Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Kamikaze on August 16, 2005, 12:57:09 am
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http://www.pro-g.co.uk/news/nid/1283/
Important bits:
Speaking in the September issue of the US gaming magazine Game Informer, Allard has said that they are not ready to announce the variations of the Xbox 360 console, but it will not be a one size fits all situation.
"It's something we're not ready to announce yet," he said. "I don't think it's a one-size-fits-all [approach] over the next five-year horizon."
"We've said [to developers], 'Hey look, don't bank on the hard drive always being there,'" he revealed. "'There may be a scenario in the future where we don't want to have a hard drive, and in that case, we have to make sure that the games that you've created are accessible to the broadest possible audience.'"
I guess they didn't learn from the PS2's oh-so-successful harddrive feature?
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smells like a failure waiting to happen. I think that a big part in the success of the xbox was the hard drive.
and the modding...
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The only reason M$ would want to remove the hard drive for is so they can cash in on selling tiny memory cards to people at obscene prices. It costs them f*ck all to put them in after all.
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Maybe they don't want people putting Linux on their Xboxes. So they leave out the HDD, forcing people to use some proprietary memory system.
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Cost cutting, possibly. I would be more worried by MS' decision to force 3rd party peripheral (joypad, memory cards, etc) manufacturers to pay a licensing fee that'll inevitably drive up the prices (including official stuff; why charge less when the competitions' been handicapped?).
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Looks like this could really benefit the PS3 and Revolution, which is really great for the Revolution, because the PS3 is fecking rank!!
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:smacks head:
Don't people feel stupid???
Even with the HD the production costs are low enough that Microsoft can undercut the price of the PS3.
Only a few games on the original Xbox took advantage of the HD as a tool for reducing loading times, etc (like Halo). Most games simply used it to store saved games/custom sound tracks.
The only time the console would be without the HD would be if someone feels the inclination to take it over to a friends house instead of lugging around the whole system to share some save games or perhaps games on the HD.
:smacks head:
Hanging around the Gamespot forums is bad for ones health... I never thought it would make it to HLP.
I have a new idea, how about we not speculate about features as an as of yet unreleased console and maybe focus on things that are currently more interesting? Like F.E.A.R.
I would be more worried by MS' decision to force 3rd party peripheral (joypad, memory cards, etc) manufacturers to pay a licensing fee that'll inevitably drive up the prices (including official stuff; why charge less when the competitions' been handicapped?).
I doubt it will drive up prices considering that peripherals are already sold for a LOT more than the production value. Xbox contollers at the Msoft Company store sell for about 75% of the usual price. In addition all new games there sell for 25$ rather than 50$. Plus I think that this will increase the quality of peripherals. I'm tired of seeing so much crap out there...
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Originally posted by Deepblue
:smacks head:
Don't people feel stupid???
Even with the HD the production costs are low enough that Microsoft can undercut the price of the PS3.
Only a few games on the original Xbox took advantage of the HD as a tool for reducing loading times, etc (like Halo). Most games simply used it to store saved games/custom sound tracks.
The only time the console would be without the HD would be if someone feels the inclination to take it over to a friends house instead of lugging around the whole system to share some save games or perhaps games on the HD.
:smacks head:
Hanging around the Gamespot forums is bad for ones health... I never thought it would make it to HLP.
I have a new idea, how about we not speculate about features as an as of yet unreleased console and maybe focus on things that are currently more interesting? Like F.E.A.R.
Why? Because you don't like people saying anything negative about your favourite unreleased console? I mean, you do tend to post positive Xbox360 PR whever the tiniest opportunity arises.
Or do you mean the Xbox360 isn't interesting to people? Must not be that good then.
Originally posted by Deepblue
:smacks head:
I doubt it will drive up prices considering that peripherals are already sold for a LOT more than the production value. Xbox contollers at the Msoft Company store sell for about 75% of the usual price. In addition all new games there sell for 25$ rather than 50$. Plus I think that this will increase the quality of peripherals. I'm tired of seeing so much crap out there...
