The XBOX 360 Thread!

[Katsuya]

Well, it is 3:20 AM right now (still little bit drowsy ) I’m praying I don’t get called into the office today. I’m going to visit the store later and get something to make lunch with (any suggestions?) Then take a power nap and just generally relax for the day. (with some light paperwork )

As most of you know later is the official unveiling of the first nextgen game system. Xbox 360.

If you live in Japan or America (or have a broadband internet for web-cast. Or have a satellite-TV enabled cell phone)

Watch the event and comeback here, and post what think about it. (Then we can all have a nice civilized discussion with no fighting/name-calling)

Have a good day/night. Eat, drink, (smoke if you prefer )

Hope to see you here later.

-------------K.O.----------

-data-

America site
http://www.mtv.com/games/video_games/xbox/index.jhtml

Japan site
http://www.mtvjapan.com/onair/progra..._17/pgm_type=1

-data-

[D.D.]

for lunch, i recommend two slices of bread, and peanut butter and jam inside. thats something i just learned from a friend at work and its actually very good.

[Katsuya]

Well D.D thank you for the suggestion. I had a bread, peanut butter, and grape jam… thing. I usually don’t eat sweet things for lunch. But this was nice. It went fine with the spicy chicken salad I made. (And chocolate drink )

I watched the 360 unveiling. The celebrities where fun, however they did not add much of anything to the presentation. Mostly because they were just another type of smokescreen.

I guess I’ll start with the design. White as base color won’t work for everyone. And face plates don’t change that and just look a bit out of place. But if Microsoft is smart it will fix that (like Nintendo, remember how weird the indigo cube looked next to your black/silver TV)

The size is not too bad. Considering what is inside the box (or what should be inside… more on that later)

Tri-core water-cooled… neat technology but with more resources going to the OS and multimedia features… the efficiency of the system might suffer.

The games…

Need For Speed Most Wanted. Impressed me… but I know that was not running on actual hardware. In fact nothing we have seen from EA has been on any nextgen hardware. It’s the same CG tec that’s been around for the last 2 years. That is why they are careful to say “we believe this is what it can look like”

Perfect Dark Zero. The new art style is not that impressive to me. And for a game that’s been in development for so long it looks a bit primitive. And most of the shots we saw were also not running on real hardware. But when we did finally see it running on prototype… (they tried hard not to let us see how its was playing by inter cutting Pre-rendered footage and player reactions.)

it was extremely choppy. Why? Some possibilities…

One. The hardware just is not finished. More specifically the video chipset ATI was unable to deliver a manufactured chip in time for the show. Perhaps its running on an ATI RADEON X800. or its playing the game entirely on its Tri-core CPU.

Two. It’s underclocked to deal with heating issues. (Its know the system will throttle its self down like the PSP)

Three. It’s still fairly difficult to program for and the dev team still needs time to optimize with the new system. (I believe it was going to be for Xbox1 until the recent change) the architecture is so different most of the code may need to be redone, that is almost four years of development time wasted.

Four. Some kind of network lag issue… but I doubt that.

The rest of the software was flashed to fast to really comment on. Most of it was just group faces and celebrity’s reactions (remember the smokescreen)

Anyway, that’s what I see so far. I hope E3 is more entertaining.

So what do all of you think?

[RZetlin]

Tri-core water-cooled… neat technology but with more resources going to the OS and multimedia features… the efficiency of the system might suffer.

So does the Xbox360 uses a water cooling system for the CPU? Wouldn't this be more difficult to maintain?

Where there any video demos that showed off the full power of the Xbox360?

[n_w95482]

The show did say that it uses water cooling and dual exhaust fans. How would it be more difficult to maintain?

[RZetlin]

Originally Posted by n_w95482

The show did say that it uses water cooling and dual exhaust fans. How would it be more difficult to maintain?

Well a Water Cooling System would require the use of water to cool the CPU. How many casual gamers would remember to fill up their system with water from time to time. I can see a lot of overheated Xbox360 units because of this.

[Cid Highwind]

Originally Posted by RZetlin

Well a Water Cooling System would require the use of water to cool the CPU. How many casual gamers would remember to fill up their system with water from time to time. I can see a lot of overheated Xbox360 units because of this.

Meaning it's definately NOT a console to be put in a child's bedroom without the parent having to look after it...

Expect a lot of complaints by parents who haven't read the instruction manual

[XxCrashxX]

well idont know lot bout water cooling, but I would think that even m$ would realize that this is ridiculous to expect a casual gamer to take care of "filling up" their box from time to time.

