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XBox (Games)

Xbox 360 Plans Move Forward 82

Posted by Zonk from the we-released-a-console-remember? dept.
Despite the wait for big-name game releases, the folks at Microsoft haven't been sitting still now that the 360 is (more or less) on store shelves. IGN reports that plans are still moving forward for more backwards compatible titles, despite rumours to the contrary. No dates or titles to expect were released, though. Additionally, a launch in India is just a matter of time, according to a Gamasutra report. They consider the Indian market very important ... they just don't have a date in mind yet. The 360 is slated to launch in Korea on February 24th, and Australia, Taiwan and Singapore on March 2nd.
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Xbox 360 Plans Move Forward More

Xbox 360 Plans Move Forward

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  • On Store Shelves? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MBraynard ( 653724 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2006 @01:38PM (#14549694) Journal
    What stores have the 360 on the shelves?

    • Re:On Store Shelves? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24, 2006 @01:42PM (#14549728)
      Ooh, I know this one... The Japanese ones!

    • Barnes & Noble (Score:2, Interesting)

      by xYike ( 949019 )
      Virtual shelves at least. They've been there for almost a week ... WelMart and Circuit City have also had packages in the last week.
    • The whole shortage thing was a complete fabrication. Microsoft wanted to create buzz, so they intentionally shorted North American distribution.

      I'm not just spouting garbage, either. My proof is simple:
      In early December, my wife went to Japan for a week on business. She went shopping (for a new camera). The electronics stores she visited had hundreds of XBox 360s sitting around in huge piles. As expected, they weren't selling well. They weren't being given out free with every Walkie Bits purchase, yet
      • Now the PS2 shortage at its release, on the other hand, was a real supplier problem. ;p My proof on that one is even more solid, but I could get my source at the vendor who caused the delay in trouble.
      • Please tell me which of these two possibilities is simpler:

        A) Microsoft concocted a deceptive marketing plan that involved creating a shortage and increasing demand, in which they needed to walk the thin line between generating future sales through increased demand and losing sales due to supply shortage. They enacted this strategy in the North American market with more or less successful results that remain to be seen and did likewise in the Japanese market with the result of failure.

        B) Microsoft had a

      • I really don't get this logic, I could see a limited supply creating buzz, but the main buzz this Xbox shortage has created is stuff like "Microsoft abandons sales target" and "Preorder backlog not clear until March".Microsoft are just incompetant at consumer electronics, this sort of proves why they usually leave the hardware side to others.

        Microsoft had a limited amount of consoles they could make before the launch, and as they'd (rather stupidly, IMO)[1] committed to a launch in the three major markets n
      • Your plan might work, but the timing was off.

        For this to be a valid idea, they would have to change things around a little bit. Maybe start selling Xbox 360s sometime in early October- but only release a few of them. Get the public's appetite up.

        Keep up the shortage through Thanksgiving weekend, and into early December.

        Then, in mid-December, once everyone knows this is the 'hard to get, must-have Xmas item' release a ton of them, allowing everyone to buy one- thinking they are getting something special.

        No
    • Try Nottingham (in England), Woolworths and Virgin Megastore seemed to have a couple of Core units behind the counter last saturday. They had large signs up about it and everything, it was quite impressive.
    • At least two Circuit City locations and one Best Buy that I visited over the weekend to check out plasma tvs. Granted it's north-west Indiana, but it's still withing 30-45 minutes of Chicago.
  • Gamespot [gamespot.com] has a list as of the November 22nd. release date of the backward compatible titles. Considering how rushed the 360 was, it's not a bad list.
  • In India that is. Isn't that going to be a big part of wether or not the 360 is going to be a hit or not?
    • Well, we have pretty low HD-TV penetration in the US really. And we still buy Xbox 360s. I mean, people may buy it, then later get HDTVs.

