XBOX 360 Exposed!

I am a huge fan of the XBox, and have been since long before day 1. XBox 360 will probably not let me down, just want to see a quality lineup, the sooner the better, and then I iwll be more than happy to part with my cash.

There are rotateable images of the controller and box at http://www.xbox360.com/ if you want a good look at it.

Black and white buttons ARE gone. 4 trigger buttons now though, like the ps2 nad that strange x thing in the middle.

I must say the joypad layout is really impressive. I hated the Small XBox pad, because of where black and white were. I got use to the size eventually but after using the large ones for so long its hard to go back.

Anyway I love the new position for the black and white buttons. Since they were rarely used its goog to see they might become more functional.

I think the design of the new XBox is interesting. Some of my female interviewees found the original XBox design incredibly masculine in terms of shape and colour and to me the new design may be attempting to address that in a subtle way.

Also the large XBox controller used to give me hand cramp cause it was just too big…things any savy tech designer would consider..

Aphra.

I think after the first week of using the XBox I was immune, PGR, Halo, Oddworld and Jet Set Radio Future would make anyone immune to the contoller after a solid week of play.

But I can see how small controllers are more attractive and functional. XBob went with the big bold approach, and to be honest they pulled it off only in a way that MS could.

I think every developer in the UK that was asked about the old controller at launch said it was crap. MS never thought to do research across the water and spent millions on that huge thing that the majority of people didn’t have hands able to handle it. This one looks quiet nice though.
Not sure about the white though. The thing about white is if there is any blemish, its going to be noticeable straight away…

But I can see how small controllers are more attractive and functional.[/quote:10b16a23a5]
That wasn’t the issue. It was the fact the most peoples hands weren’t big enough. I only uses the old controller a small bit, but I struggled to reach all the buttons. Think of a kid using it…they definitelly wouldn’t be able to reach all buttons.

Hopefully the controller not too much smaller or I’ll have to rig the old controller when this comes out.

ourcolony.net is over now, if you go there there is a 5min video about the xbox360….. so the reward for ourcolony.net the top 50 teams or so shown in the credits for a second….what a let down!

Righty oh, heres some more news as it broke during the night also…
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=59041

Look at the pics of the games so far, Perfect Dark Zero, Ghost Recon3 and Ninja Gaiden Black…I especially like the X-Ray pics in PD:Z.

The SQUARE ENIX news is abit of a bummer, thats gona be a bit of a blow to their Japanese takeover plans, then again, as the article says, they still have Sakaguchi, Mizuguchi and Okamoto! :D

Sweet mother…
# GPU: Custom ATI 500MHz (10MB embedded DRAM)
# Polygon-drawing capacity: 500 millions per second
# Shader capacity: 48 billion shader operations per second

The next gen GPUs are going to be insane! :D

ourcolony.net is over now, if you go there there is a 5min video about the xbox360[/quote:e8f8408b22]

Ah love that clip – except for the part they all mention their gamer nicks… :lol:

Note the Xbox launch show is on tonight at 8pm on mtv.

The Xbox2 looks extremely impressive.
They’ve fixed so much of the broken stuff – the design looks soo much better, nicer controller too… probably much more likely to suceed in japan.

Enormous hw grunt, a reasonably familiar architecture.

And it will be first to market.

Sony have a real battle on their hands.

I am just not excited at all. sorry.

oh and…Dreamcast called, it wants its controller back.

oh and…Dreamcast called, it wants its controller back.[/quote:5fda8b13b1]

:lol:

I am just not excited at all. sorry.

oh and…Dreamcast called, it wants its controller back.[/quote:ee40cd0324]

You’re a bitter bitter man.

I am just not excited at all. sorry.

oh and…Dreamcast called, it wants its controller back.[/quote:bd88e8f42e]what’s a Dreamcast?

So the Xbox360 is going to belong to all us ant gamers – how generous of MS to give us the opportunity of parting with our cash to allow them to install a control hub in our living room.

You certainly have to hand it to the microserfs – if nothing else they are committed, not content with trying to own all the desktops in the world, having failed to dominate and control the internet, having lost the GDP of 6 small countries establishing net t.v. they are now going to attempt to railroad gamers onto their proprietary games network and use it to flog forty colors of sh*te to anyone stupid enough to buy it – I really only have 2 questions:

Isn’t the console cycle just turning into an electronic version of supersize me ?

When is J Allard getting back with R.E.M ?

they are now going to attempt to railroad gamers onto their proprietary games network and use it to flog forty colors of sh*te to anyone stupid enough to buy it[/quote:26cddbf790]
I dont follow, how are they trying to railroad gamers? If your referring to the Live! service then the two tier system is quite clever I think. As was commented on…

So basically, the Silver tier will let you download some new content, trailers, chat with friends and give you an avatar among other things. But what’s interesting is that Xbox Live Silver will most likely also be used to prevent people from hacking/modding the xbox 360. The current Xbox can be modded to run just about anything – from Linux, to working as a media center to running pirated games. There is one major exception – Microsoft checks a number of items about your Xbox when you login to Xbox Live to make sure it isn’t modded; if it is, you can’t connect. By offering a free Xbox Live service to all users, Microsoft is trying their best to combat the mainstream market from modding their Xbox 360s – however in order for the ploy to truly work Microsoft really needs to make the Silver tier more attractive. But then again, maybe Microsoft isn’t concerned about the limited modding community and is more interested in making sure it doesn’t spread modding mainstream as it takes the Xbox 360 more mainstream.[/quote:26cddbf790]
If you don’t want to use Live! then you dont have to. Its not like STEAM where you HAVE to log in to get games to work, its just an added bonus for those willing to part with their cash. A few of my friends use the existing Live! service and are really happy with it with many a team games of Halo etc..being played.

