Maybe I missed it but: I already have XBOX live. Will I have to buy a seperate account if I get an XBOX 360?
I'm not going to swear on this, but I think you transfer over to the Xbox Live Gold account for the Xbox 360 if you already have Xbox Live right now. A lot of things I thought to be true have changed recently though, so you may have to double-check on that. If I find a definite answer on that soon, I'll try to post a more clear answer.
"Detachable and upgradeable" are the key words there. Like I said, it has been widely speculated that if two price points were offered, one would not include the HDD. Take a look at this: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=8108 It's an article talking about such an instance. It's dated back in April. This: http://www.engadget.com/entry/6717250847203461/ is an Endgadget blurb. From last November. 'Ken's' also talked about it being expensive, about it being a household computer system, etc. etc. Sony's always done its own thing, lived off of its own generated hype. They are interested in seeing what MS does, but they've always had the attitude, in everything they've done to this point, that everyone else must adjust to them. A lot of the articles currently - most of which state that the PS3 HDD will not be included with the system - have Kutagari stating he wants Linux on the Hard Drive, and for it to run as a 'computer system'. Whether this means it's primary function will be for games, or if it will effect it in any way (or if it even gets used) is hard to tell... There's also one of the Playstation Magazines that state it won't be used for games, but I don't think the article would be online. The Morrowind thing is interesting, though, and kind of what I am expecting. Like I said, it's all up to the developers...
Wow. Sorry, but if you think "detachable and upgradeable" means that there would not be a HD, then I'm not sure what to tell you. Everyone I knew took that to mean that you could take the HD out and take it to a friend's house easily. And that MS would also offer something like 40 and 80 GB HD's. I do not see how you can read that as not coming with a HD at all. I remember the speculation about several versions of the console, but most of those were prior to E3. At E3, MS seemed to point at only one system, which included the stuff mentioned above. I never took the two versions of the console seriously since it seemed like a stupid thing to do, IMO. And Microsoft were really pushing downloadable content on a HD and wireless play, things I expected out of the base console. BTW, these are the comments from Allard in the Gameinformer magazine that I was mentioning, if that helps: That was a recent interview that started putting questions in my mind about the HD (think I mentioned that during the EB games leak thread). But even there, it seemed to like even if they went with two versions, the second one wouldn't be available at launch and the one at launch would include a HD. Yes, I know about what Ken has said. But like I was saying earlier in the thread, those expensive comments could be a tactic to get MS to overprice the 360. Besides, "$300" and "the same price of the PS1 and PS2 in Japan" are a little bit more specific than a "household computer" and "expensive." In a ways, $300 is "expensive" and I may have to work extra to afford this "computer" and some games. Again, that's all probably a pipedream now if it was ever true. As for your comment on Sony in general, I still don't see how that means Sony won't change things based on how the 360 sells. FWIW, it seems like they realized that the Xbox and Gamecube were much easier to develop for, so they decided to spend some cash on Unreal Engine, Havok, and Ageia physics to put into the PS3 SDK (not to mention the smaller impact of COLLADA). Not sure what you think about that, but it seems like they adjusted to what others were asking/doing. If they didn't, the PS3 would be a dual-cell setup, or have some polygon-pushing Toshiba/Sony GPU that is completely different to what developers are used to. But they adjusted to the "norm" of GPUs with strong shading power and image quality. They also actually will let us use pretty much any mass storage device as a memory card, something they haven't done before. I imagine things will be even more clear once the online plan is announced. I wonder if Sony will take a MS approach, which has been pretty successful, or if Sony will take some other approach that has an unknown path? They seem to have adjusted to some things they were weak in. I guess it remains to be seen how they'll react to the price/console setup, but I think the sales of the Xbox 360 will play at least a small part in what Sony will announce. We may just have to agree to disagree here...and there will probably be no way that either of us will find out which way Sony goes. I remember reading about the Linux on a HD thing, but I don't quite remember anything about the gaming aspect of the HD. I just thought it had Linux, but let you use it for games as well. In fact, I think even read something about being able to develop games using Cell and the RSX through Linux. From what I could tell, it didn't sound like Sony really set in stone what they were going to do. And to be honest, once it started sounding like the HD wasn't standard, I stopped really caring about what the HD let you do. I'll try to keep my eye on it though since you may very well be right. And I don't know about you, but I'm getting pretty tired. We can either agree to disagree on all this, or we can finish this up tomorrow sometime. But I think I'm going to call it a night (judging by your current online status at ~12:20 AM, you may have already done the same). I just hope I don't have any bad dreams involving Bill Gates, J Allard, Ken Kutaragi, the Killzone demo, and a $1000 recipe.
