Actually, the problem is- I'm too lame, and way too un-coordinated (read: balding white man syndrome) for any 9/10 footers.
The best I can do for exercise, is get on the simple songs, and do them fast. I can jump around like a spaz, but my eyes/brain/fat-ass linkup doesn't work as fast as it used to.
But doing 'Candy' 20 times in a row (fricking elusive 'AAA'!) gives me a great workout.
I usually start warming up with 130+ BPM songs, like 'On the Jazz' and some others that I downloaded (Ultramix). And work my way up.
I wish they had the 'Tard-Pack' of songs for people like me. Where all the songs were simple, yet could be played at fast speeds. My mind goes completely blank when I need to hit two 'buttons' at the same time, and they are not opposites (opposites being up/down or left/right). Whenever they throw in a few up/lefts or down/rights my mind pretty much melts down.
I've found that the DDR Ultramix (Xbox) is totally different from DDR at the arcade. (Yes, the balding white guy takes his show on the road- much to the dismay of my teenage daughter) I know I can AA Candy at home on the faster speeds nearly every time- but the steps at the arcade are totally different. But the arcade near me has a song called 'Crash' or 'Crush' which is a pseudo-punk song that is pretty good. Since I live in California, it also has a TON of hispanic influenced songs- like a Japanese version of Enrique Iglesias or something. But surprisingly, the song that draws the biggest crowd is also the crappiest song on the machine 'We Will Rock You' is sure to attract every mullet-family in the mall. Hey- I like Queen a lot, but really...is that a good DANCE song? (Pounding the table twice, then clapping does not constitute dancing)
About the first 1/3 of the way through DX:IW I kept waiting for the game to get good.
The middle third, I thought the game really blew. (And I posted about it everywhere)
When I finally finished the game, I realized that it actually was pretty darn good, and enjoyable.
If they had done something to reduce the number of times the game would load a new environment, I would have liked it a lot more. But in general, DX:IW was a pretty darn good game. (In my opinion...)
Yes- good response. Now let's look at the original post- I wrote:
If you do DDR for 45 minutes, 4-5 days a week, you'll be losing about 2 pounds every 3 weeks.
So no, I was not suggesting 3 pounds a week. I was actually suggesting 2/3 pounds per week. Or a total of about 2,200 calories per week.
Obviously the benefits of exercise not only affect your body during the actual activity, but the cooldown, AND your body's basal metabolic rate will increase when you add muscles to your legs and ass.
So yes- I believe that my original estimate was well within reason.
So please...as you said, let's not confuse the reader!
Also- if you believe that playing DDR, and doing songs in the 180BPM range is "mild physical activity" then I assume the rest of your cognitive skills are about as sharp as your reading comprehension. This goes way beyond mild..
The story mentions that a lot of shows are pirated.
I personally don't understand why so many people 'make a fuss' about DRM, when the companies are adding it in to protect their property that is being pirated!
The sad reality is that people steal. So people do what they can to protect their property from theft. We can get philosophical about how DRM infringes upon my fair use rights, but if people did NOT steal- then we wouldn't have this problem. The corporations who are spending tons of money to implement DRM would rather not have to spend that money. But Joe Self-Righteous who feels that he can make a copy of anything digital that crosses his path, forces DRM to become a reality we all deal with.
I am a big supporter of paying money for the intellectual property I use. I buy software, I buy music, I buy games. I know that if we all stop purchasing these products, they will no longer be produced. If I want games to come out next year, I need to buy them this year. If I want free broadcast television, I need to allow the networks to charge for advertising. Advertisers won't spend money, if they don't know that their message won't get across.
Interestingly, just the day the story broke (2-3 days ago) I was researching a few products, one of them being Jrun.
Every discussion board I saw said bad things about Jrun- okay, no problem, I guess people don't like it.
But interestingly, they all said absolutely wonderful things about JBoss- best thing since sliced bread! Post after post would knock Jrun, and then sing the praises of JBoss. After seeing this same thing on 7 or 8 discussion boards I figured that something was up. For a product that isn't high on my list it was getting way too much positive press.
