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October 11th, 2005, 23:24 Posted By: wraggster
News From Lik Sang
Release Date / Price Point
First out of the gate for this generation, the Xbox 360 hits America on Tuesday Nov 22nd, two days before Thanksgiving, then Europe on Friday Dec 2nd, and Japan on Saturday Dec 10th. As Peter Moore, corporate Vice President of Xbox, told IGN recently, "If there is a lesson I think we have learned in the previous generation it's that gamers want choice. Some gamers want simply to play a game and have none of the, in their estimation, some of the frills of the gaming experience, and price becomes paramount for them." Thus there is two different packs, the first of which, the Core System, includes a wired controller and standard AV cable for US$ 299. The Premium Bundle boasts a wireless pad, component HD-AV cable, detachable 20 GB hard drive, Xbox Live Headset, Multi-Media Remote, and free Xbox Live Silver membership for US$ 399.
The premium bundle will go for €399.99 (US$ 479) in Europe, and £279.99 (US$ 499) for the UK, while the Core System will be €299.99 (US$ 359) in Europe, and £209.99 (US$ 369) in the UK. For those who get the core system, without a hard drive, a 64M memory card can be purchased, and games now list the amount of space their saves take on the back of the box. Japanese players however, can pick up the full premium bundle at only 37,900 yen (US$ 334), and no core system will be offered there. The hard drive in every continent comes pre-loaded with a custom soundtrack, High Definition video including a "Making of Xbox 360" feature, and a free arcade puzzle game from Alexy Pajitnov, the creator of Tetris, titled Hexic.
The Games
Moving onto the games, while a final list of titles you'll be able to buy on day one isn't available yet, here's the 17 games announced by Microsoft and various third parties that they intend to try and ship at launch:
• Project Gotham Racing 3
• Kameo: Elements of Power
• Perfect Dark Zero
• Madden NFL 06
• NBA Live 06
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06
• FIFA 06
• Need for Speed Most Wanted
• NBA 2K6
• NHL 2K6
• Top Spin 2
• Amped 3
• Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
• Call of Duty 2
• Quake 4
• Tony Hawk's American Wasteland
• Gun
Absent from the list but still expected to release this year are the likes of Dead or Alive 4 (complete with Halo's Master Chief!), Peter Jackson's King Kong, Saint's Row, Full Auto, Condemned: Origins, Final Fantasy XI and more.
Currently the only title to require the hard drive is the last in the list, Final Fantasy XI. Those who do get the 20 GB hard drive though, can also enjoy backwards compatibility with the "best selling Xbox titles". While as it's achieved using an Xbox emulator running on vastly different hardware, this doesn't include all games, but Microsoft will release patches online to expand the compatibility library as time goes on.
The Controller
The 360's pad is similar in size to the Xbox S controller, but smoother, sleeker and lighter, in fact quite a lot lighter with the wired version. While there were no complaints about poor build quality with the original Xbox pad, the new controller is reported to feel a lot stronger. The rarely used black and white buttons are gone from the front, and have become two DualShock style shoulder buttons on the top. Past those is the two larger style triggers racing fans love, giving you a large range of analog control. Much to the delight of those who played Xbox for many, many hours, the face buttons are now more round and comfortable, and in the upper mid section of the pad sits the circle of light. With four different quadrants of light, this is used to show you which of four players you are, and could be for example, used to show which section of a split screen match you're playing in.
When an Xbox Live message comes through, which will pop up without interrupting or slowing down your game, you can press the "X" in the middle of the circle of light, to pause and respond. Likewise you can use it to jump straight into music, pictures, DVD playback and more. Moving on, down the bottom of the pad is the integrated headset port for Xbox Live play, which can be used with either the wireless or wired controller.
The 360 supports up to 4 controllers, and we'd assume has enough wireless channels to handle those 16 player link-up fests. Using 2.4 GHz wireless technology with a 30-foot range, the wireless pad is powered by two AA batteries, which lasts for up to 40 hours. Features include the ability to turn rumble mode on or off to save power, and the ring of light will change from green to orange when batteries are running low, and then to red for that last final warning. For those dreaded moments when the battery does run low, the optional Play & Charge Kit lets you recharge while you game. This also comes with a standard NiMH rechargeable battery pack, which lasts for 30 hours. Lastly, the ability to turn on or off the Xbox 360 console from the controller ensures short of changing discs, you'll never have to move one iota off the couch.
