MTV Xbox 360 Launch

"Here's the XBox 360!" *chick puts xbox on a pedestal* "Now here's a band!"

That's pretty much it.

quote:"Here's the XBox 360!" *chick puts xbox on a pedestal* "Now here's a band!"

Looks like their aiming spot on for their target demographic :P

PA had it right when they said

quote:The important thing to understand here is that, much like Twisp and Catsby that show was not for us. When I say us I am referring to the hardcore. The sorts of people who perhaps downloaded a torrent of last nights MTV show.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?date=2005-05-13

quote:it seemed like MTV made it to appeal to mainstream audiences and not the hardcore gamer.

My god, imagine them trying to reach for the mainstream market, its almost as if they are trying to sell this product!

What a shocking thought.

To go against popular opinion I'm going to have to say I found the Xbox 360 to be pretty cool and .... stylish. (although it has a striking resemblance to HAL from 2001 A Space Odysee, lol)[:P]

It seems that underneath all the typical (and expected) hype and chest pounding there is some substanstial improvements and well thought out options for the larger gaming community, for both mainstream and hardcore alike.

I like the idea of gaming ladders, live enabling all games and high def resolutions, the WiFi is a great addition, external HD, wireless, webcam (finally might get to play a dancemat game on Xbox).

The specs seem more than adequate and until I actually play one I'm not going to even try comparing it to anything.

I think things look promising, can't wait to get one.

yeah, there is some promising specs for the Xbox 360 - havnt had the chance to read or watch the above links yet (will do shortly) but i just read a news post on gamasutra that talked about some if the online features and they sound pretty good.

OK, just read a whole bunch on gamespot about the system. sounds pretty damn powerful, though power has never impressed me that much. what did impress me however wa the fact that all games developed for it MUST support HDTV resolutions, 16:9 widescreen format, and 5.1 surround. i think this is great as it ensures that there will be little skimping on the audio (in theory), creating a better experience, likewise for the widescreen support, and to a lesser extent the HD support. granted i dont actually have a HDTV, widecreen tv, or 5.1 surround set up - but the potential is there for a great experience (in terms of visual and audio feedback) i any game when i do.

now i said above that more power dosnt impress me much. i look to the games, and so far i see at lot of the same. basically a whole bunch of racers, sci-fi FPSs, and sports games. no dount some of these could be great games (as i will draw on in a sec), but i'm seeing nothing new. though that's to be expected i guess. perhaps E3 will reveal something interesting.

I have however looked at Perfect Dark Zero, and at the moment this looks to be the only game that will make me buy an Xbox 360. infact, if it's as good as the original or goldeneye on the N64, then i would buy the system for that single game alone. which brings me back to yet another sci-fi FPS. yes it is, but damn the original was awsome. if the gameplay si anywere near as good it's gonna rock. it may bring little new to the genre, or games in general, but it can still be great. which kind of make my above comments hipocritical i guess.
though i wonder how it will turn out, since most of the upper Rare guys, and many responsible for GE and PD left Rare, at the end of the N64 run. only time will tell i guess.

also, i'm going to use this time to post a coment unrelated to most of what i've posted above. and that developers praising a console's 'awsome power' saying things like "we now have the power to make the games we've always wanted to make". - they say that every generation! if only now you have the processing power to make the games you've always wanted, why did you say that last generation aswell? and the generation before that? i think it's a load of crap. if they were to say "the new interface/online cababilities/interaction/other innovative new feature besides more cpu grunt, allows us the make the games we've always wanted" then i would be happy to listen. more graphic power dosnt change the way games are made so much that you can now do somthing that you couldnt do in the previous system (besides making it look nicer), where as a new interface or user connectivity feature that previously didnt exist could. there are some games using the DS stylus interface that simply would not be possible on a stadard joypad. a fundemental change like that is the only thing that will 'allow' the creation of games ideas not previously possible in my oppinion. if it's a great idea could be done on the same old interface, etc., then it could, and perhaps should, have been done already.

ok, end of rant.

I think the 12x DVD drive on the Xbox 360 will become pretty odd as the years go by. Microsoft have been pushing the idea of high definition gaming and relying on consumers to flock to HDTV, yet the system won't be able to show HD movies when Blue-ray or HD-DVD gets introduced (sometime later this year, I think). I guess that's the price for bringing a console in a bit early. I know some of the appeal of the PS2 was that it could play DVD movies as well, so a console that could play the new HD movies would be a good bonus.

quote:"we now have the power to make the games we've always wanted to make".