You misunderstand. "Detachable and upgradeable" simply means a unit without a HD is possible. And - as those links show - the idea of one sold without shouldn't be any surprise to anyone who's been reading about the system. Those links were to show you that it has been widely speculated, discussed and in some cases expected for quite some time. It's nowhere near the shock you make it out to be. That GI interview pretty much confirms it, actually. Particularly with those Ipod comments. MS seemed to be headed in that direction for a while. And if there's going to be other versions of the system without a HD, it makes no sense to just release it later. I agree with you here. I went away for a while, but of course made one last read of the boards before going to bed. Everything's running together now.
Amazon looks like it has a handle on the PS3's price. I wonder if this is just speculation or somebody was a bit too quick on the trigger.
Sony doesn't even know what price they're going to retail the PS3. The Amazon sight is a place holder.
I know that a Xbox 360 can work fine without a HD, but that doesn't mean that a HD is not included. I'm going to post some links to places that "assumed" a HD would be in every console, just like I did: http://features.teamxbox.com/xbox/1143/Taking-a-Spin-with-the-Xbox-360/p1/ http://www.gamespot.com/features/6124293/p-2.html http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/608/608394p2.html IGN earlier in that last article speculates about a core package and a bundle for about ~$500, but still noted that the HD would come with every Xbox 360. So I just basically did a quick search and found those places stating that every Xbox 360 should come with a HD, and one site even stated that there would be only one console version. I could probably find some more of those if I searched for it specifically. Either way, a lot of these sites expected the HD and wireless controller in every Xbox 360, just like I did. As far as the reports of two or more different versions, I typically treated that news as just speculation after E3 (where it seemed like MS shut up some of the rumors). Unless it came from J. Allard, Bill Gates, or someone else high up, I didn't pay much attention. IIRC, most of the reports since then were from analysts. The same analysts that think MS might buy Nintendo, or that the PS3 will either release in 2007 or at the end of this year. So unless I prepared myself for those other things, I wasn't going to prepare myself for separate console versions. Now, once I read the GI article, I did start questioning myself on the liklihood of a HD, which I mentioned. But that was only like a week ago, and I'm not sure how many people actually got to read it. As far as how much of a surprise it is, I can tell you that the managers of Gamestop and EBGames stores around the country walked into the store yesterday with a surprise. From what I understand, they were told to expect one console with a HD at $299, and I think they got those recently (maybe almost a month ago). Now they have to readjust to the new setup, something I don't think they were planning on doing or even expecting. And whether or not you trust other message boards, I think the good ones are great indicators of how a gamer has reacted to this news. Another board that I like in Beyond3D. This is another board that has little to no "fanboys." If you are an extreme fanboy and try to post, you'll be banned in less than a day. Here's a poll asking for reactions to yesterday's news: http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/poll.php?do=showresults&pollid=539 Again, you may not like using another board for info, but in this case, I think one of the easiest things to do is see the reactions of others. Heck, I think even ~25% of those polled (last I checked) in a teamxbox poll said something about not getting one after hearing about the price. You say it wasn't much of a surprise, I say it was. The only thing I could think of to support my theory is posting examples of what others are thinking. And apparently they were just a little surprised..and not in a good way. FWIW, here are some reactions from developers and others in the industry: http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=796&Itemid=2&limit=1&limitstart=0 It is a really good read, IMO (not everyond felt the same way, BTW). I just quoted that one since I thought it was interesting that Bethesda felt that way about MS. I guess for some reason, I felt they wouldn't be as angry towards MS for this after hearing that Oblivion would run fine w/o a HD. Boy, was I wrong. Maybe a PS3 version is in the works... edit: Eh...apparently, Weaver doesn't really work at Bethesda anymore. He's a major stock holder, but his opinions don't necessarily go along with what Bethesda thinks. So Bethesda isn't really pissed with MS, just Weaver.
No one really knows for sure the answers to those questions (probably not even Sony themselves at the moment), but it most likely won't come with a HD. IMO, I think what they do may depend a little bit on how the 360 does. I'm not really sure what Sony is planning, so I can't really guess on what they'd do. They could do a bunch of things. I don't expect a HD to come standard, but it might be in some bundle. I hope they just stick with one version though. And even if Sony said they would include a HD in every PS3, apparently things might change at launch.
