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360 Has Best Launch Lineup Ever?
J. Allard had a chat with Edge magazine about the launch lineup of the Xbox 360, and makes the claim that they have the best launch lineup ever associated with a console. He also talks about the overall vision they had for the launch, and how well their expectations are being met. From the article: "I think it's pretty much spot on. I spoke with someone who was very involved in the planning about three years ago - he came over for about five minutes to drop something off and ended up spending three hours looking at all the capabilities of the machine, and he said, 'Son of a gun, if you guys didn't do 95 per cent of the original vision of the machine!' And I looked at him and said, 'Well, what was the other five per cent, what did we drop?' and he said, 'I don't know. I couldn't find it!'"
Well that certainly doesnt say much for the previous consoles' release lineups.
at launch. That's the only reason they can make this claim without being laughed out of the universe.
Some story awhile back detailed this and made the example of "Oblivion" as a launch title, even though it won't be available until 2006.
Spin, spin, spin....
At least, that's what I read just a few stories down. Best launch lineup ever or the one of the worst years for games. Time to curl up into a little ball and wait it out until 2006.
We'll reserve the best launch linup for NES "Duckhunt/Mario" combo catridge.
Remember the times when consoles would come with a game that was good enough to play for very very long time before buying a new game?
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
The best XBox Launch Lineup Ever. Still it didn't have a single game I would have liked to play.
News flash! Microsoft executive claims Microsoft product has best launch ever!
I wonder if he's heard the UK developers telling people "Psst...buy the Xbox version of any game that's also on the 360."
I'm sure he'll turn around and whiplash me with whatever cool hipster gadget he has on him. Ipod with custom 360 skins or something. That's the powar of teh ALLARDz, yo,
I'm not scared of anonymous cowards.
Yawn. Wake me up when there is a single game a female gamer would like to play. Then MAYBE I'll consider buying one.
I'm still furious that it isn't even backwards compatable with Ultramix 2 or Ultramix 3 which just came out!
How hard is it to be backwards compatable with a simple dancing game?
At least when I buy the PS3 I can play all my DDR games on it the first day!
Tepp
Nothing beats a great "Launch Linup".
Go Spellcheck!
..but this is spot on.
Most of the release titles were sequels of solid games (COD, Perfect Dark, EA sports games). These are phenominal launch titles because they are easier to create and already have a fan base.
Case in point: The best release title is Kameo. It is the best adventure game ever to be released with a console spare Mario 64. It doesn't get the press it deserves because it isn't a sequel.
My local Best Buy had every 360 claimed by 6PM on Saturday night (40 people in line), when there wasn't even 40 in line on the launch day.
Are you, uh, hot?
This would be a good time to keep your mouth shut if you are Microsoft Xbox person...
Trying to talk shit when you are responsible for the biggest console launch fiasco ever is just begging to get yet another public reaming for the 360 and the dopes responsible for it.
Dreamcast's launch lineup was much better. Virtua Fighter 3? Check. Soul Caliber? Check. A Sonic game? Check. Furthermore, games like Soul Caliber exercised the power of its hardware. A fair number - Gun, Tony Hawk:AW, others - of the launch titles of the 360 are just retextured ports.
And that's fine with me. It was expensive to buy all three consoles this generation, not to mention how much space they take up.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I'm pretty sure that "Adequate Supply" is the missing 5%.
Seriously. They screwed up bigtime on this one. Among my friends, there is virtually no hype around the 360. As a matter of fact, a lot of us are seeking out older consoles and their representative games. N64 still has the best selection of 4-player games hands-down. Goldeneye, smash, mariokart, marioparty, etc....
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
As soon as I figure out what a "Linup" is...
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
I didn't like it the first time when it was called Starfox Adventures, why would I like it with different textures?
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
The 360 launch lineup was a good one, but probably not the best ever. It very much lacks variety in genres. FPSs, sports games, and racing games make up far too high a percentage of games. At least it had 3 action adventure games (Gun, Condemned, and Kameo), but not other genres such as RPG, strategy, adventure, platformer, or simulation. These are some of my favorite genres, but they are hardly being utilized down the road on the 360. I guess I'll stick with PC and PS2 for now.
I guess the xbox 360 is great if you love sports games and shooters, but I already have most of the shooters for PC and I don't like sports games. They also copied too much off the success of PC shooters for me to consider this a great launch lineup.
