xbox 360 confirmed pricing

[jvd]

our store had 2 cancels . THe news hasn't gone out yet . I expect things to change drasticly (people coming in , canceling , changing to diffrent versions) by the end of the week as calls will most likely start going out tommorow .

I only work there twice a month to keep my discount (Sometimes more if they need help) today was my day off at my job job and i stoped in tonight. The major thing thats happening is alot of people are no walking away from preordering .

 

[Powderkeg]

I am surprised at some of this outrage over the lack of the HDD. It's barely supported on the current Xbox even though it's standard. If only a tiny handful of games would really make use of it if it were there, is it worth it to MS to add the extra cost to include it?

And are you really going to miss out on anything by not having it? It was never anything more than a cache to reduce loading times in the best implementations, what makes you think not having it will do anything more than slightly increase loading times or frequencies?

The PS3 won't have one, and I'll bet that the Revolution won't either. That means multiplatform games wouldn't use it even if it were there. Somehow, I doubt either one of them will be suffering because it didn't have an HDD, what makes some of you people think the 360 will.

If anything is going to hurt the 360, it will be the lack of memory bandwidth, not the lack of the HDD. It will be the memory bandwidth advantage of the PS3 that will give it a visible difference in games, not the HDD or lack thereof.



That said, I can completely understand the people who pre-ordered who are angry because they aren't getting what they believed they were promised. I too expected the 20GB HDD and wireless controller to be standard items, but when all is said and done, I would have bought the component cables, headset, and media remote anyways, so I'm only spending $10 more than what I had expected to.

 

[Deadly Towers]

If anything is going to hurt the 360, it will be the lack of memory bandwidth, not the lack of the HDD. It will be the memory bandwidth advantage of the PS3 that will give it a visible difference in games, not the HDD or lack thereof.

It's the other way around if you assume framebuffer to remain the main bandwith consumer.

 

[Vince]

I am surprised at some of this outrage over the lack of the HDD. It's barely supported on the current Xbox even though it's standard. If only a tiny handful of games would really make use of it if it were there, is it worth it to MS to add the extra cost to include it?

I think, IMHO, where the "outrage" stems from is that these are gaming forums filled with gamers who likely would have no problem spending $400 or $500 on a console. The problem is that they are paying $400 for a platform with a HDD which, from a gaming perspective, has effectively become null because Microsoft is trying to cater to Joe Schmoe the consumer who desires the $299 price point (ergo, sans the HDD based on the economics of the unit itself and the nVidia royalty payments for the backwards comp. it enables). In all seriousness, the HDD is now about as usefull for gaming as the PlayStation2 HDD is -- which isn't saying much at all. Although the multimedia aspects are cool.

EDIT: The $100 for 802.11x support is outrageous IMHO.

I expect things to change drasticly (people coming in , canceling , changing to diffrent versions) by the end of the week as calls will most likely start going out tommorow

You have to call the customers? Ouch. All things aside, I'd hate to have to do that just on principle since they were led to believe one thing. Not that it's your fault, I just think it's unfortunate that people (hopefully not you) will be put in a position like this and have to deal with people who imminently will be jerks about it. The best of luck with it...

 

[Powderkeg]

It's the other way around if you assume framebuffer to remain the main bandwith consumer.

And why would I assume that?

PS3 can go to 480p support with it's games.
PS3 can drop FSAA
PS3 can use XDR for it's frame buffer, removing that bandwidth usage from the GDDR-3 memory


Also, even if the framebuffer were to be the main bandwidth consumer, you are forgetting that the 360's CPU also uses it's GGR-3 bandwidth, which is no higher than the PS3's GDDR-3 bandwidth to start with. Cell uses a seperate bank of memory, and thus, doesn't use up the PS3's video memory bandwidth. That reduced CPU load goes a long way towards making up the difference the frame buffer adds, expecially when that frame buffer is also shifted to XDR.


But that's all irrelevent to this discussion. The point here is that the 360 is at no disadvantage because the HDD isn't standard. None whatsoever.

 

[jvd]

You have to call the customers? Ouch. All things aside, I'd hate to have to do that just on principle since they were led to believe one thing. Not that it's your fault, I just think it's unfortunate that people (hopefully not you) will be put in a position like this and have to deal with people who imminently will be jerks about it. The best of luck with it...

We are hoping they do automated calls like they did with zelda . God we got so many people cursing us off after getting that message.

And why would I assume that?

