The X-Box 360

[drothgery]

The power of systems has a long history of not be significant as well, what always seems to have a major impact however is consumer and developer confidence/support, and Final Fantasy (in Japan). The PS2 won the current round because it's the system that got the most (significant) support, and that support existed before much of anything was known about it or anything about the Xbox and Gamcube.

Heck, the Dreamcast's time advantage probably hurt Sega. If both cosoles had launched at the same time, there would have been scores of articles out there saying "Hey, wait a second, why do the Dreamcast games all look better than the PS2 games?".

It's another reason why, though I'm definitely in Microsoft's camp (I'll get a PS3 eventually, unless by some odd chance FFXIII is awful or isn't a PS3 exclusive), I've got serious questions about their strategy with the 360.

Rushing to be the first to market in the next generation seems like a waste of effort; being the first mover was never decisive in the console wars -- especially when they were the last (well, the US launches of the Xbox and GameCube were within days of each other) of the current generation. I'm a major skeptic when it comes to the CPU designs both Sony and Microsoft are using (less so with Microsoft, but I still don't like it). 100% backward compatibility out of the box matters more than most people think. If Microsoft's not spinning things too much, they're outselling the PS2 in North America now, and have a stronger lineup of games to sell this year. Halo 3 can't be ready for a 2005 launch.

Fortunately Sony's being even more irrational. They're making a mad dash to launch as soon as possible, but Spring 2006 will likely turn out to mean May, and in Japan only, even though their past experience -- and Nintendo's with the SNES -- should have shown them that being a year late to the party is fine. Which means they ended with a PC GPU instead of a console GPU, as nVidia didn't have time to design one, and that's going to cost them money in the long run (ask Microsoft about this). The Cell is even wackier than a triple-core in-order PPC.

I don't get it. How did we go from two relatively cleanly designed machines (the Xbox and GameCube), albeit one of them not especially profitable (Xbox), to the frankenboxes that are the PS3 and Xbox 360 (and quite possibly the Revolution as well)?

 

[Captain Tagon]

I don't get it. How did we go from two relatively cleanly designed machines (the Xbox and GameCube), albeit one of them not especially profitable (Xbox), to the frankenboxes that are the PS3 and Xbox 360 (and quite possibly the Revolution as well)?

Because they believe, either correctly or incorrectly that in today's electronic age "kewl t3ch" will sell consoles.

 

[TwistedBishop]

Two million sounds like a lot, but when you compare it to the total number of system it is a small percentage.

Say you have twenty friends and two of them played D&D, would you say a lot of your friends play D&D?

True enough. However, it's a service that's very new to consoles. That it's captured 10% of its user base in how many years, two?, makes the future look bright for it. How many people played video games in 1985? How many play them now? Markets do take time to saturate.

I've always seen three things going against Live on Xbox1:

-You had to go out of your way to get it. A problem solved by the 360. (The automatic Silver service reminds me a lot of the way AOL flooded every portion of your life with installation discs and pre-installations. Probably not the best association, but it's hard to deny how well it has worked.)

-The need of a router. They missed the ball on this one. How hard would it have been to give the 360 pass-through connections?

-A limited scope of play. Honestly when I think online play, I think of mostly one thing: tournaments. You're never going to hook a huge percentage of the gaming demographic on free-for-all fragfests long-term. But prize-based competition, that's gaming gold. (I'm into a lot of Magic Online, where people pay vastly larger sums than $5 a month to compete.) Live has been taking steps in the right direction with this lately. Last summer they held a Ninja Gaiden championship, and at the press conference they mentioned holding more such events. There's also the more universal market of downloadable content, which I can see drawing a lot of people in. They've been smart to push that lately, and I'm sure it will only increase with the 360.

These are two worlds colliding, online gaming and console games. I don't think it will be an easy road for Microsoft, and certainly that 1 billion users in a year thing isn't going to happen. But to write the whole thing off as a niche market, because it didn't capture half the playerbase immediately, seems shortsighted.

Of course, if this sounds like a lot of fanboy raving from a Live player, I should mention that I don't even use the service currently. It was always more trouble than it seemed worth to get it, especially when I hated Quake-ish fragfests. The fact is, the 360 is looking like it will solve all my problems with the Live service, aside from the router. If it's doing that for me, it's going to do it for a huge percentage of the player base not interested in Live at the moment. Technically all 360 owners will be Live-enabled, but as far as actually plugging your box into a broadband connection, I'd be very surprised if at least 75% don't hook up to it.

 

[John Crichton]

Problem is, there's just not enough time. They only released H2 last fall, and fall of next year is pushing it badly as it is. I'll be amazed if they can pull it off at all, it's a new platform after all which means they have to start from the ground up.

Agreed. Halo has been their Ace in the Hole. Without some kind of killer ap besides EA's offerings (which aren't system sellers if other systems have the same games) I can't see how the 360's head start will do it much good. Looks like we agree here.

One thing would guarantee success, Final Fantasy. It made the PS top dog it would work for MS.

It would certainly help. It would have to be an exclusive. Other franchises that would help would be Grand Theft Auto, Resident Evil or Metal Gear.

Overall, it won't matter to me because I want the system to do well. If they continue to get stuff like KotOR than I will be picking the system up. But not until then. At the moment the PS3 is the system that I am looking forward to the most.

 

[John Crichton]

design wise?
the gamecube wins. i want a big SCREEN to play on, but the smaller the other electronics, the better.

