Hands-on Xbox 360

[Jason_McMaster]

To be fair to Dave, I don’t think he was proclaiming the death of the 360. I believe he was making more of a statement about CoD 2.

[Moore]

@Jason_Cross

As a side note…

How many of us here have ever really enjoyed a game when playing it at a kiosk (either at E3 or in a store)? I, for one, never really do. You don’t get enough time with it, it’s uncomfortable, it’s wierd to hold the controller with the rigid attachment to the kiosk, the sound is either too low or it’s too noisy in the store, you name it. The most I can ever get from a kiosk experience is to get an idea if a game has interesting features or seems promising. But I never actually have any fun. This goes for all consoles. Am I alone in this?

Actually I totally do that. e3 decides like 90% of my game purchases. And yes I know they arent done etc… but if they are fun in THAT environment, it will be money well spent, if it sucks, runs poorly or is buggy, I know to wait and get some opinions or for a price drop…

[RobotPants]

Even if the first run of games look “as good as on PC”, I think that’s fantastic. Current-gen PC games look great and I don’t play my Xbox or PS2 as much as I used to because of it. But judging by footage of games set to come out later for the 360, I’m not going to get anywhere near that on my PC until I spend lots more money on upgrades. Plus, the console experience is much different.

[Charles]

@Angrycoder

You forgot about Mario 64, possibly the most innovative launch title ever.

I didn’t like it at all, thus I leave it out.

[Matthew_Gallant]

Did anybody see the Call of Duty 2 TV commercial, and how it is exactly the same as the Brothers in Arms 2 commercial? It’s pathetic.

[TriggerHappy]

@Mattc0m

Dave Long preaching about the impending doom of the Xbox 360.

What else is new?

Wrong thread?

@Dave_Long

I guess we’ll see how well it does when it ships, but it looks like Microsoft will be rolling in money from the launch soon.

[Jason_Cross]

@Charles

Yeah but Halo was an extremely unlikely occurence. With the exception of perhaps Super Mario World on the SNES, no console has ever launched with as good a title.

Well, Mark wasn’t really complaining about launch titles. His post was about whether or not any of these consoles ever really offer anything new, beyond PSX games with better graphics. My answer is yes, yes they definitely do.

Forza Motorsport is a great example. The physics and AI in that game simply could not be done on a lesser CPU, and they directly contribute (some would say define) the gameplay.

Having said that, let’s not discount better graphics as though they don’t contribute to our enjoyment of the game. We’ve had the “graphics vs. gameplay” discussion here several times before - they’re linked at the hip, and can not be so easily removed from one another. More to the point: the exact same game, with far better graphics, will be more enjoyable to play.

Like all consoles, there’s little reason to buy one until the first run of good games start coming out… which is often 4-6 months after launch.

Well that’s a matter of opinion, and in the case of both the PS2 and Xbox, a few million people disagree with you. Right off the bat I think the 360 has at least three or four games that look promising enough to be worth grabbing the console, but that’s just me and my tastes.

[Jason_Cross]

@Jason_McMaster

To be fair to Dave, I don’t think he was proclaiming the death of the 360. I believe he was making more of a statement about CoD 2.

Agreed.

I mean he’s already made it clear that he’s unimpressed by everything he’s seen of all the launch titles. That’s not news. But he’s certainly not making a claim about the system’s overall popularity, success, or even quality. It was a judgement of a single game, and a PC port at that.

I’m still curious if the display was set up correctly, though.

[skyride]

@Jason_Cross

I’m curious about the piles of jaggies bit. I’ve heard this comment from some others who have played kiosks, accompanied with “unimpressed by the graphics,” only for them to find out the kiosk was not set up correctly. The monitor part was never set to the 720p mode, so it was effectively displaying 480p widescreen, and everything looked like ass. Some have gone back to find the kiosks readjusted, and have come away more impressed.

Good point. I’ve seen things like this happen. For example, I saw GT3 looking like crap running at a store and had to set it myself to 1080i.

It could still be the game though. A friend of mine played King Kong on 360 and said it looked better than any PC game (and he has a pretty powerful rig).

[Kevin_Grey]

@skyride

It could still be the game though. A friend of mine played King Kong on 360 and said it looked better than any PC game (and he has a pretty powerful rig).

Eh, King Kong on the 360 looks exactly like the PC version except it features lots and lots of shiny specular highlighting. Nice looking to be sure but not spectacular. Then again, the guy watching me play over my shoulder couldn’t stop ooh and aahing so I’m guessing that most people haven’t seen modern PC games on top of the line hardware.