Competition controls prices through what is called 'competitive pricing'. Licensing increases overheads of competitive peripherals, increasing their cost. Thus, Microsoft can either justify raising their own prices (as manufacturer label controllers tend to always be more expensive, if higher quality, than the 3rd party), or alternatively force competition out and pave the way for later price rises as the result of that monopolisation.
AFAIK the MS company store is only open to US employees (which I presume must include you, then? Very neutral), so frankly I doubt the man in the street gives a flying **** about the prices there. Employee discount isn't really an argument for seeing generally reduced prices, after all; more a perk of the job to increase employee loyalty (After all, MS wouldn't want employees buying competitor stuff).
Given that MS will be losing money on the Xbox360 regardless of pricepoint (de riguer for all consoles on release), they'll want to maximise profits on peripherals, not reduce them.
Remember, developers used to have to ask nintendo for approval of their games (the famous 'seal of quality'); even then you ended up with a lot of ****e. Licensing is simply a revenue stream.
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Originally posted by Deepblue
I have a new idea, how about we not speculate about features as an as of yet unreleased console and maybe focus on things that are currently more interesting?
:rolleyes: Don't you feel kinda silly saying that?
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Originally posted by Deepblue
:smacks head:
yes... keep smacking it.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4160076.stm
HD version; £279
Non-HD; £209
Confusticate the consumer, indeed.
EDIT;
http://gamesradar.msn.co.uk/news/default.asp?pagetypeid=2&articleid=37020&subsectionid=1586
US;
HD; $399
Non HD; $299
Pricey.
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[color=66ff00]For 279 quid I could significantly upgrade my PC.
What's a good 80 gig HDD cost now? £35-ish if I remember correctly.
Doesn't look worth the cash to me, I'm assuming all the parents will simply go along at chrimbo and buy the cheaper one unless MS make the seperation very clear i.e. xbox and xbox xtreme or something like that.
[/color]
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Well, to be fair it's not just an HD in the more expensive thing, it's some other guff (which they'll no doubt try and sell to the user of the cheaper version at extortionate prices) too.
Of course, they're never worth the price at launch date. Just wait until all 3 have been out for a few months, and who gives a **** how much the inevitable price cuts cost MS, Sony or Nintendo. Anyone who's really desperate enough to pay full (over) price for anything, knowing they'll be price lowering competition just round the corner, deserves to be ripped off IMO.
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That was stupid... Really stupid...
I think I'll play the waiting game.
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Originally posted by Maeglamor
[color=66ff00]For 279 quid I could significantly upgrade my PC.
What's a good 80 gig HDD cost now? £35-ish if I remember correctly.
Doesn't look worth the cash to me, I'm assuming all the parents will simply go along at chrimbo and buy the cheaper one unless MS make the seperation very clear i.e. xbox and xbox xtreme or something like that.
[/color]
Of course, would xbox 360 xtreme not simply be the most cringworthingly awful 'sk8rboi' name ever? It's be like the disco vicar of consoles.
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Wonder if this will be the swan song for Nintendo as a console manufacturer......
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I think Ninty will do quite well, seeing as their avoiding the 18-30 males pissing match of Sony and MS. Plus they're still the only console manufacturer making a profit IIRC.
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I think they are dip****s for not haveing a HD. The PS3 is going to kick everyones ass..
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:rolleyes:
Now, what were we saying about fanboyism earlier?
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I donno, didnt read that far :P
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Originally posted by aldo_14
I think Ninty will do quite well, seeing as their avoiding the 18-30 males pissing match of Sony and MS. Plus they're still the only console manufacturer making a profit IIRC.
I would imagine a pretty big chunk of that profit is from hand helds. IIRC the GC was a great idea but just didn't rekindle the pre-N64 following Nintendo once enjoyed.
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Well i would have to agree. Not as many people bought GC as they should have. I personally have a GC myself. Go Nientendo! W0ot!
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Originally posted by Roanoke
I would imagine a pretty big chunk of that profit is from hand helds. IIRC the GC was a great idea but just didn't rekindle the pre-N64 following Nintendo once enjoyed.
