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

[Imran Siddiqui]

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.

Uck.. I have to agree. A regular controller is $40? A wireless one $50? Some of this high cost is going to come back to bite them, IMO.

[Nostromo]

That sucks. AFAIK, the only reason games like Fable and Morrowind aren't on the PS2 is because it doesn't have an HD. Even the wireless controller isn't included.

So, given the current exchange rates, the core version will cost me about 400$ cdn (taxes included), and the fully-loaded one, about 550$ cdn (taxes included).

[Nostromo]

Posted by Bethesda:

http://www.elderscrolls.com/home/home.htm

For those of you that have been wondering, just a quick word. Oblivion does not REQUIRE a hard drive to work on Xbox 360. It will work on every Xbox 360. We would recommend you get one if you have the means, but it is in no way a requirement.

[Verto]

This may force me to seriously reconsider even getting one, or at least getting one within a a few month's of the 360's launch.

[OzzyKP]

* 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)

Microsoft owns the Final Fantasy franchise now? What happened to Squaresoft?

[lord of the mark]

$400. Interesting. Big box retailers are showing specials for bargain basement PCs with 2.9Ghz chips, DVD drives, 60 gig HDs, and integrated graphics for $300 INCLUDING monitors and printers. Means the PC is costing essentially $200. Id have to go look and see what you can get if youre paying $400 for the PC alone. not the ultimate gaming rig, but better than youd expect, i think. And thats now - $400 should buy you even a little more by December.

[Verto]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
$400. Interesting. Big box retailers are showing specials for bargain basement PCs with 2.9Ghz chips, DVD drives, 60 gig HDs, and integrated graphics for $300 INCLUDING monitors and printers. Means the PC is costing essentially $200. Id have to go look and see what you can get if youre paying $400 for the PC alone. not the ultimate gaming rig, but better than youd expect, i think. And thats now - $400 should buy you even a little more by December.

A 400$ PC will not now, nor in the near future, come close to giving you the graphics offered by the Xbox 360.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Verto


A 400$ PC will not now, nor in the near future, come close to giving you the graphics offered by the Xbox 360.

No, but it may come a lot closer than a $300 PC. I didnt mean to imply that xbox is doomed, or whatever. There are clearly still many reasons to buy a console, rather than buy an incremental PC, or upgrade your PC. It all depends on the your situation wrt to PC use, the kind of games you prefer, etc. All of which has been true, and would have been true had the Xbox come out at $300. At $400 the Xbox vs PC comparison just gets more interesting, I think.

[Asher]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
Microsoft owns the Final Fantasy franchise now? What happened to Squaresoft?

They're just publishing it for Xbox 360.

[lord of the mark]

cheapest I know of with a discrete video card - Emachines, for $500, has a PC with a Radeon Express 200, 128 MB shared memory.

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
$400. Interesting. Big box retailers are showing specials for bargain basement PCs with 2.9Ghz chips, DVD drives, 60 gig HDs, and integrated graphics for $300 INCLUDING monitors and printers. Means the PC is costing essentially $200. Id have to go look and see what you can get if youre paying $400 for the PC alone. not the ultimate gaming rig, but better than youd expect, i think. And thats now - $400 should buy you even a little more by December.

That's 400$ CDN, taxes included . They just love to tax us here Its still cheap, given that if you want a similar GPU on your PC, it would cost you about 1000$.

[Nostromo]

Xbox Live demonstration

http://media.xbox.gamespy.com/articles/644/644637/vids_1.html

[Nostromo]

http://www.gamespy.com/articles/644/644463p1.html

Japan's Next Generation

The Tokyo Game Show is fast approaching. The slingers are readying their guns. Who will win the next-gen shootout in Japan?
By Jonti Davies | Aug. 23, 2005

202 Xbox consoles were sold in Japan last week. That's preposterous. It's even more absurd when you consider that 103,000 DS systems jumped from the shelves of Japan's game stores during the same seven-day period. A relatively puny handheld is outselling Microsoft's behemoth by about 102,798 units a week. It's no surprise, however, as Microsoft's first console has been marginalized in Japan ever since its inauspicious launch. In Japan the format has been a huge, ugly failure.

In the next campaign of console wars, Microsoft is determined to show a prettier face and sell considerably more units of hardware. If MS stands any chance of convincing the Japanese en masse to buy into the 360, it will have to make the most of next month's Tokyo Game Show and the estimated three-month gap between the 360's December debut and PS3's arrival in spring of next year.

Capitalizing is a capital idea. Already Microsoft Japan has trumpeted its roster of home-grown developers: Mizuguchi-san, father of Rez and Sega Rally, is onboard; stalwart J-devcos Namco, Konami and KOEI are keen to do business on 360; and so too are the creators of Final Fantasy and Resident Evil.

