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Prepping For The 360
An anonymous reader writes "The Xbox 360 launches on Tuesday, and ZDNet talks to some of the folks who are already prepping for it. John Dvorak also has commentary on the new console, and he seems to like it." From the Dvorak article: "Luckily Microsoft's Xbox 360 crew, and other game developers, are working on cool stuff that will cross over to PCs. When game developers retake their rightful place on top of the hill of progress, we'll all be better off. Needless to say, I am impressed by the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 explores new menu structures with a unique and pleasant GUI. One often-overlooked element that the Microsoft games group brings to the party is its unique GUIs that are unlike the folder/desktop metaphor that Xerox and Apple developed."
Play Xbox 360 online without Xbox Live.
am I remembering incorrectly or wasn't the 360 meant to have a simultaneous worldwide release? UK release isn't until 2nd Dec, though this is at least a shorter gap than usual.
anyway, we all know about MS's intentional low supply but here's what Amazon.co.uk has to say:
"Due to limited supply from Microsoft, we are unable to guarantee delivery of some Xbox 360 pre-orders for Christmas. Please also note that all pre-orders made on or after November 2nd, 2005 will have expected delivery dates in 2006. We are working with Microsoft to ensure the consoles are delivered as soon as they become available."
i.e. if you're in the UK and didn't pre-order ages ago, you might as well wait for PS3 or Revolution.
The thing is, its really not. What he's refering to is the new Dashboard, the thing that comes up when you don't put a game in and start the machine. This is the "control panel" of the machine, and if you're just playing games you'd never see it. If you need to create a new xbox live account, or download a new game, or tweak your gamer profile this is place to do it.
The main point of the article was actually about its WMC integration, and how you can stream your songs and pictures from your PC to your 360. Its a pretty neat thing, and allows those of us with large digital music collections an easy way to get from PC->Stereo without any special hardware. Just run a (free, as in beer) program on your PC, and go into the dashboard and click "Find PC". Now all the songs you're sharing can be played in game, through your stereo.
The other half of the UI is the Xbox Guide, which is the "in game" menu and takes the place of a _lot_ of stuff that was done custom and differently for every game on the Xbox 1. Your friends, messaging, voice chat, music tracks, even if you prefer inverted up/down for FPS games are all in a standardized UI accessable anytime from any game.
I find on a whole that these standardizations will _help_ UI become non-intrusive merely because game teams don't have to focus on writing it. I can't tell you how many bugs I've had on "remove the controller, stop the game" in previous titles, and any time spent reducing the overhead of writing system glue code and more time spent writing game features is a true boon to the industry as a whole.
Just FYI, Apple didn't steal anything from Xerox. When Apple toured Xerox's research facilities, it was with the understanding that Apple would take any ideas they found which they thought would be marketable, and Apple paid for the visit with a hefty amount of Apple's pre-IPO stock. Also, the Macintosh made a great deal of innovations beyond what Xerox had produced, such as non-crappy overlapping windows. Certainly Xerox deserves a lot of credit, but so does Apple, and the idea that Apple stole the ideas for the Macintosh is simply wrong.
I got my 360 yesterday courtesy of Pepsi and the everytenminutes.com promotion. The box contained: Kameo (an elves vs. Trolls game - it's definitely fun), the box, hard drive, wireless controller, headset, universal remote, a 10' ethernet cable (I think it's 10', maybe it's a tad longer), and an AV cable.
For those of you that might have some questions, here goes:
1) The menu structure is tabbed (side tabs). I don't really like it. I think it's needlessly complicated, and in a couple of cases there are tabs for settings whose differences are too subtle for me to remember which tab they belong on.
2) Halo 2 runs on it, although for some reason the digital sound doesn't include the subwoofer on the 360 for this title. I have no idea why. The subwoofer works fine for other functions on the 360, and Halo 2 is otherwise outputting digital sound. I have my woofer set to a very high threshold.
3) The chipset is clearly much faster than the original, including in the emulation mode for games such as Halo 2. In Halo 2, cutscenes thar have a delay, then dialog without an image, then layers being drawn for the first few seconds of the cutscene don't have any of that. It's all very fast, very clear, right away.
4) The AV cable was more than sufficient for me. It appears to have composite video out on RCA jacks, as well as analog sound. On the plug that connects directly into the box is a port for fiber to go to your amp for the digital sound. Nice hookup. I may find myself purchasing another one on Tuesday, though, to make my life more portable.
5) The hard drive attachment is really cool. It just snaps externally in place "on top" of the unit (when sitting like a tower). I have mine sitting like a console on top of its older sibling.
6) The wireless controls are very nice. I'm a fan of "The Duke" controls, because my hands are pretty big. The S controls, and the stupid controls for PS2 and GameCube feel too stinking small. This one, however, didn't cramp my hands, even after several hours of gameplay. I still don't like it as much as "The Duke", but otherwise it's fine.
7) The wireless control was very nicely balanced, and the force fededback wasn't so strong as to shake my fillings (like "The Duke", or barely noticable (like the others). I was very worried that the wireless controls wouldn't have enough feedback, as has been the complaint about many wireless controls. I would say that this control does not have that problem. In fact, this control is so comfortable and so nice without the cable that I would STRONGLY recommend that everyone spend the exra $10 and buy them.
8) I really like the bump buttons. They're easier than the old white and black, and they're not in the way, yet reachable and findable, unlike PS2's L1 & R1.
9) It's great that the order that the wireless controls are assigned is set based on the order in which controls sign in, not the order in which they are originally registered on the box (getting a control assigned and recognized on the box is a little weird for the first two controls, but after doing it a couple of times it was a breeze). In addition, each control and the box have a four-quadrant circular LED array. The box lights up the quadrants for the controls that are currently connected. The controller lights up the quadrant to indicate which player the controller is. The box can be turned on or off right from the wireless control. Turning off the box shuts down the controls that people activated for that session. Controls are "acivated" for a session by hitting the green "X" button in the middle of the control, so even if you have four controls registered to your box, you won't be chewing batteries for all of them unless you are using all of them.
10) The headset is much nicer than the old one. That was probably obvious to everyone who bought one as soon as they got it.
11) It's stated both on the box and in the pamphlet that comes with the wireless controls that the force feedback is adjustable to conserve battery powe
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
Never forget: 2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.
Of course John Dvorak likes the XBox 360:
1. It's made by Microsoft
2. It's not made by Apple
I'm no Dvorak fan, but you honestly have no idea who he is do you?
He has been one of the strongest and biggest name Mac proponents in the industry for the last 15 years. He also has incredible amounts of disdain for Microsoft.
Here are some links you'll find useful:
l itygameslist.htm u nch-day-titles/ a rketplace-launch-content/
Backwards compatible title list:
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/backwardcompatibi
Launch titles:
http://www.majornelson.com/2005/11/14/xbox-360-la
Arcade titles:
http://www.majornelson.com/2005/11/15/xbox-live-m
The list of backwards compatible games will grow over time, so if you're not already signed up for Xbox Live (even Silver, which is free), you should do so. Enjoy your 360!
You just come along with me and have a good time. The Galaxy's a fun place. You'll need to have this fish in your ear.