Xbox 2 software presentation tomorrow?

Evil_Cloud

Veteran
With just over 24 hours to go before Microsoft's Xbox press conference at GDC, word has reached us that the company may be planning to unveil the first demonstrations of Xbox 2 software in San Jose tomorrow.

It's been known for some time that Microsoft plans to use the GDC press conference, which happens tomorrow morning at 11am Pacific Time, to talk about the Xbox 2 for the first time in public - but what exactly the company will be showing off is not known.

Development sources today indicated that Microsoft is not prepared to discuss details of the specification of the console in its announcement tomorrow, and will not be unveiling the actual hardware design either. It's thought that the company is holding back on commenting on exact specification details until it has more concrete information about Sony's plans for PlayStation 3.

Instead of hardware, then, Microsoft is expected to talk about software - and today sources indicated to us that when Chief Xbox Officer Robbie Bach takes to the stage in San Jose tomorrow morning, he will be accompanied by demonstrations of the first confirmed titles for Xbox 2.

A number of key Microsoft developers are thought to have prepared demonstrations for the event in video form, and fingers are pointing to companies including British developers Rare and Climax to have created content for the announcement. MechAssault creators Day 1 Studios are also known to be working on Xbox 2 software, so they're another obvious contender - but Bungie and Lionhead (or Big Blue Box rather), both slaving away in the latter stages of key Xbox titles, are thought to be unlikely to have anything to show off.


Source: http://gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?section_name=pub&aid=3172

Rare and Climax, whoo!
 
Or rather, useless pre-rendered stuff "indicative of the Xbox2's power", which is the approach i'm thinking they'll take...
 
running on what? R420? if so, who cares about Xbox2, the R420 is working!!!

realtime demos on R420 tomorrow will kinda be the equivalent
of the realtime demos on the then-new NV15 / GeForce 2, four
years ago when Xbox was announced.

Xbox 2 will of course be one or two generations beyond
whatever realtime demos they show tomorrow. not counting
any prerendered CG.
 
Megadrive1988 said:
Xbox 2 will of course be one or two generations beyond
whatever realtime demos they show tomorrow. not counting
any prerendered CG.

Proviced content creation can keep up with the hardware evolution of course... There's a reason it takes a year of post-production work for a big effects movie, and they can have hundreds of people working on it.

I think that will be the biggest challenge, seeing who will be able to harness the power of next-gen hardware...

Personally, I'd be happy to just have "wider" graphics rather than "denser" graphics, meaning better draw distances, more moving actors, higher frame rates with no slowdown and such; stuff which most developers could manage. Of course it would be awesome with all the new exciting effects stuff, but that probably means only top-notch developers will be able to get good results.
 
I kinda share the same sentiment. I'd perfer to see larger gameworlds moving at higher framerates (60fps as much as possible and nothing EVER EVER EVER EVER below a constant 30fps in even the worst games)
rather than insanely high detail.
 
Megadrive1988 said:
I kinda share the same sentiment. I'd perfer to see larger gameworlds moving at higher framerates (60fps as much as possible and nothing EVER EVER EVER EVER below a constant 30fps in even the worst games)
rather than insanely high detail.

the days of 30fps games is not ever, not even talking about bad 50Hz conversion from EA/Square in europe.
 
Yes bigger worlds, in a large amount of genre's (some are okay as it is). Thats the reason why I can't wait until the day when we see the first GTA style game on next gen hardware, I expect a big improvement.
 
Jabjabs said:
Yes bigger worlds, in a large amount of genre's (some are okay as it is). Thats the reason why I can't wait until the day when we see the first GTA style game on next gen hardware, I expect a big improvement.


I think that even if the game is set in enclosed areas like Doom3, it doesn't mean it can be small, i mean the game can still be huge even if it doesnt feature Jak2 kind of environments... Also, streaming technology learned in this generation will help getting rid of "Level 2 (or 3,4,etc)" loading times, which are soooooooooo 16-bit...
 
991060 said:
nAo said:
Got any ppt or pdf about the presentation? :rolleyes:
No..all the slides are in my head at the moment :)
Don't hold your breath..they did not give any hw information..it was just marketing stuff without any factual data.

ciao,
Marco
 
london-boy said:
Also, streaming technology learned in this generation will help getting rid of "Level 2 (or 3,4,etc)" loading times, which are soooooooooo 16-bit...

in fact some Psone already used streaming tech, crash bandicoot games, soulreaver, etc...

others like spyro used "seamless" loading (there's no black screen or whatever , spyro was always on screen)

you can even extend streaming to SegaCD :LOL:
games like road avenger were oure streaming experience :LOL:
 
Vysez said:
london-boy said:
Also, streaming technology learned in this generation will help getting rid of "Level 2 (or 3,4,etc)" loading times, which are soooooooooo 16-bit...

in fact some Psone already used streaming tech, crash bandicoot games, soulreaver, etc...

others like spyro used "seamless" loading (there's no black screen or whatever , spyro was always on screen)

you can even extend streaming to SegaCD :LOL:
games like road avenger were oure streaming experience :LOL:


Yeah i thought about that before posting, i was gonna put "it's sooooo 32-bit" but then changed my mind and put 16-bit...

Anyway, any news on this xbox2 thing?
 
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