PS3 can go to 480p support with it's games.
PS3 can drop FSAA
PS3 can use XDR for it's frame buffer, removing that bandwidth usage from the GDDR-3 memory

Well at 480p that isn't the hd era . Thats no better than the ns5 actually . The games will look infior to 720p / 4x fsaa

Droping fsaa implys that its on already and with hdr it most likely wont as nvidia doesn't have a working solution for fsaa + hdr

As for xdr cell is going to be using that ram also which means the bandwidth to xdr will be reduced already before putting the weight of the framebuffer on it too

 

[Powderkeg]

I think, IMHO, where the "outrage" stems from is that these are gaming forums filled with gamers who likely would have no problem spending $400 or $500 on a console. The problem is that they are paying $400 for a platform with a HDD which, from a gaming perspective, has effectively become null because Microsoft is trying to cater to Joe Schmoe the consumer who desires the $299 price point (ergo, sans the HDD based on the economics of the unit itself and the nVidia royalty payments for the backwards comp. it enables). In all seriousness, the HDD is now about as usefull for gaming as the PlayStation2 HDD is -- which isn't saying much at all. Although the multimedia aspects are cool.

They never really understood what it was used for in the first place. It's just a cache to help reduce loading times. Using a faster optical drive can go a long way towards achieving the same effect.

Look at it this way..

Xbox HDD = 33MB/sec
DVD 12X = 16MB/sec

Oh no, the loading in Halo might take a whole second, instead of half of one.

And that's about all of the real-world difference it will make.

EDIT: The $100 for 802.11x support is outrageous IMHO.

Amen to that.

 

[Vince]

As for xdr cell is going to be using that ram also which means the bandwidth to xdr will be reduced already before putting the weight of the framebuffer on it too

True, but keep in mind that Cell - alone, without touching the FlexIO|RSX - has access to as much bandwith in accessing system RAM as the entire XBox360 system has.

 

[Sean*O]

Great. Now Xbox has resorted to bait and switch half-truth marketing techniques. The standard HDD was the only ace they had on Sony.

Incredibly stupid and short sighted decision.

Halo 3 and Gears of War are not going to offset this kind of bluder.

What if Sony decide to include a HDD standard with the PS3 now, just to bury MS?

 

[Powderkeg]

Well at 480p that isn't the hd era . Thats no better than the ns5 actually . The games will look infior to 720p / 4x fsaa

Who says?

If my game has higher polygons, more texture variety, and better/more pixel shader effects, does yours actually look better just because you have FSAA and 720p?

Droping fsaa implys that its on already and with hdr it most likely wont as nvidia doesn't have a working solution for fsaa + hdr

And without HDR? Or are you suggesting every PS3 and 360 game will be using HDR? And HDR uses the 360's bandwidth, just like the PS3 does. Sure you get the FSAA for free, but not the HDR.

As for xdr cell is going to be using that ram also which means the bandwidth to xdr will be reduced already before putting the weight of the framebuffer on it too

Yes, Cell will be using some of the XDR bandwidth, but it has more total bandwidth than the 360 does, and if we assume the CPU load is roughly the same on both systems, you still have to subtract that from the 360's bandwidth, while not touching the PS3's video bandwidth.

Cell could use 15GB/sec, and the PS3 would still have a full 22GB/sec to give to RSX. If the 360 CPU could use 15GB/Sec (I belive it's limited to 10GB/sec) you would only have 7GB/sec to give to the 360.

That better be some massive frame buffer usage to make up that difference.

 

[DeathKnight]

In all seriousness, the HDD is now about as usefull for gaming as the PlayStation2 HDD is -- which isn't saying much at all. Although the multimedia aspects are cool.

As far as advanced features in games where a hard drive is used goes then yes, unless specific developers choose to leverage it in those ways and thus require that a hard drive be connected, but that's a business decision. However, it will be more useful than just doubling as a large memory card. It can still be used for caching to speed up load times and Microsoft is trying to make it extremely easy for developers to do this (as pointed out in the blogcast at Major Nelson's site).

 

[PARANOiA]

Oh no, the loading in Halo might take a whole second, instead of half of one.

Halo had quite chunky load times actually - Halo2 as well. Something I'd prefer not to have extended if I have a bloody HDD attached!

 

[Powderkeg]

As far as advanced features in games where a hard drive is used goes then yes, unless specific developers choose to leverage it in those ways and thus require that a hard drive be connected, but that's a business decision. However, it will be more useful than just doubling as a large memory card. It can still be used for caching to speed up load times and Microsoft is trying to make it extremely easy for developers to do this (as pointed out in the blogcast at Major Nelson's site).

Don't forget about dowloadable content for games. A lot of Live games will still offer DLC, and you are going to need that hard drive if you want to take advantage of that.

It still has a big effect on games for those that play on Live. So much so that I would consider it a requirement for anyone planning on keeping the Gold subscription.

 

[Powderkeg]

Halo had quite chunky load times actually - Halo2 as well. Something I'd prefer not to have extended if I have a bloody HDD attached!

Halo/Halo 2 load times are "chunky" because of the Xbox hardware being on a very old bus system that had trouble with passivly loading data during gameplay. The 360 shouldn't suffer those same problems.

 

[Inane_Dork]

What if Sony decide to include a HDD standard with the PS3 now, just to bury MS?