... that if a console doesn't offer atleast one game every gamer cannot do without at launch then that console has not succeeded in offering the greatest launch line-up ever! It doesn't matter if that one game is the same for everyone, or different games in the line-up. Microsoft did not makea game that ther average joe-gamer would want so bad that some like me would go out and hunt a 360 down. Being 23 years of age, I am the supposed demographic of the 360. Have I gone out of my way to buy one? No. Will I? As the old 8-ball would say, "the answer is unclear." And because of this, Microsoft has failed!
It's hard to tell if the 360 will ever live up to this philosophy. Xbox Live and the 360 Marketplace seem to be a big focal point, and I love what they're doing with retro downloadable games (although Nintendo will undoubtedly do it better).
But while Allard's "grand vision" of the Xbox 360 sounds amazing, it's hard for me to imagine Microsoft actually pulling it off. He claims that they're going to attract casual gamers, yet the launch lineup was aimed squarely at the same audience that bought the Xbox 1. He says that Microsoft can change their reputation through their actions, but their actions are only giving us PGR3, Halo 3, PDZ, and Kameo.
Nintendo was able to shift the DS's audience a bit by promoting first-party games like Nintendogs, Brain Training, and Electroplankton, which should open the door to third-party "non-games". But I really can't see Microsoft doing something like that. If Microsoft made a puppy simulator, their core fanbase would go nuts. The only non-games I can imagine MS promoting would be puzzle games and card games, both of which are readily available on the PC. The 360's price point isn't very non-gamer oriented, either. Microsoft can't win over non-gamers by considering them an afterthought.
Microsoft has good intentions, but it they're trying to cover two completely different markets in an attempt to compete with both Sony and Nintendo. Problem is, they can't do it all. One of those markets is being completely ignored, and the 360 will likely end up with the same core audience as the Xbox.
I like how he dodges two questions about Nintendo, Revolution and its controller. Ok, so the first one was about Sony, but Big-N was used to introduce the topic. But the second question is specifically about Nintendo goals with the controller and the games back-library.
:p
Does it mean Allard don't think Nintendo is a serious competitor? If you only look at the last 8 years of consoles, that's ok, but in no way a serious game manager can ignore the history.
Or maybe he really fears the controller... I mean, as a gamer, he's probably excited with it... I bet there's an contract agreement somewhere saying that he can't shout with joy about the competition
Also they sold something between 41.817 and 62.000 units in Japan during the first 2 days while they sold 123.000 XBox1 unit in the first 2 days.
Seems like the XBox360 launch is even worse than that of XBox1.
Here is why:
1. Wireless connection rocks.
2. Great selection of innovative games.
3. Cost effective - you don't feel dirty after having to buy a bundled 360 with crappy launch titles.
4. You can actually buy one.
The hype bubble of the 360 has burst for me. I was psyched to get one, but alas, Microsoft forgot to make enough. And now, I dunno, it seems better to wait to see what the PS/3 is like, or better yet, wait for the Revolution which actually seems to have some interesting things about it, unlike the usual 'now with more chips and better looking sequels!
So, intead of a 360, I bought a DS, and you know what, the damn thing rocks.
Get a DS with Mario Kart, better yet, get 4. Wireless racing at a party is 'too much fun'.
Gee whiz! It's nice to know the people involved in XBox planning were so very, very up on their math skills. Now go out there and give the team 120 percent, boys!
Note to Microsoft Execs: If you laid out your product plan three years back and then plodded along and hit this percentage (whatever it was) of your goals, that's a perfect example of this not being "a machine built around a philosophy, not a set of tech specs." Your vision didn't change a bit in three years, and you're claiming to break new philosophical ground? I don't see the evidence of anything at all new in your final product, or in the release lineup you're puffing up here.
One comparison that comes to mind is Apple and the intel choice. Jobs had a black ops group compiling OS X on the other chips for years in advance, so they had the option around. Inside of six months after making the decision, we've got a spate of rumors about new laptops and consumer machines next month. Apple will turn its entire product line over to new chips in the time it took MS to spiff the XBox's stats for "much more of the same." Pretty dramatic contrast.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
The only launches the 360 beats are the Jaguar and the Amstrad GX4000. Thinking back to things like the SNES launch with Mario World, F-Zero, Pilotwings, Actraiser etc it's pretty clear that the 360 hasn't had a great launch. In fact its launch reminds me of the PS2- shortages, stupid prices on eBay, rushed unfinished launch titles and nothing ground breakingly original in the lineup.