As for the XBox and MS’ willingness to invest large sums of cash in it, well I think its fantastic to be honest. While everyone loves the odd bit of MS bashing, what they have done this time is what we hoped other companies would do to them in other areas, create more competition within the industry and that is rarely a bad thing in my experience! :)

And the winner of the Xbox 360 lookalike comp is the Dell OptiPlex 170L

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/optix_170L?c=ie&cs=iebsdt1&l=en&s=bsd&~tab=viewstab#tabtop

And if you think Sony aren’t going to try do exactly the same thing, I think you’re being a bit nieve

Sorry, that dell design has been about for a good while

…attempt to railroad gamers onto their proprietary games network [/quote:419ec78588]

and not forgetting the devs with XNA

I just meant I didnt understand the point you were making. Outside the idea of the Live! service I can’t really think of any other area where MS are trying to “railroad” gamers as you put it. Like what omen said, do you really think that if Sony had their way there would be any competition anywhere in the console market? Unfortunately with the aim of most companies being to dominate the market I find lambasting one company for it while excusing another not really fair. Hell I’m sure most of you remember when Sony first announced the “server” edition of the PS3, essentially it was going to go what the XBOX 360 is now plus a few more bells and whistles. At the time it was hearlded by Sony fans as a giant leap forward but now that MS are doing it those same people and indeed others, are giving out about MS trying to “dominate” the market. :roll:

As for MS using all that “viral psychosympathetic marketing mumbo jumbo clap trap” to market the XBox, well I think we’ve already seen Sonys version of it when discussing the Cell Processor’s use in the PS3, god knows what will happen closer to its unveiling! :lol:

And with regards to raising the barriers of entry into the industry, I think that was done in the last generation. Remember it was then that we saw the fall of the mighty SEGA, evidence enough that something major had happened within the industry.

And yes dont worry I’m all up for the expressing of ones views, I love a good debate. Unfortunately with the topic of MS its sometimes hard to find a balanced one! :D

And the winner of the Xbox 360 lookalike comp is the Dell OptiPlex 170L

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/optix_170L?c=ie&cs=iebsdt1&l=en&s=bsd&~tab=viewstab#tabtop%5B/quote:001968db79%5D

Excellent :)

Not to be outdone by Sony, MS’ marketing guys were in fullswing aslo…
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=59135

Some good news though…

Bach came back on, thankfully, to make the obvious – and well known behind the scenes – announcement that Square-Enix is making games for 360. President Yoichi Wada arrived, said everything was fine and dandy and his “games” would be coming to the machine, the first of which being Final Fantasy XI.[/quote:1674ef7619]

As for which console impresses me the most…well I’m gona stick with the XBox 360 for now. Apart from the Live! material the hardware on the XBox seems more usable in the sense that the embedded RAM on the graphics card WILL in fact make anti-aliaising etc… run without any slowdown. The Cell’s abilities on the PS3 are unproven thus far….
As I’ve said before, I’m going to reserve judgement until both consoles are in my lap so to speak…

I’m just after noticing something…
All of the E3 trailers have been put up on http://www.ign.com. Now look at the E3 trailer for Gears Of War. At the very end of the movie a monster runs towards the screen. If you pause it just in time you can see who it is…looks like those Unreal Tech pics werent from the next Unreal after all..
http://www.unrealtechnology.com/flash/technology/ue30.shtml
…see anyone familiar? :D

You’re right, all the bogeys are the unreal tech bogeys!
The textures in that trailer are sweeeeeeet!

Oh and while this may cause some controversy, am I the only one who thinks that FPS’ belong on the PC? Most of the big games coming out on the next gen consoles seem to be FPS’ and to be honest I’ve never really enjoyed playing them with a joypad… :?

Controversial indeed, for the sheer precision of movement guaranteed alone, I would be inclined to say yes.

