu.
When I was playing the XBOX360, I realized there's nothing really that cool about this next-gen system. A point the CNN article talks about. It really isn't that innovative. It's just the same games, made prettier.
There's only so much you can do to the graphics, until the gamer realizes hey this is the same thing! Except I paid a whole lot more money!
Playing the XBOX360 made me realize, the innovation of something like Nintendo's Revolution controller may be a greater leap in gaming than Microsoft and Sony. You could end up using the Revolution's controller as a lightsaber, a gun, a tennis racket, a baseball bat, a steering wheel (use your imagination), you can really revolutionize the interaction between the user and the game simply by changing the controller like Nintendo has done. And that thought makes me drool at how more fun games will be.
Otherwise there's no difference in me just going and buying Call of Duty 2 and playing it on my home PC.
You are REALLY stretching the definition of launch titles. Not all of those were available on launch day for the PS2. Many were available soon after, which will be the case with the 360 as well.
Grandparent didn't RTFA title.
To anyone who is going to suggest remedies to replace the drive/find a use for the X-Box, thank you, but I'm aware of most of them I just stopped caring
How about a free fix? For many people with Thomson drives, adjusting a potentiometer does the trick.
The fact that it was shipped with a crappy drive is Microsoft's fault. The fact that you currently have a large doorstop is yours.
yes, but the PS2 launched with simply the largest selection of titles. Every PS1 game was available with the backward compatability. Xbox 2 will only have I believe 200 or so Xbox 1 titles (if you buy the $400 version) Personally, I bought a PS2 for Final Fantasy X. Then I bought 7 through 9 and played through them.
good times.
i do wish i hadn't already moderated in this discussion
It certainly makes Linux better!
The Saturn and Dreamcast both had generally inferior hardware but sold more in Japan than rivals and did really well there. Many ppl in the west still love the dc including myself. The most important thing in my opinion is how good xbox live is , if ms can nail that and make it real easy and fun then they could have a huge hit.
You can flood slashdot with stories about your product but you can't buy out the mainstream media... oh wait
I played the 360 at Target today (the demos that were available). I like my Xbox alot but the 360 is the same with flashier graphics. Wasn't impressed enough to spend $500 on the deluxe version, extra controller, and a game that's for sure. I don't have a widescreen/HD TV. Think I'll keep playing my Xbox and wait for the Revolution or a big price cut on the 360.
Basically, what if you consider "a wide range of tastes" to include things other than sports games and first person shooters? Because that's really all the 360 lineup offers this month. (Though if we are courteous enough to wait until December 1 there's one fighting game; we probably shouldn't think of those as sports games.)
There are literally three games in the XBox launch lineup which are not a sports game or a first person shooter. Kameo, King Kong, and Gun. Kameo is an adventure game-- but, I have yet to encounter anyone at all who considers Kameo a 'must-have' game, or really is particularly interested in it at all. If you like adventure games you'd be much more interested in King Kong and Gun, which do both look like absolutely fantastic games with wide-ranging appeal. But... both of these games are coming out for approximately every system known to man, from the PSP to the Gamecube to the PC. If you own any video game systems at all you can play these games already. Would anyone seriously buy an XBox 360 to play these? Aside from these three, there is one arcade-looking game on the XBox Live marketplace called "Geometry Wars" that looks really cool, but the article said 'must have', so I'm just trying to think about must-have, system seller games here. This is a minigame.
So we're left with what? Well, a niche system that caters to a "wide range" of sports gamers and first person shooter gamers, with a cop to the fighting game crowd coming next month. In other words, the XBox 360 caters to exactly those set of tastes who comprised the hardcore of XBox owners. If you weren't an XBox owner, it seems like the 360 launch library really doesn't do much for you. I can definitely see how the XBox 360 launch would look "must-own" to anyone who really, really liked the XBox! But for the rest of us... well, unless you want to spend $400 to play a $10 psychadelic arcade game, or for some reason you really, really, really want to play "Gun" in HD, the current window of XBox 360 games just seems to ignore your existence entirely.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I am completely ignorant as to why the XBox 360 and PS3 are as interesting as some people make them out to be.
If you look at the generation-defining consoles of the the past they were irresistible because not only were they quantum leaps in technology but the technology enabled dramatically new and different types of game play.
NES, Sega Genesis, N64, PS2, ???.
Even non-gamers were crawling all over themselves to get a peek at these consoles when they were first released. Is the same true for the 360?
XBox 360 and PS3 seem like incremental improvements at best. Not to mention that PC games have had high definition graphics and on-line play for years. The only thing that sparks my interest is the Nintendo Revolution, and that's based solely on the new controller. It could be a total bust.
