Xbox 360/Playstation 3/Revolution Thread (Part 2)

[Nostromo]

Nice

[Asher]

Nintendo is teh d00m3d

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/050728/3/24ps5.html

Nintendo's quarterly profit, sales plunge
TOKYO, July 28 (Reuters) - Japan's Nintendo Co. Ltd. reported a 78.5 percent decline in quarterly operating profit on Thursday as a greater proportion of its sales came from low-margin game machines and as development costs rose, but it kept its forecast for a full-year profit increase of 3.1 percent.

Nintendo, known for software titles featuring characters such as Mario, Donkey Kong and Pokemon, is enjoying strong sales of its DS portable game machine, launched late last year, but sold 60 percent fewer GameCube consoles compared with a year earlier.

The company was also hurt during the quarter by a lack of new big software titles. Most of its widely anticipated games such as a new "Legend of Zelda" for GameCube and "Pokemon Diamond/Pearl" for DS in Japan are expected to launch in the second half.

"I think the results came in pretty much as expected," said Yuta Sakurai, senior analyst for Nomura Securities.

"This is a seasonally volatile industry and Nintendo's biggest games will come later in the year. They didn't change their full-year forecast, so I'm not worried," he said.

Nintendo's consolidated operating profit for the April-June first quarter fell to 3.75 billion yen ($33.35 million) from 17.47 billion yen a year earlier.
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Last year's results were boosted by strong demand for GameBoy Advance software and GameCube consoles.

Total quarterly sales fell 14 percent to 70.7 billion yen.

"The difference in profitability from a year earlier is due to the fact that it hasn't been long since DS entered markets so costs are still high," said Yoshihiro Mori, senior managing director at Nintendo, adding that it usually takes about a year to benefit from mass production.

Nintendo, which dominates the portable game industry with a roughly 94 percent market share, said it sold 1.38 million DS games in the first quarter.

But rival Sony Corp. is threatening its grip with PlayStation Portable (PSP), which it launched in Japan in December and in the United States in March.

Sony on Thursday raised its full year shipment target for the PSP to 13 million units from 12 million units. Nintendo expects to sell 12.4 million DS game machines in the current year.

Analysts believe Sony's PSP is selling slightly better than the DS in the United States while DS sales are a little stronger in Japan.

NEXT GENERATION

Nintendo's GameCube console has never sold well compared with the more popular PlayStation 2 made by Sony or the Xbox by Microsoft Corp. , but Takashi Oya, senior analyst for Deutsche Securities, said the drop in its sales could be one indication of the end of current-generation consoles.

Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo are all expected to launch next-generation game consoles over the next 12 to 18 months.

Sony, which dominates the game console market, raised its PS2 shipment target for the year to 13 million from 12 million, but that is still a 19.6 percent drop from a year earlier.

Nintendo expects GameCube sales to fall 33.8 percent in the current year to 10.2 million units.

"It just shows that the market is finished with current-generation models," Oya said.

Nintendo might still see a small boost in GameCube sales in the latter half of the year, helped by the launches of the much-anticipated new "Legend of Zelda" and "Pokemon XD".

But its game titles are also facing stiff competition, particularly in the United States, from the likes of Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) , Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. and Activision Inc. .

EA, the world's biggest game publisher, reported a quarterly loss on Tuesday on sluggish game sales and it cut its full-year forecast.

Nintendo said in May it expected its operating profit this business year to rise slightly to 115 billion yen from 111.52 billion yen last year.

Net profit for the first quarter fell to 14.12 billion yen ($125.6 million) from 22.64 billion a year earlier.

Shares in Nintendo fell 0.9 percent in the quarter, in line with the Nikkei average , while Sony fell 10.5 percent.

Nintendo shares closed down 0.1 percent at 12,010 yen on Thursday ahead of its earnings announcement. ($1=112.44 yen) (Additional reporting by Yumi Horie)

[Verto]

Call of Duty 2 screenshots!

[Nostromo]

Call of Duty 2 screenshots!

Can't say I'm impressed. You could do that on the current Xbox.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Um... let's not get too ahead of ourselves on the CURRENT XBox. Those CoD shots couldn't be that detailed on it.