Meh, I don't really care what the system looks like or how big it is. I can make the room if the games rock.

everyone keeps babbling ps3 vs xbox and isnt taking two things into account.
if the nintendo library is free or cheap, that is a HUGE draw.

I'll believe it when I see it. And if it works you'll see Sony and Microsoft follow suit. Not that they have the classics available to them that the other companies do but they could always make a deal with other publishers like Sega to get their classic library of games.

and when mario kart/tennis/golf/party etc go online? forget about it.

I love playing Mario Kart but I'd rather have Super Smash Bros 1 & 2.

EVERYONE and their brother (and sister and mother and children and you get the idea) will have mario kart online.

If I'm online gaming I'll be playing football or baseball, not Mario Kart. It will be a nice feature if they can get it to run flawlessly, tho. But half the fun of MK, for me, is all the trash talking and ribbing in the room. A headset just isn't the same as being able to wing the controller at someone or punching them in the arm.

 

[John Crichton]

1080p.. *dreams happily*

Oh yeah.

I like the fact that it will be supported. Not that I'll have a TV that can use it anytime soon. I like that the 360 will have all their games support widescreen and custom soundtracks as that is a huge draw for me. I hope the other companies do the same thing.

 

[WizarDru]

Top selling games sell millions of copies, 500,000 isn't a lot in comparison, and 22,000 is downright pathetic. So those two may be good for online games, but compared to the video game market in general they don't merit making online gaming a significant focus of your system. Right now online play is closer to being moreof a buzz word than a central feature.

If I had meant that it only sold 22,000 copies, then it would be. But what I was pointing out was that, of the copies sold in the first 48 hours post-release, 22,000 people immediately went online to play simultaneously. In point of fact, Socom II sold over 1 million copies, and more than 30% of the people who purchased it played it online regularly. And that's just one game on the PS/2. That's not factoring in the people who played it multiplayer in their living rooms, either. When you consider these are console users, not PC users, that number becomes more impressive, IMHO.

(because there's no spec for 1080p yet, and nobody is going to hook up their PS3 to two televisions)

Huh? ATSC standards covers 2 1080p formats, AFAIK, for 24fps and 30fps, allowing for both NTSC and PAL standards.

But you're right, hooking up two HDTVs...that's a feature looking for an audience.

 

[John Crichton]

Huh? ATSC standards covers 2 1080p formats, AFAIK, for 24fps and 30fps, allowing for both NTSC and PAL standards.

I think you are thinking of 1080i. I could be wrong, tho...

 

[Gilwen]

Now, we obviously have no idea if Microsoft truly will rely on online overmuch for the Xbox 360 (and truthfully, I'm guessing not, if they want to achieve decent sales figures over time). But it is worth noting (which is all I did in my original post).

From what I have read and the interviews I have seen MS is definitely marketing everythign with xbox live in mind. I've read that all the 360 games must incoporate live and are strongly encouraged to provide downloadable content (that wasn't from microsoft adn I haven't been able to verify that one from a MS source). They are upgrading the Live network to include such things as spectator mode, online tournaments and other competitions, and a online marketplace that would be used for more than just downloading free content but exclusive content among other things that can be purchased.


Online gaming is growing and MS is seeing this as an opportunity, as with any opportunity in business it'll be costly in the beginning but I htink that is outweighed by the fact that it is growing quickly and eventually it will be come as mainstream as modem play became for the PC, which incidentally had the same arguements of costing to much and couldn't get the full benefit of the game with out an ISP and more hardware, now that isn't even given a second thought. I personally like playing online, it is much better than playing againist the compter and I usually don't even consider a game unless it can be played online. With these new consoles I can see more hardcore PC gamers coming over especially if the consoles will support KB and mouse. I think MS's will have success because the time to grab an opportunity is in the beginning not after everyone and his brother is doing it. MS is setting up XBL to be THE online gaming experience and so far they have done that IMO and will continue to do so. If sony keeps letting XBL dominate that market they'll find that the barriers to entry have grown and it'll cost just that much more money to get into it, niche or not online gamers probably tend to have more disposable cash (using everyones arguement that it costs alot to get the equipment and services that are required), companies are always wanting to get more of the cash sent their way so it makes sense for them to invest in online gaming. For example from Tom's Hardware "Microsoft had obtained 150,000 users in the first week that played 5,000,000 games that first week, and logged over 1,000,000 hours of game play within the first week as well."
150,000 users is nothing to laugh at especially in the first week and in the short time that the service has been available it has grown to over 1 million subscribers, in the grand scheme of things it is a niche but a big niche with disposable cash available.

Gil

 

[WizarDru]

I think you are thinking of 1080i. I could be wrong, tho...

Here's what I've got, so far:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDTV

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1080p

From HDTV - An Introduction
"B. The basic standard



The Grand Alliance standard differs from all existing TV standards in three major ways. First, it is all digital standard -- to be broadcast with a packet transmission. Second, it supports multiple formats. Third, it is designed to be primarily compatible with computers rather than existing NTSC televisions.



Summarizing the various formats[12].



active lines active aspect ratio frame rate in
horizontal Hz*
pixels
720 1280 16/9 progressive 24, 30 or 60
1080 1920 16/9 interlaced 60
1080 1920 16/9 progressive 24, 30 "

* Spectrum reports that "all the formats are supported with NTSC frame rates, 59.94Hz, 23.97 Hz, and 29.97 Hz."

The standard has since been extended with a 1080i and 720p framerate of 25/20, to be compatible with PAL signals.