Stupid, stupid Xbox.

[TUN3R]

Glad to see I was wrong all these years since I started openly bashing the Xbox 360...

 

I'm sure we've all heard of this by now:

http://ilikecode.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/stupid-stupid-xbox/

Edited February 14, 2013 by TUN3R

[Chris]

Microsoft do make some incredibly bizarre decisions regarding their products. At the moment the trend is NOT to tell everyone about how awesome their products are, no, it's to attack their rivals. A move which is petty, and doesn't instill trust in potential users. Take Bing and Outlook for example:

Bing - Google's results are irrelevant

Outlook - Gmail spies on you all the time

 

The article is a bit long but I do agree with some of the points he makes. Although the fact he consistently and incorrectly spelled Xbox as "xBox" was a little weird, especially as he claims to be one of the founders of the project, you'd think he'd know the proper trademark. Mind you he can't even capitalise 'I' most of the time so I guess writing isn't one of his strong points.

 

Agree with him on all the UI issues. I've never really liked any iteration of the Dashboard from the original one to the current one. The current one does actually have a nice design but it is far too cluttered, and the fact it has ads on it sucks, especially if you are a Gold member. Being ad-free for Gold members should be touted as one of the reasons to get it.

 

What he said about the indie gaming / money-making aspect of it was interesting... yes it's a bit of a dumb setup the way it is at the moment with it costing so much and having MS do no promotion whatsoever. But it's more than Sony and Nintendo do, who, as far as I know, don't even have anything similar, or if they do it must suffer from the exact same problems since I've never heard anything on it and as of late I use my PS3 more than I do my 360.

He seems to feel very strongly about pushing it away from hardcore gamers - I suppose that's the way it's going anyway (Apple TV - if it will feature apps/games - will almost certainly only get casuals) but the console was originally primarily marketed as a games console, and I'm pretty sure a hefty amount of their revenue still comes from mainstream gamers.

 

Anyway, his conclusion makes sense. They need someone, or a team of people, who understand what's needed for it to succeed.

 

His "one living-room device" argument is still only relevant in the US though. NONE of the services that people would actually want and pay for (looking at you Netflix) are any good outside of the US, which such heavily reduced content availability it's just not worth the subscription fee. So I'd say the fault isn't 100% Microsoft's, but also in part everyone else involved.

[TUN3R]

Actually it makes more sense calling it xBox, the accent being on the first X. Wasn't it originally supposed to be "X-Box"? I guess they figured "-"'s aren't really in trend these days.

 

Anyways, I think Microsoft's xBox crusade would take the xBox to the top,if they weren't determined on screwing the 720 up from every point of view. I mean... Blu-Ray? Internet connection required? Windows 8-like OS? The PS4 might suck less or might suck more but after reviewing the details I started thinking that maybe the Wii U isn't that bad...

Edited February 15, 2013 by TUN3R

[Chris]

You might be right actually, Xbox has been stylised in quite a few different ways. It's all caps on the product itself, but seems to be Xbox on the website and in any official texts now.

 

What's wrong with Blu-ray support though? It's pretty logical they'd support that as the physical media, since HDDVD is now defunct. I don't see how this is either a good or a bad point. It's just something they had to do really. You can't fit big games on DVDs any more.

 

Required internet is stupid yes. Windows 8 style OS... not sure on that. If it's like the PC version then yeah bad move, if it's modified to suit gamepad/Kinect use then maybe that will be ok.

 

BTW, the "leaked" 720 specs were supposedly part of an experiment into how gaming media reported stories without fact-checking anything, not sure if that was true or yet but if so we don't really know anything about it.

[TUN3R]

You might be right actually, Xbox has been stylised in quite a few different ways. It's all caps on the product itself, but seems to be Xbox on the website and in any official texts now.

 

What's wrong with Blu-ray support though? It's pretty logical they'd support that as the physical media, since HDDVD is now defunct. I don't see how this is either a good or a bad point. It's just something they had to do really. You can't fit big games on DVDs any more.

 

Required internet is stupid yes. Windows 8 style OS... not sure on that. If it's like the PC version then yeah bad move, if it's modified to suit gamepad/Kinect use then maybe that will be ok.

 

BTW, the "leaked" 720 specs were supposedly part of an experiment into how gaming media reported stories without fact-checking anything, not sure if that was true or yet but if so we don't really know anything about it.

 

Blu-Ray media sucks cause it takes up bout five times as much space as the others but has no technical advantage? Do PS3 games have better graphics than PC or xBox 360 games? Most people would actually claim the contrary. Is the Blu-Ray movie quality higher than HDDVD or whatever? Well it probably is but think of it like this, how high can the video quality get until you stop noticing the difference? Cause for me it was a long time ago. All Blu-Ray does is make software for those systems harder to pirate, good for the companies (or so they think) bad for us.

 

Windows 8 isn't a PC OS, it's a tablet OS ported to PC. Enormous amount of compatibility issues aside, it doesn't resemble a PC or even console OS in any way. Tried both the Beta and Final versions and each forced me to clean the monitor of fingerprints.

 

I'm not familiar with those specs, (I've seen several, don't know which ones are real or which ones you're talking about) I know it will use an AMD CPU. I'm not a fan of AMD but who knows, maybe the 720's AMD CPU won't burn out like 3 out of 4 of mine.

 

EDIT: Actually that's 2/4, the 3rd one had driver issues. I've also had driver issues with two of my ATi GPU's... huh... probably a coincidence.

