360 or upgrade…

[Zappo]

What I read is that the US list was 200+ games, while the Japan list was 12 games. Multiple sources seem to claim this, but I can't confirm or deny with confidence.

 

[Bront]

For what it's worth, I wouldn't touch the PS3 with a ten foot pole. Why? A few reasons:

1. I hate Sony as a company, but I won't get into that here. I'll just say that I question the intelligence of a company that blasphemes against a major religion as a marketing gimmick.

2. Sony customer service...or lack of. While the reports of X360 problems have been blown wildly out of proportion...well...let me give you an example. On one of the other boards I frequent, there are about 100+ people who have 360s. Only one had to send his back to Microsoft. They paid for next day shipping both ways, replaced his system with a brand new one, and gave him a complimentary hard drive. That's impressive folks.

Got dead pixels on your Sony PSP screen? Tough. According to Sony, it's "acceptable", and they won't do jack about it.

3. The PS3 is more powerful... or is it? While early speculation was that the PS3 would dominate the console market this generation in terms of power, developers (Epic comes to mind...) who have been working on it have said many times that the Cell chip isn't all it's cracked up to be. Many have said that if you could tell a difference between a 360 a PS3 version of the same game, they'd be surprised.

4. Price. Sony has all but said the PS3 will cost more than the 360. On top of that, Microsoft plans to drop the price of the 360 by $100 on the PS3's release day. It's also rumored that Halo 3 will be released around the same time.

I've got the 360, I've had zero problems with it, and the thing is amazing. High definition games. Music. Movies. X-Box Live. Downloadable game demos, downloadable arcade classics, the ability to talk to other computers on a network and stream media from them...and the controller is by far the best console controller I've ever seen. Have you seen the PS3's controller?

When the PS3 launches, it will be launching against a system of roughly equal power, about $200 cheaper, a year's worth of games including Halo 3, and Xbox Live.

Curious.

1) Haven't seen this. Feel free to send this in e-mail, particularly with links to the offending add or whatnot. Not doubting you, I just find this sort of thing interesting.

2) Dead Pixels on an LCD screen are considered acceptable up to a certain point. This is actualy standard, and you'll find the same thing on any brand of LCD monitor, as well as the Nintendo portable systems. It is just an issue of manufacturing, where there is occasionaly a dead pixel or two, and usually they don't take away from the experience. More than a few, and they should replace it though. There's usually a number somewhere in the warantey. That said, Microsoft has a fairly good customer service base, mostly due to it's experience on the PC side.

3) Technicaly, the Gamecube is the older generation's most powerful system, but power doesn't win you everything. What is more powerful won't have that much of an effect on this generations systems, since the home hardware to tell the difference and the ability to is lacking. Some games will look better on one system than another, as it the way it is.

4) Honestly, I've no clue here, since I haven't been following them closely. I'm interested in the Revolution, and been debating going to a second consol at some point, but not sure which yet. I have a computer, and may be upgrading that first just because it's about time. The problem is that some of the games I want to play only come out on either nintendo systems, or the other two (sometimes all three, but the college sports games aren't coming on the game cube anymore )

Just thought I'd add that.

 

[drothgery]

The Japanese BC list was considerably smaller than the U.S. one. I have no idea why.

MS has been concentrating on getting the emulator to work for big-name games, and then adding anything they can get "for free" to the BC list. I wouldn't be surprised if many of the games on the North American BC list never got a Japanese localization.

 

[KenM]

I would not mind getting a 360, if I could find one at the normal price.

 

[trancejeremy]

Supposedly Best Buy will have them tomorrow on the 18th. Dunno if true, but that's the rumor.

Me, I'm waiting until they hit $200, which is what I've done since the PSX days.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Go with the computer. There will be almost no games that come out for the 360 that won't for the computer and the computer will be more universally useful.

 

[KenM]

Supposedly Best Buy will have them tomorrow on the 18th. Dunno if true, but that's the rumor.

You have a source to the rumor?

 

[trancejeremy]

Go with the computer. There will be almost no games that come out for the 360 that won't for the computer and the computer will be more universally useful.

I'm not sure that's true, though. Since the 360 is not basically a PC (which the original Xbox was), there won't be a lot of PC games ported to it and vice-versa. Still be some, but it will basically be the same as the PS2 and PC.

 

[trancejeremy]

You have a source to the rumor?

The 360 Board on gamefaqs

http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/gentopic.php?board=927749

Lots of different threads.

Couple other links from reading those threads

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/676/676713p1.html

http://www.xboxtoday.ca/12092005/19/xbox_360_allocation_numbers_for_best_buy

 

[TwistedBishop]

You have a source to the rumor?

I've been seeing the same thing. They've even posted allocation numbers per store, like we saw happen for the original Nov. 22 launch date.

Go to this site and enter your zip code. It should give you all local stores and their 360 quantities. Hope it helps.

http://xbox.clambert.org/