Am I too old? I sure wasn't when the PS2 was released. On paper the new consoles are dramatically better than their predecessors, but I don't see how that's going to translate into dramatically better games.
ENDUT! HOCH HECH!
Here it is if you wanna check it out.
www.linuxpenguin.net
Only a couple of titles are exclusive to Xbox 360 (that is, they can't be played on any other machine). "
... link mode, and online mode...
A bit off topic, but I would like to see less PS2 only and XBOX only titles.
In fact, I would like to see platform independent online modes (of course on same powered boxes) eg PS3 and 360..
I can understand that sometimes an XBOX map is bigger than a PS2 map, but network-wise I would really appreciate if there would be interoperability thru multiplayer titles.
Even with different single player maps, there should be multiplayer maps that could be played on ps2,ps3,xbox, and 360
clear that ps3 won't connect to Xbox Live, but manufacturer hosted game servers wold be cool for that, or using XBC or KAI Xlink...
Am I dreaming ? I know they are different architectures, but in multiplayer you send cordinates (persons. bullets. vehicles, objects) , button presses and the same map could be playable with e.g. lower res, less textures on Ps2 and Ps3..... (well a bit over simplyfied)
Someone kick me in the head if that is completely an idiotic idea ! And tell me why that does not exist?
I actually tried to find games that would be playable on my consoles - to no avail...
I have to disagree with this statement. I work in MGS (Microsoft Game Studios) and I'd have to say that we DO care about creativity, design, and consumer appeal a lot. Maybe you work more with marketing or business on the Windows/Office divisions
Anyway, as for the rest of your comment regarding the launch titles, I'd have to half agree. See, I'm a huge RPG fan (Squeenix and Nippon Ichi junkie especially), and was disappointed not to see any listed as a launch title. I understand that RPGs tend to take longer to develop, but I was still hoping there would be a developer that got started early enough.
However, having heard many good things about PDZ and Kameo (which a lot of gamers seem to forget about), I'll certainly have to give them a try. I wouldn't say they're revolutionary, but neither was Halo. Halo just did a good job of really polishing the FPS genre on a console. PDZ and Kameo may or may not do the same thing (we'll have to see in a few months)
That said, the #1 game I am pumped for though
-- jchenx
Circumcision is child abuse.
have none of you evere tried XlinkKai http://www.teamxlink.co.uk/index.php [quote] XLink Kai is a global gaming network - bringing together XBox, Playstation 2, Gamecube and PSP users, in one integrated community. It is software running on your PC or Macintosh that allows you to play system-link enabled games online for free. Kai is the only service that is not console specific, and boasts one of the friendliest communites available. [/quote] use it all the time.. for all my consoles.
Your only young once, but you can be imature forever.
This is something of a disaster for MSFT,
It's not a disaster, PS2 launched with no good games (or maybe just SSX, iirc) and went on to become a smashing success. There was a ton of animosity toward the original Xbox among console gamers, it's done alright despite PS2 having an overwhelming lead in games library. Most everyone who buys it at launch will be buying the $400 version and have backwards compatibility anyway, along with some new Xbox Live coolness. Maybe not a perfect launch, but far from a "disaster". As long as 360 gets some good games before PS3 and Revolution come out, it'll do fine.
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
I'm not a critic but
l
the DVD-9 (9GB of storage is insufficient for a HD game.)
it cant store enough data to keep the promise of High Definition gaming experience
http://timefordvd.com/tutorial/HDDVDTutorial.shtm
Some current generation Xbox games use DVDs to thier full potential.
how do they expect to fit images, movies, models twice the resolution of
current console on a Dual Layer DVD
I dont know about you but i loved the graphics on Nintendo 64 they were awesome
but Mario Cart had 4 levels.
goldenEye was extremely short also
they just fit any more on the damn catridge
which really pissed me off
so i bought a Playstation
Seriously, how many of those PS2 games were worth a damn (ignoring the fact that many of them didn't ship day-and-date with the PS2)? If the only one you can find that was notable was SSX, you're kinda making my point.
Same thing with the Dreamcast. I had a Dreamcast and I loved the thing, but the best games on it at launch were NFL 2k and SoulCalibur. Outside of that, there was a bunch of mediocrity. X360 is going to have DOA4 in two weeks and Madden 06. It has a couple of very good FPS's, a fighter, several racers, a very good platformer and a bunch of sports games: about the same mix as most other consoles at launch.
SDTV looks great on my HDTV.
And I don't even have some fancy scaler, just a good Sony TV.
It isn't rocket science, there's no excuse for SDTV looking like poop on an HDTV.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
PS3 will play Blue Ray DVDs, which gives it a substantial advantage over the other two systems since no one has a Blue Ray player yet.
