Possible Xbox 360 Price/Release date +Retail Box+more game screens/clips

If you care more about the games than graphics, then it really depends on what games you like. Despite what it seems, I'm a guy who follows the games. If MS announces that the Final Fantasy series, the Shadow Hearts series, the GTA series, the MGS series, and a few other games are all exclusive to the Xbox 360, then I'll ditch the PS3 and get a Xbox 360, even if the PS3 graphics compare to the X360's graphics like they do to the PS2. I do like the power, but I like my games more.

Anyways, it is hard to predict how the game lineups will end up. I'm guessing that they will be similar to this past generation. Sony will probably still get a lot of exclusives like DMC 3, MGS, Final Fantasy (main series), Tekken, and so on, and Microsoft will expand their Japanese lineup, as they have already done. A few less popular Japanese games, such as a Ridge Racer or Rumble Roses, will find themselves on both consoles or even exclusive to the Xbox 360. On the same note, PC ports, like Doom 3 and Riddick (sort of), may find themselves on both consoles or even exclusive to the PS3. A lot of things can happen. Another thing to consider, which I already hinted at, is that these two consoles are much more port friendly towards each other than the PS2 and Xbox. Games like Madden can run on one of the 3 cores of the Xbox 360 and the main core of the PS3, and then use the GPU's of each console, each of which support similar features. Not saying that 90+% of games next-gen will be multi-platform, but it will be a lot easier to do, relatively speaking.

As for what Sony and Microsoft are thinking when it comes to their launch dates, I don't know exactly. Personally, I think Microsoft is rushing things a bit much. The Xbox is still a nice platform and with enough support, could earn them money (or reduce losses) for another year or so. At that time, the PS3 would have probably launched, allowing MS to play the "power" card again. That would let them put in a next-gen disc drive as well (HD-DVD or even Blu-ray), as well as improve the CPU and GPU designs. Xenos is already a beast, but it could have been a bigger monster with another year or so of design time.

As for Sony, I think they have been more patient for sure, but I think even they rushed just a little bit. I always expected a summer/fall release for the PS3, but after listening to various rumors and reports, I'm leaning towards a spring launch (Japan/North America, or maybe just North America). This has come at a price though since they had to reduce the number of SPE's in Cell from 8 to 7 due and the clockspeed due to yield issues. Plus, they may end up putting a Blu-ray drive that reads slower than the Xbox 360's DVD drive. Considering the potential of Blu-ray as a game disc format, this is not something I'd look forward to. And finally, while I'd liked to be wrong, RSX is a bit too much like the 7800 GTX for my tastes. I can't help but think that Sony had something a little more "exotic" in mind, but ended up rushing things. Granted, even with a rushed GPU, they got a strong card, but it may have ended up being even better.

Of course, I'm nitpicking. By the time that stuff would have been feasible, I would have wanted 2 Cell chips (2x8), a Holographic disc drive, a physics card, and XDR-2 RAM, delaying the consoles to 2009 or something like that. Sometimes, you just got to take what you got now.

 

Wow. It is amazing what can go on in 24 hours. I knew I should have waited another day.

Some more info on the Xbox 360's launch is available. Here are some details from analysts:

I'd probably take a lot of that with a grain of salt, especially the two versions of the console. I do wonder if Microsoft will really have only 1.6 million consoles shipped at the end of the year. Although I guess they will ship enough to Japan to last them until the next Xbox console 4-5 years from now.

On a related note, this appears to be an excerpt from an article at Gameindustry.biz, but the site seems to be down. Here's the excerpt:

Once the site goes back up, I'll post the link and full article, if necessary.

*edit: link's working now:http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=10605 Nothing to add though, except that the price is less set in stone than the release date.*

FYI, 299 UKP is like $530. Doesn't really mean that the US price won't be ~$300 though; both the Xbox and PS2 did this last gen ($299->299 UKP). Although I think the Xbox did terrible at that price, while the PS2 did ok. If true, I'm guessing that MS doesn't think that a possible 299 UKP price tag will but them again.

And finally, I found another Gears of War trailer. This one was supposedly shown at E3, although I don't remember it. This time, it is in 720p, so it almost is like a new trailer anyways. You can download it from the following link:
http://movies.teamxbox.com/xbox360/gearsofwar/gow_e32005_wmvhd_720p_60fps.wmv

Remember that since it is in 720p, not only will the download be a little big, but your computer may have problems playing it due to the power needed to play HD videos. Also try different media players as well. My laptop is on the borderline and was struggling to play it through WMP, but I was able to run the video fine with the VLC player.

Despite all this hassle, the trailer is worth it. Check it out if you can. After watching this, I have no doubt in my mind that GoW is the best looking game shown in realtime for next-gen consoles; in fact, it is pretty close to the clips that were prerendered. Cliffy B and the guys at Epic are blurring the lines between realtime and prerendered graphics. If they can get that out of incomplete Xbox 360 kits, I can't help but think that something like the Killzone demo may some day be possible on the PS3.

Here's a link to some screenshots for those who would have problems with the trailer :
http://screenshots.teamxbox.com/gallery/1167/Gears-of-War/p1