They are making a profit on each machine, though, IIRC. Have done - somewhat remarkably if so - from day 1 I think.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
They are making a profit on each machine, though, IIRC. Have done - somewhat remarkably if so - from day 1 I think.
what 'cubes ? or the hand held market ?
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cubes. I believe. Can't be arsed double checking it, to be honest, but I'm pretty sure.
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Read whole topic now.
Well is almost proven, the PS3 is going to beat all other councils in Graphics, and better ****. (cd player, dvd player, muliple outputs ect)
Xbox 360 will win in the muli player aspect as it seems to be more well known for that, and they are baseing alot of effort for the Mulitplayer gameplay. Tho i recently heard PS3 actually leads in MP Gameplay #'s.
The Revolution, i have heard even less about. So it could pull out a fast one and compete with the dvd and Cd player ect, aspecsts of it but being a nientendo fan, i dobut it. I hear they will be aiming for a 'No Monthly Fee' Free Muli player system which would be aswem. IF they had that, i would prolly get Revolution for that alone. (well, a bigger chance)
Xbox 360 seems to have 3-5 Titles at launch that i personally like. (Perfect Dark Zero, Call of Duty 2, Ghost Recon3 i think..) and sofar i dont know enough to say what the PS3 is comeing out with, same as Revolution.
My 10 centz.
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Originally posted by Charismatic
Read whole topic now.
Well is almost proven, the PS3 is going to beat all other councils in Graphics, and better ****. (cd player, dvd player, muliple outputs ect)
Xbox 360 will win in the muli player aspect as it seems to be more well known for that, and they are baseing alot of effort for the Mulitplayer gameplay. Tho i recently heard PS3 actually leads in MP Gameplay #'s.
The Revolution, i have heard even less about. So it could pull out a fast one and compete with the dvd and Cd player ect, aspecsts of it but being a nientendo fan, i dobut it. I hear they will be aiming for a 'No Monthly Fee' Free Muli player system which would be aswem. IF they had that, i would prolly get Revolution for that alone. (well, a bigger chance)
Xbox 360 seems to have 3-5 Titles at launch that i personally like. (Perfect Dark Zero, Call of Duty 2, Ghost Recon3 i think..) and sofar i dont know enough to say what the PS3 is comeing out with, same as Revolution.
My 10 centz.
1. Better graphics? Don't make me laugh. Wait until you actually see real graphics until you make that judgement. You say "but the floating point!" That doesn't mean much for graphics. This generation, the real powerhouses in the consoles were the GPUs. And in this case the Xbox 360 hands down has the PS3 beat.
2. CD player and DVD player? I'm laughing again. Every next gen console will have these.
3. Wrong. Xbox Live is the largest console gaming service, even beating out the free PS2 service.
About the consoles in general.
I'm willing to bet that Microsoft will pull a fast one when the PS3 launches, both by cutting prices and launching some major titles (GoW, Halo 3). The PS3 is bound to retail for $399 or more, so the Xbox 360 (I'm not even considering the "core package") will have a better price and a greater library of new games. With such an advantage I imagine that many will spring for the Xbox 360 rather than the PS3 except for the die-hard PS3 fans. I see the Revolution fitting into the whole picture as complementary to a PS3 or Xbox 360 with (hopefully) a cheap price. However, I still think the idea of paying to download old Nintendo games is rediculous, especially for those who keep their old consoles.
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Personally I hope all three consoles are a success in whichever way possible.
It's either that, or hope for all of them to fail. Since I've been around since the Atari (which I owned when that was cutting edge), I'm hoping for it to succeede. On the other hand, the kids that weren't born with the basics, who hop onto the AOL chats and then from that straight into games and gaming communities, I really hope everything fails in the future.
However, I'm a gamer, I like progress, so I'm really rooting for it to succeed in all aspects as far as FUN goes be it Xbox or PS3 or Revolution.
Hopefully they'll solve this stuff in the best way possible for the consumer. That way it'll sell more.
The word of the hour is Hope. It's 4:30am.
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Originally posted by Deepblue
That doesn't mean much for graphics. This generation, the real powerhouses in the consoles were the GPUs. And in this case the Xbox 360 hands down has the PS3 beat.
