And finally I got one

[Demon Cleaner]

And yes, I already told Mr Harrison, I bought a XBox 360 Elite today, the black one with HDMI and 120GB HDD. I bought it along with Mass Effect and I also bought Phantasy Star Universe in 2nd hand. But I now just saw that Phantasy Star Universe costs 10$ a month, wtf, I already pay 60€ for having XBox Live for 1 year, and then I also have to pay for playing a game I bought, definitely not the way it should work M$.

[Ghost]

Cool to hear,

So how is Mass Effect playing?
It looks nice but its rather to much cookie-paste Sci-fi for me (Star Trek/Star Wars like governments, Jedi like super heroes, ancient threats) so I won't be getting it new should it ever appear on the PC.

My friend Chris from Guam is a major Phantasy Star Universe, preferring it over most other MMO's because of its non player killer nature.

[Demon Cleaner]

I just installed the 360 and am d/l some demos to test. Didn't play Mass Effect yet. Currently I'm trying to install the Media Center to be able to share my video files from my PC. I gave PSU to Oz to return it to the shop and get me something other instead, as I'm not willing to pay 10$/month to play a game.

[Sharingan]

Blasphemy! Sacrilege!

Congrats with your purchase. Let's hope it doesn't RRoD on you :thumbs:

By the way, how much noise does the Elite produce?

[Demon Cleaner]

I don't know about the noise, as I have no other to compare and haven't heard one yet. It's a bit noisier than the PS3. But it was switched on for 4 hours straight yesterday, 1 hour of fiddling around, 2 hours of demo d/l, and 1 hour of gaming. I checked the temperature and it was still cold, not any sign of heat.

[Submeg]

ha, sucker, it's when it's turned off that it explodes ;)

[Demon Cleaner]

ha, sucker, it's when it's turned off that it explodes ;)You're sure? A friend here at work just told me, that his one got now the RSOD for the 2nd time. He send it back, and now gets already his 3rd 360. Don't know if the Elite version has a better cooling system?

[Harrison]

I'm sure I read that the Elite version using an updated CPU that uses a newer smaller fabrication process so the heat issues are not as bad as the older standard version of the system. But they do still RROD a lot. Recent reports claim that 1/3 of all 360's have so far failed, which isn't good.

BTW, in regard to Phantasy Star Universe. You can play it offline and don't have to pay the monthly fees. It is only when playing the game online that you have to pay. And that has been the case with the PSO games ever since the original PSO on the Dreamcast. Although then only Japan and US had to pay. Those of us in Europe got the online completely free. ;) But with most massively multiplayer online games it is to be expected, as they have to support the running costs of the servers and updates somehow. Although Guildwars manages it without.

PSU is a very nice game though. Although as I mentioned in another thread, it definitely appeals the most to existing fans of the game series, or which I'm one.

[Demon Cleaner]

BTW, in regard to Phantasy Star Universe. You can play it offline and don't have to pay the monthly fees. It is only when playing the game online that you have to pay.I know that, but then I will play it on my PS2, no need to buy the game for 360. But problem is solved, I changed it against Blue Dragon (RPG).

[Buleste]

Is it me or is there something wrong with the fact that 33% of 360's have died with no real reason as to why. I think that we as consumers should not be accepting consoles with overheating problems or unexplained hardware failures no matter who makes them. Would you buy a brand of computer if you new that you have a 1 in 3 chance that it's going to die on you? How about a car? How about fly on a plane that has a 1 in 3 chance of falling out of the sky? Everyoine started to kick up a fuss when the PS2 started having all it's faults and Sony actually did something to rectify that. M$ just seem to be "Fix it and hope". Wii and PS3 are supposed to be at 1% for failures. Remember avoid all products that have a failure rate above 10%.

[Harrison]

Very true. Also the 360 has been for sale now for at least a year longer than both the Wii and PS3 so it shouldn't still be failing at such high percentages.