I would venture to say that its not as troublesome as it sounds

I missed the show last night,gf wanted to go out to eat, so duty calls

is there anywhere to dl it (hopefully in wmv, im on 56k for the summer)

[Dark Watcher]

Originally Posted by Katsuya

Well D.D thank you for the suggestion. I had a bread, peanut butter, and grape jam… thing. I usually don’t eat sweet things for lunch. But this was nice. It went fine with the spicy chicken salad I made. (And chocolate drink )

I watched the 360 unveiling. The celebrities where fun, however they did not add much of anything to the presentation. Mostly because the where just another type of smokescreen.

I guess I’ll start with the design. White as base color won’t work for everyone. And face plates don’t change that and just look a bit out of place. But if Microsoft is smart it will fix that (like Nintendo, remember how weird the indigo cube looked next to your black/silver TV)

The size is not too bad. Considering what is inside the box (or what should be inside… more on that later)

Tri-core water-cooled… neat technology but with more resources going to the OS and multimedia features… the efficiency of the system might suffer.

The games…

Need For Speed Most Wanted. Impressed me… but I know that was not running on actual hardware. In fact nothing we have seen from EA has been on any nextgen hardware. It’s the same CG tec that’s been around for the last 2 years. That is why they are careful to say “we believe this is what it can look like”

Perfect Dark Zero. The new art style is not that impressive to me. And for a game that’s been in development for so long it looks a bit primitive. And most of the shots we saw were also not running on real hardware. But when we did finally see it running on prototype… (they tried hard not to let us see how its was playing by inter cutting Pre-rendered footage and player reactions.)

it was extremely choppy. Why? Some possibilities…

One. The hardware just is not finished. More specifically the video chipset ATI was unable to deliver a manufactured chip in time for the show. Perhaps its running on an ATI RADEON X800. or its playing the game entirely on its Tri-core CPU.

Two. It’s underclocked to deal with heating issues. (Its know the system will throttle its self down like the PSP)

Three. It’s still fairly difficult to program for and the dev team still needs to time to optimize with the new system. (I believe it was going to be for Xbox1 until the recent change) the architecture is so different most of the code may need to be redone, that is almost four years of development time wasted.

Four. Some kind of crazy network lag issue… but I doubt that.

The rest of the software was flashed to fast to really comment on. Most of it was just group faces and celebrity’s reactions (remember the smokescreen)

Anyway, that’s what I see so far. I hope E3 is more entertaining.

So what do all of you think?

We pretty much echo Katsuya's impressions.

All of the games show in brief glimpses seemed to show nothing more then CG sequences, and no real gameplay. What was shown could also be reproduced on the current Xbox in our opinion.

The only game that did show actual gameplay was Perfect Dark Zero, and again Katsuya got it right on the money. Only selects closeups were shown, but most were panned out or switched to gameplayers face reactions. There was no real way to tell if the game was being played on an actual Xbox 360 other then the controllers being used, and the gameplay was not impressive graphically, and did appear choppy.

The show was mostly brief glimpses that didn't offer much filled in with celebrity fluff, but we figured as much. The Perfect Dark Zero gameplay did show signs that development was still behind. They did show some of the new Xbox Live features such as downloadable content, games, etc but only the menus were shown. It seems that the "Live" aspect was what M$ was pushing for more then the actual hardware. A part of us feels like the features idea of "Live" was kind of stolen from the "Phantom console" concept..ah well..who even knows if Phantom makes it..haha

Keep in mind that regardless of what Xbox 360 has under the hood (and for the record let it be known that we hate that name), it will take some time for developers to get adjusted to the 3 CPU / 1 GPU architecture....granted Sony seemed to pull it off, but for the most point developers are still used to a single CPU / GPU design...So we are not expecting much graphically for initial releases (Thus our feelings on Perfect Dark Zero).

Design wise we were kind of thrownoff by the Mini Mac PC like white design. It is definitely a step up from the original Xbox design (and almost 3X smaller). We suppose we could get used to it (they can keep the faceplate crap), but we were hoping that M$ would move away from the "It's really a PC" presentation.

