Official Xbox 2 Thread

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Thu Mar 10, 2005 3:47 am **Post subject:** Official Xbox 2 Thread

Here's a thread for all details concerning the upcoming console, and to get it started:

Quote:

At the Game Developers Conference (GDC), Microsoft announced the first official details of its next-generation Xbox platform, highlighting how it will combine hardware, software and services in order to provide a powerful and enhanced game and entertainment experience. Read on to find out details and for an attempt at the surprise question at the end of the article; please post your answers in the comments section.

Microsoft Corporate Vice President and Chief XNA Architect J Allard further outlined the company's vision for the future of entertainment, citing the emergence of an HD Era in video games that is fueled by consumer demand for experiences that are always connected, always personalized and always in high-definition. His insistence on the term may suggest that we are heading for an XBox HD type name for the console.

In the 'HD Era' the platform is bigger than the processor, Allard said. New technology and emerging consumer forces will come together to enable the rock stars of game development to shake up the old establishment and redefine entertainment as we know it.

Since you cannot abandon 10 years of experience, the DirectX API will be a major component of both the Microsoft Windows and Xbox platforms. Mr. Allard went on to mention, once again, something about the HD Era which is, apparently, dawning on us and and then shared the first details about the next-generation Xbox guide. Persistent across all games and media experiences, the guide is an entertainment gateway that instantly connects players to their games, their friends and their digital media.

Features of the guide include these:

- Gamer Cards. Gamer Cards provide gamers with a quick look at key Xbox Live information. They let players instantly connect with people who have similar skills, interests and lifestyles.
- Marketplace. Browseable by game, by genre, and in a number of other ways, the Marketplace will provide a one-stop shop for consumers to acquire episodic content, new game levels, maps, weapons, vehicles, skins and new community-created content.
- Micro-transactions. Breaking down barriers of small-ticket online commerce, micro-transactions will allow developers and the gaming community to charge as little as they like for content they create and publish on Marketplace. Imagine players slapping down USD .99 to buy a one-of-a-kind, fully tricked-out racing car to be the envy of their buddies.
- Custom playlists. This feature eliminates the need for developers to support custom music in games. The guide instantly connects players to their music so they can listen to their own tracks while playing all their favorite next-generation Xbox games.

Typifying the HD Era game experience, the guide requires hardware designed with software in mind. System-level features of the guide such as custom playlists, the Xbox Live Friends list and voice chat are enabled at the chip level, liberating developers to focus on creating games, not developing for technical certification requirements (TCRs).

To support consumer demands for the HD Era, the next-generation Xbox is designed around key principles that let developers maximize real performance, using concepts they are already familiar with.

The next-generation Xbox hardware design principles include the following:

- A well-balanced system that will deliver more than a teraflop of targeted computing performance
- A multicore processor architecture co-developed with IBM Corp. that provides developer headroom and flexibility for the HD Era
- A custom-designed graphics processor co-developed with ATI Technologies Inc. designed for HD Era games and entertainment applications

In addition, familiar software technologies such as DirectX, PIX, XACT and the recently announced XNA Studio -- an integrated team-based development environment tailored for game production -- complement the new hardware to help game developers unlock increasingly powerful and complex silicon.

The HD Era gaming platform will strike an elegant balance of hardware, software and services to power the new experiences consumers demand. Games and entertainment features such as the next-generation Xbox guide represent a shift toward more immersive and integrated consumer experiences. This shift will be further illustrated by a significant leap to high-definition graphics, where character movements and expressions are intensely vibrant and nearly indiscernible from real life; by multichannel, positional audio fidelity so clear and precise that players will be able to hear the faintest enemy footsteps sneaking up behind them; by richer online communications; and by an abundance of on-demand content for game consoles.

Did you spot how many times HD Era was used by Mr. Allard?

http://megagames.com/news/html/console/ ... name.shtml

ViSCeRaL · **Posted:** Thu Mar 10, 2005 9:43 am **Post subject:**

Xbox2 Specs:

http://xbox.gamespy.com/xbox/microsoft- ... 331p1.html

PC_Arcade · **Posted:** Thu Mar 10, 2005 9:51 am **Post subject:**

You never know DJ, by the time it comes out, you may have your Xbox 1 working :lol:

Geezus · **Posted:** Thu Mar 10, 2005 9:52 am **Post subject:**

A-HA!