But, should the FPS be the sole territory of the PC gamer?
I don’t think so, as there are and will be generations of gamers who would never have heard of or played Doom, wolfenstein or even the great duke himself and are solely trained in the arts of joypad manipulation, t’wod be a shame not too introduce them to the wonderful world of get-up-to-yer-elbows killin’ :)

We’ve discussed it among oursleves and while the console kiddies deny it to the ground its a simple fact that if a PC FPS player went up against an equally skilled console counterpart the result would always be in the PC players favour. That said it was funny, I played Halo and Halo 2 on the XBox and even though it was kinda tedious at certain points I found myself cutting the games slack due to the fact it was on a console…

Yes I agree that the FPS shouldnt be confined to the PC however when such games are developed specifially for the console it annoys me. I’ve played the Timesplitters games and more recently Killzone (Killzone2 movie….nice btw! :D ) and have thoroughly enjoyed them but I was constantly wishing I had my trusty keyboard and mouse in front of me…

It is annoying as it would be nice to play games such as killzone on PC,
and the fact that FPS’s are usually used to showcase the most recent hardcore features they are really suited for the PC due to it’s lovely (if expensive) scalability and it’s unfortunate to see a game cut at the knee’s to be ported for a console

With all of the next gen consoles featuring internet access and other such features, odds are most people will pick up a keyboard/mouse for them early in the peripheral purchasing stage.

Dave

at what point are they no longer consoles?

Well many people argued that the XBox was just a keyboard and mouse (as standard) away from being a PC. Now with the new generation the gap is even closer, hell the CPU on the XBox 360 is even water-cooled! :D

well id say as long as a consoles hardware can not be upgraded then we have a diff – tho can see the line blurring too

We as both next gen consoles develop I can see them releasing bigger hard drives for more and more extra content…guess we’ll have to class “upgrading” as adding a new graphics card or something so! :D

Most of the big games coming out on the next gen consoles seem to be FPS’ and to be honest I’ve never really enjoyed playing them with a joypad… :?[/quote:a31c3abeae]

You’ve obviously never played GoldenEye on the Nintendo 64

Heh of course I have but to be honest I found it frustrating not having my mouse in some places.
Note: Sniper rifles should be banned from console FPS :D

Well, considering Sony is adding backwards compatibility with its Playstation 3, Microsoft really had no other choice but to do the same. Xbox 360 will support “top selling” older games through emulation:

Microsoft Corp. said on Monday its new Xbox 360 will run video games developed for the earlier generation of its gaming machine, an enticement to get fans who have already spent hundreds of dollars on older Xbox games to purchase new hardware.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=8509448&type=technologyNews

Also more XBox updates from the E3 including some nice new screens, info on the GPUs and the revelation that the demos werent even being run on Xbox 360s at all! :D

http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2420
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2423

And another closer look at the console..
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2424&p=1

another perspective on the whole PS3 is more powerful than Xbox360 debate http://www.majornelson.com/2005/05/20/xbox-360-vs-ps3-part-1-of-4/

be warned: this is from a Microsoft employee’s blog, but an interesting read nonetheless

Hmmm…. suspect! ;)

A lot of the tragedy about the PS2 was that it was hyped as being this amazingly powerful realistic machine, when in fact the Dreamcast which came out a year before it was about as powerful (and easier to develop for).

It was Sony’s hype about this upcomming incredible machine that was one of the main reasons people shied away from the Dreamcast, although in all fairness, Sega’s failure to let more people know there was another console in the marketplace didn’t help things.

The Most difficult thing about making a game is getting the Content to the draw device fast enough. THe cell chip wont be worth shit if it cant actually pass everything it needs fast enough to the draw device.

The main problem is memory bandwidth, and graphics memory. The processors and graphics cards are more than capable, but getting the most out them can often be an effort and a 1/2

The same goes for XBox 360.

For example a recent test I did with speed tree, saw me rendering over 1 million trees very rapidly, simply because the draw device was tweaked to take in such a large quantity.

The same untweaked draw device couldnt handle more than 5000 with the same speeds.

The hardware is only as good as its weakest point.

simply, in the end, its a fast as the bottle neck!

Ars Technica article on Xbox360 architecture, focussing – interestingly enough given the announcement of Spore and rumours of it appearing on Xbox360 – on procedural content generation

Inside the Xbox 360, part I: procedural synthesis and dynamix worlds
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/xbox360-1.ars

While the comments are aimed directly at nVidia and should obviously be taken with a grain of salt, it seems ATI developer relations manager Richard Huddy thinks the XBox 360 will be better than the PS3…
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/06/10/news_6127350.html
As I’ve said before I think its going to the GPU that sets the two consoles apart with both manufacturers taking very different routes both with the pipeline and onbaord RAM…

Seems the new generation of consoles arent THAT far ahead of the PC already! nVidia has just launched their new chipset and heres some interesting comparisons…
http://translate.google.com/translate?sourceid=mozclient&u=http%3A//www.hardspell.com/hard/showcont.asp%3Fnews_id%3D14372

Even though the Xbox 360’s current specs are pretty much set in stone, future versions of the console are likely to include HD-DVD drives:

The initial shipments of Xbox 360 will be based on today’s DVD format,” Gates explained. “We are looking at whether future versions of Xbox 360 will incorporate an additional capability of an HD DVD player or something else.[/quote:af96d45187]

Hrm interesting, probably to counter the advantage the PS3 will have in the later years as it is able to fully utilise its Blu-Ray media…

An interesting new article on the hardware driving MS and Sony’s next-gen offerings : http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2461&p=1

It looks like the PC might soon become the games platform of choice yet again…