CNN's Game Over On The 360 442
An anonymous reader writes "CNN's Chris Morris has taken a look at Microsoft's new system. He calls the system 'good, but not great' in a fairly lengthy, well thought out piece. The article also has an amusing gallery of rejected prototype designs." From the article: "Admittedly, tastes vary - so you could easily find a game out this month that's a 'must have' for you. (We'll have a closer look at the launch games early next week.) But if you're looking for something that's ground breaking and sets the trend for the system (as 'Halo' did with the original Xbox), you're not going to find it."
Submitter Needs to RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
But when it comes to must-have games, the Xbox 360 falls short. While there are several good - and even very good - titles that will be available at launch, there's nothing truly great.
Re:Halo (Score:5, Informative)
And on the marketing-side Halo had been at as high a level of anticipation and notariety as any of the FPS games of this era. Controversy (going from a Mac/PC game to just a PC game to just an XBox game) fed into that as well as the vehicles.
They sold a LOT of xbox consoles because of Halo.
It has the potential to be great (Score:2, Informative)
I agree that out of the box on release the 360 will be far from stellar, but thats to be expected. A system like this takes time to mature. Programmers have to gear up for a new platform and so on. There is definately no reason to jump on this especially at the high price. I would wait till Sony and Nintendo release theirs thus driving down prices.
gasmonso http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]Re:Halo (Score:5, Informative)
It was the first console FPS that was actually playable with a decent control mechanism.
um can you say N64 Goldeneye??? Everyone always left it on the default control style (1.1 Honey IIRC) but if you switch to 1.2 Solitaire your skillz go through the roof. it used the analog stick to look around and the c-pad to walk/strafe
Re:Simple Differences (Score:2, Informative)
So, don't worry. Single player games will still be necessary, especially for those who don't have broadband yet.
How much clearer can it be? (Score:5, Informative)
Right there in bold in big letters at the top of the article.
Re:Forget the 360 Factor... (Score:3, Informative)
So anyone complaining about the Xbox not getting cheaper better not have been complaining about the 360 not having a HD built-in, since you can't have both at once.
Maybe the *moderators* should read the article? (Score:3, Informative)
Perhaps people should read the article before flaming the Slashdot editors for not doing so. Or at least read as far as the article title.
The first playable console FPS (Score:5, Informative)
No. That honor probably goes to Goldeneye on the N64. Which was made by Rare, ironically. Another games company bought by Microsoft.
Re:Games sell systems. Xbox 360 has none. (Score:5, Informative)
The PS2 launch lineup:
Armored Core 2 (Agetec, Action)
DOA2: Hardcore (Tecmo, Fighting)
Dynasty Warriors 2 (Koei, Action)
ESPN International Track and Field (Konami, Sports)
ESPN X-Games Snowboarding (Konami, Sports)
Eternal Ring (Agetec, RPG)
Evergrace (Agetec, RPG)
FantaVision (SCEI, Puzzle)
Gun Griffon Blaze (Working Designs, Action)
Kessen (EA, Adventure)
Madden NFL 2001 (EA, Sports)
Midnight Club (Rockstar, Racing)
Moto GP (Namco, Racing)
NHL 2001 (EA, Sports)
Orphen (Activision, RPG)
Q-Ball Billiards Master (Take-Two Interactive, Simulation)
Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2 (Midway, Sports)
Ridge Racer V (Namco, Racing)
Silent Scope (Konami, Shooter)
Smuggler's Run (Rockstar, Racing-Adventure)
SSX (EA, Sports)
Street Fighter EX3 (Capcom, Fighting)
Summoner (THQ, RPG)
Swing Away (Paradise Golf in Japan) (EA, Sports)
Tekken Tag Tournament (Namco, fighting)
TimeSplitters (Eidos, First-Person Shooter)
Unreal Tournament (Infogrames, First-Person Shooter)
Wild Wild Racing (Interplay, Racing)
X-Squad (EA, Action)
Not a huge number of classics, but I would argue that SSX was pretty revolutionary and it's still fun today. The only game that really sort of approximated what it did prior to that was 1080, but it wasn't nearly as tight.
There were also some good niche titles in that list, such as Silent Scope, Kessen, and Dynasty Warriors 2. The 360 launch is lacking quality niche titles to draw in those who aren't all about sports or FPS games. The PS2 also had *two* triple-A fighting games; the 360 has none.
