Xenon Information from MS
- Thread starter Megadrive1988
- Start date
Qroach said:
It ws Kaz Hirai at E3. Their online strategy is microtransactions rather than subscriptions, kind of like iTunes Music Store vs. Napster.
Some gamers are irritated by unlockable items as it is (like certain stadia in a sports game not being available right away). If publishers try to make money by selling unlockable items, that might cause some backlash.
As long as it doesn't diminish one's ability to enjoy all aspects of a games if they don't buy these items, it shouldn't matter. How well are those cheat or advice lines that publishers advertise in the manuals doing? That doesn't seem to be a big part of game software revenues.
I just got back from the morning's sessions at GDC which included the Allard keynote.
Meh.
They're saying exactly the same things I'm hearing from other camps and have been hearing for a while - next-gen is all about tools and technology, and we'll make it all so easy for you this time, honest. In fact it could be argued that Sony already started down that road with their middleware program on PS2, albeit with only partial success.
I was more enthused by Tim Sweeny's talk which, although saying nothing particularly new either, at least showed how a relatively small company could still distinguish themselves and churn out good titles. He also wasn't nearly as dismissive of multi-core CPU stuff as some people round here would want to believe.
The only thing that really excited me about Allards slick marketing waffle was at the end when they gave away 1000 samsung HDTVs. And that's only because I got one
(it will be plugged into my PlayStation...)
Meh.
They're saying exactly the same things I'm hearing from other camps and have been hearing for a while - next-gen is all about tools and technology, and we'll make it all so easy for you this time, honest. In fact it could be argued that Sony already started down that road with their middleware program on PS2, albeit with only partial success.
I was more enthused by Tim Sweeny's talk which, although saying nothing particularly new either, at least showed how a relatively small company could still distinguish themselves and churn out good titles. He also wasn't nearly as dismissive of multi-core CPU stuff as some people round here would want to believe.
The only thing that really excited me about Allards slick marketing waffle was at the end when they gave away 1000 samsung HDTVs. And that's only because I got one
(it will be plugged into my PlayStation...)
Gdc Keynote Video Up from TXB (or some of it)
fucked up encoding but it's watchable
http://movies.teamxbox.com/gdc05/gdc_key_1.wmv
Basically the big news is that the UI for Xenon will make it so the Xbox dashboard is accessible while you're playing a game. So you could be playing a racing game and you bring up the dashboard in a sidebar and start one of your custom soundtracks. Or you could bring up the dashboard sidebar and start shopping for downloadable content while you are in any game. In otherwords you can have other programs running in the background while you're playing. You can be downloading content and songs while you are playing a game and you will get a pop-up alert when it finishes. Or you could have your music player running in the background while you are playing a game.
fucked up encoding but it's watchable
http://movies.teamxbox.com/gdc05/gdc_key_1.wmv
Basically the big news is that the UI for Xenon will make it so the Xbox dashboard is accessible while you're playing a game. So you could be playing a racing game and you bring up the dashboard in a sidebar and start one of your custom soundtracks. Or you could bring up the dashboard sidebar and start shopping for downloadable content while you are in any game. In otherwords you can have other programs running in the background while you're playing. You can be downloading content and songs while you are playing a game and you will get a pop-up alert when it finishes. Or you could have your music player running in the background while you are playing a game.
MrWibble said:...
The only thing that really excited me about Allards slick marketing waffle was at the end when they gave away 1000 samsung HDTVs. And that's only because I got one
(it will be plugged into my PlayStation...)
I betchya it's a mind controlling device that transmits 720p HD subliminal messages and burns all your PS2 saves!
About those microtransactions, player to player seems a departure. Isn't it true that all XBL downloads have to be approved of by MS before they are put up? And specifically, they can only be from developers, not users, so some were decrying that user mod community would never develop.
Well if you have to transact user mods, that rather goes against the ethos of that community doesn't it?
Why not facilitate interaction between users by making it easier to exchange game saves, rosters, etc.? Either put in a full-featured IM or email client so you can send and receive game files directly or use SD cards or some other standard format for game saves so that they could be popped in a computer memory card reader and you can download the game files from web sites or your email and put them directly on the cards? Of course, they have to make money on peripherals so proprietary cards are more likely. Plus they will probably use some compression and encryption like those Max Drive files.
Well if you have to transact user mods, that rather goes against the ethos of that community doesn't it?
Why not facilitate interaction between users by making it easier to exchange game saves, rosters, etc.? Either put in a full-featured IM or email client so you can send and receive game files directly or use SD cards or some other standard format for game saves so that they could be popped in a computer memory card reader and you can download the game files from web sites or your email and put them directly on the cards? Of course, they have to make money on peripherals so proprietary cards are more likely. Plus they will probably use some compression and encryption like those Max Drive files.
sonycowboy
Newcomer
Can anybody here run through some speculations of what a 1TFLOP Xbox 360 would look like?
Assuming that we do have a 3.5GHz 3 core PPC and a 500MHz ATI GPU and ????. Of course, you may have to permuate some of those numbers, but I'm just wondering where all of the horsepower is coming from.
I think Microsoft certainly will be called on this number, so I expect it to be valid. But with all the number I've seen you guys come up with the "leaked" specs we've seen to date, I don't think anything has approached a TFLOP.
It was a good day for news.
Assuming that we do have a 3.5GHz 3 core PPC and a 500MHz ATI GPU and ????. Of course, you may have to permuate some of those numbers, but I'm just wondering where all of the horsepower is coming from.
I think Microsoft certainly will be called on this number, so I expect it to be valid. But with all the number I've seen you guys come up with the "leaked" specs we've seen to date, I don't think anything has approached a TFLOP.
It was a good day for news.
sonycowboy said:
Personally, I'd just say stay away from any numbers that either Sony or MS give out and wait and see what they produce on the consoles themselves. Or at least wait until more solid specs from both companies are out in the open which actually explain the processors from top to bottom.
Until then, you'll be wading in a river of misinformation. I'd rather see things in practise, not in theory.
sonycowboy said:
DeanoC answered your interrogation, earlier in the thread. MS is just counting fixed function operations in their total.
"Flops talks" were already almost useless, considering the numerous variables one has to consider when measuring "raw calculation power", but if the console manufacturers start talking in NVFlops, "Flops talking", next-gen, would be completely and utterly useless... Not a bad thing, though.
the whole keynote is up now:hey69 said:
http://features.teamxbox.com/xbox/1081/2005-GDC-Keynote-Summary/p1
BOOMEXPLODE
Regular
sonycowboy said:
I think it would look alot like a 77 million polygons per second Playstation 2.
BOOMEXPLODE said:
It's actually quite different, but it's useless to discuss this now.
Unfortunately a basis of comparison is needed. Assuming that both XB360 and PS3 will look very similar, that horse-power drives things like physics, AI, etc. How do you communicate if your console has more oomph than the competitor and will provide a longer run of growing games that don't peak the hardware early into it's life-cycle? I'd expect both consoles to show similar offerings on first gen software, but where do I put my money if I want the best 3rd and 4th gen software?Vysez said:
We need a 3DMark for consoles!