They're risking europe (as a market ) already -

You see , the last years in europe , the hype wasn't HDTV...it was widescreen.....

Yes , one neighbour after another had to rush off into the local hardware store buying an even bigger telly than the git next door had.... :lol:

A lot of people have already bought a tv during the last few years....and the bulk of those are NOT HD compatible......well maybe 480p......but that's only marginal better than what we PAL users have already....

Yes you say but LCD's are flying off the shelves right now......Yesss...I say but LCD penetration in europe's households is still < 15 %....
And may I remind you , today only a handfull of even those ,the top of the range models, have the True Native 19xx*10xx something......the hybrid standard of WS AND HDTV.....

By the time that standard becomes....eh....common household standard ,we'll own a xbox3/ps4/hypercube by then...

So my point is....if this HD thing is going to be the main selling point (Sony more or less vowed to improve it's online mess) , then how many people are gonna buy it ?

I *THINK* I see a strategical move here....They're going for #1 position in the US market.....that's where their focus is on....If they become 1st or 2nd in PAL or even Japan market , that's good , but it's mere bonus......

Guess it's another playstaion for me then :mrgreen:

*

* Disclaimer: Under no purpose or intent was the author out to flame any billy boy buttfuck fanboys - In fact sooner or later , in whatever particular order , the author fully admits he intends ending up owning all 3 new consoles ....sooner or later.....

PC_Arcade · **Posted:** Thu Mar 10, 2005 10:03 am **Post subject:**

I'm not getting any of them until they're chipped

The xbox2 / next / 360 / whatever it's called will be the easiest to copy games for by the look of things as it's confirmed as using DVD media (!)

Geezus · **Posted:** Thu Mar 10, 2005 11:07 am **Post subject:**

PC_Arcade wrote:

I'm not getting any of them until they're chipped

The xbox2 / next / 360 / whatever it's called will be the easiest to copy games for by the look of things as it's confirmed as using DVD media (!)

I NEVER buy a console the first year either - absurd pricing , few titles , even some design glitches....

I usually buy it the 2nd year....

Hmm....after reading thru DJ's link , I must admit M$ sure knows how to gamble....

Online play mandatory ? ....

There are MILLIONS , even amongst xbox owners, that have no acces to broadband .... also plenty of people STILL have no credit card....

...and last but not least..... some people don't like online gaming.....REALLY !
A player on the other side of the line is just a very clever AI that continuously throws cheap shots and cheezy tactics...... :wacky:

It's all about competing winning competing......Fun ? ah....Fun = winning right ? .....*sigh*....you sad person.... :roll:

I'm sorry - I have no time to establish/maintain personal online/clan relations for every single game......and playing against a stranger is a complete dud to me.... :wink:

Really ,nothing beats 4 players crammed in 1 to narrow couch exchanging elbows....onscreen and offscreen......

:mrgreen:

ViSCeRaL · **Posted:** Thu Mar 10, 2005 11:35 am **Post subject:**

PC_Arcade wrote:

You never know DJ, by the time it comes out, you may have your Xbox 1 working :lol:

That quick? I was thinking more like when Xbox 3 is released. :lol:

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Thu Mar 10, 2005 12:23 pm **Post subject:**

I'm not buying any of them... until zelda, then I have to buy a revolution toychest or whatever it is.

You can't buy that with a hdd or some hdtv mode, you have to earn it by providing quality titles. Of course I'm sure as hell not paying full retail for any of them, but maybe if they're chipped I'll exploit them.

Games simply aren't there over pc in the most part.

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Fri May 13, 2005 9:59 am **Post subject:**

Some very impressive short video clips:
http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=4903

A bit samey 3rd person shooters unfortunately, but mightly impressive on the visuals. The guys playing most of them suck as per tradition :lol:

PC_Arcade · **Posted:** Fri May 13, 2005 10:01 am **Post subject:**

Damn impressive specs on the new Xbox though :

Quote:

Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU
* Three symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each
* Two hardware threads per core; six hardware threads total
* VMX-128 vector unit per core; three total
* 128 VMX-128 registers per hardware thread
* 1 MB L2 cache
CPU Game Math Performance
* 9 billion dot product operations per second
Custom ATI Graphics Processor
* 10 MB of embedded DRAM
* 48-way parallel floating-point dynamically scheduled shader pipelines
* 48-way parallel floating-point dynamically scheduled shader pipelines
* Unified shader architecture
Polygon Performance
* 500 million triangles per second
Pixel Fill Rate
* 16 gigasamples per second fill rate using 4x MSAA
Shader Performance
* 48 billion shader operations per second
Memory
* 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM
* 700 MHz of DDR
* Unified memory architecture
Memory Bandwidth
* 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
* 256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
* 21.6 GB/s front-side bus
Overall System Floating-Point Performance
* 1 teraflop
Storage
* Detachable and upgradeable 20GB hard drive
* 12x dual-layer DVD-ROM
* Memory Unit support starting at 64 MB
I/O
* Support for up to four wireless game controllers
* Three USB 2.0 ports
* Two memory unit slots
Optimized for Online
* Instant, out-of-the-box access to Xbox Live features with broadband service, including Xbox Live Marketplace for downloadable content, gamer profile for digital identity, and voice chat to talk to friends while playing games, watching movies, or listening to music
* Built-in Ethernet port
* Wi-Fi ready: 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g
* Video camera ready
Digital Media Support
* Support for DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 CD, JPEG Photo CD ? Ability to stream media from portable music devices, digital cameras and Windows XP-based PCs
* Ability to rip music to the Xbox 360 hard drive
* Custom playlists in every game
* Built-in Media Center Extender for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
* Interactive, full-screen 3-D visualizers
High-Definition Game Support
* All games supported at 16:9, 720p, and 1080i, anti-aliasing
* Standard-definition and high-definition video output supported
Audio
* Multi-channel surround sound output
* Supports 48KHz 16-bit audio
* 320 independent decompression channels
* 32-bit audio processing
* Over 256 audio channels
System Orientation
* Stands vertically or horizontally
Customizable Face Plates
* Interchangeable to personalize the console

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox360/factsheet.htm

Geezus · **Posted:** Fri May 13, 2005 11:20 am **Post subject:**

BAH!

M$ has won :evil:

Most likely , PS3 will boost a teeny weeny bit more power.....

But if that's worth a full year of wait......I doubt it.....

I'd like to thank all you $uck up @$$holes for supporting m$ cornering yet another market....

:evil:

Sorry - having a bad day :evil:

Seriously , M$ seems to play the game right this time.....

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Fri May 13, 2005 11:35 am **Post subject:**

from what i read, x2s specs are a dissapointment to many. They seem pretty damn good to me, way better than anything that's on the market today, but i guess they were expecting some kind of holodeck or something. :lol:

I don't think its fair to count out Sony yet. Sony make a lot of money... a lot of money, they are the only console company comparable to microsoft, and are every bit in the same money market. PS3 will definitely be more of a difference in hardware than the PS2 to Xbox difference was. They do have a very, very cool CPU behind the console. Have they announced any other specs?

lol @ nintendo... bless em. no point in saying much. You can see why they keep saying, "we're not going to even bother trying to compete... look ours is pretty small though, isn't that quaint" :lol:

oh wait, they announced it will play dvds this time! lol!

Geezus · **Posted:** Fri May 13, 2005 3:01 pm **Post subject:**

spudthedestroyer wrote:

I don't think its fair to count out Sony yet. Sony make a lot of money... a lot of money, they are the only console company comparable to microsoft, and are every bit in the same money market.

- well no actually - Just the playstation divisions do - they're getting pounded in consumer electronics .....Samsung in particular is nibbling off marketshare in *ALL* product fields....

spudthedestroyer wrote:

PS3 will definitely be more of a difference in hardware than the PS2 to Xbox difference was. They do have a very, very cool CPU behind the console. Have they announced any other specs?

Soon my eager Jedi ......soon......

What worries me is that sony is gonna try and win this by trying to keep costs down - they already announce it would only boost 256mb main ram :roll:

........
but then that's one of the easiest thing to replace at the last minute....

spudthedestroyer wrote:

lol @ nintendo... bless em. no point in saying much. You can see why they keep saying, "we're not going to even bother trying to compete... look ours is pretty small though, isn't that quaint" :lol:

oh wait, they announced it will play dvds this time! lol!

None other than Billy the $ kicked off trashtalking last week by calling big N the big Niche player...