As far as I can see, though, Xbox 360 has no decent chance -- by which I mean 1% chance -- of outperforming the PS3 in Japan's next-generation console market. I would be baffled if the 360 manages to outgun the Revolution, for that matter. The reason for this unbridled pessimism? Simple: Microsoft is not a Japanese company.

I speak to Japanese friends about my hometown in England, which is famous for its car manufacturing industry, and inevitably the vaguely comparable township of Toyota enters conversation. My friends can reel off the names of that company's presidents. They also know who formed NEC, Sony, Kawazaki, Nissan, and most other famous Japanese firms. But I don't know who was ever at the helm of Jaguar. The West has developed a taste for the exotic, readily buying into Sony and Nintendo products, but Japan is fiercely proud of its own.

What was the last Western games format to succeed here in Japan? Answer: it's a trick question. American and European console manufacturers -- and, while we're here, game developers -- have never won a single showdown with Japanese companies in Japan. And in the foreseeable future, nothing will change.

So, what of Sony and Nintendo? TGS will provide Sony with an opportunity to show off its next-gen plans in the same (very large and stiflingly humid) room as Microsoft. Ten paces at dawn, September 17th. Microsoft will shoot first, but Sony, wearing a Blu-Ray vest, will survive and reply with a fatal shot.

Before the PS2 was released in Japan, DVD had yet to be established as the ubiquitous media standard that it is today. Sony, with obvious vested interests, intends to push Blu-Ray in a similar manner, camouflaging Blu-Ray players as PS3 consoles. The inevitable rewards for Sony -- based on the fact that Japanese people love Japanese companies (and Sony is regarded as one of Japan's finest), as well as the powerful pull of Sony's PlayStation brand -- will be two-fold. Blu-Ray will outpace Toshiba's HD-DVD in the Japanese market, and the PS3 hardware and games will outsell both Xbox 360 and Revolution.

In sum, although the outcome is not likely to surprise anyone but the most ardent of MS devotees, Japan's next-generation game is planned out already: Microsoft and Nintendo will trail Sony. By some distance.

The only possible hindrances to Sony's continued domination of the home console market in Japan -- and these are somewhat remote -- would be a Japanese branding of the Xbox 360, marketing the console under a Japanese company's revered name, and/or a renaissance of Nintendo's inspired, emotive game design. I really hope both of these proposals are being considered around very large tables in the air-conditioned conference rooms of Microsoft and NCL. And if they're not being discussed, why not? Without any drastic changes from its competitors, Sony has the next-gen sorted.

[Nostromo]

It seems the Blu-ray drives in the PS3 will cost Sony a whopping 100$ per console!

I bought the october issue of Xbox magazine, basically for hands-on preview of Oblivion and the demos.

Character-generation is pretty much like it was in Morrowind. You can customize your player's face using a slider system similar to Tiger Woods' Gameface utility.

About combat:

Pulling the R trigger swings, holding it down does a power swing, and moving in a direction while holding R trigger does a devastating lunge attack (though be careful in big battles as it drains your slow-to-recharge fatigue level). Holding L trigger blocks.

About the wilderness:

And though the wilderness areas are so luscious (with randomly generated foliage and ancient shrines nestled therein - you'd be hard-pressed to find any more beautiful in a game) that you'll want to linger, once you've visited each area you can opt to quickly travel to any of them by selecting it on your map (buying a horse is another option for rapid transit).

About the cities:

(...) you must visit its nine sprawling cities. Each one is incredibly unique; every city's architecture, citizens, and weather all set it apart from the rest. Any building you see, you can enter - none are off limits. In the capital metropolis of Imperial City, for instance, Greco-Roman columns and bright white walls mark its buildings (...)

A quirky quest:

While browsing through a town shop, the owner mentions the disappearance of Rythe Lythandas, her husband and the town's most famous painter. Explaining that he went into his studio and never came out, you agree to look for him. Inside his studio, you touch his unfinished painting. Surprise, surprise - apparently the painting was created with a magic brush (...), and you're suddenly transported into a "dungeon" - one that looks like an interactive watercolor painting...

Four guilds are in: Fighter's, Mage's, Thieve's, and Dark Brotherhood.

Some statistics:

400+ books scattered around the world
200+ total dungeons
200 approximate hours it takes to see and do everything
150+ total quests

Vampires:

You can become a vampire in Oblivion, and if you don't feed to keep it in check, you'll start sizzling in the sun and NPCs will run at the very sight of you.

Trading spaces:

You can buy your own house(s) and furnish it in Oblivion. This will be handy for storing all your goods, whether they're legally acquired or not.

[Nostromo]

About next-gen Madden. On the left, how EA said it will look like; on the right, how it really looks like