Hardly any of the 360's launch games are exclusives, those that are exclusive aren't that great and all of the games were clearly rushed out of the door in a desperate attempt to have some games on the shelf for launch. I think in the long run MS will have to concede that getting your console out the door first isn't a good idea when it means leaving a sour taste in the consumer's mouth.
Mr. Allard misses the point to broading the video game market. They ask him:
Looking at the Revolution, with its controller and game download service, how important is technology like that for growing the market, or is there still room for growth with conventional games?
He then starts talking about the cost of games. As if the cost was the thing preventing more people from picking up the newest console and start gaming. Granted, it some way it does impede some people, but most likely if they like gaming they have a older generation console and play games on that. He then throws out this gem:
And what we haven't done in the gaming industry is that we haven't brought advertising, sponsorship and product placement to bear in a way that could broaden the audience. Now, I don't think anyone in the world - except maybe people who work in advertising - would stand up and say: "I love advertising, I want more of it!" But the flipside of it is that I like the price of the internet, I like the price of TV which comes as a result of advertising. I like the fact I can buy your magazine on the store shelf and it doesn't cost me $27
Yes, it isn't like you have to pay for an ISP or have to pay for cable to get more than 7 channels. And lets just ignore the fact that they already do product advertisement in some sports games, which from what I can tell hasn't lower the cost for games at all. Putting that all aside, let's look at the gaming market..
It consists mostly of males ranging from somewhere around 8 to 40. And a lot of the older ones have grew up playing video games for a while. The point Mr. Allard is missing with Nintendo's controller is accessability. TV, movies, and the Internet don't have a wider audience because of advertising(and thus a cheaper entry fee). They have a broader audience because it's very easy to stare at screen
or read a web browser and use a mouse.
Looking at the accessability for video games it's easy to see why they're only enticing to those who've grown up with them(or young enough that it's much easier to pick up). Now a days, most games make use of 2 direction pads/sticks and I would say around 8 actions buttons. For someone who hasn't grown up playing video games, that's a lot to deal with if you want to start playing video games.
If Nintendo plays this right with its more intuitative controller and its download service of older, simplier games, I think they might just be able to find that broader gaming market that won't be won by advertising.
-Shawn "If the Name Don't Rhyme It Ain't Mine" Conn
Didn't Uwe Boll say something like this, too?
So: Does all the talk about philosophy and innovation match up with the product? If not, you can safely ignore it as PR puffery. Even within his quotes here, Allard talks about breaking new ground and then talks about hitting all his goals from three years ago. If there's a philosophy there, it's one to do with mediocrity.
The conspicuous presence in this market that actually seems to believe in all those PR terms is Nintendo.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Ahem, again with the tags properly closed...my apologies.
Mr. Allard misses the point to broading the video game market. They ask him:
Looking at the Revolution, with its controller and game download service, how important is technology like that for growing the market, or is there still room for growth with conventional games?
He then starts talking about the cost of games. As if the cost was the thing preventing more people from picking up the newest console and start gaming. Granted, it some way it does impede some people, but most likely if they like gaming they have a older generation console and play games on that. He then throws out this gem:
And what we haven't done in the gaming industry is that we haven't brought advertising, sponsorship and product placement to bear in a way that could broaden the audience. Now, I don't think anyone in the world - except maybe people who work in advertising - would stand up and say: "I love advertising, I want more of it!" But the flipside of it is that I like the price of the internet, I like the price of TV which comes as a result of advertising. I like the fact I can buy your magazine on the store shelf and it doesn't cost me $27
Yes, it isn't like you have to pay for an ISP or have to pay for cable to get more than 7 channels. And lets just ignore the fact that they already do product advertisement in some sports games, which from what I can tell hasn't lower the cost for games at all. Putting that all aside, let's look at the gaming market..
It consists mostly of males ranging from somewhere around 8 to 40. And a lot of the older ones have grew up playing video games for a while. The point Mr. Allard is missing with Nintendo's controller is accessability. TV, movies, and the Internet don't have a wider audience because of advertising(and thus a cheaper entry fee). They have a broader audience because it's very easy to stare at screen or read a web browser and use a mouse.
Looking at the accessability for video games it's easy to see why they're only enticing to those who've grown up with them(or young enough that it's much easier to pick up). Now a days, most games make use of 2 direction pads/sticks and I would say around 8 actions buttons. For someone who hasn't grown up playing video games, that's a lot to deal with if you want to start playing video games.
If Nintendo plays this right with its more intuitative controller and its download service of older, simplier games, I think they might just be able to find that broader gaming market that won't be won by advertising.
