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[palpabl_purpura]

I understand that the 360 games were running on alpha kits, but remember that the xbox was in a similar situation running a Geforce 3. Why the "alpha kit" excuse does not fly is because Xbox360 games can be easily mistaken for Xbox games (PDZ, DOA4, Possession). Next gen games have never been mistaken for current gen games in the entire 30+ year history of gaming. NEVER. Congrats, MS, you are a pioneer. Think of it- it is the equivalent of mistaking an early build of Halo for a N64 or PSX game, or an early SNES game for a NES game. Early builds of Halo looked "Early", but you could never had mistaken it for a PS1 games. That's why the alpha kit excuse does not fly here. Yes, MS, we realize that the final hardware isn't there and the games aren't finished, but we clearly should have been able to tell 360 games apart from Xbox games. End of story.

BTW, I own an Xbox, but have never owned a PS1, PS2, or PSP.

 

[LakeEarth]

Any game that looks like a high end Xbox game usually have the ability to render hundreds of characters at once. So obviously the system has the power. It's just underused in some of the games they showed. Give it time.

 

[Ryudo]

So you would prefer they show CG instead ?

as Allard says, developers dont develope for E3.

 

[Wario64]

or maybe developers have been pushed too far and no more can be squeezed out of them unless they get more man power and financial support

 

[3rdman]

Does this really deserve its own thread?

Look, E3 won't mean anything in October/November when Samsung HDTV's start showing up in kiosks around the country. The hardcore don't count...its the casuals who make the difference.

 

[PhatSaqs]

Gears of War....

post count + 1

 

[AB 101]

So you would prefer they show CG instead ?

It worked from Sony.

One would think they would have studied what happened last time with the PS2.

Look, E3 won't mean anything in October/November when Samsung HDTV's start showing up in kiosks around the country.

Yeah, well wait until the Sony HDTV's come out!

Well, shouldn't bag on the Sammies, I have a 50" Captain Kirk.

 

[Mrbob]

November counts.

May doesn't.

Wait till November and then pass final judgment.

It worked from Sony.

One would think they would have studied what happened last time with the PS2.

People have short memories. We will barely remember E3 2005 if the Xbox 360 launch is smoking.

 

[StoOgE]

Yeah I think the alpha kit thing does kinda excuse MS actually.

First of all, there are a handfull of games that could be seen as last gen games, and that is because many of them began development on last gen systems...

you yourself brought up the original Xbox's E3 showing, which was absolute crap. By contrast, many of the 360 games are getting good write ups from the show floor, something alot of the early stuff from the Xbox did not have... and look at how well the Xbox launch came together (save for some shitty developers that MS threw money at for who knows what reason.. but they seem to be doing much better in regards to that this time around).

I put my 50 bucks down at gamestop today... I have absolutely no doubt that come November (or whenever) I will be thrilled with the 360.

 

[Hournda]

Xbox developers are still working on ALPHA kits when the system launch is maybe 6 months away? Ouch. PS3 is launching later than Xbox 360. You'd expect their stuff to look bad and ridden with problems. Still though, in terms of power the PS3 doesn't have that much of an advantage over the Xbox 360 but the stuff shown at E3 sure made it seem like it did.

 

[AB 101]

if

Should put that in bold.

I put my 50 bucks down at gamestop today... I have absolutely no doubt that come November (or whenever) I will be thrilled with the 360.

Well, I did today also. Its fun to go at it with XBots though.

 

[Shogmaster]

I understand that the 360 games were running on alpha kits, but remember that the xbox was in a similar situation running a Geforce 3.

If that's your basis for this whole thread than you can stop right there. It wasn't NV2A that wasn't ready @ 2001 E3, it was the MCPX audio/Southbridge. All games were doing the realtime dolby digital via software emu on the 733Mhz mobile Celeron.

 

[Pedigree Chum]

I wish MS would have had final dev kits out there already, but hey, I guess it was not to be. Hopefully they get them out there soon, there isn't that much time till launch.

If that's your basis for this whole thread than you can stop right there. It wasn't NV2A that wasn't ready @ 2001 E3, it was the MCPX audio/Southbridge. All games were doing the realtime dolby digital via software emu on the 733Mhz mobile Celeron.

If that's the case I guess there isn't much hope that the launch stuff could be further polished graphically. Ah well, there are some very technically competent titles at this stage like PGR3, Ghost Recon 2 and Kameo. So there'll still be some great next-gen stuff at launch.

 

[palpabl_purpura]

you yourself brought up the original Xbox's E3 showing, which was absolute crap

Actually, I didn't buy an Xbox till 04

 

[Ryudo]

It worked from Sony.