What is the 20GB Hard drive for...Is this in addition to? Also, will it play the old games... I think the extra $100 is worth it, IMO and will be getting it...
I guess it will basically act like a big memory card. It should hold all your game saves, all the stuff from Xbox Live (downloadable content), custom soundtracks, various media, and apparently whatever MS needs to get backwards compatibility (so yes, it will let it play old games). And some developers may take advantage of the HD as well for games.
RC, I don't know how much simpler I can put this; from the moment talk of seperate price points began, talk of the HDD being the difference was going on. And we're talking early, early on - which is what I was explaining with those links. You can pull sites from Google right now all you want. I know if this was a Sony system you'd have known it long ago. I've been reading about this since the beginning, when it was becoming obvious the 360 would be the first next gen system, and it's been discussed early, early on. Hell, a couple of articles (the one where the XBOX NEXT and NEXT HD for example) were based on TEST SURVEYS Microsoft was putting out. All most of those links you've put out do is assume that the 360 would come with a Hard Drive, and in the case of the full package, it does. I worked for EB for three years; I got to know about four store managers in the Houston area personally because of this. Two of them were calling me from last year's Manager's Conference on their cell phones to tell me what was going on. (The next one is this September; they're hoping for free 360s this time after getting free DSs and XBOXs the last couple of years...bastards. ) What you just stated, at least from the EB side, is wrong. They had one SKU to preorder, but that's about the only thing that's true. They were never told what to expect, sure as hell were never told a price, and the systems were even in the computer system at $599, just to be safe. Hell, customers were coming in and asking whether or not there'd be multiple versions of the sytem or not because they'd already read it online. I don't know how else to explain it to you. Anyone who's been reading about the XBOX 360 regularly knew this was a possibility. EDIT: Also, reading that article points out that a lot of the developers knew not to rely on having the HDD. More examples of how this has been discussed. And, re: non-fanboys while reading that GAF thread (which I do read from time to time, BTW); there is no real objectivity there. I mean, one of the posts is a picture collage of Kutagari, talking about how he is 'the man.'. Come on, RC...
If all you are trying to do is convince me that there is a possibility that there would be more than one version of the Xbox 360, then we could have ended this discussion long ago. I read those reports as well. But after reading the opposite from IGN, Gamespot, TeamXbox, and even the MS site itself (the last 2 of which actually indicate only one version), I thought it was very unlikely for those reports to be true. Like I said, I rarely take speculation seriously, especially when the company itself seems to refute the claims. I've read early on that the PS3 wouldn't be called the PS3, it would have 4 Cells, and would not be working with Nvidia. Guess I shouldn't be surprised when Sony confirms all that and releases at the end of the year. My point is that ever since Microsoft formally announced the 360, they led us to believe the HD would be standard in every console (along with the wireless cable, and a few other things that the spec list I previously posted shows). If there ever was another version, the premium version would include just some more accessories but both would still have a HD. And I'd like to see how you could spin my links around to say that the HD wouldn't come standard. The IGN, TeamXbox, and MS spec sheet all clearly state that a HD would come with EVERY XBOX 360 SYSTEM! Only the GS one is somewhat questionable, although it could go either way. For some reason, if ALL these people got it wrong (which they shouldn't since it came directly from MS), MS sure didn't step in to say they were incorrect with their assumptions. If you can't see that MS clearly seemed to indicate this, then there's nothing I can show you to convince you otherwise. I could show you a video clip of J. Allard himself at E3 saying that a HD would be standard in every system (and I think he may have said that), and you would find a way to spin it around. I may have wrongly assumed on the EB side of things. I know Gamestop (or at least some of them) had $299 in their system, which included a HD. I assumed EB had the same since I found that out around the same time that this hit IGN: http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/641/641086p1.html Apparently, GS had the same things in their computer, so I assumed EB had $299 for the 360 (w/HDD). Probably a wrong assumption to make, especially since I'm not sure if all the stores received the same info. I'd be curious to see what EB/GS told those on the BBS who preordered one. Either way, at least one manager "assumed" wrongly: http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showpost.php?p=545030&postcount=47 http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showpost.php?p=545040&postcount=51 *sigh* Anyone, huh? So