-Shawn "If the Name Don't Rhyme It Ain't Mine" Conn
FTA:
Interviewer: What was the first piece of 360 game software that you played that made you say: "Yes, that's it, that's what we were trying to accomplish"?
J. Allard: Uh - well, in a way it hasn't happened yet, I would say.
Interesting. The most successful console launch ever, hasn't even impressed the guy who architected it.
Later on: These early games? They cut a lot of corners... but don't worry after knocking his own launch twice, But I still think it's the best launch line-up of any console ever. Of course he does!
The x-box was an odd product in that it reached no new homes. It was bought by gamers. Now in itself that is not a problem except that this is not what this vision is all about.
Why does everyone want to get non-gamers to game? Non-gamers don't game because they don't like playing computer games. Even all geeks don't like to game, just look at the responses a game story gets vs every other kind of story.
Then you got the whole problem with the split 360 market. Either every game is not going to make full use of the HD OR people without one are going to fill left out. True broadband? Yeah we haven't heard that one before.
No reading this guy I think he needs to lay of the marketing hype and get a dose of reality check.
It is all going to depend on wether the cell is indeed the monster machine claimed, wether sony will avoid crippling it with bad hardware decisions (lack of memory is a real problem for all consoles to date) and wether there will be games that will make use of its power to create some stunning games.
I am not just talking HD. If you watched "the making of fear" video you see how the developers complain about only being able to have a few lights with a max of 7 ai. Now if the cell is truly that powerfull could it be used to, with the same engine, scale this up massivly? How about fear like AI with the population of Call of Duty. That russian bit with dozens of soldiers moving with intelligence? Droooooool
If you ever designed a level yourselve you quickly come to realize how fucking limiting current hardware is. Want to build a massive hangar with lights hanging from the ceiling and worklights and emergency lights. Oops, you can only have a dozen my friend. Want to have a big firefight with a squad on your side and a squad of enemies blazing away. Oops, more then a dozen and it is lagville.
IF the PS3 delivers in hardware and game makers will and can make full use of it then it might very well ruin MS'es party.
The stumbling blocks? Well first we don't know how powerfull the PS3 will really be. Second sony has always had problems with developers not being able to tap the true power until years later. Put it another way, playstations are a bitch to develop for.
Then there is the cross platform capabilty. It is easy to make a game work on multiple platforms by changing the graphics. Other CPU intensive stuff like AI, physics is however a lot harder to scale down without changing the game. A PS3 version of fear with dozens of AI running around could not be ported to a platform with a fraction of the power without fundamentally changing the game. It is the reason FEAR on the PC allows you to adjust all kinds of performance settings EXCEPT the number of AI in game. Scale the graphics down and it will just look horrible, scale the AI down and you will not have a game.
I am far more intrested in the capabilties of new hardware in delivering more gameplay then adding an extra layer of resolution. Graphics are important but I really would like games to start offering some real advances in AI and physics. Half-Life 2 and FEAR showed the way forward to me a lot more then Doom3 did (and no not just because it was to dark). GTA is also an eyeopener but boy could it use some serious CPU power to get some decent AI in it. Currently it is a dump as shit. The chases are never a challenge.
In some ways Sony now has a huge advantage, the race to be first has been run. Now Sony can take the time to do a proper launch with some real must have titles. So far the customers seem to realize that if they wait a year they can then properly decide on wich platform to buy and not have to end up owning them all with 2 just not being used.
Oh and that whole persistent world thing? MS talking about MMO's? Sorry, but MS is the big loser here with NONE of their MMO's surviving. Sony was at least until WoW came along the absolute master of the MMO market. MS having a vision that is really somebody's elses. Oh yeah nothing new there.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Yeah. Right. The XBOX 360 had an awful launch lineup, Perfect Dark Zero being the only killer app, and that's hardly comparible to a Mario or Halo game at launch. For the record, the PS3 looks to have a terrible one too, just like the PS2. And the Revolution ... well, depends entirely on whether they deliver their promises.
OK this is just sad. This is, perhaps, the main reason Microsoft fails in this market. They do something and declare it's the best ever: and they believe their own propaganda. That's just sad. It would be one thing if it was, "well, we had fairly strong launch, and we have a lot of games lined up in the future". But no, this sheer stubborn arrogance.
Let's look at a few things: The PSP sold 500k units in 2 days and many people consider it to have had a weak launch. (Possibly because it didn't entirely sell out.) It also had a more diverse launch title list Exclude Ren Goku and Smart Bomb as they weren't available for a couple weeks (and sucked anyway). The remaining games were solid titles available the day of launch.