Then the story about astroturfing broke, and it all made sense. Freakin' tools just went a little too far overboard.
Not everyone is looking for some fantastic story to get involved in. I'm not looking to have complex decisions to make in order to guide my character along some sort of path that will fulfill me in some deep sort of way.
I just want to jiggle a joystick around, and watch some pretty pictures move around the screen as a diversion.
My life is complex enough. I have a real family- I spend enough time trying to teach my 14 year old daughter to do the right thing, I don't need an animated character that also depends on me for guidance.
Is your entire post sarcastic...or is it just completely ironic that your sig is: "The future is always scary to those who cling to the past." -T.O'Reilly?
I'll give you the half-right. The football, basketball and hockey games are not up to the same quality standards as a lot of others out there. I've played them, but didn't spend my money on them. Okay...they do suck.
Links is surprisingly good. I think the only two videogames that I have spent as much time on, were Diablo II, and Age of Empires II. I've played Links just about every day for about 5 months now.
Top Spin was completely awesome. But it doesn't have enough depth to make it a game that I still play. When I liked it, I absolutely loved it. But I burnt out on it after about 2 months. This is fine though, because not every game needs to last forever. This was definitely at least a '9' in my book. I should play it on Live more often- because the big problem I have now is that the AI is just too easy.
I've only had Rallisport Challenge 2 for a day now. (Just came out yesterday) So far it is great. I've spent 4 hours on it, and it seems very fun- all round better than the last one. Some people complain that it is not a simulation. But I'm looking for fun- not the feeling of rocks in my teeth.
Man...the whole 'XSN Games Suck' thing is a tired, dead horse, whose beatings have now reached a horrific level.
XSN Games do NOT suck. There are 7 XSN Games:
Top Spin (Tennis) Links (Golf) Amped 2 (Snowboarding) Rallisport Challenge 2 (Racing) NHL Rivals (Hockey) NBA Inside Drive (Basketball) NFL Fever (Football)
Of those 7 games, 3 of them are legitimately great games. Links, Top Spin, and Rallisport Challenge 2 are fantastic. Each one of them is at the top of their category, and when you add in the Live and XSN aspect, they really are fantastic games. (Gamerankings.com gives them 83, 88, 88 respectively- and the lowest scored reviews from Gamespy make it painfully obvious that the reviewer spent less than 2 hours playing the games.)
Amped 2 is a fairly fun Snowboarding game. It won't set the world on fire, but it does not 'suck' by any means.
The other 3 games (Rivals, Fever and Inside Drive) might fall into the 'not so good..maybe suck' category. But, with 3 great games, and one good one, XSN games don't suck as a whole.
"Perhaps it will free up some funds for some original game concepts instead of the same old crap over and over and over..."
This is interesting. I find this statement (which is partially true) to be in direct contrast to a recent Slashdot article about another re-release of the original Star Trek series.
Also, in the future, possibly more of the game developers will follow the lead on the Xbox, which is roster updates throughout the season. I used NHL Rivals as my link, and I know it wasn't a great game, but downloadable updates is a great feature...
Maybe you don't like Mexican candy because it is full of lead.
I would disagree that Japanes games 'are almost always of higher production quality, are more enjoyable, are more aesthetically pleasing...' etc. You state these things as fact, when in reality they are only your opinion. I personally do not agree at all. One of the few Japanese games I do like, is Dance Dance Revolution. (And even then, there is some Hawaiian tie-in that I can't figure out)
But this is not a xenophobic choice...I like American games, but some of my favories are actually Canadian, or French.
I'm using a version of IE with pop up blocking and tabbed browsing. It's from XP Service Pack 2. Microsoft did not STOP development on IE. The world at large was saying 'we don't like having updates pushed at us every week' so they slowed it down.
Microsoft is trying to keep the updates down, so they are going to roll out a ton of new features in Service Pack 2. It's not just promises, you can go get it yourself, right now.
