360 Has Best Launch Lineup Ever? 204
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!'"
Still no Ultramix DDR support! (Score:4, Interesting)
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!
This won't go over well on slashdot (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:No. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No. (Score:2, Interesting)
Not enough genre variety (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:No. (Score:3, Interesting)
More examples come to mind:
SNES: Super Mario World
Genesis: Sonic the Hedgehog etc etc
Now if you buy a console... It doesn't come with a game nor are most of the other games a killer app so to say. I'll admit that even Nintendo has shied away from this practice. I had to purchase Mario DS seperatley and it wasn't even that great of a first game. Now it appears the DS lineup is maturing and the games really excellent now.
This might be just the way the development cycle works now... Get the console out first and then make the good games 6 months down the road.
The Xbox 360 philosophy? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Sometimes It Is Better Just To... (Score:5, Interesting)
Over the past week all I have seen is this bald douchebag telling me how games are going to take a "new direction" and microsoft is going to be there for it. The ONLY thing xbox has going for it is xbox live, and that's not all that great.
PLaying a puzzle game to make food for your Halo army? WTF? Does this guy not understand that these types of forced roles have been attempted before? I am not playing ANY game where I might have to handle some remedial task over and over again so my team can win. I'm not talking holding a position that no one comes to for a little while, or distributing healthpacks during a clash - I'm talking Halo: Pizza Puzzle Online. Yeah, that's neato.
Hearing him talk about multi access portals is even worse. Mr. J - have you even thought of the technical requirements for playing in the same game world from a phone, PC, and console? It's called lowest common denominator and it will sink that dream like a stone. You could have multiple different games in the same world on different platforms but that would be the same thing we have today. Way to blow smoke dumb ass.
I have yet to hear a Japanese Third party developer gush over your machine. Mostly I hear corp speak from a rep, not a developer. Not good dude.
You say you're a fan of persistent worlds? Then why did you guys purchase Bungie and change their dream of what HALO was supposed to be, a persistent online fragfest warzone, into a mediocre FPS with no tactical elements to it. Oh, probably because you don't know what your talking about.
This guy even has a writeup in POPSCI magazine about how innovative his console is. Yeah, no hard drive, selective backwards compatability, a release lineup where all the games aren't available yet, and a flawed DESIGN resulting in overheating - innovative in that maybe no one has tried to screw themselves over this hard with a new console release since the Jaguar.
You're publicist called, she says you sound like a moron.
Best? I don't think so... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
It is a success, unless you ask J. Allard (Score:3, Interesting)
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!
Re:Sometimes It Is Better Just To... (Score:3, Interesting)
"The Xbox 360 is the best solution [to delivering the highest quality gaming] at the current time," said Tecmo producer Tomonobu Itagaki.
That would be because it is the only next gen console available at the current time. More a statement of fact than a statement of support.
Capcom producer Keiji Inafune said the console offers plenty of potential, but how much of that gamers get to see depends on how developers use its multicore architecture. "I believe that we'll be seeing two kinds of games for a while after the Xbox 360's launch," Inafune said. "Games that feel like something on current-generation consoles and games that feel like they're Xbox 360 titles."
Where does he endorse the XBOX 360 in that quote? He doesn't. He merely states his opinion on the scene, that some developers are going to take advantage of the next gen capabilities beyond better textures. This is a cookie cutter statement made by all developers at the time of a new hardware launch. These guys do make statements about the xbox 360, they're just not lighting themselves on fire about it.
Says Konami producer Akari Uchida, "It's as though we need to bring the quality graphics from prerendered movies into the actual game."
Taken out of context. Japanese 3rd party developers prefer prerenders with a layer of realtime over it. When I heard this statement it was refereing to the limited space on the game delivery medium and how that would affect their design. Now, I'm not claiming to know the originating point of this quote, but it doesn't sound to me like he is going "XBOX YAY!"
I do concur though that they all said it would be pretty easy to develop for, I also maintain my stance that none of them are drooling all over themselves with the prospect of actually doing it.
Re:The Xbox 360 philosophy? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not going to claim that MS can't earn any casual gamer support, but they've already dug themselves into a bit of a ditch. How are casual gamers going to learn about these games? Will they want to spend $300 on a new console? Will they want to spend $10 on a game they can play elsewhere for free? Will they even want to play their games on an Xbox controller? What are they going to do if they fill up their memory card with games and need to buy a $99 hard drive?
There are still a lot of barriers to entry for the casual gamer. Maybe once the 360 drops a bit in price and accumulates a larger library on the Marketplace things will change, but right now they're not looking too hot.