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."
Oooof.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Halo (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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:Halo (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Halo (Score:4, Funny)
On behalf of the ~50 other people in my workplace I must respectfully disagree.
Re:Halo (Score:2)
Re:Halo (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Halo (Score:3, Interesting)
I can only think of the NES, SNES, and N64 as systems that had launch games that justified the system purchase. (MARIO!)
I'm buying the 360, and a couple launch games, but I'm not getting the system for just the launch games. I'm also getting the system for all the great upcoming games over the next 4/5/6 years. Plus, I have a HD TV, and it's nice to have a system designed for it.
Re:Halo (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Halo (Score:3, Interesting)
But who cares? There are some great games and a cool online service, which is all I care about as a gamer.
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 ma
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:Halo (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope, Bungie's the pioneer (Score:3, Insightful)
Half-Life's story is very good, and it is a fine game... but you should also check Bungie's old first-person shooters: Pathways Into Darkness (93) [bungie.org] and the Marathon series (94/95/96). [bungie.org] Not only they came first, and were also great games, but their stories - actually a single huge epic hard sci-fi tale - remain as possibly the deepest, most complex and finely crafted plot in a computer or console game, of any genre, ever.
Re:Oooof.... (Score:2)
Oooof.... (Score:2)
What?? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What?? (Score:5, Funny)
Not to mention the interchangeable faceplates! They make everything look faster...
Re:What?? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What?? (Score:2)
Of course, you may not even like the games, which is fine, but maybe you'll want to give it a whirl just to try it. I imagine you'll have to download a few patches, but still. The results may be interesting.
And, who knows, once some games start doing it, more games (may) follow. And
ebay? (Score:5, Insightful)
The short answer: Not on Day One.
What if you plan on making money because of the shortages and selling one overpriced on ebay for an extra 100-500$?
Re:ebay? (Score:5, Funny)
Needless to say the staff immediately plumped for the 360 and opted to sell short the Microsoft stock.
Simple Differences (Score:5, Interesting)
Sony is still working strong on delivering the prettiest stuff. Nintendo is going for revolutionary technology (just look at the controller!).
The odd man out in this situation is Sony. Nintendo is taking a big chance which will (IMHO) cash them into tons of entertainment centers this upcoming year. X-Box has replayability simply due to the fact that you can play the same game over and over online and get a new experience everytime. Sony is just standing still. They either need to make some reliable online play a la Microsoft, go for something revolutionary a la nintendo, or they may be sitting in third place this time next year...
Re:Simple Differences (Score:5, Interesting)
What I'd be much more curious about (Score:3, Interesting)
The XBox backwards compatibility is handled by a series of small emulator programs installed on the hard drive, and distributed by Microsoft either on CD or over XBox Live (y
Re:Simple Differences (Score:2, Interesting)
I couldn't tell from the article, but it almost sounded like part of setting up the machine is creating an XBox-Live account. Is that right? Here's the part I'm referring to
When you first turn on your Xbox 360 and take care of initial set-up (choosing a language, time zone, etc.), you're prompted to either set up or transfer an Xbox Live account. Doing so is an easy, painless
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.
Re:Simple Differences (Score:2)
Re:Simple Differences (Score:2)
You know, it really depends on the game. To this day I can still fire up a game of Gran Turismo I and be just as happy with it as the first 104958215335 races I played. While I wouldn't mind online play I'm certainly not going to go about it via Microsoft's implementation (a pay-for network).
Re:Simple Differences (Score:2)
Re:Simple Differences (Score:2, Insightful)
wha? *spit-take*
Muhahahahaha!
That's exactly contradictory to the annoying rhetoric I've gotten from every single xbox fanboy I've seen!
For such a long time it was "What? PS2? GCN? Never! We want the platform with superior graphics - slightly inferior graphics is so last decade!"
Heck... they even would go off on a rant about how the xbox has far superior sound or some such bs, even
Re:Simple Differences (Score:2)
Re:Simple Differences (Score:2)
I'm an XBox fanboy (although you haven't technically seen me), but I'm primarily a videogame fanboy. Where fun games are, I will be.
Re:Simple Differences (Score:2)
Re:Simple Differences (Score:2)
Re:Simple Differences (Score:2)
Well, that's somewhat true actually. The XBox is capable of Dolby Digital 5.1 sound during gameplay, while he PS2 is not. I have a PS2, and it will only play sound in 5.1 during prerendered cutscenes (or playing DVDs). It will switch back to Pro Logic II for gameplay. Take a look at the intro to MGS2 on the PS2 for an example of this.
even though it's still going over the same link quality 44.1kHz/16-bit
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.
