[OpaOpa]

http://new.ga-forum.com/showthread.php?t=53801

Final hardware is done and being shipped....I have seen it.

They look like the final hardware, only the hard drive is slightly bigger and the color is different

they'll [Betas] still be used for quite a while though. At least until full devkits are freely available, they can be used for basic testing, art debug units etc. And as datawhore said, every moment counts.

Pretty interesting, FYI 'Element' was on the Fusion Frenzy team and now works internally at MGS. Pretty strange that there was such a short gap between beta and final, but considering MS has shipped new kits to devs every month for the past year(over 4000 kits are out there from what I hear) it isnt surprising.

For those closely following the progress of dev kits, we know that betas have been in dev's hands for over 3 weeks. Now final kits are being produced, it's kind of funny that news stories are STILL coming out about betas being availible, all the while final kits are about to ship.

Gamesindustry.biz claims they spoke to devs THIS MORNING who said final kits wont arrive for months and that betas JUST arrived. Funny stuff, gotta love the accuracy and timeliness of the fanboy press. http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=9914[/quote]

[jvd]

Eh . I allways heard finals in august . I don't really think they are out . I know beta kits are out and I highly doubt they would be sending beta kits and finals at the same time if fianls already existed. There would be no reason

It doesn't make sense for rare one of ms's big first party/second partyy devs to just get betas a week before e3 and now finals are going out a little over a month later. Don't see it . They would have just skipped beta

[OpaOpa]

Originally Posted by jvd

Eh . I allways heard finals in august . I don't really think they are out . I know beta kits are out and I highly doubt they would be sending beta kits and finals at the same time if fianls already existed. There would be no reason

It doesn't make sense for rare one of ms's big first party/second partyy devs to just get betas a week before e3 and now finals are going out a little over a month later. Don't see it . They would have just skipped beta

You have to keep in mind they sent out new alphas every month since they first shipped last year. I wouldent put it past MS, they are pouring cash down the drain as far as dev support is concerned.

[jvd]

I believe your taking that out of context .


I highly doubt they sent developers new configurations of the alpha kits every month .

They simply kept sending more of the same so that the devs would have more units to work with .

They didn't start off with a single g5 at 100mhz a year ago with a 9800pro and then the next month a g5 at 200mhz with a 9800xt .

[pipo]

Seconded. Alpha updates are software related AFAIK.

[jvd]

Originally Posted by pipo

Seconded. Alpha updates are software related AFAIK.

Right , I believe there were two hardware alpha kits

a dual g5 with a 9800pro and then the dual g5 with x800xts (I believe they were pros at first though i could be wrong) . Then beta kits which are lower clocked cpu and gpu and then final ... which is the final hardware . Finals aren't out yet.


Software as pipo has mentioned has been updated monthly

[Megadrive1988]

so beta kits are for the June-July timeframe, and then final kits are for the August-September timeframe ?

[PatrickL]

So close from rumored release date ? Is it not too late for launch games ?

[Shifty Geezer]

NoO, but that's the reason launch games are not usually too hot. They've been developed on non-final hardware and devs haven;t had chance to really optimise, so they aim lower.

[Pozer]

Also don't forget the original 256Meg memory target.