Won't happen and wouldn't be effective anyway. It won't happen because the only way to 1-up MS about this is to make every PS3 necessarily have a hard drive plugged in. That's not possible since the thing is external. It also won't happen because that means Sony eats that price for 5+ years. Hard drive prices don't get as low as other parts, which is why these guys are rather non-commital (sp?) about it.

And it wouldn't be effective because the benefit is very vague. It enables what, exactly? It's also too late for most games currently in production to really do anything special with it. And in the meantime, Sony is either leaking cash profusely from the inclusion or they're making the user pay for it which would alienate some and raise the price above where it would have been otherwise.


Truth be told, I think MS's PR has caught up with it. That's the real issue. No hard drive isn't a big deal, IMO. The big deal is that for years MS went on and on about how the hard drive does this thing and that thing and makes so and so's life so much easier. Well, they set the bar really high (perhaps too high?) and then failed to clear it. Dumb on them. Maybe they'll learn this time, but I doubt it.

Besides that, the only real mess of today is the peripheral pricing which is just unbelievable. I don't know what the heck MS is thinking (besides $$$$$), but some of those suggested prices are total rip-offs.

 

[jvd]

Who says?

If my game has higher polygons, more texture variety, and better/more pixel shader effects, does yours actually look better just because you have FSAA and 720p?

that its not hd era ? Hd standards

As for looking at the images u can do more shaders but your loosing out on the actual quality of the image . So its a trade off and its not hd . Thus your buying a 400$ console or there abouts for a res thats infior to the other system .

That would be as bad as what ms pulled with the hdd .

And without HDR? Or are you suggesting every PS3 and 360 game will be using HDR? And HDR uses the 360's bandwidth, just like the PS3 does. Sure you get the FSAA for free, but not the HDR.

but u have fp10 on the xenos which will be fast ,less gpu intesnive and bandwidth intensive than the nvidia soultion .

Yes, Cell will be using some of the XDR bandwidth, but it has more total bandwidth than the 360 does, and if we assume the CPU load is roughly the same on both systems, you still have to subtract that from the 360's bandwidth, while not touching the PS3's video bandwidth.

How so ? xbox 360 has its edram for framebuffer which is another 32gb/s i believe . The ps3 is going to have to use its bandwidth to either memory pool for its framebuffer .

Cell could use 15GB/sec, and the PS3 would still have a full 22GB/sec to give to RSX. If the 360 CPU could use 15GB/Sec (I belive it's limited to 10GB/sec) you would only have 7GB/sec to give to the 360.

Well your expecting the more powerfull cpu to need the same bandwidth ?

But anway your still not factoring its edram bandwidth . Which will be of use .

That better be some massive frame buffer usage to make up that difference.

You'd be suprised.

But you also don't factor in compresion schemes . How do u know which one has the more powerfull compression ? That is the one that will be the winner imho

 

[Fafalada]

Oh no, the loading in Halo might take a whole second, instead of half of one.
And that's about all of the real-world difference it will make.

Maybe if this were a "real-world" where optical drives have no seek times. But in this one, the difference will always be larger then that (assuming the load process is in fact, limited by the speed of input devices).

 

[Carl B]

Won't happen and wouldn't be effective anyway. It won't happen because the only way to 1-up MS about this is to make every PS3 necessarily have a hard drive plugged in. That's not possible since the thing is external. It also won't happen because that means Sony eats that price for 5+ years. Hard drive prices don't get as low as other parts, which is why these guys are rather non-commital (sp?) about it.

Well, Sony's add-on drive is actually internal, but I agree there's no way they make it standard.

 

[JasonLD]

This is really surprising..Now I am forced to get $399 version which I wasn't quite expected to pay that much. I can't even thinking about getting $299 version with all the peripherials being so expensive that you are forced to buy premium version since it will end up lot cheaper.
I really feel that $299 core version should never been existed...good thing they reached that magical $299 launch price point, but that version has none of the features that MS said in such significance...High Definition, wireless controller, Hard drive, and full Live service. MS was doing really good..but this is so unexpected that they will have this big of letdown.

 

[Kolgar]

Seems Microsoft's forgotten they're the underdog, here.

I expected them to come out swinging, with an aggressively priced (no more than $349) HDD-enabled machine. With Sony's troubled consumer electronics and motion-picture divisions, not to mention the billions of dollars they've sunk into CELL, now would be the perfect time to pinch them and force them to bleed hot and heavy at launch with a competitively priced PS3.

Now, of course, Sony has a "get-out-of-jail-free" card and can charge up to $399 for PS3 without a second thought. While MS trips out of the gate, having lost both momentum and the advantage of being the only HDD-enabled console on the market.

What were they thinking? They could have really rocked Sony. Instead, it looks like they may once again wind up being an also-ran unless they decide to rethink this plan.