Re:Simple Differences (Score:2)
I know it's easy to lump people together under the "fanboy" label, pretend they all think in exactly the same way, and treat any disagreements between them as hypocracy (since they are obviously contradicting themselves... even if they aren't the same selves... or something.)
As a Mac guy, I get that shit all the time.
"What??? You think Intel-based laptops are a good move? Hah! What a joke! Last
Yeah, sony is so dumb. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Yeah, sony is so dumb. (Score:2, Insightful)
- average Joe to play. No dice with PC games
- having a universal friends system. (I don't see that on the PC. And don't say GameSpy. POS)
- having universal voice chat. How many different voice chats do you have on the PC?
- Micropayments for content.
- Authenticated content only. Let me just say goatse....
As for Sony doing it anyways: You remember the Red vs Blue movie about g
Re:Yeah, sony is so dumb. (Score:3, Funny)
Geez, there are four million and one of you and you still can't kill one shaman? Guess they really are overpowered!
Re:Simple Differences (Score:2)
The current generation XBox already has XBox Live. Sony may be behind, but Microsoft isn't moving anywhere with their new system. They're holding to the status quo, just like Sony.
Re:Simple Differences (Score:2)
Re:Simple Differences (Score:2)
Re:Simple Differences (Score:2, Interesting)
It's all about being able to download NES/SNES/N64 games onto it. Such a huge library... it should only take seconds to download most old games, too. They are realy small by today's standards...
Wait... (Score:5, Funny)
If you're thinking you're gonna go wait at Best Buy in Bellevue, you're not. It's not worth the trouble. Just pretend it's just another day, and don't go out.
Please wait? The fewer the people that go out, the better the chance of getting mine. And I'm already planning to take Tuesday off of work.
Re:Wait... (Score:2)
"No, you don't need to come in on $insanely_busy_day, we'll have to later I'm sure."
"Ok."
(To myself:) "YES! One less customer to serve!"
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:Submitter Needs to RTFA (Score:2)
Re:Submitter Needs to RTFA (Score:2)
Re:Submitter Needs to RTFA (Score:2)
That all said, without including the games in your assessment of a console, the assessment is somewhat flawed. The differ
How much clearer can it be? (Score:5, Informative)
Right there in bold in big letters at the top of the article.
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.
Games make the system. (Score:2)
Re:Submitter Needs to RTFA (Score:2)
Core Gamer? (Score:5, Insightful)
I consider myself a core gamer and I wouldn't touch this with a 10 foot poll on launch day. I have my reservations about the 360 and to be honest, Microsoft hasn't done enough to get me excited about this launch. I'd pre-order a Revolution right now if I could. PS3 has some time still to either get me really excited or turn me off completely to the PS3.
I remember waiting eagerly for the PS2, Game Cube, and X-box. I couldn't wait for the release of these systems. I don't know if it's the fact that I'm a few years older or if it's the way these systems are marketed, or the fact that they just seem to be more of the same (except for the Revolution). But I'm taking a cautious approach to the 360 and unless things change will do more of the same with the PS3.
Re:Core Gamer? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ooooh! Marginally improved graphics and mediocre games! How could I not want one??
I'm sure I'll end up getting one eventually when the price drops and better games are available, but at the moment I can barely muster the energy for a "meh". And that's remarkable considering that I'm a high-def freak -- in an age when most people don't have one high-def display, I have five. The XBox 360 is the fi
Re:Core Gamer? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know about you, but the Sony rootkit has managed to turn me off completely to the PS3.
I'm not going to make the mistake of believing that the general public would feel the same way, but I can't understand why anyone who reads /. would even consider sending money to Sony.
Re:Core Gamer? (Score:3, Interesting)
Right, that holds water.
You seem to think MS can be trusted to treat you any better? Sony's blunder is just dumb. MS plots this type of think while you sleep...day in and day out.
This is from the recent Wired article on t [wired.com]
Re:Core Gamer? (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed, he doesn't mention Microsoft. Not at all. Yet you somehow manage to infer in his post that he thinks MS can be trusted? He didn't say anything! For all we know he may be throwing darts at a picture of Bill Gates every day.