[Asher]

From Gamespy: http://www.gamespy.com/articles/641/641662p1.html

John Carmack's platform of choice for console development is the Xbox 360, and he explained why. But first, a bit of history:

Back in the DOOM era of game development, high-speed graphics were coded at the register level (basically in machine language). Then, as development moved from DOS to Windows and code started being done through APIs, game development became more abstract and higher-level. Carmack remembers a frustrating time when there were literally 20 different graphics chips that game makers had to code for, but nowadays there's only two to worry about. While coding through these layers is sometimes easier, it can also be frustrating. Carmack often finds himself wondering if a mistake was "my fault, the drivers fault, or the hardware's fault?"


Carmack raved about the relative ease of developing for Xbox 360.

But the Xbox 360 was designed to have a very thin API layer. In Carmack's words, he can "basically talk directly to the hardware ... doing exactly what I want."

Here Carmack heaped praise on the decisions that Microsoft has made with the Xbox 360. "It's the best development environment I've seen on a console," he says. Microsoft has taken a very developer-centric approach, creating a system that's both powerful but easy to code for. This is in contrast to Nintendo, Sony, and (formerly) Sega, who generally focused on the hardware.

Carmack ruminated on how throughout history consoles have swung back and forth between providing high-end hardware or development tools. Until the PS1 came out, nearly everything was done at the register level, but Sony's first console shipped with tools to help speed the development process. This was in opposition to the Sega Saturn, which was very powerful but nearly impossible to efficiently code for. Then, with the release of the PS2, Sony flip-flopped: the PS2 had much more complicated hardware and you basically had to program it at the low level again. Then along came the Xbox, which didn't have low-level access but was way easier to program.

Carmack looks forward to what's coming up. "It'll be real interesting to see how this next generation pans out," he said. This time around, the Xbox 360 is coming out sooner and is easier to program; will it be enough to supplant Sony's market lead?

[Asher]

Xbox 360 Launch Lineup (November 2nd, 2005):

* Amped 3 (2K Games)
* Call of Duty 2 (Activision)
* Condemned (Sega)
* Dead Or Alive 4 (Tecmo)
* Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Bethesda)
* Final Fantasy XI (Microsoft)
* Full Auto (Sega)
* Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (Ubisoft)
* Gun (Activision)
* Kameo: Elements of Power (Microsoft)
* Madden NFL 06 (EA)
* NBA 2K6 (2K Games)
* NHL 2K6 (2K Games)
* The Outfit (THQ)
* Perfect Dark LE (Microsoft)
* Project Gotham Racing 3 (Microsoft)
* Quake 4 (Activision)
* Ridge Racer 6 (Namco)
* Saints Row (THQ)
* Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (Activision)
* Top Spin 2 (2K Games)

NHL 2K6 will be a launch game! Booyah!

Second wave, November 16th, 2005:

* Burnout Revenge
* FIFA Soccer 06
* Peter Jackson's King Kong
* NBA Live 06
* Need For Speed Most Wanted
* Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06

[Nostromo]

Interesting article!

I'm looking forward for

* Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Bethesda)
* Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (Ubisoft)
* The Outfit (THQ)
* Perfect Dark LE (Microsoft)
* Quake 4 (Activision)

[Imran Siddiqui]

I can't wait to get Madden on X360. It's why I'm holding off buying it for the original XBox.

[Asher]

UGH.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/642/642656p1.html

There will be 2 models on launch, $299 and $399...the $299 "core" package won't come with a HD.

GC 2005: Xbox 360 Pricing Revealed
Microsoft drops the bill at the German Games Convention.
by Tal Blevins

August 17, 2005 - Today at the Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany, Microsoft unveiled the price of their upcoming next-generation system.

The new 'box will come in two flavors, a core and a fully-loaded model, and will carry two separate price points.

The Xbox 360 core system -- priced at $299.99 in the United States, ?299.99 in Europe and £209.99 in the U.K. -- will come with the console, a wired controller, faceplate, standard audio-visual cable and an Xbox Live Silver membership. An Xbox Live Silver membership allows you to create a user id, download game content, access the Xbox 360 marketplace and gives Live users the ability to chat with friends. It does not, however, allow users to play games online. To do this, Silver members must upgrade to a Gold membership.