      • Re:What's the market penetration on high-def TV's (Score:5, Interesting)

        by crazed ( 811280 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2006 @02:21PM (#14550043)
        My friend did that. Got his 360 played it on a standard definition TV then got an HDTV. He IM'd me and started raving about how awesome it was. I went over and I took one look at the screen. I immediately noticed jagged edges and not-so stellar clarity. I grabbed the controller, went to the dashboard, and changed the resolution to 720p. He'd been running at the standard 480i resolution. Freakin' idiot. That makes me wonder, how many other XBOX360 owners haven't even enabled HD resolutions on their HDTV and are just fooling themselves into thinking the image is 'so much better'??
        • Judging by the number of users not using [arstechnica.com] HD on their TV's for normal TV broadcasts I'd say quite a lot.

        • In my opinion, most 360 owners are doing the same thing in regards to gameplay. A combination of slightly shinier graphics and +1 features to sequels somehow equals "OMG AWESOME".
          • because we all know that Geometry Wars is just graphical mumbo-jumbo without any gameplay in it at all. . .

            Just to let you know, I don't own a 360, I'll buy one when they're affordable or atleast come with a little extra, and also, when the decent games start popping up. I looked at the launch lineup and noticed that only a handful of them were actually "next-gen" eg, not already available for xbox, ps2, and PC. what, like PGR3, Condemned, RR6, and Kameo, and PD:Z. The rest were just crappy EA regurgitation
            • OK, I'm jaded. Sue me.

              But seriously, I'd like to know how many people have actually bought some of the indie games, and how many people consider that one of the main reasons for buing a 360. I see it as a nice "bonus", but it's not really that great of a deal, as you have to have a broadband connection, and are those games going to be accessible in 15 years?

              I'm sort of hoping that Oblivion will be sort of a "textbook" example of what you can do with the next-gen hardware. Good graphics, a huge world,

    • I bet they want to get Indians hooked on MS stuff due to Linux advocacy there.
    • I was quite surprised buying a TV in India - there are quite a few HD sets to be had. Not just the huge plasmas and LCDs that have falled out of a Bollywood movie. There are old style CRT sets too. HD seems to have more of an impact than widescreen as all the CRTs that I've seen are 4:3 ratio. I bought a Philips HD CRT TV and have a Mac mini hooked up to it.

  • News? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Neoprofin ( 871029 ) <neoprofin AT hotmail DOT com> on Tuesday January 24, 2006 @01:48PM (#14549793)
    So the games that Microsoft plans to release is still slated for release, the backwards compatibility library they've been working to expand is still being expanded, and countries that they plan to sell the 360 in will still be selling the 360?

    Since when is planning to do exactly what you originally planned today because that's still the plan news?

  • Despite what? (Score:4, Informative)

    by SilentChris ( 452960 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2006 @02:02PM (#14549899) Homepage
    "Despite the wait for big-name game releases"

    Huh? What were the following?

    Call of Duty 2: Awesome game. Plays just as well on Xbox 360 as on PC. Received PC Game of the Year honors from many pubs.
    Project Gotham Racing 3: Arguably better than Gran Turismo. Eye-popping graphics.
    Ton of EA support: Argue quality all you want, but Madden and any of the other "2006" titles have big names. Heck, my grandmother has heard of Madden.
    Kameo: Totally underrated and a lot of fun. Nintendo fans have known the name for years.
    Perfect Dark: Again, underrated and a lot of fun. Everyone knows Perfect Dark.
    Geometry Wars, Gauntlet, Joust: These have pretty much redefined "budget" titles. Click a button, pay a few bucks and start the arcade game. Who doesn't know the name Gauntlet?

    Spin the launch all you want (Microsoft deserves it after not having enough boxes on shelves). Fact of the matter is there have been some very good games released at launch. Most consoles launch with 2-3 great games. Of the 20+ launch titles for Xbox 360, more than half received 90% or higher. Some were given "game of the year" honors.
    • I think the 360 has some good titles out (among those mentioned above, I'm salivating for PGR3) but yeah they had to get machines on the shelves. The local games stores are telling me there's going to be a shipment at the end of the month that will not be going to pre-sales since those are almost all fulfilled. I'm still going to wait a month or so to get a .1 or .2 revision box because the original xboxes had issues with both power supplies and dvd-rom drives.
    • To each their own, I guess.