:lol

Rawwrr

 

[Pimpwerx]

It's a copout b/c the art costs are gonna be so high that devs would probably rather code for a target than for what they're currently running on. The only thing the alpha kits should affect are some of the effects present and the framerate. All IMO. But I don't think you can say most X360 games look like current gen stuff. Hell, even the worst stuff looks better than Xbox. But the best stuff looks totally next-gen, so that's what we should be judging the machine by, not the lowest denominator. PEACE.

 

[Pedigree Chum]

It's a copout b/c the art costs are gonna be so high that devs would probably rather code for a target than for what they're currently running on. The only thing the alpha kits should affect are some of the effects present and the framerate. All IMO. But I don't think you can say most X360 games look like current gen stuff. Hell, even the worst stuff looks better than Xbox. But the best stuff looks totally next-gen, so that's what we should be judging the machine by, not the lowest denominator. PEACE.

Yeah, there's going to be a few titles that are going to be amazing graphically. And the rest? Not so much. Ah well, thems the breaks. But at least people will be able to pick up some truly next-gen titles this holiday season. That's all that matters.

 

[krypt0nian]

Gears of War....

post count + 1

Damn you stole my post. <grrrrr>

 

[Bebpo]

I do agree slightly in that the results of a 30% kit should be framerate issues (like Halo).

From playing 360 games, the #1 reason many of them still kinda look like Xbox1.5 games is because of the low-polygon modeling of characters/cars/environments and lack of any new and cool effect filters (like the nice stuff in the Kameo vid). Many games just look like Xbox ports with bigger levels and higher resolution, very different from previous experiences with console generation changes.

Then again stuff like CoD2, Kameo (behind closed doors) didn't have these issues. So it mainly seems to be a developer problem and not a hardware problem.

Lastly it doesn't help when more than one of your 'very few' on-floor games are by Sega. Look at Sega's output lately (PSU aside); they make pretty ugly games. So if I were MS I wouldn't want people's first impression of my new system to be through ugly Sega games :\

 

[CosmicGroinPull]

So you would prefer they show CG instead ?

as Allard says, developers dont develope for E3.

develop, develope....


UR British!!!

 

[Juice]

November counts.

May doesn't.

Wait till November and then pass final judgment.



People have short memories. We will barely remember E3 2005 if the Xbox 360 launch is smoking.

Just like September counted for the record-breaking Dreamcast launch?

November doesn't matter, the following year does. In that year they have to generate enough momentum beyond launch day to have a noticeable advantage over Sony/Nintendo at their launches. The million fanboys will all get theirs at launch, but if everyone else is holding out like in the year before the PS2 came out, 360 is fucked.

That's why the "mindshare" developed over the course of E3 and the weeks of water cooler talk that follow is so important.

 

[Shogmaster]

So you would prefer they show CG instead ?

as Allard says, developers dont develope for E3.

I call BS on that, cause the Monolith guys told me that they took 3 months out of their schedule just to make the playable demo of Condemed for E3 because it had to be tweeked to run on the Alpha kit (take out soft shadows and, replace the actual high res textures for low res ones, make a special E3 demo stage, etc).

I'm dead serious.

 

[Ryudo]

develop, develope....


UR British!!!

I am worse, i am an aussie.

 

[Warm Machine]

Everywhere I've worked we've always pushed a build out the door specifically for E3. That said I wouldn't be surprised that many 360 titles being shown started life as Xbox games and have recently been switched over to the new machine.

 

[CosmicGroinPull]

Oh. No wah-rees, mayte.

 

[Pedigree Chum]

I call BS on that, cause the Monolith guys told me that they took 3 months out of their schedule just to make the playable demo of Condemed for E3 because it had to be tweeked to run on the Alpha kit (take out soft shadows and, replace the actual high res textures for low res ones, make a special E3 demo stage, etc).

I'm dead serious.

So they wasted 3 months to impress E3 going fanboys? Fucking stupid if you ask me. I respect devs that push hard for the final product, that's all that matters. Fuck impressing people at E3, if the final game is impressive that's all that's going to matter in the end. In the long run no one will care that MS had a poor E3 showing if they come through with a great launch.

 

[Shogmaster]

So they wasted 3 months to impress E3 going fanboys? Fucking stupid if you ask me. I respect devs that push hard for the final product, that's all that matters. Fuck impressing people at E3, if the final game is impressive that's all that's going to matter in the end. In the long run no one will care that MS had a poor E3 showing if they come through with a great launch.

IMO (purely IMO, and not Monolith guys) a mandate came down form MS to the top launch window game devs that they HAD TO have playable games at E3. Otherwise what dev in their right mind will waste so much time for this crap when the schedule is so tight?

I think MS thought they were gonna be hung by their entrails if they didn't have playable 360 games for all the show goers. I guess we showed them

 

[TheDuce22]

You dont expect perfect CG from a low budget movie. This generation I think cost will be much more of a factor.