Where'd you pull that information out of?
PS3 stats from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playstation_3)
Graphics processing unit
Custom "RSX" or "Reality Synthesizer" design co-developed by NVIDIA and Sony:
* Clocked at 550 MHz
* 1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance, 356 GFLOPS programmable
* Full high definition output (up to 1080p) x 2 channels
* Multi-way programmable parallel floating point shader pipelines
* Over 300 million transistors (exact amount not yet known)
* 136 shader operations per cycle
* 100 billion shader operations per second
* 51 billion dot products per second (When combined with CPU power)
* 128-bit pixel precision (for rendering scenes with high dynamic range imaging)
* Vertices Performance: 1.1 billion vertices per second
* Texture bandwidth: 47.5 GB/s
Versus
Xbox 360 stats from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360)
Custom ATI R500 Based GPU "Xenos"
* 337 million transistors total
* 500 MHz parent GPU (90 nm process, 232 million transistors)
* 10 MiB daughter eDRAM Framebuffer (90 nm process, 105 million transistors)
o eDRAM has internal logic for Color, Alpha Blend, ZStencil and MSAA.
* 48-way parallel floating-point dynamically-scheduled shader pipelines (ALU's for Vertex or Pixel Shader processing)
* Unified shader architecture (This means that the pipelines are shared between pixel pipelines and vertex shaders; for example, 42 pixel pipelines : 6 vertex shaders).
* 16 Filtered & 16 Unfiltered Texture samples per clock
* Polygon Performance: 500 million triangles per second
* Pixel Fill Rate: 16 gigasamples per second fillrate using 4X MSAA
* Shader Performance: 48 billion (48,000 million) shader operations per second (96 billion shader operations per second theoretical maximum)
* Dot product operations: 9 billion per second (Microsoft figure), 33.6 billion/second when combined with CPU power
Looks pretty close to me. For that matter, comparing raw numbers...
550mhz (PS3) vs. 500mhz (Xbox 360)
100 billion shader ops per second (PS3) vs. 96 billion (Xbox 360)
51 billion dot products per second (PS3) vs. 33.6 billion (Xbox 360)
47.5 GB/s texture bandwidth (PS3) vs. 32 GB/s GPU to eDRAM bandwidth (Xbox 360)
It looks to me like the PS3's GPU is slightly more powerful. I guess we should actually take your advice and wait and see then?
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The question is if those are the final specs on either platform. We'll know alot more when they are actually finished completely and out for testing.
I think we're going to see awesome graphics on both. Its not likely to be an issue.
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Oh please, I couldn't give a rat's arse about a console displaying 'superior' graphics over their competitors. Obviously a game is going to be alluring because of the graphics, but c'mon, doesn't anyone actually care about gameplay anymore? I'm gunning for the Revolution for the simple reason that they're 'getting back to gaming's roots', and have set themselves in the mindset of Gaming over Graphics, hence their choice to go with a much smaller, cheaper console that will focus on gaming, which was what Consoles were all about in the golden years, before they were peverted to the current abominations these days...:doubt:
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Originally posted by Kamikaze
Where'd you pull that information out of?
MS press release.
I wouldn't exactly trust DBs neutrality on this. He's been metaphorically shagging the X360s power socket since it was announced.
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Lol. Back to gameings roots? Gameing is about good games, great graphics and lots of fun. I personally dont forsee any perversion of the gameing industry.
Just cause [gonientenod] Nientendo says they will go back to gameings roots, dont mean they should make a capppy council with extremely underdeveloped graphcis just for going back to its roots.[/gonientendo]
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Originally posted by aldo_14
MS press release.
I wouldn't exactly trust DBs neutrality on this. He's been metaphorically shagging the X360s power socket since it was announced.
:lol:
Dev opinions.
Unified architecture makes the difference in otherwise even stats.
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Oh @ the people complaining about the 20GB HD price, keep in mind it's a microdrive, not a full size HD.
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Originally posted by Deepblue
:lol:
Dev opinions.
Unified architecture makes the difference in otherwise even stats.