      I see that list of titles and respond with a yawn. I only play shooters with a mouse, don't care about racing sims, and while Madden is nifty and all, it's not enough to get me to buy a whole new console.

      DOA4 finally coming out was a step in the right direction.

      A new GTA game, along the lines of the mafia-movie-inspired GTA3, would be even better, but that franchise is hopelessly devoted to Sony (and their next big plan seems to be for a PC-based MMO game), so I'm not holding my

      • Hopelessly devoted to Sony? Please then explain why I have GTA:San Andreas for Xbox. In fact, I even like the Xbox's control scheme better. I had been dreading it because a lot of people seem to have trouble going from the PS2 control to the Xbox control but I found that I do much better (once I trained my brain not to look for buttons that aren't there) and have less hand strain, to boot - with the SUPERMEGAGIANTOMGWTFBBQ controller no less. But then, I have huge hands.

        The thing that might get me to bu

    • I actually own a 360 and have played every game you mentionned.

      -Call of duty 2 is better played on a pc with mouse + keyboard.
      -PGR3: only for racing sim fans. Cars are not easy to handle and the game is not fun like, say, Full Auto, wipeout, mariokart, sega rally and others. Graphics are adecuate but not eye-popping.
      - All of the EA games were rushed and suck in many different ways.
      -Kameo: the game has FPS issues. Reviews were lukewarm.
      -PDZ: Again, unacceptable FPS issues. The game actually dips lower than 3
      • Okay, a few responses- which of course are just my opinion:

        Call of Duty 2 - Great game. Plays fine on controller for people used to the controller. I prefer it over a keyboard and mouse personally. PLUS it has 4 person split-screen play, which is a lot of fun when you have people over. (Although it does NOT have split-screen system link play, which is totally retarded)

        PGR3 - Great game. Not just for sim fans- but not pure arcade racing either. I enjoyed it, it was a really good game. Playing on-line
    • I'm not going to disagree with your assessed opinions but many bemoan the fact most of these games are "standard". That is their only claim to fame or why anyone noticed these games at all is that they were on the XBox 360 first.

      Going from the PSX to the Dreamcast or PS2 was jaw dropping. Both of PS2 and Dreamcast had release games that said "look how much better over the old hardware we are". The XBox 360 didn't leverage this much at all except for the HDTVness. What the XBox 360 got was some "interest
    • Call of Duty 2: Awesome game. Plays just as well on Xbox 360 as on PC. Received PC Game of the Year honors from many pubs.

      Yes, we all know how accurate gaming publications are.

      Project Gotham Racing 3: Arguably better than Gran Turismo. Eye-popping graphics.

      This is like comparing Virtua Fighter to Marvel vs. Capcom. They're both in the same genre, but they're definitely different games. Oh, and the graphics are basically a "step" above what's come before, not a revolutionary improvement.

      Ton of EA

      • Re:Despite what? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by SilentChris ( 452960 )
        "Yes, we all know how accurate gaming publications are."

        Some are extremely biased, some are paid out, but the industry as a whole gives good indications whether or not a game is worth the money. That's why I use Gamerankings.com.

        "This is like comparing Virtua Fighter to Marvel vs. Capcom. They're both in the same genre, but they're definitely different games. Oh, and the graphics are basically a "step" above what's come before, not a revolutionary improvement. "

        They are both racing sims. Neither has an ar
        • Real gamers own all three systems, and don't let fanboyism get in the way of a good game.

          Ooooh, real gamers. I suppose, as usual with this stupid self-congratulatory "real gamer" crap, the definition of "real gamer" just happens to mesh up exactly with your specific preferences?

          Consider me both shocked and awed.
          • Real gamers own systems that have games they want to play, and they don't let anything get in the way of their enjoyment of a good game. Me, I have to turn in my "Real Gamer" card, because I've been eschewing video games in favor of sex. Somehow I fail to be depressed by the loss of my status...
            • Real gamers own systems that have games they want to play, and they don't let anything get in the way of their enjoyment of a good game. Me, I have to turn in my "Real Gamer" card, because I've been eschewing video games in favor of sex. Somehow I fail to be depressed by the loss of my status...