Come on. The CNN article was about the lack of really good launch games.
NOTHING bad was said about the console itself unless you count a slight mention of the monster power brick. It will probably take a year or two before we start to see games that REALLY show what the hardware can do and probably another couple years after that before we see games hit the limits of what the 360 can do, so there's no point in judging the 360 by what the first round of games can demonstrate.
Chris Morris' take on Xbox360 is similar to mine: The hardware perfomance is amazing. Some of the launch games are impressive (PGR and PDZ for two) and I want a 360 like crazy BUT there isn't one launch title that I want badly enough to stand in line hoping to get a system on launch day.
So none of you should try to get one either, OK?
Sig for hire.
The Xbox (with Halo) is still better than the 360.
was Sony and they only had backwards compadibility and less than 20 games, they would be praising Sony (while they pleasured themselves over the PS3).
Now, because it's big bad Microsoft, of cource it has to fail. Now the PS2, how many games were at it's launch? I forget was it 10 or 12.
...don't you think microsoft has its nerds well placed? this post will only be displaying for about 30 seconds before one of them manages to delete my existence. all the contentional points in this thread were designed to build a 'hyper' 360-whatever so that everyone will go out and buy it. THIS IS THE POWER OF THE WRITTEN WORD.
At least for me... I found the controls in Metroid Prime to be pretty good for a console game. But I'm the guy who bought a PS/2 mouse/keyboard adapter for his Xbox.
Please don't rewrite history, it's not nice.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Next time MS or Nintendo pulls something, are you going to forget about what Sony did?
How do you roll your eyes in a /. post?
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Well you have to give it to MS, they chose probably the best prototype design.
My god, where do some designers get their ideas for a hip game console? At the local army dump store maybe?
Anyway, my favorite prototype design is the one titled "Money (Try an issue for free)" .
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Get used to it, the $40-50 model for hot games is swiftly coming to an end. I recently heard that an investment of $17 million will be required to develop for the PS3. The Xbox 360 is surely not that far behind.
The complexity of these new systems all but insures that top titles will need an army of programmers, artists, musicians, and beancounter types. That all costs money. Games are big business now, every bit as big as Hollywood is. Whether or not these games will all be worth it, only time will tell. But I bought the Gold package of Half Life 2 when it came out ($70), and it was worth every penny, IMHO.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Was make sure the XBox 360 was able to record/pause/rewind live tv programs like a tivo, and then maybe be insane and be able to play them back in a window while you play a game... that would have really sold the thing. It would stay in everyone's living room as an all-in-one media center/gaming center.
What revolutionary title did the [Gamecube] launch with?
Uhh... a little game called -- SUPER SMASH BROTHERS MELEE? You know, the BEST VIDEO GAME EVER MADE? Perhaps you've heard of it. If not, I pitty you.
The biggest complaint is that the 360 is just an XBOX with better graphics. What did you expect? The PS3 is going to be a PS2 with better graphics. The PS2 was a Playstation with better graphics.
But it's worse than that. You trash the 360 for not being innovative, yet:
XBOX 360 isn't about hardware. It's about bringing online gaming to the core of the console experience. Standardizing scorekeeping and matchmaking accross games. Supporting voicechat in every game, even single-player games.
XBOX 360 has what no other console has truly had - a standardized interface accross every game. Plug in an iPod, bring up the dashboard, and play some tunes - while you're in a game. Start up a voice chat session with a friend - while you're in a game.
More and more, consoles are about software. And that's exactly what Microsoft is - a software company.
Sony doesn't realize that with the PS3 - they see the PS3 as just another piece of hardware. Time will tell whether they are right.
I'll just wait untill the firmware gets hacked, then I'll buy myself a nice $300 PC substitute.
I'm not exactly sure if these were launch, but the ps2 also had Tekken, SSX, Ridge Racer, and Timesplitters at launch.
I have to disagree here. The DC had Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Space Channel 5, Samba de Amigo, Seaman, Skies of Arcadia, Phantasy Star Online, Virtua Tennis (the original), VO:OT, amazing ports of the fresh Tony Hawk games (1 & 2), and tons of great arcade fighter ports. It was also the first console to have built-in internet networking. Granted some of these aren't "amazing" games, but the ones that aren't at least introduced interesting new gameplay concepts. I think the reason that we didn't have as many "amazing" games for the DC was EA being dicks and most American developers thinking the PS2 was the holy grail or something.
I always found the best method was to use two controllers, one for moving and one for aiming, which i think was the control sets were all 2.x
To err is human, to arr is pirate.
