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Day Before Launch 360 Impressions
There'll be a blizzard of launch day articles tomorrow, but in the calm before the storm we have some last minute thoughts. Gamecloud has impressions from the developers, and a pre-launch review of the system. Gamers with Jobs has impressions of the console and the launch title selection. From the Gamers with Jobs article: "The actual console is a far cry from the large, black and American design of the original Xbox. It's slim and white, it's also pretty quiet but I can only imagine that has something to do with the console's lack of a manly internal power supply. Instead, the black monster resides outside, like the ghost of what was mocking the feminine new system's lack of balls. It's ok Xbox 360, I think you're ADORABLE! Hee!"
I think I speak for all of us when I say WTF?!
http://ghostbusters360.ytmnd.com/
Any chance we could get another XBox 360 launch thread to go over some of the finer points? Specifically, something pertaining to the possible effects of getting various soft cheeses jammed in the controller ports?
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
That article is pointless. While it has some info, the people in it are not developers, they are (in order): a president, a marketing guy, another marketing guy, another president, a designer, and a product manager.
Why the designer is almost there, the rest aren't even CLOSE to developers. I want DEVELOPER information. I've heard little bits (easier SDK than last time, hard to get full potential out of, etc.) but I would love some more in-depth info (that didn't get filtered through marketing to remove anything negative).
There is a bit in the article (many of them mentioned how they think they "Core System" is a terrible mistake, I agree), but there isn't that much. I think the last question of the three they ask is the worst. They ask "which games would you buy on launch day". OK. Whatever. How about "Would you buy one on launch day, and if so what would you buy with it?" That would show much more about how they feel about the system.
Are there any developers out there who would like to give us some better info on what it is like to develop for the 360 (or any next-gen console)? Good/bad/whatever? How are the tools? Run into any weird gotchas (I once heard that with the PS1 if you wanted to make a large flat surface (like a wall) you had to split it into many smaller polygons instead of 1 or 2 because the texture would look so terrible if you didn't)).
There is enough pointless hype around this launch anyway (it deserves hype, but there is still too much) without a bunch of guys from marketing pretending to be developers.
Why didn't they ask the janitor at a game company? Surely he has an opinion.
They don't even mention if the companies these people are from are working with the 360 or not. For all we know, none of these companies have anything to do with console games based on the information give (name only, so if you don't recognize it, you know nothing about them).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
So what you're saying is...white consoles can't jump?
I'm curious as to how bad the lines will be tonight and tomorrow morning.
I figure the only way they could have made them worse would have been to release it on this Friday at 12:01am.
I think i'm still gonna try it.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
$600.00 bundles just aren't in the normal realm of Joe Schmo purchasability. I was pretty shocked when the PSP had some ridiculous must buy bundles in order to even get the hardware, but the new Xbox has really gone over the edge with it's multi package price points. The retailer bundles including games are even further over the edge into the realm of being plain stupid.
The lack of any real killer app games is another reason I can't really get behind the system. Sure, some of the games look lovely, but the same old football game we've looked at the past few years, and a port of a PC game are hardly what I would call revolutionary.
The actual console is a far cry from the large, black and American design of the original Xbox
What? This is simply untrue, the person who posted this obviously hasn't seen the new xbox side by side with the old one.
Check these out if you dont believe me:
Gizmodo Comparison Pictures