again, why is it that the majority of members at Beyond3D, Gaming-Age, and other boards were all a bit surprised by this move? You know, the members that are as hardcore about games as we are with the Rockets. The same ones who attend conferences like the Square-Enix show, write reviews for games for certain sites, and even attended the very Games Convention that MS announced this at. The moment you convince me that I was wrong in assuming that the HD would be standard in every console, you should go ahead and clear it up with all them as well. You act as though this was no big surprise, yet the fact that the Gaming-Age thread on this subject ballooned to over 1000 posts in less than 9 hours seems to point otherwise. We may have realized that it was a possibility that MS could split the userbase with, but I don't think the majority of us thought it was even remotely likely, and we certainly didn't expect MS to not make the HD standard. ***Just saw your edit, so I'll respond to that here*** The common perception that I saw of the "don't develop for HD" comment was that that needed to be done if the HD was easily detachable. If I were to take my HD to a friend's house for a weekend, that would allow for my family to still use my Xbox 360 even if the HD wasn't there. I actually thought otherwise originally, but came to that conclusion from reading other people's impressions. Considering Microsoft's words at E3, that made sense. Not to mention that I recently read some comments from today from S-E which mentioned that they only ported FFXI to the X360 because of the included HD. Hmm... And I fail to see how your brief look at GAF means they're not objective. I guess if I just happened to glance at the GARM and saw some photoshops of Yao, Marc Cuban, etc., with funny comments, I guess this site suddenly becomes one of the most biased sites to talk basketball, filled with just a bunch of dumb Rockets homers. You and I both know that isn't true. And the same can be said with GAF, IMO. For every homer we have here, we have several other members that have intelligent, thought-out, and unbiased posts about basketball (or other subjects for that matter). The same can be said at GAF. For every photoshop of Ken that claims he is the man, you find members that post reasonably and without bias. If it is t nothing but a bunch of fanboys, then I guess the developers who post there have no problem with them, which sounds pretty strange to me. I'm pretty sure Doc Rocket and others would rather post here than the ESPN boards. However, if you can't take GAF seriously for some reason, try Beyond3D. Pretty much the same reactions but without the photoshops that add humor. Plus they have a few developers as well, although some post on both B3D and GAF. And if that site doesn't do anything for you, then I don't think there is any message board out there that would fit you description of "objective." edit: Just realized this, but you may have to register to view the B3D board. Not really a problem though since it is a very nice board, IMO, and very educational. I haven't seen a complaint about that yet, but just giving a warning in case that happens.
We're writing thesis' here. I'll just try and make it shorter: The system is $400. That's the easiest, most concise way to put it. And that isn't all that surprising. Didn't say I necessarily liked it, although the amount of things you are getting in that $400 bundle is substantial. Those threads are like that mostly because a lot of people are pissed, not shocked. Which is much more understandable. Any thread that has what could be seen as a negative to one of the Big Three is going to get hundreds of views. Especially with people getting the chance to pile on to something they want to take a shot at anyway. It's been that way for years (especially in console 'wars') Gamespot, IGN, teamxbox (in particular) were all guesses as to what the official word was going to be. That's it. We got the official word yesterday. And, as someone who's read all the 'guesses' up to now - and many of which leaned in the direction we ended up a long, long time ago - I'm not that surprised. Alot of stuff since E3 (particularly after the MTV thing) didn't play it up as much, but that's only because they were still making guesses...about what they saw on MTV or on an E3 table. Hell, that teamxbox article pretty much states that before they make their little list. As for the way J Allard worded a lot of his statements...as a Sony fan you above all else should understand what the doubletalk words of a company man often mean. Microsoft is just as guilty as Sony. (Well, not quite that guilty, but you know what I mean. ) I'm not saying MS has done the best thing, not saying they are going to 'win' (which I hate as a description about such a thing in the first place) the next gen race, not saying I wouldn't have liked a $300 system or that 399 is cheap; just that it's nowhere near the catastrophic shock the fanboys are making it out to be.
Why debate about Micro****? PS3 is the way to go. $400 is a lot to pay for a system. But it's a system that will last 3-4 years. Add in about $600+ dollars for equipment and games. It'll total about $1000+ over 3-4 years. That sounds about right. $250-400/year. I bet most of the people here spend more than that on entertainment.
