unforum

[CherryMay]

I've finally decided that I'm gonna pre-order a 360... I was skeptical about it from the start, and if you'd had asked me a few months ago, I would've said it was the worst next-gen console.

However... with the kind-of-backwards-compatibility, I suddenly became real interested in it. The 2005 launch doubled that interest. Then I heard Mizuguchi (<3) was making Ninety Nine Nights for it as an exclusive launch title, and Ridge Racer 6 would also be exclusive... along with all the online play and downloads, I just can't resist it any more!

I never got the original xbox, so I'm mostly looking forwards to playing all the older games I missed out on. So far, there haven't been many 360 games I've been really interested in (besides the two mentioned above, the only other ones are DOA4 and Elder Scrolls 4). I'm not much into war sims, which seems to be the xbox's main market... including Halo... but I have to admit I'm somewhat interested in playing them, after being subjected to endless ilovebees information and having played Marathon a couple of months ago.


So... yeah. I'm just rambling on about how I've finally given in. Anyone know what the launch titles are going to be? NNN is the main one I'm interested in right now, but I'd like to know if there are any other awesome things released at launch.

[Atrophied]

Good to hear you're jumping on the bandwagon (fyi, there's a big difference between a 'war sim' and an FPS like Halo(2)) much less strategy involved in Halo - we're all twitch gamers

[CherryMay]

[Plastic]

A friend of mine is a manager at EB Games. He has been there for about 10 years and last week 300 of the managers got to do full hands-on with the Xbox 360 with 3 of the launch titles.

Today was the first chance I have had to talk to him since his experience and here is what he had to say:

"We started off with a brand new build of Perfect Dark Zero (PDZ) and I was amazed at how the graphics had progressed, you have to see the textures in the bricks to believe them. Don't worry about what anyone has to say, PDZ looks great and plays even better."

"Next we got to play Ghost Recon 3 and all I can say is you have to get this game, it was amazing and probably the most impressive of the bunch we played, although we didn't get to play it that long because we had burned up too much time with PDZ."

"Last some of us got to put our hands on Project Gothem Racing 3 (PGR3), I didn't get a turn and was pretty pissed off, but it looked very impressive. The story we heard there was that PGR3 would be a release title, but that it might not be available until 2 weeks after the Xbox 360 is out (Microsoft still considers that a release title)."

"Now I've always been a big fan of the dual shock controller and always felt that the Xbox controller was a little too big. I have to say the new Xbox 360 controller may be the best controller on any system ever. While it's a lot like the Type S controller it is noticeably thinner and this makes a world of difference in my books."

"Even the feel of the triggers was very much improved and with the new shoulder buttons, everything just seemed to make sense."

After that be both agreed to add PDZ and Ghost Recon 3 to our pre-orders and I have to say I am so looking forward to kicking his butt in both of them

P.S. I thought you might want some extra proof that this story is true, so I have added the following information that should be available in the next couple of weeks. EB will roll-out a very aggressive trade-in plan in Canada which will allow you to play about 30 games for 300 dollars.

[Plastic]

BTW anyone else notice the "Live TV" and "REC" buttons on the Xbox 360 remote?

http://media.teamxbox.com/games/ss/1141/full-res/1127138391.jpg

[Yardarm51]

I have been to the holyland and it is called Makuhari Messe (the convention centre where the Tokyo Game Show was held). That is where I broke my 360 virginity. I have played the games and they are good.

I spent most of my 6 hours at the show in the 360 booth (didn't see the word microsoft anywhere noticable) for very obvious reasons. To Microsquish's delight it was pretty busy over there. Not as busy as the Playstation booth but then again they couldn't have expected it to be. Not with Playstation having a massive blacked out theatre showing videos from what they obviously were trying to get people to believe were coming games. I cannot believe that any of them were any closer to reality than the imfamous E3 Killzone vid. That being said they were really really pretty. The blacked out theatre helped the resolution too. Both Sony and MS were showing the BioHazard 5 trailer (Resident Evil for you folks) and the image quality was better in the Sony booth as they were using a black background while MS was using a white to match the box design. MS's booth was also very brightly lit and we all know what that does to picture quality.