Edited February 16, 2013 by TUN3R

[Chris]

Having games on Blu-ray isn't about graphics. The GPU determines how good the graphics can be. The point of Blu-ray media is that you can fit fucking massive amounts of data on them, 10 times more than a DVD anyway. This is why games like LA Noire and Max Payne 3 fit on a single disc for PS3 players, while Xbox 360 players have 2 or 3. That's the benefit of Blu-ray.

 

The specs I was referring to was the things you mentioned (Blu-ray, Windows 8 OS, required internet) as those are still things that haven't been confirmed and was allegedly completely made up by the guy who "leaked" them... it's irrelevant anyway until MS/Sony actually release official specs.

[Huckleberry Pie]

Having games on Blu-ray isn't about graphics. The GPU determines how good the graphics can be. The point of Blu-ray media is that you can fit fucking massive amounts of data on them, 10 times more than a DVD anyway. This is why games like LA Noire and Max Payne 3 fit on a single disc for PS3 players, while Xbox 360 players have 2 or 3. That's the benefit of Blu-ray.

 

The specs I was referring to was the things you mentioned (Blu-ray, Windows 8 OS, required internet) as those are still things that haven't been confirmed and was allegedly completely made up by the guy who "leaked" them... it's irrelevant anyway until MS/Sony actually release official specs.

Exactly. As for graphics it's either that the developers are lazy, or the platform itself being an ass to program. Then again the benefit of shoving loads of data on one platter is enough for Blu-Ray to be a viable medium.

 

Take for example the Nintendo 64. The platform was a tad more powerful than its contemporaries, and didn't suffer from affine texture swimming ala-PS1. What dragged it down was, besides the texture cache, is Nintendo's insistence on cartridges despite others using CD-ROMs. Carts are a lot more complex, and thus, expensive to manufacture, and the supposed benefits of it compared to CDs are moot point. You can get away with putting Final Fantasy on two or more discs, while it would be an ass to do on the 64.

[TUN3R]

Having

games on Blu-ray isn't about graphics. The GPU determines how good the

graphics can be. The point of Blu-ray media is that you can fit fucking

massive amounts of data on them, 10 times more than a DVD anyway. This

is why games like LA Noire and Max Payne 3 fit on a single disc for PS3

players, while Xbox 360 players have 2 or 3. That's the benefit of

Blu-ray.

 

The specs I was referring to was the things

you mentioned (Blu-ray, Windows 8 OS, required internet) as those are

still things that haven't been confirmed and was allegedly completely

made up by the guy who "leaked" them... it's irrelevant anyway until

MS/Sony actually release official specs.

 

OR they could use dual layer DVD's :-/ To my knowledge Xbox 360 games take up a lot less space than PC's games. Well I don't know any PC games that I couldn't fit on one dual layer DVD.

 

Max Payne 3 probably wouldn't fit, but half of the disk space Max Payne 3 uses is for cutscenes, this could have been avoided if they weren't pre-rendered in super-ultra-HD-crap quality. They should have just used live-3D cutscenes, let the GPU decide how well they look.

[Huckleberry Pie]

Having

games on Blu-ray isn't about graphics. The GPU determines how good the

graphics can be. The point of Blu-ray media is that you can fit fucking

massive amounts of data on them, 10 times more than a DVD anyway. This

is why games like LA Noire and Max Payne 3 fit on a single disc for PS3

players, while Xbox 360 players have 2 or 3. That's the benefit of

Blu-ray.

 

The specs I was referring to was the things

you mentioned (Blu-ray, Windows 8 OS, required internet) as those are

still things that haven't been confirmed and was allegedly completely

made up by the guy who "leaked" them... it's irrelevant anyway until

MS/Sony actually release official specs.

 

OR they could use dual layer DVD's :-/ To my knowledge Xbox 360 games take up a lot less space than PC's games. Well I don't know any PC games that I couldn't fit on one dual layer DVD.

 

Max Payne 3 probably wouldn't fit, but half of the disk space Max Payne 3 uses is for cutscenes, this could have been avoided if they weren't pre-rendered in super-ultra-HD-crap quality. They should have just used live-3D cutscenes, let the GPU decide how well they look.

 

That's one of the gripes people had with Max Payne 3. IMO it's just a way to mask the presence of a loading screen, and it seemed to get in the way too often.

[TUN3R]

 

Having

games on Blu-ray isn't about graphics. The GPU determines how good the

graphics can be. The point of Blu-ray media is that you can fit fucking

massive amounts of data on them, 10 times more than a DVD anyway. This

is why games like LA Noire and Max Payne 3 fit on a single disc for PS3

players, while Xbox 360 players have 2 or 3. That's the benefit of

Blu-ray.

 

The specs I was referring to was the things

you mentioned (Blu-ray, Windows 8 OS, required internet) as those are

still things that haven't been confirmed and was allegedly completely

made up by the guy who "leaked" them... it's irrelevant anyway until

MS/Sony actually release official specs.

 

OR they could use dual layer DVD's :-/ To my knowledge Xbox 360 games take up a lot less space than PC's games. Well I don't know any PC games that I couldn't fit on one dual layer DVD.

 

Max Payne 3 probably wouldn't fit, but half of the disk space Max Payne 3 uses is for cutscenes, this could have been avoided if they weren't pre-rendered in super-ultra-HD-crap quality. They should have just used live-3D cutscenes, let the GPU decide how well they look.

 

That's one of the gripes people had with Max Payne 3. IMO it's just a way to mask the presence of a loading screen, and it seemed to get in the way too often.

 

If that were true then pausing would allow the game to continue loading, and you could unpause and skip the cutscene after the game finished loading.

 

Well I paused the game for 10 minutes (on the clock) and it still gave me the loading message when I tried to skip the cutscene, up to a certain point. They are just showing off.

Edited February 19, 2013 by TUN3R