Well, since the original article was written by someone at LucasArts, I thought that a reference to Armed & Dangerous would be appropriate.
Armed & Dangerous is a fun game. There is a story...but it's only there because it's funny. The graphics suck, but that's okay too.
Armed & Dangerous is a good game because you get to kill a LOT of guys, and fire a LOT of bullets.
Sometimes games need to be about that- lots of killing and explosions. We don't want to get dragged into a Deus Ex style story each time- where picking up the game and playing for 15 minutes just doesn't work.
Another highly recommended game of this same type- Metal Arms. Awesome game.
My guess is that they will have a fairly exclusive contract with Microsoft. Probably starting with the next generation of consoles. I am guessing that the current crop of PS2 games are the last non-Xbox titles you will see from Sega for a long time.
Sega wants money. Microsoft has money.
Microsoft's future in the game business is competing against TWO giants. Sony, and EA. Microsoft will be making their own hardware to compete against Sony, but in the games area they need more exclusives that are quality titles. Especially more 'non-American style' exclusives.
If Microsoft was able to hype the Xbox 2 enough to Sega, and convince them that sales would be equal to what PS3 gets, then we might see a more polarized marketplace: Sony/EA vs. Microsoft/Sega.
Of course Nintendo will be out there too, but I predict that these will be the big players in the next generation. But even with a deal with Sega, MS is going to have a tough time in Japan.
Of course this is only my prediction...if it comes to be, just call me Nostradamus. If not, just call me Nosferatu.
How are they supposed to know that gamer X hasn't filled his Xbox hard drive with soundtracks? It isn't imposible, you know. It can be assumed the majority have room on their hard drives for saves, but it cannot be assumed that EVERYONE with an Xbox does.
Well- if anyone does NOT have room on their hard-drive for saves, it won't be because of music that was ripped. The Xbox uses this great new concept of 'partitions'...it's okay Chumpy...I'm sure you were just testing the rest of us.
If you want to bring a save to a friend's house, you can still put the save on a memory card, and make it transportable.
Number of saves can be VERY important. Try playing Deus Ex: Invisible War. First, the saves are HUGE. Second, you might want a lot of them, so you can go back and change your mind later on about decisions you made earlier. I noticed that I had ~125 saves from that game alone.
You don't think that downloaded content is a 'killer feature' and that's fine. But after I finished Splinter Cell, and I was able to download 3 more entire missions...it gave me quite a few more hours of gameplay. I consider that more than a perk...but you're right, not a 'killer feature'. But- my daughter would kill me if I ever tried to take away the new songs she downloaded for DDR. This extra content can make a stale game fresh again.
You mention that custom soundtracks are good for FPS, Racing, and Tony Hawk style games. I'd like to add 'all sports games' to that list. And the idea that you can just turn off the in-game music, and use a CD player...umm..yeah, you can....but it wouldn't be nearly as nice. I have over 8 hours of music ripped to my Xbox, so putting it on 'random' will keep things mixed up for quite a while. Snowboarding with your own music is 1000 times better than listening to someone elses soundtrack.
Yes- internet gaming is an over-hyped feature. If you don't have access to it. Most people that use Live, love Live. Of the games in my collection (40+) the ones I take out and play again and again, are the games that are multi-player, including Live. Crimson Skies is a good game- but Crimson Skies on Live is much better. Same with every other game on Live. The majority of games are single player- but the majority of NEW Xbox games are Live enabled. You might get a thrill out of 'beating the computer' on a single player game, but for me there is nothing like real human competition.
Well, the hard drive in the Xbox is 'technology' and it makes a huge difference.
speed of loading
speed of saves
number of saves
amount of user-defined information
downloaded content
knowing that everyone has room for the save
custom soundtracks
All of those things are only possible with the 'technology' in the Xbox. Yes, the PS2 has a hard drive add-on, but you can't put a game out knowing that people have it. (Except for the version of Final Fantasy that comes with it)
The two things that my Gamecube and PS2 owning friends drool over when they finally get to experience them...the hard-drive, and of course Live.