Microsoft was really really pushing the connected livingroom theme. Over here everything is about trendiness and name brands. The left side of their booth was made up to be like 4 living-rooms with designer furniture and insane surround-sound/tv setups. People could be given a guided tour of how you can set up your living room to be the ultimate HD-Era home. People were fully encouraged to bring in their kids and get them involved too. (get'em while their young eh?) When you went in you had a hot-chick and a suit wearing microsoft guy showing you around. This is where people got to check out the 360 menu system etc etc. Basically this place showed off the non-game aspect of the 360. That being said they did have games on in each "living room" so you could check out the surround sound.

Hardware.

The 360 controller is as good as all the fawning press reports make it out to be. It is immediately comfortable and responsive. I have never been a big fan of shoulder buttons but even they had a nice press action to them. That being said the only time I tried to use one of them I threw a grenade off a wall and into my own lap in Call of Duty 2. Typical.

The main unit looks great. I also found out that each faceplate design released by MS will also have an accompanying download so that the menu themes will match. Cool!

Now here is a bit of wierdness. I didn't know this but there are actually 2 different types of remote control for the 360. One is called the Media remote and the other is the Universal remote. The Universal remote has a full set of number buttons like any TV remote does. I think the pack in one is the Media remote and it is quite a bit smaller. I think it only works on the 360. None of the literature I have seen mentions both. They either mention one or the other. Kinda strange.

I also saw something interesting to do with the hard-drive. I saw a couple of systems freeze and then reset. Not suprising when all the games were non-finalized code. Anyway when the menu-system first opened the top right corner was dominated by a couple of numbers. HDD space used and left available. All the systems at the show had 60gig drives attached. When I asked about this all the MS folks got mighty embarassed and didn't really want to talk about it. However they did admit all the units at the show were using 60 gig drives and no they were not available to the public. Mind you since they already have them I would imagine they will be available within a year if there is a demand. That is pure speculation on my part though.

Last but not least the games. There were some odd omissions from what was shown. I saw no reference of any kind to either Perfect Dark Zero nor Gears of War. I know GoW was shown at the press conference immediately prior to the opening of the show but there was nothing at the show at all. Not even a video clip on the bigscreen. I am looking at the glossy pamphlet handed out to everyone at the show but neither are in there either. Strange considering they are supposed to be two of the big launch titles. Also not so strange since both are FPS games and they don't do very well over here.

[Plastic]

[Grifter_7]

From: Gaming-360.com:

[Clayfoot]

Very pretty, but I'm not paying several hundred dollars for this toy. It's too much.

[fugitivesoldier]

The 360 dev kits were black and/or grey, can't remember which...

Might be of them too.

[VMVash]

I'm getting black if there is a good face plate that works with it, but if not ill get the gray one

[Yardarm51]

The dev kits are black. However the dev kits have a rather large attachment on the top that includes debugging equipment etc. None of those shown is a dev kit. Microsquish must have looked at the success of the large number of special edition PS2s. The Crystal edition of the Xbox sold really well in Canada and one of the most sought after consoles (by looking at the price on EBay) is the Panzer Dragoon Orta unit which was only released in Japan. With the who "customization" theme of the 360 you can bet there will be a number of special edition boxes over the lifespan of the system.

[ubercado]

I hope so...I like the new look but...it looks a bit clinical to me.

[thunderclap8]

Rumors are the Bungie's announcement this week is that a Halo character will appear in DOA4 on the 360. No word on who yet, except that its NOT Master Chief.

My money's on Cortana. But I'd totally but the 360 for this game alone if it let me fight as a grunt.

http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200510/N05.1003.0145.31695.htm

[ubersaurus]