I think I'll buy the revolution when it reaches dump pricepoint again

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Sat May 14, 2005 9:19 pm **Post subject:**

Geezus wrote:

spudthedestroyer wrote:

I don't think its fair to count out Sony yet. Sony make a lot of money... a lot of money, they are the only console company comparable to microsoft, and are every bit in the same money market.

- well no actually - Just the playstation divisions do - they're getting pounded in consumer electronics .....Samsung in particular is nibbling off marketshare in *ALL* product fields....

Well, no actually. Sony aren't just consumer electronics anymore, they're profits far,far outweigh their costs.

Their profits are down but they still make a profit from the standpoint of a multi-billion pound corporation, the being they still make huge profits across the board, take a read of what the reports actually say:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4489103.stm

Quote:

For the 12 months to 31 March, the Japanese firm made operating profits of 113.9bn yen ($1bn; ?564m).

That figure includes:

Quote:

Annual losses at the electronics unit widened from 6.9bn yen to 34.4bn yen.

So they lost 34.4bn yen on misadventures, but even including 34.4bn yen, they made 113.9bn yen. So yes, actually.

I personally thought that slow sales meant the ps division made a loss this quarter? Xbox made a profit for M$ this quarter, but its still made a running loss.

Its film division had bigger profits than any other... sigh, despite pirates obviously :roll:

So that's a big negatory on that there statement in so far that what i said is perfectly true, they make huge profits, and profits from the standpoint of a multibillion international corporation. They are easily microsoft's equal, i mean microsoft makes a loss in its console division too, so they're even more similar than you think :lol:

You have to bear in mind, these press releases are from shareowner standings, and like sick, grim news sells, its not from how well they are doing. The two can and often are totally mutually exclusive.

They maybe loosing ground in electronics atm but that means little in a dynamic market, just that profits could have been higher. Their net gain is completely the opposite.

Sounds like your talking about something like this and giving it a lot more credit than it deserves:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3092063.stm
But even despite the apocalypse,

that just means there's a free market, and they are covering their asses from shareholder fire whilst they make that corner of the market back up to scratch. Give em a couple of years and they'll be back. They've fallen into the red so many times now in electronics, but they have billions to spend, and have had a net profit in electronics so they have shit loads to waste.

---

Anyway, i say don't count out sony because they're not going to go away, and i doubt it will do overly badly. I sure as hell aint backing them to be the number one ponies or anything. I won't be buying a ps3, ever, since i don't see the point given there's never been more than pittance of appeal form their games division, and all the games i'm interested about are available on competitors machines anyways. It will not be "number one" is my strong prediction. Microsoft will be, spud's garantuee.

I'm just saying, just because they're a year later, its doubtful they are going to have anything but headline coverage.

as far as purchases go, if nintendo make some good games, then i'll get one of them on the cheap. I will look at the xbox, maybe buy one. imo PS3 will most likely be not worth bothering with again, just like the PS2 now. But they won't be going away or anything, and there'll be as much coverage for them then as there is now. That's all i meant.

I still back pcs over all this shit anyway, looks like the input devices are still inferior on all accounts.

ps. i hear xbox has wavebird like controllers this time round. If they've lifted the technology right, that's a good plus. Albeit they all have wavebird controllers this time round :lol:

Sony haven't said anything, but they're always at hand to steal a good idea.

PC_Arcade · **Posted:** Thu May 19, 2005 2:30 pm **Post subject:**

Err....

Quote:

Following earlier indications that the Xbox 360 will only be backwards compatible with some Xbox games, Microsoft has admitted that existing software will need to be recompiled before it can be run on the new console.
The problem, it says, is down to hardware incompatibility - since the current Xbox uses an Intel processor, but the 360 will use IBM's PowerPC architecture, while NVIDIA's graphics solution is being replaced with an ATI one.

So NOT compatible then :lol:

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Thu May 19, 2005 2:57 pm **Post subject:**

lol... does anyone get the impressed they have utter muppets running the console business these days?

I mean we have sony saying its 35 times more powerful, when they mean they had all of their demos rendered on 35 more powerful pcs, and we have microsoft saying that its backwards compatible, it just doesn't play older games... Then there's nintendo saying, "we have a revolution! we are now going to use the internet! look see download super mario bros 3... wow"

Awesome guys! :lol:

Fair's fair though, backwards compatability is pointless a lot of the time anyway. I mean the last gen wasn't overly impressive and i doubt i'll be going back and playing anything.