Want to know where that troll smell is coming from? Check your post. (And you got modded up to boot, gotta love
Re:Core Gamer? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Core Gamer? (Score:3, Interesting)
Couldn't care less (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup (Score:2)
Beware the Games (Score:5, Insightful)
Read the reviews of the games. The games visual quality varries drastically (reportadly). Take the GameSpot review of NBA 2K6. If you have a SDTV, it is almost indistinguisable between the XBox and XBox 360 versions (there are slight differences, but nothing noticible). But if you have an HDTV, things look agazing. During replays they say you could easily mistake it for real footage. There is supposed to be tons of animation and detail (ex: the player's shirts get wet with sweat during the course of the game). But while that looks great, they say that the croud and coach look almost like they did in the XBox version (so when compared to players, it is a bit of a visual jolt because of the quality difference). If you have an HDTV, it is supposed to be great.
Now take Tony Hawk's American Wasteland. With SDTV, it looks like the XBox version. At HDTV, it looks worse. That's what Gamespot says. The low resolution of the textures become apparent, they shimmer, and the models obviously have low poly counts (they mention it especially with the story footage scenes, as opposed to in game). This is what quick & dirty XBox 360 ports will often look like, I bet. If the game isn't designed for the system (or next gen) then it will probably look like this.
But the most important thing I've taken away in all the reviews is while things look beatuiful, there isn't that much difference if you still have a SDTV (like me). While I will buy an HDTV one day, it really sounds like buying an XBox 360 wouldn't be worth it right now for me (on a pure graphics basis). A killer game would be one thing, but they don't have any killer-apps for me yet (I want to play PGR3, but not that much).
I wonder how much this trend will continue. Will later games (1.5, 2nd gen) look better at SDTV than current games (excluding a little anti-aliasing), or have we reached the end of what SDTV can show us. My guess is the first category (because with games like Shadow of the Colossus you could have higher poly counts on the large monsters), but we'll see.
I've only seen the 360 in real life for about 5 minutes playing Call of Duty 2 on a 20" screen at Best Buy. While it looked nice, it looked just like any PC game to me (given: Call of Duty IS a PC game, so I realize that).
We'll have to reserve graphics judgements untill more native games come out (the few that are designed for the 360 like PGR3 are supposed to be amazing). But this SDTV thing is something I think more people should be aware of. I wonder how many people will plug in their 360 and their copy of Madden or NBA 2K6 and say to themselves "I spent HOW MUCH for this? It looks just like my XBox" because they only have a SDTV.
Re:Beware the Games (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder how much this trend will continue. Will later games (1.5, 2nd gen) look better at SDTV than current games (excluding a little anti-aliasing), or have we reached the end of what SDTV can show us.
Considering that SDTV still manages to provide an image that looks much more realistic than any game on a PC running at 1700x1200 (consider a well mastered DVD), I think there's a long way we could go yet with SD games. HDTV on games is like polishing a turd (if you'll excuse the crass analogy). It looks like a prettier turd, but it's still a turd.
Fundamentally, computer games still look like computer games. That's not the way it should be. Going to HD rather than staying SD with more processing power only hurts the immersion and simulation of reality. What they should be doing is upping the poly counts on SD resolutions as much as possible to make it look better, not simplying upping the resolution and maintaining the current standard of "art direction". Lower resolutions mean you can spend more cycles on making things look better, not just making them look sharper.
Sony and Microsoft are using the Korean business model - market based on specs, probably mainly because they know men tend to buy into the whole numbers BS. I'm sure things will look better than the current generation of consoles, but I also think that fundamentally, they're chasing the wrong goal. I'm really hoping Nintendo goes in the opposite direction, based on their comments about HD. You don't need HD to have stunning graphics. We can't even do realistic SD graphics yet - how is moving to HD going to help the situation?
Re:Beware the Games (Score:5, Insightful)
Amusing anecdote, but I'd correct it just a bit: Standard-Def allows you to disguise the turd a lot easier, whereas HDTV illustrates the turd in all its bare turdliness.
Re:Beware the Games (Score:3, Interesting)
Polycount won't help, with normal mapping you can already do extremly detailed looking creatures without using that much polygons at all. What games are laking graphical wise these days are three things in my eyes:
1) proper lighting, shadows are still the sharp ugly ones which we already had in the day of Starfox on the SNES, that just isn't very realistic, HDR helps quite a bit, but what is n
Re:Beware the Games (Score:2)
Come again?
If you have an HDTV, the game looks like real hdtv footage.
If you have a 525 line set, the game doesn't come close to matching real NTSC footage.