I never need to search around for the right memory card. And yes last time you are at my house playing a game, your characters are still there. (Why would I delete them?) YES those are real people that are shooting your plane down right now.
That is technology that the Xbox has- that developers can use to create great games. Most of the people that play down the importance of things like on-line gaming (Live) are the ones that have never used it. For the rest of the people that do use it, it becomes very, very important.
*If you feel the need to say "but the neXtbox won't have a hard-drive" please refrain, until we see what the specs really are.
The prices are coming down fast. Personally, I wish every game played at 1080i- but unfortunately, only a handful (4 I believe) play at that resolution.
I want to see my HDTV do something other than 480p- so the next console better be able to push that resolution, without any problems.
Also, I want everything to load faster, and load bigger. I don't want a 30 second load everytime I use an elevator in Deus Ex: Invisible War.
I want graphics that rival a PC, and not just on day one of the console's release, but after year two would be nice too. The original Xbox was actually a real screamer compared to a lot of PCs when it came out but has since been eclipsed about 4 times over.
Throwing what seems like wayyyy too much hardware at it now, will pay off in the future. Of course, that is always the way it is with every 'computer'.
And if they want to release it a year ahead of Sony, they'll need to attempt parity with Sony's machine that will benefit from the technology being a year older/cheaper.
Slashdot Mirror
"potentially crippling DRM"
What a bunch of FUD.
What console doesn't have some form of DRM?
I'm not looking at this as a PC that plays console games- I'm viewing it as a console that can do a lot more.
I would-
You get an Xbox 2 (which I'm gonna buy anyway) and I can surf the web on my HDTV. And it does media, etc. etc.
Good deal for me.
Actually, the problem is- I'm too lame, and way too un-coordinated (read: balding white man syndrome) for any 9/10 footers.
The best I can do for exercise, is get on the simple songs, and do them fast. I can jump around like a spaz, but my eyes/brain/fat-ass linkup doesn't work as fast as it used to.
But doing 'Candy' 20 times in a row (fricking elusive 'AAA'!) gives me a great workout.
I usually start warming up with 130+ BPM songs, like 'On the Jazz' and some others that I downloaded (Ultramix). And work my way up.
I wish they had the 'Tard-Pack' of songs for people like me. Where all the songs were simple, yet could be played at fast speeds. My mind goes completely blank when I need to hit two 'buttons' at the same time, and they are not opposites (opposites being up/down or left/right). Whenever they throw in a few up/lefts or down/rights my mind pretty much melts down.
I've found that the DDR Ultramix (Xbox) is totally different from DDR at the arcade. (Yes, the balding white guy takes his show on the road- much to the dismay of my teenage daughter) I know I can AA Candy at home on the faster speeds nearly every time- but the steps at the arcade are totally different. But the arcade near me has a song called 'Crash' or 'Crush' which is a pseudo-punk song that is pretty good. Since I live in California, it also has a TON of hispanic influenced songs- like a Japanese version of Enrique Iglesias or something. But surprisingly, the song that draws the biggest crowd is also the crappiest song on the machine 'We Will Rock You' is sure to attract every mullet-family in the mall. Hey- I like Queen a lot, but really...is that a good DANCE song? (Pounding the table twice, then clapping does not constitute dancing)
Kegals man...it's all about the Kegals
The workout that every woman should do.
About the first 1/3 of the way through DX:IW I kept waiting for the game to get good.
The middle third, I thought the game really blew. (And I posted about it everywhere)
When I finally finished the game, I realized that it actually was pretty darn good, and enjoyable.
If they had done something to reduce the number of times the game would load a new environment, I would have liked it a lot more. But in general, DX:IW was a pretty darn good game. (In my opinion...)
Dude...that was funny...Xbox version of Great Gatsby...
Just trying to imagine how that would work...but that is just a funny thought...
Yes- good response. Now let's look at the original post- I wrote:
If you do DDR for 45 minutes, 4-5 days a week, you'll be losing about 2 pounds every 3 weeks.
