Further 360 hilarity ensues...

[miffy495]

fine, I'll bitch about the games if you want. Perfect Dark is nothing more than a rehash of what was great in 2000, but will seem like not much today. Kameo was originally intended to be a GCN game before MS bought Rare, so I'm jaded with regards to it. All the other big games that I'm even mildly interested in are also getting big PC releases, making it seem like MS is just trying to say "Hey look! we can finally look as good as a high-end PC again! Everyone ignore the fact that six months from now, PCs will be back to kicking our asses and buy one for our launch window prettiness!"

Oh yeah, and the marketing campaign is so bad it gave me cancer. Of the eyes.

[evild]

Uhm.. what is a "page" (or 'blade')?

This might help: http://www.designinteract.com/features/xbox/

A good article about designing the Xbox 360 interface.

[loonyboi]

"Extreme"-ness aside, they're called blades because they look like them. Seriously. If that's the most marketing-heavy thing about the 360, consider yourself lucky.

[Savage Cabbage]

I don't believe you lot. All you do is bitch. How many of you are developing games for the 360 and having serious problems writing a code that requires a hard drive? You sound like a bunch of clueless kids in a playground. Were is the love for games? I am eager for this console and all the others. I want Chromehounds ripping through my speakers, PGR3, Gears of War, Condemned, the lot. You are getting like grumpy critics who are passed their sell by date and don't even know why you are in it for. If you really don't like Microsofts business practises so much then don't buy their products but for fucks sake just stop bitching about it! Your supposed to be gamers!!!

[General Fuzzy McBitty]

I don't believe you lot. All you do is bitch. How many of you are developing games for the 360 and having serious problems writing a code that requires a hard drive? You sound like a bunch of clueless kids in a playground. Were is the love for games? I am eager for this console and all the others. I want Chromehounds ripping through my speakers, PGR3, Gears of War, Condemned, the lot. You are getting like grumpy critics who are passed their sell by date and don't even know why you are in it for. If you really don't like Microsofts business practises so much then don't buy their products but for fucks sake just stop bitching about it! Your supposed to be gamers!!!

I'd be excited if I thought that I could afford one of these with rent, food, and other essentials. Oh well... I'll buy a Revolution. 'Cause if you want money for people with minds that hate, I'm here to tell you brother you'll have to wait.

[Savage Cabbage]

true to the word son. true

[n0wak]

for fucks sake just stop bitching about it! Your supposed to be gamers!!!

I am a gamer and none of these games appeal to me. I worry about the state of gaming and I fear that I am being gamed by these giant media companies who are using these video games as a trojan horse to get their "media centres" into TEH LIVINGROOM. And I don't like having to pay $100 after taxes for rehashed games, but with more polygons and shaders. It comes across as too gamey and not gamely enough, if you ask me.

And to be fair, I feel equally ambivalent towards the PS3.

[General Fuzzy McBitty]

I initially wanted a PS3. Somewhere in all of this I decided that it wouldn't be worth the expense.

I upgraded my computer a few years ago for $500. By upgraded I mean that I took the cd drives and floppy drive out and built a new computer.

How long before consoles become PCs ?

[Savage Cabbage]

And did you feel the same way when you first got your PS1?

I don't know. Me? I am excited about every new console arrival. There are always games that get me in the mood to play. Ridge Racer and Tekken through to Loaded and Project Overkill.

Saturn gave me Panzer series (ohhh the love of SEGA) and Nights through to Guardian Heroes and Shining Force and Burning Rangers. Gungriffon - never bettered on any other system.

SNES - well just the existence of that box showed me love.

PS2 gave me Ico and GT4 through to Ring of Red and Silent Hill and still giving us more.

Xbox same story - tons of gems from Steel Battalion and Kingdom Under Fire to Jade Empire and Chronicles of Riddick.

All consoles bring excitement with them and it's great to watch the webcasts on whats coming etc. Handhelds? None of them have disapointed me. They are all giving forth great titles.

And what is the whole paranoid issue with media box in the home all about? The xbox gave us the first console to deliver ingame 5.1 digital sound and what a difference it made. Now we are taking it further with 360 and Ps3 with HiDef and on the fly messaging systems. I dont see how this is bad. The greater the enhancement the better. We will be looking at a future of online multichat warfare/coop etc. An additional HD in/out takes the burden from your amp and creates new possibilities for eyetoy style gaming.

Sorry you guys seem so down about the coming systems but I can't wait!

[General Fuzzy McBitty]

And did you feel the same way when you first got your PS1?

After my 32x I got out of next generation consoles until recently. I didn't want to buy another useless unit.

I got my PS2 around January of this year. I have a few games, and I like them. I got my game cube last week, and already have a larger list of games that I want for that, purely because it has really solid multi play, and I can get my girlfriend to play it.