              Yes, now you only have 23 hours 59 minutes and 37 seconds to play games and post to slashdot instead of the full 24. It must be a crippling burden to deal with, and I'm glad to see that it hasn't affected how much of
        • Real gamers own all three systems,

          I didn't realize that buy buying a certain combination of consumer goods, I became a mythical "real gamer". Thanks for pointing this out, I'll get on this right away. I mean, because if you're a "real gamer", anything I say is obviously null and void.

          ["real gamers"] don't let fanboyism get in the way of a good game.

          It's not possible for a human to detach their biases from an experience. And if there were any good games for the 360, I'm pretty sure I'd enjoy them.

        • Real gamers own all three systems
          Really? I was under the impression that real gamers play because they have a passion for games. Thank you for informing me that I am, in fact, not a "real gamer", despite the fact that I've probably been gaming since you were shitting yellow.
    • Call Of Duty 2: Another 3rd person shooter
      Project Gotham Racing 3: Another Racing Game
      Ton of EA support: More Sports Games
      Kameo: Kind of interesting looking
      Perfect Dark: Seen This before

      There's nothing new on the XBox 360 that doesn't have something similar on other systems. Does graphics alone make one want to run out and spend $500 on the new system/accessories/games? What else am I getting other than better graphics when I buy The new system. Xbox live kind of adds something, but requires high
      • Your argument sounds like the typical Nintendo fan's (graphics aren't everything), so let's look at the GameCube early lineup.

        Luigi's Mansion: Another puzzle game, this time with particle effects. Reused characters.
        Pikmin: Another puzzle game, this time with horrible controls.
        Mario Sunshine: Mario 64. With a water gun on his back. Nothing really new here.
        Eternal Darkness: Now this was cool. Take the survival horror theme and add "insanity" to the player (pretend the controller is unplugged, for example)
        • Yes, but Nintendo Gamecube offered something that Nintendo 64 (it's predecessor) didn't have. The ability to use optical disks, which increased game size immensely. I know everybody else had that too, i'm just saying there was a good reason to go from Nintendo 64 to Gamecube. The revolution also looks to have many more features (the controller) that would make me want to upgrade. And by the way, nintendo has some pretty original titles. Take Animal Crossing for 1.
        • That Star Wars Game was more similar to Rogue Squadron than X-Wing. Completely different play style. Unless there was another one. I think it was actually called Rogue Somethingorother but I forget what. In my breakup, my ex got the Gamecube, and I got the hacked Xbox :)

  • rumors to the contrary? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "IGN reports that plans are still moving forward for more backwards compatible titles, despite rumours to the contrary."

    Were there rumors that they would support fewer backwards compatible titles in the long run?
  • The 360 is slated to launch in Korea on February 24th, and Australia, Taiwan and Singapore on March 2nd.


    I'm confused... What happened to the worldwide launch all on the same day? Microsoft was really pimping that for a long time so no one country could claim technical dominance because they had Xbox 360s before another.
    • Ehh, it's semantics. To MS, a worldwide launch actually meant launching in the US, Europe, and Japan, within a few weeks of each other. Not literally worldwide, nor even on the same day. Obviously it's a lot easier to just claim "worldwide launch", since MOST folk won't notice the difference.

      To be fair, though, most console launches don't come close to what MS just did. They typically release in Japan a few months before going out to the US. Then Europe gets shafted even more. I think handheld console launc

  • Xbox360 and India (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Jack Sparrow ( 748129 )
    According to a Govt of India report released in 2004:

    Penetration of Broadband, Internet and Personal Computer (PC) in the country was 0.02%, 0.4% and 0.8% respectively at the end of December, 2003.
    This is just to give an idea of how important xbox360s biggest selling point(IMO) is to the Indian market.

    I grew up in India. My first console was the mini-Atari 2600 in 1988. That was the "in" thing then, very few kids had them. My next console was one of the NES knock-offs. I did not know about Nintend

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