Yeah because this is the second or third time they have done it.
They had to do it. They needed to beat sony to the punch.
Full Auto was AWESOME at E3. I actually returned twice to play some more. I’ll pick it up launch.
I think that HDTV’s increasing popularity will make the Xbox 360 incredibly popular, much like the PS2 got a boost by having DVD capabilities.
I think this will be a good launch, if not one of the best in a while.
I think there’s a difference between buying a system and suddenly getting access to a library of high-defintion movies, and buying a system to take advantage of the $1000 new TV you bought.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad the 360 and PS3 are going high-def, but I don’t know if it’s the same added value that will appeal to the general consumer
No, but I think it will have the same added value that the higher definition visuals of the PS2/Xbox had over the previous generation. I mean, this isn’t a subtle “only hardcore gamers will care” thing; the current consoles really do look sorta assy on an HD display. I think the appeal of 720p anti-aliased games is going to be pretty strong for folks with HDTVs. And at the rate the prices for HDTV sets are dropping, that’s going to be “the average consumer” before long.
Yeah because this is the second or third time they have done it.
They had to do it. They needed to beat sony to the punch.[/quote]
Well, from what I’ve heard, the original xbox was inherently expensive (someone above just mentioned how MS didn’t own the chips).
So if they’re still losing more money on the original xbox – or at least, not making as much relative profit as they would on the new xbox – then cutting the generation short will make them money in the long run, no? They have to stop the bleeding at some point. Sooner’s better, since it lets them start sliding down the cost reduction curve on the new hardware that much sooner, and it lets them beat Sony to market, which is huge.
(“Second or third time they have done it”? What exactly does that mean? It looks like the first time to me – they were late with xbox 1…)
Cheers,
Rob
I don’t think being “first to market” is a good thing this time though. If you remember, the Dreamcast was technically first to market, and it was beaten because they didn’t take advantage of that (despite strong opening sales) and because the PS2 was more powerful (or at least advertised as such).
Personally, I will be waiting for the PS3 to come out for two reasons: first, I don’t see any 360 launch titles that I want…yet. Second, Sony has always gotten better exclusives and just more titles. Until that changes, I trust their system more. I could care less about how much power either console has, to be honest. I can tell the difference between Xbox and PS2 games, but it’s not enough to influence my buying much.
This was confusing in light of the 20gb hard drive it was shipping with. The 80gb HD on my Tivo gets full fairly easily, so it’s hard to see why 20gb would be worthwhile. I don’t think they even sell 20gb HDs anymore
hmmm… let me see. could it be video on demand? gee, that could make a lot of money…
But was Sega’s prior system a decent success or have a major system seller like Halo on it? I ask because I only really got back into the console market when I bought a Dreamcast. The Dreamcast had some great games but were any of them considered system sellers in the mold of a Halo or GTA or GT? The Xbox has a lot going for it compared with the Dreamcast. It has the best online component in this round, the best graphics this time around, and a lot of good games including Halo. Sony is lying like crazy this time as well but I wonder if people remember that the first gen PS2 titles looked no better than Dreamcast titles or that a large portion of what Sony claimed was untrue. I still think overall Sony will win this round but my guess is it is going to be a closer race than the Dreamcast vs. the PS2 and closer than the current Xbox vs. the PS2.
– Xaroc
Good point. Dreamcast didn’t have any real system sellers, but that’s what I mean by not being able to take advantage of their launch. they had a record launch in sales though, so I guess being first out DID help initially. The trick is sustaining that, especially when your rivals have a new system coming out after yours. Is Halo3 going to be available at launch? I doubt it. So what, besides being first out, is going to sell the 360 at launch?
But was Sega’s prior system a decent success or have a major system seller like Halo on it? I ask because I only really got back into the console market when I bought a Dreamcast. The Dreamcast had some great games but were any of them considered system sellers in the mold of a Halo or GTA or GT?[/quote]
No. And it took a long time for the really good stuff to come out. So long, in fact, that the PS2 had essentially already killed the system by then. I remember picking it up and having a few games (which may/may not have included Soul Calibur) and then waiting interminably for something worth my $50 to show up afterwards. I’m not sure it ever did, so I began buying stuff on the cheap.
Of course, the PS2 theoretically had the same problem. Except you knew it’d have the next Final Fantasy and another Crash and Spyro and whatever else was hot, since it had done well the last time out. I think the XBox 360 falls more in that camp with KotOR and Halo and PGR than in the Dreamcast camp. (Oh yeah, DC had a Sonic that wasn’t really sonic at all too. And after Saturn hadn’t had Sonic, period.)
Come to think of it, maybe the problem with the Dreamcast was really the Saturn; talk about your stillborn system there.
Halo 3 is supposed to be out around the time the PS3 launches so it won’t be that at least initially however Gears of War and Full Auto both looked really good and having Madden a year early could sell a lot of systems.