I didn't mention this earlier since it never really occurred to me, but I see some people are pissed because the Xbox was pretty much like the premium pack (top-of-the line CPU+GPU, online ready, HD, controller,etc), yet it cost only $299. I was used to the PS2 setup so I didn't notice that, but some of the Xbox owners may not think that the $400 is as much of a value as others. The damn accessory prices make it look pretty good though. I agree that they're pissed...because they were misled. As my links showed, these guys were anticipating a ~$300 with a wireless controller and a HD. Or actually, they were anticipating ONE console with a wireless controller and a HD for ~$400 or less. When they woke up in the morning to find what MS really had planned, they became pissed. They weren't pissed just for the sake of being pissed. Believe me, I don't expect this type of negativity if Sony were to price the PS3 at $350-$400, or a lot of positive posts if Nintendo announces that the Revolution will be ~$200 (same amount as all their consoles, IIRC). In those two cases, I think the majority of people expect something like that from those two. MS, on the other hand, seemed to indicate something other than what they ended up going with. Also don't think that the only negative comments about the announcement in those threads came from Sony or Nintendo fanboys (not sure if you did, but want to make this clear). Sure, there were some people who "piled on," but a lot of pissed off people were people who wanted to get an Xbox 360. Like the B3D poll showed, a lot of people decided not to get one after the announcement was made. Maybe they were expecting something different... For "guesses," those sites sure seemed to think those things were going to happen. Does this sound like a guess: That was from the IGN FAQ, btw. Notice they didn't say something like, "We think every system will probably come with a HD." They said, "We know..." They didn't even leave it open to a change. They sounded 100% sure that this was going to happen. Considering a gaming site probably won't know that much on their own about a yet-to-be-released console, I'm guessing they got something from MS that told them to expect a HD in every system. Or maybe they did like everyone else and "assumed" that what Microsoft said in their spec sheet would come true. But apparently, it is still a "guess" if you expect exactly what the MS spec sheet said about the HD being in every Xbox 360 system. Damn misleading official spec sheets. You just can't trust those guesses. And again, MS didn't seem to do anything about these "guesses." I'm sure if each of the biggest gaming websites told us to expect a 400GB HD in each system, MS would shoot that down at once and ask each site to take that out, or at least clearly state it as just a guess. You know...take out words like "will," "we know," etc., with words like "we think," "probably," "may," "could," etc. FWIW, I think MS would be in a much better situation had they treated this as a guess at E3. Had they not said anything about the HD and what their shipping plans would be, we wouldn't have guessed wrongly. The spec sheet should have just listed the info on the CPU, GPU, RAM, DVD drive, etc, but nothing else. MS should have stuck with some "We're still working on that" when questioned about a HD, multiple SKU's, etc. They sure didn't have problem doing that with other questions. Under these different circumstances, the negativity towards MS wouldn't be nearly as bad, IMO. In fact, like you, I, along with others, would probably be thinking about the multiple SKU/no HD thing the whole time since MS never seemed to say otherwise. But MS screwed up there... You're right that this probably isn't the best thing. IIRC, I think J Allard said something about the first to 10 million wins. Given the launch dates between the Xbox 360 and the other two consoles, MS had a good chance of reaching that goal. It depends on when the PS3 would release, but it may not have been able to meet demand until around Christmas of '06. So for ~6 months, MS would have no competition, and for the rest of the year, they would be competing with a PS3 that can't meet demand (leaving the Rev out of this given the lack of info on it). To really put Sony in a bad spot, MS could have been aggressive with their pricing and production strategies, selling tons of units before Sony knew what hit them. It wouldn't matter if the PS3 was superior to the Xbox 360 in nearly every way. With a larger userbase, the Xbox 360 would then get all the great exclusives, just like the PS2 got this gen. And then before you know it, MS starts cashing in on their investment, while Sony goes bankrupt due to their large investments in Cell, Blu-ray, XDR, etc. But this was at a aggressive price. At a $400 price tag (I'm not counting the $300 package), the Xbox 360 suddenly becomes a harder sell. The PS3 and Revolution don't seem as far off as they originally seemed. If MS has trouble selling the console late this year and early next year, then they'll be in trouble once the PS3 and Revolution hit the market and start meeting demand. You may not care about this aspect of the industry, but I'm sure the Big Three do. The developers will develop for the console with the biggest userbase. Right now, developers may be leaning towards the PS3 since Sony has dominated the past two gens. MS would have to do something to show them that they would end the Sony reign. And I don't think they helped themselves, in that aspect, with this move.
If I were Microsoft, I would announce a high price initially. Then when Christmas comes, I'll lower the price of the console by $50 and have a "special" sale. So when people buy XBox360, it'll be less likely for them to buy PS3. I think that's what MS will do. We'll see what actually happens.
And then piss off all the early adopters? I doubt it. If they do that, then people will assume MS might do it again and hold off, kind of like people do with the Dell deals. If MS is going to do any price cuts, they have to be very careful on the time to do it. I think they got burned last time doing this, IIRC. Not a bad idea, but too risky for MS, IMO.