I can justify 100 or 200 dollars... 400 or 500 becomes a problem, especially when I consider that they'll want more money in 5 years for the next next generation. Chances are if they want 400 dollars now, they'll want even more down the line. This isn't a bad thing necessarily, but I personally cannot afford it.

Maybe I'm spoiled, but I've never bought a console without buying a game or two. If the console package itself is $400 figure another $100 to $120 for games. Add $25 for my state's 5% sales tax. I bought my first car for less than that.

I'm not a person that has a hard time buying myself small gifts. Anything over $75 I have to think about. $200 for a console isn't bad. It's a dent in my current income, but no big deal.

I want to get excited about the next generation being upon us... I honestly do. I just cannot fathom that I will be able to afford a PS3 or Xbox 360 for quite some time, especially since I just jumped on board with the current generation, and I don't really think they've hit the wall on those yet.

I don't even know anyone that can currently justify the expense. If I did, I could have a reason to look forward to them... you know... gaming vicariously. I just know that the gap between the release and my consumption will be so large that it's difficult to be excited.

-Fuzzy (Prematurely old at 24. Fondly remembers when consoles came with 2 games, 2 controllers, a light gun, and a freaking robot.)

[Savage Cabbage]

I can totally agree with you on those points. My concern is when people just slag a console off even before they have seen it. Or make technical criticisms without having any concrete knowledge of how it functions or the ramifications of a feature. Yes companies are in it to make money, but £279 for a console with everything, in England is an acceptable price. Sure it's more than a cube but I bought my cube when it was in triple figures. Same for my ps2 and xbox. Infact only my Snes set me back £79 and that was back in the day. Earthworm Jim cost me £60 but as soon as I switched it on, the money was the last thing I was thinking about. That game entertained me for years! I know some folks on this site have to be very selective with choosing which console to buy but there really are no bad consoles - just ones that offer a particular title or two you can't do without. So buy that one and love it.

But my point was just about the negativity I have seen growing in many about games. It is sad when people start picking consoles apart and damning them before they have even played a single game.

[miffy495]

My main concern with the new generation of consoles is that they are now too close to the PC. There's not really a whole lot to distinguish them anymore. It's a PC that hooks up to your TV and uses a different input method. Whoopee. Consoles used to have things that noone else had. Light guns were a big draw for me. Analogue control was a gift from above. Split-screen multiplay lent itself to a communal atmosphere where a group of friends could just gather 'round the TV with a bowl of chips and have a good time. Now, the main multiplay component of consoles has become online. Noone is making anything for light guns anymore, and if a PC game would play better with analouge, you just buy a USB adapter for your controller. Consoles should offer a unique experience that you just can't get on a PC. I don't see this happening with the current generation, so yes, I'm down on it. I am mildly excited for the revolution, but I'm too cautious to begin singing its praises before we've seen the controller.

[Savage Cabbage]

And there's my point. When did the shape of a controller hold a console to ransom. It's a console by Nintendo with input from Miyamoto. It will be great.

And as for consoles are just PC's crap. So. Technology is merging. Developers are just providing more and more features that can be used by both the PC and the console. But I want MGS4 and I want my lightgun joys from HOTD4 and Virtua Cop. I cant wait for the new SOnic, or Mario -they are all exciting games and it is always one or two games that totally convince me to buy a next gen console.

On the one hand it seems like many dont really care for games THAT much but they are the ones who bitch the most about lack of this and that but they haven't even got a console or have only just got a ps2 and think a Saturn is astronomy. I weep for your loss. I'm gonna keep buying them and loving them as long as I know there are developers out there working their butts off to entertain me.

[General Fuzzy McBitty]

I don't know. I think the PC thing is a problem. It used to be that when a console was comming the big focus was on the games. This seems to be your biggest complaint. That we're complaining about the system and not looking at the games in general.

The problem with this complaint is that the vast majority of the advertising drive and press releases haven't been about the games, they've been about how X-Treme!!1 the consoles themselves will be.

At the end they always tack on something like... oh, and dude... dude dude dude dude... the games for this thing'll be sweet.

They're focusing so much on the console and pushing it to the media that I have very few ideas what they're going to do to utilize the awesome power of the next generation... beyond "dude, the graphics for this thing'll be great." Well know duuuuh. Or in the words of Carlos Mencia: dee dee dee!

At the end of the day the games are what matters. The industry is currently whoring itself out to the younger, dumber part of the gaming generation that wants everything XTREME!!1 and will buy it because it is extreme. Me... I'm not as young or as dumb as I was in the 90s... and I want to see some games.

The industry has gotten so caught up in its technological wet dream that it forgot to show me the games. The games are what it is about... so damnit, bring it.

In my day we didn't need a console to be a rig that played dvds, mp3s, and washed your car.