This is an awfully odd way of looking at the word "innovation". None of these are new ideas, and pretty much all of these are inevitable conclusions if you look at the way gaming was already going. Rather than being new ideas, the way we normally look at the word "innovation", these are just you describing how Microsoft is choosing to implement the existing, sometimes quite old ideas that make up their console. One might as well call it innovative that the PS2 was both black and and an elongated rectangle. No one had done that before, right? Therefore it's "innovative", right? No? Well, the amount of symantic splitting that is required to make "It's the first console to ship with an extensive unified online system - out of the box." apply to the 360 but not, say, the PSP or something, is roughly that convoluted.
I mean, not one single feature of the XBox 360 you mention here is going to change a single thing about gaming. The only things that will persevere into future systems are things that were going to go into the other next-gen consoles-- like the PS3 and Revolution-- already. "Innovation" doesn't mean "I jumped to market and managed to get a box on the market that does the things my competitors were already planning to do, but six months earlier. Therefore I get to take credit for it, right?"
What did you expect?
Well, normally what we expect is that the jump from one console generation to the next will mean a console that can do things the previous console couldn't. The NES couldn't do large sprites but the SNES could. The SNES couldn't do 3D without a modchip in the cartrige but the N64 could. The PS1 couldn't do 3D of any noticeable complexity but the PS2 could. What the XBox 360 is offering is the same things the previous generation did, with slightly nicer skins. Some people just plain aren't interested in paying for that. No, "playing games at a higher resolution" doesn't count as "doing new things". I'm sure you will be very happy with your XBox 360 and all, but not everybody is on the "shinier = better" bandwagon with you.
I work in retail and ive played for the past week on the XBOX 360. i wasnt impressed at all! the graphics are nothing special, especially the fifa and nhl games. the controller is a simple adaptaion of the ps2 controller, only the thumbsticks are in different places. the unit is VERY large, and it has an external power supply that gets very hot very fast. the d-pad is far to sensitive and makes browsing the menus a challenge. The sports games look terrible, and the action/rpg games are hardly worth getting excited about. The only game that looks decent is the new need for speed. however there is hardly any improvements at all in graphics for the new Xbox! im not sure why people are so hyped about this new system, it's mediocre at best. and there IS a shortage of Xbox360's at launch, all of my stores recieved less than half the units that were promised. there's going to be ALOT of pissed of people with pre-orders on tuesday!
I had a tube HDTV. It had a great picture. It would scale 720p to 1080i. Other signals were untouched (well, 480i was drawn as 960i), and so yeah, it had very few artifacts. Great blacks too.
But now I have an RP LCD. And it looks great too. There aren't any jaggies, even on still pictures. It really looks kind of like the LCD on a computer. If you set it to its non-native resolution, it uses 4 (or more) tap filtering to rescale, so if anything, it's a bit oversmoothed, not overjaggied.
I mean, I have a 1600x1200 LCD on my PC, and until recently, my video card couldn't play games at that high a res with decent framerates, so I would use 1024x768 or whatever. These games didn't look jaggy, so why would an HDTV have to produce jaggies.
Now, I'll say this, SDTV will usually look terribly disappointing on an HDTV, but that's just because it's low res. If you had an SDTV that was as large as my HDTV (55"), SDTV signals would look just as block on it as they do on my HDTV.
I have a friend who had HDTV about 8 years ago, one of the first ones available in the US. It scaled so badly that he often used another TV to view SDTV. So I do understand where you are coming from. But technology rolls on, it did so a long time ago, and that's just not something you should have to put up with anymore.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I really wish I had mod points today. You have the most insightful post I've read in a long time!
First of all, there's 5 times as many PS2s out there as Xboxs. So online gaming needs to be 5 times more popular among xbox owners just to be equal to ps2s numbers.
Second, SOCOM was the number one online console game for months, only being replaced at the top by SOCOM II when it came out. SOCOM was hitting 60,000 people per day when the Xbox live service all combined was getting 84,000 per day. Tons of people play PS2s online since its free and they don't have to subscribe to anything.
And the most recent 2005 figures I have found place Xbox live at 2 million, and ps2 online at 2 and half million.
Which part of this is microsoft leading exactly?
but you do... your monitor's rez can go higher than any hdtv i've found..... and this xbox actually has a cable that be used for vga Wally World Sells It
so why not just throw it on an extra monitor u have layin around the house??? I plan on using the cable w/ my 21" and digital projector.... atleast till i can get my hdtv later.
Uh...Sony idly whispering that the PS2 was coming was enough to nail the Dreamcast's coffin shut. Yeah, it did well in the US and Japan, and the Saturn did great in Japan (though undeniably poor in the US), but, saying that, the PS2, Xbox, and GC all sold phenomenally in comparison. DC was great, but no hit, not even a success.