Geezus · **Posted:** Thu May 19, 2005 4:26 pm **Post subject:**

spudthedestroyer wrote:

Fair's fair though, backwards compatability is pointless a lot of the time anyway. I mean the last gen wasn't overly impressive and i doubt i'll be going back and playing anything.

Damm - talk about a understatement :wacky:

I can't name 5 games on all 3 consoles that I would want to take with me to the next gen.....

Anyway , may I still raise the point that X360's main selling point is this hammering on HD ! 720 ! HD ! 1080 !HD ! all bow down blabla....

They're gonna fall flat on their face again ! HDTV penetration in Europe is laughable at this time <10 % ...

And before that percentage hits 50 % we'll be at least 5 years down the road , revving up for the next gen of hardware....

I bet HDTV penetration in North america won't be the 70-80% within those 2-3 years ( as arrogantly assumed) either....oh I'm sure BillY $ would love to believe that -

Just as his generals are yelling they'll sell a BILLION x360 's !!! :lol:

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Fri May 20, 2005 12:15 am **Post subject:**

well i've played on:
Age of Empires 2
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Super Mario World
Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past
Resident Evil (Remake but still essentially the same game)
Resident Evil 2 (a quick play)

over the past 12 months, notice 5 of those are on nintendo consoles, and the other is a microsoft one, not a console game though. I can't say that i ever played a psx title on the ps2 when i had that for ages... and that had no games worth playing past or present when i had it, there were just a string of shit titles until GTA3 came out. Luckily i sold the ps2 for a profit (just) since i had it chipped back when chipping was brand new.

Backwards compatability will go unused by me, its not that appealing.

I will not be using HDTV, i don't have the money and haven't even seen any tv equipement to play the stuff, i agree that its useless.

Whats appealing about the xbox2 is variety of 3rd party games, and potentional exploits (like the xbox atm) that provide media functionality rather than the games.

Whats appealing about the PS3 is currently nothing except it plays Blu-ray discs and may very well be a good choice if its cheap, although it looks to be very, very expensive atm.

Whats appealing about the revolution thingy is zelda. Nothing else... maybe that it will be cheap too, although that's not confirmed in anyway.

That's not too hot, i think its flattering to even call them games consoles. Gimmick box anyone? :lol:

edit: oh and Legend of Zelda 1... there was a rom for the gamecube on the limited edition zelda disc.

PC_Arcade · **Posted:** Fri May 20, 2005 9:39 am **Post subject:**

Now M$ are saying it IS backward compatible :lol:

Quote:

Ok, let?s stop this right now. There is some serious wrong information floating around, so I need to clear this up. I grabbed my favorite PR dudes, and they are saying what I was telling a few of you in email:
?We?re not sure where this came from, and is incorrect. At launch, Xbox 360 will be backward compatible with the top Xbox games. Our goal is to have every Xbox game work on Xbox 360. You will NOT need to purchase a new ?version? ? your original games will work on Xbox 360.?

TaKYoN · **Posted:** Fri May 20, 2005 9:46 am **Post subject:**

I will be fascinated tho on how well the ingame video chat will work, especially some twat who has like 64k upload and wonders why it looks shit.

Seriously tho, backwards compatability is just a gimmick, like you guys said, the current gen has been extraordinarily poor IMHO, the original PS was cool, PS2 was just shite, but XB had some OK stuff.

I gotta say, much to my chagrin, that I do honestly believe the 360 will become a very serious player in the next gen, the XB never managed to get close to the PS2. Yeah it managed to dent Sonys lead, but that was it.

Mind you, it came as no surprise since M$ admit the XB was just a stepping stone into the market, but they need to be carefull what they say in the public domain, Sega managed to kill themselves by treating customers poorly, and so did N. Saying the machine someone spent hundreds on was just a stepping stone may be misinterprated by some.

@Spud, I still say Zelda is shit. Maybe I am biased cos as a young whipper snapper I had this rebel thing going, so whatever was mainstream I hated, I mean for fucks sake I was always an Atari kid. Mind you, I gotta say the Jaguar was massively under marketed, had potential, as did the Lynx, but they fucked it up.

Anyways, I reckon I might actually purchase a 360, but only cos I can't download one ;-)

Official Xbox 2 Thread

Who is online