Online Functionality and Accessories
Switching to accessories, around the back of the console there's three USB ports, two of which can be used for PC control pads and hopefully a keyboard and mouse. 3rd party controllers and accessories may see a price rise this generation though, as Microsoft will be charging accessory makers licensing fees, and while that's not too uncommon, for the first time, encryption hardware has been built into the console making sure they can't sneak around this, since most companies currently do.
The Universal Media Remote is another nicely designed piece of kit. Starting with the ability to power your system on or off, this backlit remote features standard A, B, X, and Y buttons, plus control keys for your music, pictures, and more. Supporting progressive scan for DVD playback right out of the box, the remote has a handy control for opening and closing the tray, and gives universal TV and console functionality, including volume and mute buttons plus channel changing. For a limited time during the launch period of the console, the Premium Bundle will come with a free Media Remote, although it's a smaller version compared to the one you can purchase separately.
The optional Wireless Networking Adapter offers the choice of working on either 802.11b, 802.11g, or 802.11a, and takes power straight from the Xbox, meaning no extra power brick. If you're going to stream video from your Windows XP or Media Center PC however, you need the hardware on it to support the 802.11a standard. The 360 will also let you transfer music from your PSP or iPod (perhaps in response to the huge number of Microsoft employees with Apple iPod's themselves?). While listening to any of your music, you can also check out 50 interactive, full-screen 3-D visualizers, designed by Jeff Minter of Llamasoft, well known in the visualizer world, and producer of the psychedelic Tempest 2000.
Heading online, Xbox Live Silver is the free edition, giving you a Gamertag and gamer card, the ability to talk with others using voice chat, and access to Xbox Live Marketplace right away. The marketplace lets you download game trailers, demos and new content. For example with Dead or Alive 4, you'll be able to purchase even more new costumes for characters as time goes on, and Microsoft's vision for the future is to let gamers create their own content, and then give or sell it themselves to others, all though Xbox Live Marketplace. If you upgrade to Xbox Live Gold, you get the multiplayer online gaming. This continues to grow on the 360, with Call Of Duty 2 for example allowing for up to 64 players online. Also through a Gold membership, you receive intelligent opponent matchmaking, access to all your achievements and statistics, video chat and video messaging.
While it won't be available at launch, the Xbox Live Camera lets you connect and chat while playing the same or different games, watching movies, listening to music, or other activities. With certain titles you'll be able put your face on characters too, or place it next to your name on leader boards, and EyeToy style games are of course on the way. With 640x480 VGA video resolution, and 1.3 megapixel stills, the images should look better than those of EyeToy.
Technical Specs
Speaking of resolution, entering the High Definition era, every single game will feature at least 720p and 16:9 widescreen. The Xbox 360 supports up to 1080i, which is a step down from 1080p that PS3 offers, although at this stage, finding something to display such a signal on is an expensive challenge. While the original Xbox was a 733mhz Pentium III, the 360 literally roars with three symmetrical cores running at 3.2GHz each. Using a type of hyper-threading, the system supports up to six threads running at once. Where 64 MB of RAM lay in the first Xbox, here there's 512 MB of 700 MHz GDDR3 RAM. The hardware was also developed with procedural synthesis in mind, a technique which can be used on almost anything, but trees make for a good example. When game developers only make one tree model, using procedural synthesis, the Xbox 360 can create forests full of trees, each looking unique. Along with their XNA set of tools, Microsoft aims to help keep next gen production costs down as much as possible while still retaining great graphics.
Along with the video requirements in games, every title must also support custom soundtracks. A 12x dual-layer DVD-ROM drive (16.2 MB/s) supports just about anything you can throw at it. Support for DVD-Video in progressive scan, DVD-ROM, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 CD, and JPEG Photo CD are all here. HD-DVD, which we talk about more further down, won't be in the Xbox 360, but hasn't been ruled out for a future re-release of the console.
Housing three USB 2.0 ports for digital cameras, portable music players and such, there's also two memory card slots built in. The overall size of the console is 83 x 209 x 258 mm (3.3 x 8.2 x 10.1 inches), finishing off with a total weight of 3.5 kg (7.7 lbs). The original Xbox was 90 x 324 x 265 mm (3.5 a 12.8 x 10.4 inches), and weighed 3.86 kg (8.5 lbs). Thanks to the concave design though, the unit is a good chunk smaller than the "X-brick", and better looking to, as you can add your own personal touch to the unit with interchangeable faceplates.
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