From what I've read it is a lack of space in the 360 case not allowing enough airflow to cool it effectively that is causing the majority of failures. In which case why haven't they redesigned it? Sony did with the PS2 as already mentioned. After the initial 30003 model was found to be unreliable they quickly redesigned the motherboard and updated the components and completely fixed the issues. (although I actually do still have an original 30003 model and it still works perfectly).

[Buleste]

And with all the money that M$ have and the fact that it's been out for longer you would have thought thay'd have come up with a redesign especially if it's just a overheat problem. Problem is M$ know they have a market of loyal fans who will buy the product no matter what. Sony thought the same with the PS2 and now look whats happening to PS3 sales. Nintendo had the SNES, Sega the megadrive and look how sales plummited after due to poor hardware design on the follow up machine. Will m£ learn? No, they have too much money and have become complaisent.

[Harrison]

The PS3 is only suffering until now due to initial high hardware cost and a lack of AAA software, which always happens with most new hardware. The 360 didn't exactly fly off the shelves in launch either, which many seem to have forgotten.

But once the AAA titles start to release for the PS3, and now that the hardware coat has dropped to an affordable price point (sub £300) I fully expect sales to rise for Christmas, and once titles like the next Final Fantasy are released it will shoot up, especially in Japan.

[J T]

I've been considering getting a 360 for a while now. Do post back and let us all know how you are getting on with it :)

[Harrison]

Why a 360 and not a PS3 JT?

[J T]

I'm really just totally not bothered about the PS3 right now, there's not a lot on it that I'm really that keen on for now or in the forseeable. I'll quite likely get one a few years down the line but for now it's leaving me cold.

Plus a lot of friends have 360s so online gaming is a pull ('virtual' friends like people on forums, and actual real people I've physically met).

Although I have to say that I'm tempted to put the (gift) money to use elsewhere like activities for us on holiday, or pay off some credit card bills. We'll see.

[Sharingan]

The things that have so far stopped me from getting a 360 also are:

- Piss-poor reliability

- Noise production

- Having to shell out money for things that come as standard on the PS3 (HD video, having to pay extra for proprietory harddisk replacement)

- Paying for Online Play - WTF. At 60 bucks a year, assuming a console lifespan of 5 years, that's 300 bucks, enough to buy another Xbox 360!

- Hardware isn't as future proof (DVD storage constraints)

- Microsoft's track record of abandoning the previous generation's hardware as soon as a new model is out

- Most of the 'AAA' titles on the 360 are either first person shooters or crappy Electronic Arts sports games; neither belongs to my favourite genre, although an occasional fragfest is nice for unwinding after a day's work!

The biggest thing is the hardware reliability, of course. Unless a revised model comes out that has a confirmed <3% failure rate, I'm not even going to bother. When I buy an expensive piece of hardware, I expect it to last at least 4-5 years, not 6 months.

[Ghost]

Hey Harrison,

With which Phantasy Star game did you start?

A couple of years ago they made remakes of parts 1, 2 and 4 (many fans consider 3 not really part of it) for the PS2 and the Xbox I think, but apparently the Japanese think Western gamers weren't interested enough so they never translated it.

From what I heard they really had updated the games, adding more character interaction and optional quests.

Well that's Japan for you.

* * * *

This year the Wii is the major seller but I expect that that will soon change and that the PS3 will be the biggest seller during Christmas next year.

I like some of Nintendo's franchises like the Metroid games but these last years they really are always on third place when it comes to consoles, both the machines themselves and the game selection.

[Submeg]

Seriously, 33% is so bad...if this were an engineering company, they would have filed for bankruptcy! I didnt even know it was that bad....how can you buy such a console? Mind you, Im waiting for MGS and FF to come out, currently no games taking my liking on the PS3 right now...apart from that flying game, should look into it...

[Harrison]

Hey Harrison,

With which Phantasy Star game did you start?

