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LA Times: Microsoft announces X360 pricing at lollapalooza 2005

Pimpbaa

Member
bishoptl said:
Setting aside the fact that a storage device that was standard on the original Xbox has been removed on the base-level version of the sequel - something that was touted as an advantage by all right-thinking Xbox boosters everywhere - I'd gently remind you that the use of the HD for caching and custom soundtracks has also proven quite popular among the hoi polloi. There's more to it than "going on Live and dowlnloading rich media".

But hey, I'm just a developer. What do I know, right?

How many games actually took advantage of the HD cache for anything other than just speeding up loading? Maybe if developers actually used it to it's full potential more often on the xbox, they would have thought twice about making it optional in the 360.
 

sangreal

Member
I actually think the harddrive being standard is more important for casual players than hardcore.

Why?

-Demos and Trailers. 64MB isn't going to cut it here. Casual players aren't browsing IGN for the latest trailers and they don't subscribe to gaming magazines for demos. This was a great oppurtunity to expose people to games they would otherwise never play.

-XBL Arcade. The service is designed for casual players and 64MB for downloadable games seems a bit lax. Not all XBL Arcade games are 2d puzzlers. They probably average only 10-20mb a game, but still.
 

Future

Member
----------
Yuck. They should've just said "It's 400 bucks" and let that be that
----------

Yup. I know they wanted that golden "under $300 tagline), but minimum cost for an Xbox 360 anyhow is $340 because you at least MUST buy a memory card. So $60 more for basically a 20 gig memory card (plus whatever advantages the hard drive will bring for first party devs that decide to use it), plus all that other shit is the obvious choice for I think anyone that knows anything about games. This is just the price of ONE game more to get the added stuff. Ridiculous.

So all this really does for a gamer like me that sees this is fragment the user base and give devs more of a reason to not utilize the hard drive, and make me come on message boards and bitch about it. Thanks M$!
 

Flo_Evans

Member
this reminds me of those poser mobile commercails-

exrta dolla connect fee!
extra dolla usage fee!
extra dolla a day extra!

:lol

really though I fear that this may just give sony the balls to go >$400. And then we all lose.

avp2cov.jpg
 

shantyman

WHO DEY!?
pilonv1 said:
But Sony loves gamers and will give them hard drives, ethernet cables, wireless controllers and a carton of Pocky for $299. How dare you say such a thing.

THis thread is way to big to read completely, but :lol
 

PhatSaqs

Banned
Pimpbaa said:
How many games actually took advantage of the HD cache for anything other than just speeding up loading? Maybe if developers actually used it to it's full potential more often on the xbox, they would have thought twice about making it optional in the 360.
Said for the millionth time but it'll just be ignored again.
 

border

Member
bishoptl said:
I'd gently remind you that the use of the HD for caching and custom soundtracks has also proven quite popular among the hoi polloi.
Really, what makes you say that? It takes forever-and-a-day to rip soundtracks....plus the time it takes to type in the names with a software keyboard. I know hardcore people that didn't bother with that nonsense (myself included). I seriously doubt most users bother.
 

Spike

Member
Pimpbaa said:
Why should the HDD be in the 360 just because it was in the xbox1? Consoles used to come with 2 controllers and a game, but they don't anymore.

Because you would think that when a company introduces a product line, they take the same elements from their first effort and expand on it.

The Xbox had a built-in HDD. The Xbox360 should have a built-in HDD.

Let's take this for an example:

- Original PS2 model didn't have any frills but allowed you to play DVD's with your controller. Then they released the network adapter which you could buy seperately.

- PSTwo released that includes the network adapter. Still offers DVD playback.

- PS3 will have the network adapter built-in and built-in movie playback.

You don't remove features once they're introduced. Plain and simple. You take what's there and expand on it.
 

Paradox

Member
God damn, so much bitching over just 400$... sounds pretty reasonable to me. God damn I cant wait till this bitch comes out!
 

HokieJoe

Member
sangreal said:
I actually think the harddrive being standard is more important for casual players than hardcore.

Why?

-Demos and Trailers. 64MB isn't going to cut it here. Casual players aren't browsing IGN for the latest trailers and they don't subscribe to gaming magazines for demos. This was a great oppurtunity to expose people to games they would otherwise never play.

-XBL Arcade. The service is designed for casual players and 64MB for downloadable games seems a bit lax. Not all XBL Arcade games are 2d puzzlers. They probably average only 10-20mb a game, but still.