So no, I was not suggesting 3 pounds a week. I was actually suggesting 2/3 pounds per week. Or a total of about 2,200 calories per week.
Obviously the benefits of exercise not only affect your body during the actual activity, but the cooldown, AND your body's basal metabolic rate will increase when you add muscles to your legs and ass.
So yes- I believe that my original estimate was well within reason.
So please...as you said, let's not confuse the reader!
Also- if you believe that playing DDR, and doing songs in the 180BPM range is "mild physical activity" then I assume the rest of your cognitive skills are about as sharp as your reading comprehension. This goes way beyond mild..
I'm not sure how it could NOT work.
If you do DDR for 45 minutes, 4-5 days a week, you'll be losing about 2 pounds every 3 weeks.
Worked for me, and my daughter.
You should be getting up to about 180BPM near the end of your workout- not sticking to some 130BPM songs.
For me, having the Xbox version, and downloading new songs was a lifesaver- otherwise I would be completely bored of the songs.
And finally- you won't lose anything if you are using the controller! Get a good dance pad!
The story mentions that a lot of shows are pirated.
I personally don't understand why so many people 'make a fuss' about DRM, when the companies are adding it in to protect their property that is being pirated!
The sad reality is that people steal. So people do what they can to protect their property from theft. We can get philosophical about how DRM infringes upon my fair use rights, but if people did NOT steal- then we wouldn't have this problem. The corporations who are spending tons of money to implement DRM would rather not have to spend that money. But Joe Self-Righteous who feels that he can make a copy of anything digital that crosses his path, forces DRM to become a reality we all deal with.
I am a big supporter of paying money for the intellectual property I use. I buy software, I buy music, I buy games. I know that if we all stop purchasing these products, they will no longer be produced. If I want games to come out next year, I need to buy them this year. If I want free broadcast television, I need to allow the networks to charge for advertising. Advertisers won't spend money, if they don't know that their message won't get across.
Interestingly, just the day the story broke (2-3 days ago) I was researching a few products, one of them being Jrun.
Every discussion board I saw said bad things about Jrun- okay, no problem, I guess people don't like it.
But interestingly, they all said absolutely wonderful things about JBoss- best thing since sliced bread! Post after post would knock Jrun, and then sing the praises of JBoss. After seeing this same thing on 7 or 8 discussion boards I figured that something was up. For a product that isn't high on my list it was getting way too much positive press.
Then the story about astroturfing broke, and it all made sense. Freakin' tools just went a little too far overboard.
I'm glad you spoke up, because not every gamer is the same!
A lot of people on Slashdot are big fans of RPGs. I personally don't like them at all.
In fact, my latest obsession is a car racing game (Rallisport Challenge 2). Talk about linear...
It's a great game though.
Not everyone is looking for some fantastic story to get involved in. I'm not looking to have complex decisions to make in order to guide my character along some sort of path that will fulfill me in some deep sort of way.
I just want to jiggle a joystick around, and watch some pretty pictures move around the screen as a diversion.
My life is complex enough. I have a real family- I spend enough time trying to teach my 14 year old daughter to do the right thing, I don't need an animated character that also depends on me for guidance.
Is your entire post sarcastic...or is it just completely ironic that your sig is: "The future is always scary to those who cling to the past." -T.O'Reilly?
Variety is the spice of life.
I'll give you the half-right. The football, basketball and hockey games are not up to the same quality standards as a lot of others out there. I've played them, but didn't spend my money on them. Okay...they do suck.
Links is surprisingly good. I think the only two videogames that I have spent as much time on, were Diablo II, and Age of Empires II. I've played Links just about every day for about 5 months now.
Top Spin was completely awesome. But it doesn't have enough depth to make it a game that I still play. When I liked it, I absolutely loved it. But I burnt out on it after about 2 months. This is fine though, because not every game needs to last forever. This was definitely at least a '9' in my book. I should play it on Live more often- because the big problem I have now is that the AI is just too easy.
