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Grand Theft Auto IV Unveiled On 360
Despite expectations that this would be the least eventful of the E3 pre-conferences, Microsoft's Peter Moore drops the news that Grand Theft Auto IV will be on Xbox 360. Rockstar and Microsoft have teamed up to do exclusive episodic content in the GTA gameworld for the 360. Slated to release October 16, 2007 in North America, October 19 in Europe. Other details include lots of support for Live Arcade titles (Sonic, Galaga, Street Fighter II), the official unveiling of Shadowrun for the 360 and PC, the airing of the Halo 3 Teaser Trailer (which is already on Xbox Live), and much discussion of 'Live Anywhere'. This last is an expansion of Xbox Live to PC and cell platforms in addition to the Xbox arena.
XBox 360 with 20GB hard drive ($400) + HD-DVD drive addon ($100?) + 1 year XBox Live ($50) = $550.
Playstation 3 with 20GB hard drive ($500) + Bluray drive (included) + 5 years online (included) = $500.
Sony are the arrogant ones here, though, right? OK, just checking. I'm finding it increasingly hard to keep track.
By the way, Zonk, GTA4 isn't an XBox exclusive.
Uhhh...no. October of 2007...thats 2007 not 2006
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http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/060509/20060509006185.htm
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 9, 2006--Rockstar Games, the universally-renowned publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO - News), is proud to announce Grand Theft Auto IV, the next-generation console debut of the genre-defining Grand Theft Auto franchise. Developed by world-class designers Rockstar North, Grand Theft Auto IV will be simultaneously available for the PlayStation®3 and Xbox 360(TM) and is currently planned to be in stores in North America on October 16, 2007 and in Europe on October 19, 2007.
Even if the game is only exclusive on 360 for a few months and then comes out on other platforms (as is currently the case with ps2 GTA), the majority of the sales happen during the exclusivity period. After that, the hype pretty much dies. I was amazed to see how low the sales numbers were for the GTA games on xbox.
So, whatever is the case with this GTA exclusivity for 360, it's a huge blow against sony. In north america at least.
Episodic content is just a way for them to raise the price of the game without raising the price on the pricetag in the stores.
I'm sick of this crap where game companies think they can get $1.00 out of us for what would have been $0.10 of content had it been in an expansion pack, or included in the game to begin with. I'm also pissed at all the stupid moron gamers that buy this crap that 'costs less than a cup of coffee' because they don't understand that they're paying way more money in the long run; thus letting the micropayment mind-games continue.
I wish one of the next-gen consoles didn't have an online component, so they wouldn't be able to pull this crap. I'd buy that console instead of the other ones.
Changing material after the fact destroys any context for comments written to rebut the claims published on slashdot. May I suggest a retraction next time? It's the honest thing to do.
And your comments about CPU utilization are wrong. The multiple cores on the 360 don't do much without being programmed for. IIRC, Microsoft has said that none of the current crop of games take much, if any, advantage of the extra cores.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Where was anything bad said about Sony?
Oh, I am sorry. I was not trying to imply Microsoft had said anything bad about Sony, if that is what you are asking.
I just found Microsoft's HD-DVD announcement today quite amusing, given the uproar yesterday. Sony charges $500-600 for their console, and everyone (rightly) interprets this as an act of supreme arrogance, just plain assuming that they can charge anything they want and people will buy it anyway. But Microsoft meanwhile seems to have just packed the XBox 360 with hidden costs to the point where it's if anything costlier than the PS3, and nobody seems to even noticed. Yeah, okay, technically Microsoft's wider options mean you can get the XBox 360 experience for "only" $300 if you really want it-- but not if you want to be able to save your game.
To directly answer your question though: if you want to know where something bad was said about Sony, look at absolutely any response anywhere to Sony's press conference yesterday, when Sony announced the price of the PS3 and the price was the biggest mistake in video game business history since the Nintendo 64 shipped without a disc drive. Most of these responses to yesterday's press conference, especially the ones from Slashdot and Microsoft (though MS's response was yesterday, not during today's press conference) were quite nasty.
Why don't you just not buy it if you don't like it instead of whining about it on Slashdot? And guess what, if a lot of people agree with you and also don't buy it, then it won't be successful and publishers will go back to the old model! Amazing!
Comment of the year
Wow...GTA on the 360...IN 17 MONTHS!!! Why is this exciting news exactly? I am sure there are a lot of great games coming out on all the consoles in late 2007. The reason we haven't heard about them - because they are saving them for E3 2007.
What is MS going to talk about at next year's E3, Halo 8, arriving at your local game store October 7, 2059.
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
The reason episodic content is attractive, from the perspective of a game developer, derives from both increased revenue and decreased costs. The increased revenue is what you term the "money milking" argument - it is true that gamers who like a certain franchise will be willing to spend $10 a pop on 6-8 hour episodes, and they might end up spending $100 over a year or so on episodes for a favorite game. The cost of producing a short episode is relatively small, compared to the cost of producing an entire game. Not to mention consumer expectations - when gamers buy a new game, they expect something innovative. When they buy a new episode, they expect a new twist on the same old thing. Again, it's easier for gaming companies to do it this way.
I have no clue what the guy who modded you up was smoking, but that's the most retarded troll I've ever seen. People have every right to complain about it AND not buy it. If people don't buy the extra content it doesn't show up in their statistics other than as someone who didn't buy it. If people however complain loudly in various forums and get others informed so they in turn complain loudly, it shows up in a completely different way.
/.
Thus I'm proud to say: This "extra content" has convinced me not to buy either an Xbox360 or a PS3, I'll just go with the Nintendo Wii now. I've been a Sony fanboi since PSX was released, and I bought an Xbox for excellent games like Halo, Fable and Jade Empire. However, as of their new "feature enhancements" to the next generation, I'm switching camps. There's more innovation in Shigeru Miyamoto's left testicle than in all parts of of Sony and Microsoft combined.
See? It's my right as a consumer to express my dissatisfaction, the more vehemently the better, just as it's your right to be a dick on
It's not about how much hardware you get per dollar. Speed/capability per dollar, PS3/360/Wii are all about the same because that's the reality of components and manufacturing.
The point is, most of us don't have 1080p TV's with a massive sound system. Most of us don't have a need to watch bluray/HD-DVD movies, and won't want it until netflix start distributing it. And even then, we need 1080p to enjoy it.
I don't want to spend an extra $200/$250 for hardware I don't need or want. I want to play games. Nintendo and, to a lesser degree, Microsoft get this.
MS will be the real winner here. They get to keep the bad-ass hardware image with a close-to-Wii price. That's going to sell huge, especially with 720p sets hitting the sweet spot price point in the next 3-5 years. Look for a $50 price cut in November followed by some high quality 2nd gen games to compete with Wii and gut PS3.