I originally discovered the series with Phantasy Star Online on the Dreamcast and then upgraded to PSO v2, also on the Dreamcast. I played that online a lot and must have played through the complete game world story hundreds of times, killing all the bosses etc... with loads of real players online collecting all the items, weapons, and upgrading mags.

I later went back and played through some of the original Megadrive Phantasy Star games via emulation but haven't completed any of those yet as I have many other games to play first.

I also played Blue Burst on the PC for some time via a private pirate server (i.e. I didn't have to pay a monthly fee to play it).

And I've been playing the offline single player story in Phantasy Star Universe on the PS2 at the moment.

[v85rawdeal]

I might consider a 360 when, and if, M$ do include a built-in HD-DVD drive and fix the ring of red problem (How sweet that a game came out on the PS2 that predicted the 360's biggest fault!!!)

Makes me want to believe in Time Travel!

[Harrison]

The problem with them including a built-in HD-DVD drive is that they could quickly fragment gamers on the platform if some developers start to utilise the larger discs for games. It would also increase the price of the 360 and bring it back up to a price point level or above that of the PS3, which I wouldn't think they would want to do as the 360's lower price is one thing that has so far influenced buyers over the PS3.

[Demon Cleaner]

I don't know why they did not built in a HD-DVD drive at launch. I have Blue Dragon and it comes on 3 discs, imagine the games still to come, I don't want to swap discs like on an Amiga. But I didn't try Blue Dragon put yet, perhaps you can install it to HDD, which I doubt.

[v85rawdeal]

I beleive it was originally supposed to be included in the system but they seemed to rush it out, in order to get the steal on the other consoles, which may be why they didn't (it would also explain the exclusion of HDMI ports from the get-go.)

Maybe M$ were thinking that they could release a patch somewhen down the line and no-one would notice :lol:

[Buleste]

Maybe the next M$ console will be 360 SP1 so they can fix problems with the old 360 and introduce new ones.

[Demon Cleaner]

There's also another downside. If you connect the console via HDMI, you have also to use the sound through HDMI, as you're not able to plug an optical cable to it, ast he console itself does not have an optical input. If you use the YUV cable, like me, you can plug the optical cable to the video cable, as the cable itself has an optical input.

[Harrison]

That is the same on the original Xbox where you had to buy a special AV cable that had the optical port built into the cable. A bit of an annoying design.

[Sharingan]

Having said all the 'bad' things about the 360 so far, there are a few M$-exclusive games I wouldn't mind having. Those being Ninja Gaiden II and ... ur, well, that's basically it. Maybe Ace Combat 6 - though I seriously doubt it'll stay exclusive for long. After all, the previous Ace Combats have always been on the PS consoles. Clearly a case where M$ shelled out big money for a timed exclusive in order to gain a foothold in the Japanese market.

Better versions of Gears of War, Bioshock and Halo I could play on the PC if I really wanted to, which I don't.

[Demon Cleaner]

Better versions of Gears of War, Bioshock and Halo I could play on the PC if I really wanted to, which I don't.Right, but you must then have a decent config on your PC to get the same visual result.

[Sharingan]

True, true. My rig probably won't even be able to play a PS2 game properly, even though it costs many times more.

[Harrison]

This is very true. The exclusive game releases of the 360 are now all being released on the PC as better versions with more content, and due to the power of high-end PC technology they are looking even better, and due to no storage limits also contain more levels, extra content and additions.

Much like the original Xbox, I think the 360 is going to end up as the poor man's PC, with the same but inferior games released on both platforms.

[Submeg]

Ahh, the story of M$ lol

[Ghost]

Hello all,

I find that a shame that these days games are more and more converted to other platforms.
I didn't mind so in the past as it didn't happen so often, and I liked when it was possible to play arcade games finally at home without the constant need to spending lots of coins.

But these days it almost no longer matters which machine you have as the games from one will probably be quickly adapted to another, only the company's own titles won't be so quickly converted.