I've only had Rallisport Challenge 2 for a day now. (Just came out yesterday) So far it is great. I've spent 4 hours on it, and it seems very fun- all round better than the last one. Some people complain that it is not a simulation. But I'm looking for fun- not the feeling of rocks in my teeth.
Man...the whole 'XSN Games Suck' thing is a tired, dead horse, whose beatings have now reached a horrific level.
XSN Games do NOT suck. There are 7 XSN Games:
Top Spin (Tennis)
Links (Golf)
Amped 2 (Snowboarding)
Rallisport Challenge 2 (Racing)
NHL Rivals (Hockey)
NBA Inside Drive (Basketball)
NFL Fever (Football)
Of those 7 games, 3 of them are legitimately great games. Links, Top Spin, and Rallisport Challenge 2 are fantastic. Each one of them is at the top of their category, and when you add in the Live and XSN aspect, they really are fantastic games. (Gamerankings.com gives them 83, 88, 88 respectively- and the lowest scored reviews from Gamespy make it painfully obvious that the reviewer spent less than 2 hours playing the games.)
Amped 2 is a fairly fun Snowboarding game. It won't set the world on fire, but it does not 'suck' by any means.
The other 3 games (Rivals, Fever and Inside Drive) might fall into the 'not so good..maybe suck' category. But, with 3 great games, and one good one, XSN games don't suck as a whole.
"Perhaps it will free up some funds for some original game concepts instead of the same old crap over and over and over..."
This is interesting. I find this statement (which is partially true) to be in direct contrast to a recent Slashdot article about another re-release of the original Star Trek series.
Also, in the future, possibly more of the game developers will follow the lead on the Xbox, which is roster updates throughout the season. I used NHL Rivals as my link, and I know it wasn't a great game, but downloadable updates is a great feature...
Maybe you don't like Mexican candy because it is full of lead.
I would disagree that Japanes games 'are almost always of higher production quality, are more enjoyable, are more aesthetically pleasing...' etc. You state these things as fact, when in reality they are only your opinion. I personally do not agree at all. One of the few Japanese games I do like, is Dance Dance Revolution. (And even then, there is some Hawaiian tie-in that I can't figure out)
But this is not a xenophobic choice...I like American games, but some of my favories are actually Canadian, or French.
I'm using a version of IE with pop up blocking and tabbed browsing. It's from XP Service Pack 2. Microsoft did not STOP development on IE. The world at large was saying 'we don't like having updates pushed at us every week' so they slowed it down.
Microsoft is trying to keep the updates down, so they are going to roll out a ton of new features in Service Pack 2. It's not just promises, you can go get it yourself, right now.
Well, since the original article was written by someone at LucasArts, I thought that a reference to Armed & Dangerous would be appropriate.
Armed & Dangerous is a fun game. There is a story...but it's only there because it's funny. The graphics suck, but that's okay too.
Armed & Dangerous is a good game because you get to kill a LOT of guys, and fire a LOT of bullets.
Sometimes games need to be about that- lots of killing and explosions. We don't want to get dragged into a Deus Ex style story each time- where picking up the game and playing for 15 minutes just doesn't work.
Another highly recommended game of this same type- Metal Arms. Awesome game.
My guess is that they will have a fairly exclusive contract with Microsoft. Probably starting with the next generation of consoles. I am guessing that the current crop of PS2 games are the last non-Xbox titles you will see from Sega for a long time.
Sega wants money. Microsoft has money.
Microsoft's future in the game business is competing against TWO giants. Sony, and EA. Microsoft will be making their own hardware to compete against Sony, but in the games area they need more exclusives that are quality titles. Especially more 'non-American style' exclusives.
If Microsoft was able to hype the Xbox 2 enough to Sega, and convince them that sales would be equal to what PS3 gets, then we might see a more polarized marketplace: Sony/EA vs. Microsoft/Sega.
Of course Nintendo will be out there too, but I predict that these will be the big players in the next generation. But even with a deal with Sega, MS is going to have a tough time in Japan.
Of course this is only my prediction...if it comes to be, just call me Nostradamus. If not, just call me Nosferatu.