The Xbox 360 fully-loaded system -- priced at $399.99 in the United States, ?399.99 in Europe and £279.99 in the U.K. -- will come complete with the console, a wireless controller, a 20GB detachable hard drive, a faceplate, headset, component HD audio-visual cables, an Ethernet cable, Xbox Live Silver membership and, for a limited time, an Xbox 360 media remote.

The Xbox 360 will launch in North America, Europe and Japan this holiday season. Expect to hear more about the Japanese launch and pricing at the upcoming Tokyo Game Show, which takes place in mid-September.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Dammit... that's a dumb move... that will mean that most games probably won't take advantage of the Hard Drive's capabilities in streaming games (faster from the drive than a CD).

And it looks like at that price point ($400), it won't be that much of a bargain compared to the upcoming PS3.

[Asher]

They're also planning on having 2-3M consoles available for launch date, as opposed to 500,000 for the original Xbox.

This was accomplished by using 3 manufacturers: Flextronics (original Xbox manufacturer), Wistron (who made the Xbox also, later), and Celestica (new to Xbox 360, Toronto-based company).

[Asher]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Dammit... that's a dumb move... that will mean that most games probably won't take advantage of the Hard Drive's capabilities in streaming games (faster from the drive than a CD).

Streaming isn't so much of an issue this time around...the original Xbox had a 4x DVD, the new one has a 12x...it actually nearly matches the 5400rpm 2.5" HD in reading speed.

The main thing is massive storage for games like Oblivion...

And it looks like at that price point ($400), it won't be that much of a bargain compared to the upcoming PS3.

The PS3 will likely come out a year later...I'm wondering if MS would cut the price then to lower, or if Sony will price it even higher than $399.

[Imran Siddiqui]

You know, I wonder... how much will the HD cost seperately? I expect Microsoft to hold off on selling the HD seperately for a while to get as many $400 sales as possible, but it seems the $400 version has the 20 GB HD, Ethernet cable, headset, and HD Component Cables, and a media remote (for a limited time) over the $300 version.

If the HD drive is like $50, I can see a lot of people getting the "core" version and slapping on the HD onto it.

[Asher]

MSRP is $99 for the HD.

* Xbox 360 Faceplate (Suggested Retail Price: $19.99 U.S./E19.99/£14.99)
* Xbox 360 Hard Drive (20 GB) (Suggested Retail Price: $99.99 U.S./E99.99/£69.99)
* Xbox 360 Memory Unit (64 MB) (Suggested Retail Price: $39.99 U.S./E34.99/£22.99)
* Xbox 360 Wireless Networking Adapter (Suggested Retail Price: $99.99 U.S./E79.99 /£59.99)
* Xbox 360 Wireless Controller (Suggested Retail Price: $49.99 U.S./E44.99/£32.99)
* Xbox 360 Play and Charge Kit (Suggested Retail Price: $19.99 U.S./E19.99/£14.99)
* Xbox 360 Rechargeable Battery Pack (Suggested Retail Price: $11.99 U.S./E14.99/£9.99)
* Xbox 360 Controller (Suggested Retail Price: $39.99 U.S./E34.99/£24.99)
* Xbox 360 Headset (Suggested Retail Price: $19.99 U.S./E19.99/£14.99)
* Xbox 360 Universal Media Remote (Suggested Retail Price: $29.99 U.S./E29.99/£19.99)
* Xbox 360 Component HD AV Cable (Suggested Retail Price $39.99 U.S./E29.99/£19.99)
* Xbox 360 S-Video AV Cable (US only) Xbox 360 SCART AV Cable (Europe only) (Suggested Retail Price: $29.99 U.S./E24.99/£17.99)
* Xbox 360 VGA HD AV Cable (Suggested Retail Price: $39.99 U.S./E29.99/£19.99)

IMO they're charging too much for just about everything in the above list. They're obviously serious about profiting this round but I think they went from extreme to extreme too quickly.