Or maybe, if you have an HDTV, the XBox 360 looks like real NTSC footage. But exposure to hdtv br
No killer app? That depends on who you ask (Score:2)
Forget the 360 Factor... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Forget the 360 Factor... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Forget the 360 Factor... (Score:4, Informative)
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]Another Take (Score:5, Interesting)
games for current consoles (Score:4, Interesting)
I played xbox 360 in best buy the other day... (Score:2)
The game was smooth, very intense and very detailed. The resolution was absolutely insane. It was waaaay better than the original xbox, so I don't quite understand where this guy is coming from.
There are some people who are quite simply PS2 religious and maybe this guy is one of them.
Wha? (Score:2, Interesting)
What does weight have anything to do with the quality of the original Xbox?
They made the PSU external for the 360, now reviewers are complaining about that. I personally could care less if the damn Xbox weighed 10 lbs as long as it does what its supposed to do.
And the art
Re:Wha? (Score:2)
Perhaps entertainment centers cringed when they heard about the vast quantities of mass contained within that green X. Rumor has it that on launch day alone, three thousand entertainment centers fell to the height, weight and girth of the X Box...
Games sell systems. Xbox 360 has none. (Score:5, Interesting)
The 360 has a disastrous lack of solid launch titles. Nothing is revolutionary.
They have no Halo.
They have no Elderscrolls.
They're left with Perfect Dark Zero (which at this point, being so close to launch and seeing no hype, we can only assume will be underwhelming), and Project Gotham (which most people already know will look stunning and be collecting dust within a week).
This is something of a disaster for MSFT, but not in anyway unpredictable. As someone who has worked closely with Microsoft for the last 10 years I've grown to understand how they make decisions: Its all about platform extension and repeat revenue streams. Very, very little thought tends to go in to creativity, design and consumer appeal. Microsofties tend to scoff at those things, holding instead to the belief that a superior business model leads to a superior product line. (What they forget is that they are now in the entertainment business and people could give a crap about their business model.)
More unfortunate for MSFT is the fact that Oblivion, one of their biggest system-sellers (if not *the* biggest) will be released for PC months before 360. Anyone who followed the Morrowind release knows why this is a big deal: The PC version was better supported, and had an enormous user community creating free (and amazingly good) mods for the game. That history, combined with the earlier release will cut deeply into the initial appeal for the 360.
I'll probably get a 360 -- next Xmas -- when there are some games to play.
Re:Games sell systems. Xbox 360 has none. (Score:2)
Launch titles have never been revolutionary. What revolutionary title did the PS2 launch with? The Gamecube? The Dreamcast?
360 is launching with a very competent lineup, though no (as the CNN article pointed out) killer app. It's hard to imagine that the same people who bought the original Xbox for Halo and PGR aren't going to buy the 360 for Perfect Dark and PGR3.
Revolutionary games will come in the second year and beyond, as th
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.
Wrong! The Editors Are As Biased As Can Be (Score:3, Insightful)
The article isn't talking about the console so much as the games that are available at launch. Here are the quotes in context. Jesus editors, biased much?
Except for Nintendo, why bother? (Score:2)
The generation before this (the N64 and Playstation) definitely needed obselescence. The Playstation had pitiful graphics and hardware, while the N64 had no space for anything useful.
Yes, this next generation will allow for shinier graphics, but the clarity of the graphics of the current generation already allow for pretty much the same games this new generation can have.
So what now? Will all games at least look like Doom 3? So now we c
Launch Titles Weak??? (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it me ... (Score:3, Funny)
"It was the Humvee of consoles." (Score:2, Funny)
Even Microsoft admits the first Xbox was ugly. ("It was big," Xbox's Peter Moore said in August. "It was the Humvee of consoles.")
No, it was more like the Aztec of consoles.
Extend its lead? (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't have a lead, Sony does. By a very large margin. "Close the gap on its competition" maybe?
Xbox 360? Looks cool. $60US/game? Screw that. (Score:2)
Publisher greed is going to bite them.
Online is the Key (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Online is the Key (Score:3, Insightful)
Just wait until February, when consumer electronics prices drop. Especially this year in the US, since there is expected to be a pretty stiff drop in consumer spending around that time... in addition to the annual post-holiday season lull, there are also all the bills for heating coming due, which will cost the typical h
Strange review (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, whether halo came out at the X-Box launch or 3 months later is a moot point, either way it would still have been a success. The gameboy initially had Tetris, but long after its launch, Pokemon came along midway through the console's life and totally revitalised it.