Great point.
 
border said:
Really, what makes you say that? It takes forever-and-a-day to rip soundtracks....plus the time it takes to type in the names with a software keyboard. I know hardcore people that didn't bother with that nonsense (myself included). I seriously doubt most users bother.
since we're in the anecdotal evidence phase, i'd like to say that everyone who's xbox i've seen has custom tracks ripped...
 

bishoptl

Banstick Emeritus
border said:
I seriously doubt most users bother.
I have access to numbers that suggest otherwise.

edit: and I don't mean for that to come off as typical "I KNOW MORE THAN YOU" jackassery either, just that research > anecdotal evidence. That's all.
 

Spike

Member
sangreal said:
I actually think the harddrive being standard is more important for casual players than hardcore.

Why?

-Demos and Trailers. 64MB isn't going to cut it here. Casual players aren't browsing IGN for the latest trailers and they don't subscribe to gaming magazines for demos. This was a great oppurtunity to expose people to games they would otherwise never play.

Bingo. I'll even add in updates to games.
 

xsarien

daedsiluap
Paradox said:
God damn, so much bitching over just 400$... sounds pretty reasonable to me. God damn I cant wait till this bitch comes out!

It's not the $400, it's that the HDD isn't standard across both SKUs.
 

HokieJoe

Member
Flo_Evans said:
really though I fear that this may just give sony the balls to go >$400. And then we all lose.

Honestly, unless Sony is prepared to take huge losses, I would fully expect $450+ for a PS3. The thing is, Sony isn't capable of taking huge losses at this point- they've been losing their ass in the TV market.
 

border

Member
So what percentage of the userbase has more than say, 50 ripped songs (you probably can't answer that for job reasons, but it's worth asking)? I can see people doing it just to try it out, but it seems like kind of a crippled feature considering that the system won't read CDRs and ripping a single song can take minutes. You might get high numbers if you ask users if they have any ripped music on their Xbox, but I'd be more curious about how many are consistently ripping and maintaining a large library.

Not to say that it won't be popular on X360, which is obviously going to have a much improved interface.
 

bishoptl

Banstick Emeritus
Border, you'd be surprised at the percentage of Xbox users who have at least 3 albums worth of music ripped to their hard drives. I thought that the newer Thompson/Samsung drives were able to read CD-Rs or CD-RWs - can somebody shed some light on this?

Anyways, in regards to the dearly-departed standard HDD I offer this serenade:
Player said:
Spending all my nights,
All my money going out on the town
Doing anything just to get you off of my mind
But when the morning comes,
I'm right back where I started again
Trying to forget you is just a waste of time

Baby come back, any kind of fool could see
There was something in everything about you
Baby come back, you can blame it all on me
I was wrong, and I just can't live without you

All day long, wearing a mask of false bravado
Trying to keep up the smile that hides a tear
But as the sun goes down, I get that empty feeling again
How I wish to God that you were here

Now that I put it all together
Give me the chance to make you see
Have you used up all the love in your heart
Nothing left for me, ain't there nothing left for me
 

Yusaku

Member
Joe said:
is the headset really wireless? majornelson.com pictures a headset with a wire and mentions nothing about wireless in the description.

Headset isn't wireless perse, but it plugs into the controller, which may or not be wireless.

I'm assuming PS3 will support standard bluetooth headsets, which should be awesome.
 

bishoptl

Banstick Emeritus
xboxmediaplayer said:
Q: Can the DVD-ROM that came with my Xbox™ read CD-R media with audio, video or pics?
A: If you got a Samsung DVD-ROM drive with your Xbox™ then most likely yes. If you got a Thomson or Philips DVD-ROM then most likely no, however some can read a few brands CD-R.
Mine's about a year older than yours and doesn't read CD-Rs, but reads CD-RWs without a hitch. *shrug*

Anyways, back to the vitriol!
 

sangreal

Member
Yusaku said:
Headset isn't wireless perse, but it plugs into the controller, which may or not be wireless.

I'm assuming PS3 will support standard bluetooth headsets, which should be awesome.

It probably will, but if you can only have 7 bluetooth devices paired that could cause some problems.
 

border

Member
Well my point was that most people have a vast collection of music already on CD-R....so ripping those then burning to CD then ripping to Xbox adds another step to what's already a very tedious process.

Samsung drives were a temporary thing in Xbox, IIRC. You can't get them anymore.
 

Tony HoTT

Banned
I expected the console to be about this price but the accessories are way over priced. 50 dollars for wireless controllers is a lot of money.

I honestly don't know if I'm going to be a console gamer for that much longer unless Sony brings me a 300 dollar console with 50 dollar games. Or if the Revolution is 200 dollars I will buy it but even then it's going to have to bring me some killer games.
 
border said:
Well my point was that most people have a vast collection of music already on CD-R....so ripping those then burning to CD then ripping to Xbox adds another step to what's already a very tedious process.