I think its going to take at least 3 - 4 more generations of console before they are at any level near the games I imagined when I was 10 years old some 14 years ago! So you wont catch me making that statement.

Was I the only one to be a bit surprised by the fact that they're using water cooling for the CPU? I'm sure it's been engineered well, but water cooling and long-term reliability don't particularly go well together, in my mind.

Microsoft is aiming for *one billion* Xbox 360 sales.. [:0]

J allard does look a little like Dr Evil...

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/jallard/default.asp

:)

yeah i sorta raised an eyebrow at the one million thing, lol at allard comment.

quote:Originally posted by Souri

Microsoft is aiming for *one billion* Xbox 360 sales..
Hah!

quote:Originally posted by mcdrewski

J allard does look a little like Dr Evil...
He also looks exactly like a pirate. Something I was unaware of until Tycho pointed it out the other day: [url]http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?date=2005-05-15[/url]

I thought this was rather amusing: [url]http://www.satori.org/blog/archives/000270.html[/url].

quote:I thought this was rather amusing: http://www.satori.org/blog/archives/000270.html.
that's pretty sad. didn't they think their console would get a good enough reception or something? this sort of tactic sounds just like microsoft though.

Who knows what they were thinking?

I simultaneously cringed and shuddered when I read that they had scripted pseudo-nerds to form X's with their arms in the crowd.

Geez.

quote:Originally posted by MoonUnit

yeah i sorta raised an eyebrow at the one million thing, lol at allard comment.

I know that's a typo, but it's one *BILLION* sales! Sony said they've sold 190 million units with PS1 and PS2. So Microsoft are aiming at over *five times* that ammount. That's just plain too wacky [;)]

And yeh, they seemed to have carried the MTV vibe over to the Xbox 360 press conference. Could've done without the fluff and spiritual zen stuff.

btw, Steve Balmer has pretty much said that there'll be a new revision of Xbox 360 down the track [url="http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000597043723/"]with a HD DVD drive[/url]..

whoopsie yeah you know what i meant. They seem really convinced of its wide market appeal... seems a bit over zealous to me

Why not aim for a billion? If they set their goal high they'll be trying extra hard to achieve it, and if because of that they sell 500 million, or even 250 million then they still would end up having a good result.

sounds to me like marketing again - MS: "we are going to sell 1 billion systems!" dumb-arse user: "wow! this system must be awsome! i want one!"

they're just talking themselves up. they cant hope to outsell the PS3 if you ask me, and i doubt even sony will make 500 million let alone 1 billion!

Im with Daemin on that one, its not a case of being realistic - its a case of expending all their energies in hope of achieveing something monumental.

Something that even when not met, maybe so far above and beyond what it would have been had you set your sights alot closer to the horizon.

Nothing wrong with being optimistic, but you have to be realistic! When you are aiming for 5 times the amount of the sales of the previous 2 best selling consoles of their generation, you have quite a monumental task. I know they're trying to capture non casual gamers, but the presentation didn't really convince me that they were really doing anything new. You're not going to get more "Velocitygirls" by having downloadable arcade/puzzle games, instant messaging etc and have them pony up $xxx for a new console when that stuff can already be done on a PC. They were talking about capturing a wider gaming audience, yet all the previews were sequels of racing, fps, fighting games etc which catered for the hardcore gamer!

news from gamasutra confirming hardware sales of consoles:

quote:Shipments of 90 million units since the console?s launch in Japan on March 4th 2000 represents a penetration speed more than 2 years and 3 months faster than the original PlayStation, which had a lifetime sales figure of just over 100 million.

Sony calculates that lifetime shipments for the PlayStation 2 will be around 120 million

...By comparison, worldwide shipments for the Xbox are currently put at approximately 21 million units
...Nintendo's GameCube is fairly close behind Microsoft's console, having a worldwide user base of around 18 million.

so basically sony has sold a 120 million PS1 and PS2's combined, while Xbox has just made 20 million. Xbox 360 to top 1 billion? (or 1 billion Xbox Live subscribers i heared someone else quote it as, which is more again since not everyone will use Xbox Live). Sorry, I dont think so. i mean - just look at those figues! The two biggest selling systems combined, each almost 5 times that of the Xbox, may just make it over 200 million. to say your going to sell in excess of 1 billion is just plain dumb.