Here is some scoop that was not in the unveiling show, but should have been because the hollywood fluff was pointless:

• 512 megs of high-performance RAM.
• Xbox 360 will fully support all standard and HD TV modes, with 2 levels of anti-aliasing
• graphics giant ATi, runs at an impressive 500 Mhz (in comparison, the original Xbox's brawny nVidia graphics chip ran at just 233 Mhz). The chip will also handle an astonishing 48 pixel shader pipelines
• three symmetrical IBM PowerPC processor cores running at 3.2 Ghz each (each core being roughly eight times the power of the Xbox's lone 733 Mhz processor
• Xbox 360 games will ship on standard and dual-layer DVDs
  But here's one last-minute rumor: Variety is reporting that Microsoft "is expected to announce this week that HD DVD (a competitor to Sony's Blu-ray format) will be a non-exclusive component of the upcoming Xbox 360
• Xbox 360 will support DVD playback right out of the box (you won't have to buy a separate remote control). It also supports progressive scan for smoother, sharper video playback.
• And yes, it does include an integrated hard drive--it's 20 GB, and it's detachable and upgradeable.
• The unit itself is decked out with a sleek chrome look, a far cry from the clunky plastic hell that was the original Xbox. It also features a customizable, removable faceplate. The unit's size is roughly a quarter to a third smaller than the existing Xbox
• users can stand the unit either horizontally or vertically (on its side, tower-style).
• The internal cooling system is also more advanced, and can adjust its fan speed (decreasing the noise) when the unit is being used for DVD playback
• The controllers are wireless, and aside from an Xbox Live-enabled toggle button (placed dead-center on the controller) and re-positioned White and Black buttons (they're shoulder buttons now), Microsoft made very few changes from the Xbox's now-standard Controller S, and it's about the same in size. Players will also have the option of using wired controllers, via the unit's USB ports. And as an added bonus, PC players will be able to use the Xbox 360 controllers, too.

[stilz]

About the water cooling: "Microsoft also chose a vacuum sealed water cooled heatsink to manage heat." I'm don't complete know what that is, but I guess it address the problem of having to change water and such.

[RZetlin]

I just watched the Microsoft conference at GameTrailers.

While the Sony conference focused on the technical aspect of their console Microsoft focused on the marketing aspect of their console.

I'm puzzled as to Microsoft's goal to make their console mainstream.
Can we really picture a 50 year old mother sitting in front of the Xbox 360?

What's this human energy MS keeps talking about it? It sounds like something from the Matrix.

There is a great emphasis on the Xbox Live component. MS wants to turn the Xbox 369 into an online multimedia hub where casual gamers can play small games like solitaire. (This reminds me of Phantom's online goals).

The games shown at the conference look like they could have been produced on the Xbox generation 1 console. A few of the games are PC ports (Half Life 2, Hitman) . There's not enough next generation graphics shown.

The Xbox 360 will have backwards compatability with only the top Xbox games. Meaning that not all Xbox games will work with Xbox 360.

MS has finally got Square Enix to create games for them. Though the only title announced so far is Final Fantasy XI, a last generation game that has already appeared on the PC and the PS2. Also Final Fantasy XII is coming for the PS3 so it feels like MS is really getting leftover materials from Square Enix.

Only time will tell if MS can edge out Sony, but in terms of conference presentation Sony beats Microsoft.

[sonicjam]

man i love this console more features then ps3

[FLaRe85]

No, Final Fantasy XII is slated for release on the PS2.

[sonicjam]

he means FFXI

[KanedA]

I so that MS Xbox 360 show from MTV and I have to say: it suX hard... gonna see this one, and hope it'll be much better....

[Samor]

I think companies care more about online gaming than customers....
;P

[Metalmurphy]

Its where the real money comes. And IMO the only reason why square is gonna release FFXI on xbox. Who benefits the most? Square does. Only means more monthly fees comming to they're bank. I really doubt we'll see a FFXIII on Xbox 360.

[KanedA]

do you guys have the same feeling that after merging square acts like a cheap wh0re a bit...??

[Kane]

I think it's more after the unmitigated disaster that was TSW. Great film, box office flow, from which Square never recovered. The Enix merger was a nessecity

[RZetlin]

It looks like Xbox VP J. Allard is taking flak from reporters on the Xbox 360's less than great performance.

G4TV Interview:

Stream: http://www.g4tv.com/videos/index.html?video_key=9126
Download: http://s51.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0...B0ACVN824DMKAB

Eurogamer Interview

Eurogamer: Will you have an exclusive game from Square Enix?

J Allard: You're going to have to talk to Square on that one. My lips are sealed [squirms in chair]...

Eurogamer: But you chose to show off a game that was released three years ago on the PC and we were expecting much more maybe...

J Allard: Well, there was the other trailer he showed as well... He showed a second game as well.

Eurogamer: That was just a tech demo though

J Allard: It is.

Microsoft is in trouble.