What I'm saying is that the killer game doesn't need to be there at launch, just in the first half of the console's lifespan. In any case, good software makes a console, not a single title.
I also think he may have missed the point of the online and media capabilities of the 360. He mentions them with a great deal of enthusiasm, yet seems very blasé about them; to me these are some of the most exciting areas of the 360, especially when it's coupled with a Media Center PC and MP3 players to give you a digital entertainment center. The X-Box Live community is already a proven success and if Microsoft expand on this, they really do have some serious clout against Sony who have yet to roll out a coherent first generation online community for the PSX platform.
All in all, I think the 360 will be a big success, and ultimately one where Microsoft has played on equal terms with other contenders, but as I mentioned earlier, it's the good software that has to make the hardware shine, and I suppose I'm almost glad that that's out of Microsoft's hands...
My experience (Score:4, Interesting)
The graphics are about the same as a modern day computer game with the latest graphics card and cpu.
When I was playing the XBOX360, I realized there's nothing really that cool about this next-gen system. A point the CNN article talks about. It really isn't that innovative. It's just the same games, made prettier.
There's only so much you can do to the graphics, until the gamer realizes hey this is the same thing! Except I paid a whole lot more money!
Playing the XBOX360 made me realize, the innovation of something like Nintendo's Revolution controller may be a greater leap in gaming than Microsoft and Sony. You could end up using the Revolution's controller as a lightsaber, a gun, a tennis racket, a baseball bat, a steering wheel (use your imagination), you can really revolutionize the interaction between the user and the game simply by changing the controller like Nintendo has done. And that thought makes me drool at how more fun games will be.
Otherwise there's no difference in me just going and buying Call of Duty 2 and playing it on my home PC.
XBox Redux (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically, what if you consider "a wide range of tastes" to include things other than sports games and first person shooters? Because that's really all the 360 lineup offers this month. (Though if we are courteous enough to wait until December 1 there's one fighting game; we probably shouldn't think of those as sports games.)
There are literally three games in the XBox launch lineup which are not a sports game or a first person shooter. Kameo, King Kong, and Gun. Kameo is an adventure game-- but, I have yet to encounter anyone at all who considers Kameo a 'must-have' game, or really is particularly interested in it at all. If you like adventure games you'd be much more interested in King Kong and Gun, which do both look like absolutely fantastic games with wide-ranging appeal. But... both of these games are coming out for approximately every system known to man, from the PSP to the Gamecube to the PC. If you own any video game systems at all you can play these games already. Would anyone seriously buy an XBox 360 to play these? Aside from these three, there is one arcade-looking game on the XBox Live marketplace called "Geometry Wars" that looks really cool, but the article said 'must have', so I'm just trying to think about must-have, system seller games here. This is a minigame.
So we're left with what? Well, a niche system that caters to a "wide range" of sports gamers and first person shooter gamers, with a cop to the fighting game crowd coming next month. In other words, the XBox 360 caters to exactly those set of tastes who comprised the hardcore of XBox owners. If you weren't an XBox owner, it seems like the 360 launch library really doesn't do much for you. I can definitely see how the XBox 360 launch would look "must-own" to anyone who really, really liked the XBox! But for the rest of us... well, unless you want to spend $400 to play a $10 psychadelic arcade game, or for some reason you really, really, really want to play "Gun" in HD, the current window of XBox 360 games just seems to ignore your existence entirely.
Few "only Xbox" titles - good (Score:3, Insightful)
A bit off topic, but I would like to see less PS2 only and XBOX only titles.
In fact, I would like to see platform independent online modes (of course on same powered boxes) eg PS3 and 360..
I can understand that sometimes an XBOX map is bigger than a PS2 map, but network-wise I would really appreciate if there would be interoperability thru multiplayer titles.
Even with different single player maps, there should be multiplayer maps that could be played on ps2,ps3,xbox, and 360
clear that ps3 won't connect to Xbox Live, but manufacturer hosted game servers wold be cool for that, or using XBC or KAI Xlink...
Am I dreaming ? I know they are different architectures, but in multiplayer you send cordinates (persons. bullets. vehicles, objects) , button presses and the same map could be playable with e.g. lower res, less textures on Ps2 and Ps3..... (well a bit over simplyfied)
Someone kick me in the head if that is completely an idiotic idea ! And tell me why that does not exist?
I actually tried to find games that would be playable on my consoles - to no avail...
Re:Misleading headline (Score:2)
:ipostedsomethingretardedemoticon
Re:Not Very Powerful (Score:3, Insightful)