Another like- minded opinion
My friends/co-workers talk about games often. I always like it when I see an article echo one of my (overly strong?) opinions.
Xbox 360 vs. The Public Good
Since the announcement of the 360 I felt like Microsoft was ushering in the next generation of consoles way too early. It seems like they want to quickly correct the shortcoming that exist with the first Xbox.
Were players crying for better graphics? Sure, player always like better graphics and Xbox had a clear graphics advantage. There are a handful of Xbox titles (Thief & Riddick for a couple) that look amazing and far better than the rest of the Xbox library. These game look WAY better than any PS2 game. I was amazed when I saw these games. What other treasures could the Xbox have produced? Anytime a game was released cross console I bought it for the Xbox because I knew 1) Better looking and 2) shorter load times.
Were players crying for new gameplay experiences? A resounding "YES." While I think this answer is heard louder in the developer community, the buzz word for the past 2 years has been "innovation." The industry has been acting like the game industry may die if innovation in gaming is not pushed to the forefront of eveyones mind.
Do you foster innovation by pushing a new console that focuses on "everything HD"? Thereby making art production (and not gameplay development) the most important/time consuming aspect of game development.
Do you foster innovation by cutting the life cycle of current gen consoles short? At a time when graphics and pushing/learning the system are no longer the largest obstacles.
Do you foster innovation by releasing 2 version of a console with different capabilites? I thought the Tapwave Zodiac made the dumbest move possible by having 2 different versions of their console (different amounts of memory and therefore price) but Xbox repeated this move.
No, but maybe you can get it right this time and get Japanese software support and sales. But still the Xbox 360 is floundering in Japan, being crushed by the Nintendo DS (like everything else) and little sales happening in the U.S. because no one can even find a 360 to buy.
Now people are just waiting on the sidelines to see what happens. Waiting to see if their local EB gets some 360s in stock or maybe just waiting for the PS3. The people I know who have a 360 are playing Halo 2 or Geometry Wars.
Well, if 360 doesn't go well maybe Microsoft can release another console in a couple of years.
Xbox 360 vs. The Public Good
Since the announcement of the 360 I felt like Microsoft was ushering in the next generation of consoles way too early. It seems like they want to quickly correct the shortcoming that exist with the first Xbox.
Were players crying for better graphics? Sure, player always like better graphics and Xbox had a clear graphics advantage. There are a handful of Xbox titles (Thief & Riddick for a couple) that look amazing and far better than the rest of the Xbox library. These game look WAY better than any PS2 game. I was amazed when I saw these games. What other treasures could the Xbox have produced? Anytime a game was released cross console I bought it for the Xbox because I knew 1) Better looking and 2) shorter load times.
Were players crying for new gameplay experiences? A resounding "YES." While I think this answer is heard louder in the developer community, the buzz word for the past 2 years has been "innovation." The industry has been acting like the game industry may die if innovation in gaming is not pushed to the forefront of eveyones mind.
Do you foster innovation by pushing a new console that focuses on "everything HD"? Thereby making art production (and not gameplay development) the most important/time consuming aspect of game development.
Do you foster innovation by cutting the life cycle of current gen consoles short? At a time when graphics and pushing/learning the system are no longer the largest obstacles.
Do you foster innovation by releasing 2 version of a console with different capabilites? I thought the Tapwave Zodiac made the dumbest move possible by having 2 different versions of their console (different amounts of memory and therefore price) but Xbox repeated this move.
No, but maybe you can get it right this time and get Japanese software support and sales. But still the Xbox 360 is floundering in Japan, being crushed by the Nintendo DS (like everything else) and little sales happening in the U.S. because no one can even find a 360 to buy.
Now people are just waiting on the sidelines to see what happens. Waiting to see if their local EB gets some 360s in stock or maybe just waiting for the PS3. The people I know who have a 360 are playing Halo 2 or Geometry Wars.
Well, if 360 doesn't go well maybe Microsoft can release another console in a couple of years.
posted by Brad Merritt at 10:16 AM
1 Comments:
Microsoft totally made major mistakes with the 360. While a smaller console should have been near the top of the list of priorities, between the console itself, a large hard-drive, and the power source (I nicknamed it "the brick" at work), it's bigger and more unwieldly than the Xbox. That's strike one just from a physical standpoint. Both the console and the brick run ridiculously hot, to the point of being a fire hazard. Physical standpoint strike two. Lastly, the thing tries to suck an absurd amount of juice through the power plug, which can short out power strips and also cause an additional fire hazard.
As with any new console, many of the first generation of 360's have been buggy. That's to be expected, but it's still disappointing. There are several people I know at work who seldom if ever use the 360 if they own one, or they sold it already. While this is partly because of lack of many good games, it's also because the system is a bit slapshod at this point.
Most developers definitely weren't ready for the launch, either. Due to different programming requirements, many games are having bedeviled development cycles. Framerate issues, loading times, and draw-in distances seem to be major, major problems through the bulk of development. Also, the HD push has made many games look rather lackluster on normal TVs, some looking no better than Xbox games with higher end graphics. I really think a mid-2006 launch is the earliest Microsoft and most developers would have been decently prepared for.
None of this is of course to say that I plan on buying a first run PS3 or Revolution. First runs of next gen consoles = no. Second or later runs = okay.
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