And again, many people consider this a weak launch.
The PS2 had a more sizeable list at launch than the X360---also more diverse. (Yeah, so the graphics weren't good; gee, it was 2000. Compare it to the PSX or N64.)
The N64 launched with Mario64, which is widely considered to be one of the best games ever. The SNES was launched with Super Mario World; the NES with Super Mario Bros. All of these are AAA titles, and a single AAA title outweighs any number of B titles.
So in conclusion: Microsoft's claim is laughable at best---but mostly, sad and pathetic.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
I still don't see how the Revolution controller is more accessible and intuitive than an ordinary controller. You've got a whole new set of movements to learn on top of the existing stick/pad with several buttons layout. And accessible? What about people with limited arm movements? People are used to the way current controllers work; what exactly makes this one "easier?"
I still argue this had the most diverse and complete list of games at launch. As I recall, a few months back, one of the millions of gamer sites (1up maybe) ranked the launches of consoles, and Dreamcast was one of the (if not the) highest one. Of course they were making up for the poor showing in their previous launch, but alas lies and deceit from the Sony camp caused the premature end of the Dreamcast and all future Sega consoles.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
"Microsoft sold only 325.902 units in North America in November, but 556.221 during the same period at the XBox1 launch"
This isn't a movie launch, there isn't infinite supply. Microsoft created around that 500k mark with the rest going towards the Euro launch and the Asian launch.
How many times have you seen people line up outside Best Buy for a console a month after the launch? Every Best Buy in the US had lines of 40+ people by midnight Sunday morning for the 8am re-launch.
These numbers you brought up do not tell the story.
The Dreamcast had the best launch ever. Actually, the 360 had an OK launch missing key titles like Oblivion and Dead or Alive. On the Sony side, they had bad launches with the PS2 and PSP. I am STILL waiting for a decent game to play on the PSP almost a year later!
I think ultimately, the response to the XBox360 has much less to do with the product's specs and line-up, and mostly to do with the distinction that this is the "It" gift for the 2005 Christmas season. I'm unaware of any other new major releases that have the buzz of the XBox360 and its limited availability has created an increased demand as parents and others go to extremes to get the "It" gift to prove how much they "care." If you can give someone something that's hard to get, it's obviously a special gift.
What's more interesting is whether or not the limited availability of the unit is part of a carefully crafted plan to make the XBox360 the "It" gift? It already followed calculated rumors of it being sold at below its manufacturing cost (which is total bullshit, but that didn't stop every major media from propagating the hype). I wouldn't be surprised if the rarity of this unit mysteriously evaporates right before or after Christmas and there's a sea of units in every story. One indication of this is that while the system units are hard to come by, all the hyper-expensive add-ons are not.
As long as we're on the topic, and most of us agree that "360 Launch BEST EVAR!!" is a load of bull, what was your favorite launch?
Mine was SNES, for a couple of reasons -- I remember getting it the day it came out (for Genesis, we waited to buy a used one), I was probably in my video game-loving prime (10 yrs old), and Super Mario World, PilotWings, and F-Zero all freakin' rocked!!! As I recall, Sim City launched at the same time as well, but I already had that on the PC. Was it only those 4 games that launched with the system? If so, it doesn't matter, Super Mario World, PilotWings and F-Zero were all like nothing I had seen before, and totally owned my world. And if I recall correctly, Final Fight had been planned as a launch title and was soon around the corner.
360 has nothing too compelling, PDZ looks like any other FPS, Kameo looks interesting, but all the other titles look like souped up Xbox1 games. Funny how even Microsoft PR is calling this the "best launch lineup ever" when Xbox1 + Halo was probably better. Oh, but I forgot, quantity > quality.
J. Allard had a chat with Edge magazine about the launch lineup of the Xbox 360, and makes the claim that they have the best launch lineup ever associated with a console.
Hey, I don't blame him. It's not like he's biased, or anything. If Edge magazine were to ask me about, say, web-based multiplayer online games, I'll make it a point to mention that BattleMaster is certainly one of the best. And that has nothing to do with the fact that it was made by me or anything...
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Great idea on the whole "play anywhere" concept. Read about this almost 5 years ago: http://jdj.sys-con.com/read/36690.htm
--PF
Bite my shiny metal ass!
They don't really have the best launch lineup, it's just that they have games from other platform's popular games available for it. The playstation 1 had no predecessors and therefore it couldn't launch with games from other platforms, like one of the main Xbox360 launch games being Need For Speed : Most Wanted which is out on tons of others.