Samsung drives were a temporary thing in Xbox, IIRC. You can't get them anymore.
most people have a vast collection of music on pressed CD's... and those who have a collection on CDR apprarently don't have problems burning disks anyway...
 

scarybore

Member
hiromi22vy.jpg


Hmm yummy, anyways on to the main event...

trmas said:
This is the first time in history America is getting gouged just like the rest of the globe. European and Canadian gamers appear happy, Americans are for the most part pissed, and Japanese..

Yeah its quite amusing from my British perspective, We paid £30 for a PS2 memory card for instance compared to £22 for 360. Alot of accessories seems to be priced around the same as usual in fact for us.

I think some people fail to realise its not 1995 anymore, the world and the economy has changed and that just because a previous console had such a feature doesnt mean every console following it should have it (for better or worse).

Looking at the HDD price, I'm surprised they didn't go the expected route Sony seems to be going. Why not put a slot in the X360 where you can put any OEM 2.5 HDD? The consumer can then decide (a) if they want a HDD at all, then if so, (b) what size they want. MS doesn't even have to get into the hassle of a propietary HDD casing.

Probably because they now need to pay Nvidia to emulate their code or some guff like that and the fee is included with the HD since you need one to use BC.
 

Kolgar

Member
My take? MS took their eye off the ball and they're in big trouble now.

I thought MS was hungry. I thought MS was ready to dethrone Sony as the defacto standard in videogames. I guess I was wrong, because they had a great opportunity to pinch Sony BIGTIME on price, and they blew it.

Really, with all the billions Sony's sunk into CELL, and given the tough situations the consumer-electronics and movie divisions are in, MS could have brought Sony to their knees with a $329 or maybe even a $349 HDD-inclusive 360. MS would have jumped off to a quick start and Sony would have had to bleed hard to launch PS3 at a competitive price.

Now, Sony's got a "get-out-of-jail-free" card and MS just lost the advantages that an early launch, and aggressive price, and a HDD-enabled console could have brought them.

Me, I've decided I'm not going to pay for multiple consoles this gen. It's a one-console future for me, baby, and that means MS is -1 sale.
 
Ugh, finally done with this thraed. It took me 3 hours to blow through it but good god. I haven't even looked anything else yet on GAF. Thanks to everyone who had their great one liners to mock everything. A lot of it was hilarious. Thanks to Dopey for keeping this thread completely absurd and even more entertaining with his insanity.

Nobody seemed to noticed that in the $399 pack, the remote that comes for a limited time, is a smaller and probably less functional version than the remote that they are selling. They aren't even giving you the real thing. I can't even begin to count the number of ways MS is bending people over in this announcement.

That being said, you gotta look at the positive side to all this. Microsoft won't have to worry about shortages at launch....
 

Spike

Member
Marty Chinn said:
Ugh, finally done with this thraed. It took me 3 hours to blow through it but good god. I haven't even looked anything else yet on GAF. Thanks to everyone who had their great one liners to mock everything. A lot of it was hilarious. Thanks to Dopey for keeping this thread completely absurd and even more entertaining with his insanity.

Nobody seemed to noticed that in the $399 pack, the remote that comes for a limited time, is a smaller and probably less functional version than the remote that they are selling. They aren't even giving you the real thing. I can't even begin to count the number of ways MS is bending people over in this announcement.

That being said, you gotta look at the positive side to all this. Microsoft won't have to worry about shortages at launch....

:lol Oh no!!
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
border said:
Really, what makes you say that? It takes forever-and-a-day to rip soundtracks....plus the time it takes to type in the names with a software keyboard. I know hardcore people that didn't bother with that nonsense (myself included). I seriously doubt most users bother.

I never bothered with custom soundtracks on xbox because I didn't want to rip all my stuff again, but now I can just connect up my ipod, I'll definitely try it out.

IMO, HDD is overblown in terms of value. If you want your games to cache, buy the HDD version. If you want to download stuff, buy the HDD version. MS is all about LIVE, so don't worry about a lack of stuff to download because a few people don't have a HDD - MS will push that until you're sick of it.
 

xsarien

daedsiluap
Marty Chinn said:
Thanks to everyone who had their great one liners to mock everything. A lot of it was hilarious.

Oh crap, I almost forgot!

*ahem*

I'm telling the complete truth when I say that a night or two ago, one of the many dreams I have in a given night included a return of the Dreamcast.

I had no idea I was clairvoyant.
 
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