Here's the Dreamcast launch list:
* Airforce Delta | Konami | $49
* Blue Stinger | Sega | $49
* CART Flag to Flag | Sega | $49
* Expendable | Infogrames | $49
* House of the Dead 2 | Sega | $49
* Hydro Thunder | Midway | $49
* Monaco Grand Prix | Ubi Soft | $49
* Mortal Kombat Gold | Midway | $49
* NFL 2000 | Sega | $49
* NFL Blitz 2000 | Midway | $49
* Pen Pen Tri-Icelon | Infogrames | $49
* Power Stone | Capcom | $49
* Ready 2 Rumble | Midway | $49
* Sonic Adventure | Sega | $49
* Soul Calibur | Namco | $49
* TNN Hardcore Heat | ASC | $49
* Tokyo Xtreme Racing | Crave | $49
* TrickStyle | Acclaim | $49
You'll never convince me that Power Stone was not revolutionary, Sonic Adventure wasn't the best platformer of its time, and Soul Calibur was not the best fighting game ever made. Beyond that, again a good mix of mainstream stuff (NFL 2K being the best sports title available at the time) and niche titles (HotD2, TXR, etc.). The 360 just doesn't have the mix right, and it's lacking *any* true standouts.
It's also worth noting that the Dreamcast launch had a much better proportion of original titles to sequels than the Xbox 360 does.
The GameCube I might grant you, although at least the GameCube did have some of Nintendo's best franchises represented (though no Mario) - and it had one of my favorite games of all time, Super Monkey Ball. Show me that kind of silly fun in the Xbox 360's launch lineup.
I would agree with those that say the 360's launch lineup is relatively weak. It's not the worst I've ever seen (go back a few years and you'll find systems that launched with only 2 or 3 games total!), but it's not great by recent standards.
Re:Yeah, sony is so dumb. (Score:2, Informative)
Raiding guilds in MMOs say differently.
- having a universal friends system. (I don't see that on the PC. And don't say GameSpy. POS)
XFire. Been in use for ages. Free and works well.
- having universal voice chat. How many different voice chats do you have on the PC?
A few, Ventrillo/Teamspeak being the two big ones. A lot of games are coming with comms built in tho(ALA Civ 4). Your friends/guild-members/clanmates will standardize on one of them.
- Micropayments for content.
Content/mods on the PC are generally FREE.
- Authenticated content only. Let me just say goatse....
Yea and let me just say "mexican jewlizard" and verbal abuse in live. Griefers will grief regardless of authentication.
Live has a lot over the PS2's system, but it doesn't have much over the PC(at least worth paying for).
Re:Halo (Score:1, Informative)
Guess who wrote Marathon? Go on, see if you can guess.
Re:Forget the 360 Factor... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Halo (Score:3, Informative)
Correction:
They didn't lose so much money that they had to abandon the market all together. The Xbox LOST MS a lot of money over it's lifespan... it did not "make enough".
They won't sit back and watch that happen again. You'd better pray that MS sells a multitude of 360's all over the world.
My prognostication:
The 360 will experience a similar trend as the original Xbox, in that it will sell units, but will not dominate the market the way MS hopes it will. Subsequently, it will not make enough money, and MS will be forced to pull the plug before the next next-generation consoles make it to market in 4-6 years.
Re:Simple Differences (Score:4, Informative)
About half of the PS2 games I own have Dolby Surround or Dolby Pro Logic II.
You people actually LIKE the phase-shift effects and subtle harmonic distortion from using Dolby AC3?
I'm not going to get into a DD vs DTS debate. I'm talking about the capability of the console to output 5.1 channel sound.
I also like how you went from [PS2 can't play AC3] from your link to [PS2 can't play 5.1]. I guess the DTS track I used during all of GTA didn't count, then? (you actualy expect dolby.com to mention DTS, too?)
The PS2 doesn't support 5.1 channel sound during gameplay period. And no, DTS doesn't count, because in the 6 games that actually have DTS it's DTS 4.0
The PS2 has no dedicated hardware to perform real-time 5.1 channel output. The CPU requirements of a software codec for Dolby Digital are higher than for DTS, which is why there are DTS games for the PS2. However, those games only use 4 channels.
The Xbox has a dedicated hardware codec for Dolby Digital 5.1.