How are they supposed to know that gamer X hasn't filled his Xbox hard drive with soundtracks? It isn't imposible, you know. It can be assumed the majority have room on their hard drives for saves, but it cannot be assumed that EVERYONE with an Xbox does.
Well- if anyone does NOT have room on their hard-drive for saves, it won't be because of music that was ripped. The Xbox uses this great new concept of 'partitions'...it's okay Chumpy...I'm sure you were just testing the rest of us.
If you want to bring a save to a friend's house, you can still put the save on a memory card, and make it transportable.
Number of saves can be VERY important. Try playing Deus Ex: Invisible War. First, the saves are HUGE. Second, you might want a lot of them, so you can go back and change your mind later on about decisions you made earlier. I noticed that I had ~125 saves from that game alone.
You don't think that downloaded content is a 'killer feature' and that's fine. But after I finished Splinter Cell, and I was able to download 3 more entire missions...it gave me quite a few more hours of gameplay. I consider that more than a perk...but you're right, not a 'killer feature'. But- my daughter would kill me if I ever tried to take away the new songs she downloaded for DDR. This extra content can make a stale game fresh again.
You mention that custom soundtracks are good for FPS, Racing, and Tony Hawk style games. I'd like to add 'all sports games' to that list. And the idea that you can just turn off the in-game music, and use a CD player...umm..yeah, you can....but it wouldn't be nearly as nice. I have over 8 hours of music ripped to my Xbox, so putting it on 'random' will keep things mixed up for quite a while. Snowboarding with your own music is 1000 times better than listening to someone elses soundtrack.
Yes- internet gaming is an over-hyped feature. If you don't have access to it. Most people that use Live, love Live. Of the games in my collection (40+) the ones I take out and play again and again, are the games that are multi-player, including Live. Crimson Skies is a good game- but Crimson Skies on Live is much better. Same with every other game on Live. The majority of games are single player- but the majority of NEW Xbox games are Live enabled. You might get a thrill out of 'beating the computer' on a single player game, but for me there is nothing like real human competition.
All of those things are only possible with the 'technology' in the Xbox. Yes, the PS2 has a hard drive add-on, but you can't put a game out knowing that people have it. (Except for the version of Final Fantasy that comes with it)
The two things that my Gamecube and PS2 owning friends drool over when they finally get to experience them...the hard-drive, and of course Live.
I never need to search around for the right memory card. And yes last time you are at my house playing a game, your characters are still there. (Why would I delete them?) YES those are real people that are shooting your plane down right now.
That is technology that the Xbox has- that developers can use to create great games. Most of the people that play down the importance of things like on-line gaming (Live) are the ones that have never used it. For the rest of the people that do use it, it becomes very, very important.
*If you feel the need to say "but the neXtbox won't have a hard-drive" please refrain, until we see what the specs really are.
If people do 'hobby development' on the Xbox, it could cause serious problems with the revenue stream.
Microsoft makes money on every game sold. The typical home-grown game programmer is not going to give MS their cut.
Why subsidize the hardware, if you don't make money on the software?
HDTV will be a big, big factor.
The prices are coming down fast. Personally, I wish every game played at 1080i- but unfortunately, only a handful (4 I believe) play at that resolution.
I want to see my HDTV do something other than 480p- so the next console better be able to push that resolution, without any problems.
Also, I want everything to load faster, and load bigger. I don't want a 30 second load everytime I use an elevator in Deus Ex: Invisible War.
I want graphics that rival a PC, and not just on day one of the console's release, but after year two would be nice too. The original Xbox was actually a real screamer compared to a lot of PCs when it came out but has since been eclipsed about 4 times over.
Throwing what seems like wayyyy too much hardware at it now, will pay off in the future. Of course, that is always the way it is with every 'computer'.
And if they want to release it a year ahead of Sony, they'll need to attempt parity with Sony's machine that will benefit from the technology being a year older/cheaper.
Okay...next time I'll make sure I use those geeky [sarcasm] [/sarcasm] tags. Just for you.