[Harrison]

This isn't quite true regarding the PS3 and the Wii. Sony own a lot of film studios and game developers and titles created by one of Sony's own development studios or based on a Sony owned franchise are not likely to see a release on anything other than the PS3. And Nintendo's own first party games are similarly never going to see a port to any other hardware. But the Xbox 360 isn't quite in the same situation because while M$ do have a lot of cash, and did buy up some developers during the original Xbox launch, they don't have the same intellectual property as Sony or the loyal fan base of Nintendo.

[Ghost]

Hence why I said that a company's own titles wouldn't be so quickly (read: never) would be converted to another machine officially.

Edit:

Damn, now I need to correct this response.
Its highly unlikely in Sony's or Nintendo's case that they will ever convert their own console titles to another machines, in M$ the case lies a little different.
Sometimes the games they release were already planned for the PC, but were simply released for the Xbox first, and later appeared as yet on the PC.
Or in some cases they were converted from the Xbox to the PC.

I probably have said the same what Harrison just said but I do not want to give the impression that I am ignorant.

What I find annoying is that a lot of 'PC' games also end up translated to consoles, taking away any selection of games that are unique to it.
The PC is already often mentioned as an MMO machine, consoles are catching up, and it is my fear that the PC will only loose more and more single player games as MMO game development replaces them.

Also not very happy about the re imagining of certain games that were originally just on the PC, the often mentioned 'Fallout' (but this already has its own thread) and 'Wing Commander', the prototype for the first person space action shooter, now turned into a semi 2D/3D shooter, lacking a developing storyline like the originals.

[Harrison]

A very good point you mentioned there Ghost regarding the re-imagining of games for cross platform development. So often a game starts pre-production with a single platform in mind, but then the publisher decides it will be cross platform and then the game needs to be redesigned to fit all platforms included.

This especially hits games designed for the PC as they often end up lacking decent controls because they have been designed with a gamepad in mind. Over the past few years I have encountered many PC games where on-screen information appears that is clearly designed for someone using a console controller and not a mouse and keyboard. That is always very annoying.

The other area that often used to suffer was the graphics and model detail because often developers would model for the lowest spec system and then just port over those models to the higher ones, so the game would end up looking the same. Hence the reason some PC games end up looking like they are running on a PS2.

But at least now we are in a slightly better situation. With this current generation of consoles the 360 and PS3 are easily powerful enough to be on a level with current PC technology so games developed for one platform shouldn't suffer quite as much as they did in past generations.

[Sharingan]

The trouble with developing uniquely for one platform nowadays is the financial risk. With development costs skyrocketing, bringing out a title for only one platform can potentially mean disaster, especially for the smaller companies out there. What if the game you just sunk € 30-40 million into just doesn't sell enough to cover the costs? By going multiplatform, you reduce the risk of that happening, since you'll be reaching a market that's three/four times as large.

That's why you're seeing less and less exclusive games this generation, even franchises that have previously only appeared on, say, the PlayStation brand.

[J T]

I find that a shame that these days games are more and more converted to other platforms.

Yeah, I just hate that more people can play a bigger selection of games than ever before.

And people aren't missing out because they don't have the market-leading system or just want a simple plug in and play gaming experience? Honestly, the cheek of it.

:tease:

[Submeg]

Meow! lol

[Harrison]

:lol:

But... there is a very good reason for wanted something being developed exclusively for a single platform. Controls. Games developed specifically for one platform always utilise that system's controller much better than if it is a cross platform release.

Just look at how dire the controls are for many games that are released on the Wii, which have been ported from other systems.

[J T]

Yes, exactly.... They have been badly ported. If it can be ported just as well with a bit of care and thought* then it's hard to construe it as a bad thing.

By all means, I agree with you on badly done conversions, and can see why games are developed 'exclusively' for one system or another (the logic is easy to see). I just wanted to chuck in a bit of a pro-multi-platform opinion from a consumer point as well as from the the developer's viewpoint that Sharingan pointed out.

* Yes, I know that's a rarity thanks to money/time constraints and rampant greed.