I think they have to compare it in context, as in which games are exclusive for the xbox360 on launch.
Business Voyeur
The real downfall of Sega happened not because of any of it's superb consoles, but because it felt the need to offer so many hardware add-ons that did nothing but confuse (and ultimately upon non-support, disgust) the gamer. MS seems to be doing that ALREADY at their launch.
Backward compatibility should have been standard out of the box for the cheapest version. Since the HDD is NOT standard on all machines, I really don't see MS (or more importantly, third parties) utilizing it at all. This will only serve to disenfranchise the people who paid big bucks to have it (and then not really get anything for it) as well as those who didn't (and not get backwards compatibility as promised months ago).
I'm not even a console gamer anymore. I gave up to become a full-time PC Gamer around the end of the PS1, but to me it just seems like MS is making one mistake after another with this launch. Odd, considering the success of Xbox AND the well-documented mistakes of consoles throughout the years who made many (if not all) of the same mistakes first.
swanker than you
I checked this story more because of the big-ass obvious typo in the headline then out of actual interest.
"360 Has Best Launch Limp Ever?" would have been funnier and perhaps more accurate.
=tkk
Bill Gates - Creationist?!?
How about the PS2 which had all of the PS1 games available at launch time, in addition to whatever launch titles they actually had?
Fanatically anti-fanatical
To name a few briefly, the SNES had Super Mario World, the N64 had Mario 64, the Xbox had Halo. The Xbox 360 has...a bunch of ports, sequels, and other stuff I've seen already?
This is nothing but marketing hype to keep the Xbox fanboys who couldn't get their hands on a 360 in November hyped until Christmas or next year when they can finally get one of their own. This may have been contended already, but Microsoft doesn't have a Halo for the Xbox 360. Their definition of "next-generation" is merely a largely overpriced and uninspired sequel to the current generation.
As a huge Rare fan back in the SNES/N64 days, I must say that I'm extremely dissappointed that PDZ and Kameo have gotten lukewarm receptions from people I've spoken to, and even the hype-prone gaming press isn't thrilled with them. Maybe Microsoft was counting on these games to be the 360's killer apps, but it's too late for that now.
Allard can talk about "vision" all he wants, but only a new and exciting game the console market hasn't seen before is going to get the 360 off of the ground. He and Microsoft had better get their acts together before Sony and Nintendo redefine console gaming and leave the 360 stuck in 2005.
...shame they forgot to release the console at the same time :-/
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
You mean just like how the XBox 360 has most of the XBox library as well as it's launch games?
Viva La Revolucion! Buy a Mac!
I've never owned any Nintendo console, but let's face it; Any new Nintendo system with a Mario title is a better launch lineup than the 360's.
In fact, I'm very disappointed by the 360 lineup on it's own; I have yet to see any 360 game which goes beyond "slightly better looking version of a game which I've seen before". Apart from minor graphics improvements (shinier cars in PGR3 are _not_ major improvements), the 360 seems to offer nothing new.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
If you have the Hard Drive...
And you download the driver for the game...
And it works in emulation...
There are some very popular Xbox games that don't work on the Xbox 360 (yet).
But yeah, in essence, but the PS2's backwards compatibility is much better than Xbox 360s. We'll have to see how the PS3 will fare.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
> The first was that this was a machine built around a philosophy, not a set of tech specs."
> It's this idea that makes me far more interested in the Xbox 360 than the PS3.
Well... Sony doesn't need a holistic philosophy. They have something MS can only dream of: Developers. Literally thousands of them. 3rd party, that is. That's why they only need to provide the best machine possible for the next couple of years (and market it like hell, of course). To give them developers a fine piece of hardware to create games on.
I don't see innovative games coming as an 360 exclusive. Hasn't happened yet, will not happen anytime soon.
The 360 has one thing, and one thing only (that kept it from becoming just another 3DO): Xbox Live. Which has a much louder fanbase than actual users, though.
Microsoft's "philosophy" is nothing but PR; on second thought is is only Xbox live XL plus HDTV. And as I said before, it's not the hardware manufacturer who needs to have a philosophy. It's the developers.
Best,
Steffen
If I recall correctly in what I've read about it, the PS3 will have no backward-compatible controller ports. In other words, anything with a special controller (DDR, for example, or my beloved Beatmania IIDX) will be wholly unusable because it would use a wired controller. Yes, you'd still SORT of be able to play DDR on there, but it would have to be with the controller, which = no fun.