– Xaroc
Yes, the Saturn was more of a travesty than the Dreamcast. The games it did have were incredible (Dragon Force, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Shining Force III). I still play some of those (I don’t own PDS though). But they all came out at the end of the console…WAY too late. Sega didn’t learn from that though, which is a damn shame. The DC had a few good RPGs though (Grandia, Skies of Arcadia) but they were later released on other systems.
Well, by your logic the problem isn’t selling at launch. Being new and spiffier than the rest will do that. The problem is keeping anticipation through the announcing/impending release of “The Next New Thing”. Given that this is when Halo 3 is supposed to show up, that might be a decent plan. How far ahead of PS2 was the DC? The 360 seems to be a good 6+ months ahead, and that would at least seem to be a solid lead, rather than the “Well, I guess we can release early in limited supply with a few games.” thing that Saturn pulled. If 360 is hitting it’s stride with good quality 2nd gen titles when the PS3 launches, that could make a huge difference.
Especially if it’s $50+ dollars cheaper too. “Hmmm… I could buy a PS3… or I could buy an XBox 360 AND Halo for the same amount. Well, that’s an easy choice.”
Dude, you forgot Nights. Greatest platformer ever! (What I wouldn’t give for an update of Nights, but I’m pretty sure it did horribly. Probably partly due to not being Sonic, and partly due to being released on a system where they seemed to try to release the platform directly into the cemetary.)
As a sidenote, are there mature workable saturn emulators out? I have some nice games on the Saturn that I’d love to play again, but it’s becoming an increasingly large pain having to switch out amongst one of my 7 or 8 legacy systems, so I just don’t bother.
Well, I think they have. But it takes longer than that to make a next-gen Halo 3 that really delivers on what people expect from Halo 3 and doesn’t totally sully the franchise.
I think having that big gun to take a lot of the shine off of the PS3’s launch (at least in the US and Europe) may be a great strategy, if that’s what they end up doing.
The question will be, how hot and bothered will people get about the launch-window lineup? We’ve seen really early versions on alpha hardware, and really haven’t heard about gameplay details so far. Starting around August or so, we’ll start seeing better screenshots/footage and get real previews that cover all the gameplay features.
Will Kameo, Perfect Dark Zero, Project Gotham 3, and DOA4 be enough of the “big guns” to launch with? Well…I should probably throw Madden and Tiger Woods and stuff in there. While EA is totally cross-platform, this Christmas there will only BE one next-gen platform for those games to appear on. Truth be told, we won’t know how excited the general public is going to be about those things until a couple more months pass and we start to see what the games look like on final hardware, hear about what the major gameplay features are, and see how the marketing machine is working (or not).
I think a big part of the 360’s success or failure will be its ability to sustain must-have games throughout next year. The competition will just be starting out, with predictably shallow yet pretty games (they all start that way), and MS is going to need to counter-punch with games that really hold their own visually but have more compelling gameplay. If the software dries up, they’re in big trouble.
Halo 3 is supposed to be out around the time the PS3 launches so it won’t be that at least initially however Gears of War and Full Auto both looked really good and having Madden a year early could sell a lot of systems.
– Xaroc[/quote]
Gears of War isn’t till 06 though either right? I imagine it could be no closer than Halo 3.
Not going to make a heck of a lot of money if the 20gigs are already full of other stuff, wiseass. The question is why not a bigger drive when 80gb is generally the smallest size retail drive as of 2Q 2005. If MS thinks they’re going to sell a 100 or 200gb drive as an add-on to enable DVR functions when Tivos are relatively cheap, I think they’re off base. Better to have the functionality in the box in the first place.
The Xbox does not have DVR out of the box. The ‘live tv’ just basically means turn the Xbox off. The video input on the XBox is just to pass through the tv signal, so that Xbox live can show incoming messages or whatever on top of normal television content.
[quote=“RickH”]
Not going to make a heck of a lot of money if the 20gigs are already full of other stuff, wiseass. The question is why not a bigger drive when 80gb is generally the smallest size retail drive as of 2Q 2005. If MS thinks they’re going to sell a 100 or 200gb drive as an add-on to enable DVR functions when Tivos are relatively cheap, I think they’re off base. Better to have the functionality in the box in the first place.[/quote]
Because they’re already pushing a $75 loss on hardware presumably, and 20GB is “big enough” to let people get a taste of what the system can do. That’s about 3 movies with no better than Mpeg2 compression. For video on demand that’s probably deep enough for a casual user, and a power user will probably be motivated enough to shell out for an official MS harddrive with 4x the capacity for only another $80 or whatever.
Have you actually looked at the picture of the remote control? It has an “off” button, and the “live TV” button is a secondary funtion of another button. The ad copy in the flyer strongly suggested a possibility of DVR functionality. Not necessarily out of the box, though.