All the neutral dev opinions (Excluding the exclusive developers - i.e. Factor 5 citing the PS3 as much better when moving off Xbox360 development, etc) have stated that they're pretty much equal at the moment, the PS3 has the more difficult but theoretically more powerful architecture.
IIRC your entire unified architecture stats stuff came from parroting an MS press release 'comparing' the two. There's been not a single shred of actual evidence to compare the 2 in real terms, because there's not been a single game released for either.
Particularly given that as of yet the PS3 stats are unconfirmed; AFAIK nVidia have not released complete information on the GPU, and Sony have been rumoured to be planning on doubling the RAM.
As I've said several times before, the sensible thing to do is wait till about summer 2006 when all 3 consoles should be out, wait and not only can you make an educated decision, you can also reap the benefit of the ensuing price war.
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I think this sums it up pretty well...
Everyone is overreacting. The entire press is acting like this is some huge mistake "to release two *different consoles" at different price points. It is the same freaking console people! We all expected the unit to come packaged with everything under the sun in the box for some amazingly cheap price; anything less than our stunning high expectations is considered a ludicrous mistake. Some of you have commented that MS is going to make a profit on each unit - and I have to ask, are you serious? Does anyone have any idea how much these hardware components cost? The real word is that each unit with HD costs MS $477 each - that doesn't sound like a positive profit margin to me. Let's add up some internal components:
1) Triple core processor (with stripped L2 cache) - AMD Sempron's (equiv cache size?) at this speed (single core) cost about $150
2) 512MB of memory - $99
3) Water cooling solution - gonna add to the cost here
4) Oh yeah, premium high end video chipset - heck, ATI X850XT PE's are going for over $400 bucks still..
5) 2.5 inch notebook drives cost more - While 20 GB is kind of paltry for PC storage needs, this isn't your home PC, and it's going to be in a custom enclosure, those things cost money too!
6) Case, power supply, etc, etc, etc - $$$
Do we get the picture here? Or should I continue?
I think EVERYTHING in this reaction centers around the lack of the HDD as standard equipment, which I admit is a bit dissapointing. I still hope developers take advantage of the HD for better game performance (and I wonder if some games will require it to even play the game), but the reality is that even though Xbox1 had the HDD, it wasn't used for boosting performance by most developers (no caching of game files people). Game saves, media files, and downloadable content from Live were the primary use. At any given point, barring some huge amount of ripped mp3s on the unit, the HD was largely NOT utilized for performance increases as everyone thought (<1 GB of data).
This is definitely a simple marketing stunt by MS, no bones about it. I'm nabbing a $399 one myself - there's no way you can "live" on XBLive without the HD! Flyers for Thanksigiving weekend will have the "Xbox360 Next-Gen Console" listed as "Starting at $299!" - def looks good in the books, and this is how every console launched in the last generation - standard procedure people. Everyone needs to take a big breath, MS get's criticized no matter what they do, it's part of being such a large corporation.
For those of you who think the PS3 will undercut this cost when it launches, I'm LMAO. No freaking way people - the hardware is even more exotic, and Kutaragi has already told us to get ready for sticker shock. When PS3 launches in late '06, it will sell for AT least the same price,and probably more...by this point, the 360 will have dropped in price by a least 50 bucks, and probably get a game bundled with it. The REV is also not going to be as cheap as people hope ($149? - LMAO again).
Technology costs money, and the tech isn't getting cheaper people. GET A GRIP!
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I guess it sums it up, but didnt get too detailed with the Rev.
Hell i already knew most all he said so haha to you:P
****s gona be expensive, to early to tell who is better, MS company sucks. That sums it up.
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Someone wil die if i dont get an HD with my box.
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The core package is merely a stunt so Msoft can say "look, we made the 299 price point!" As far as I'm concerned it did not. But that doesn't really matter to me when I consider what I am getting.
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I'm feeling a bit stupid here, but could someone please explain to me what good could possibly come out of triple 3ghz cores and just 512mb of memory? Seems a bit unbalanced to me, but then again, the only console I own is a N64 :p
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I don't know. The Xbox360 will rise or fall on its gaming merits, I think, not whether or not it has a hard drive.
My prediction? People who buy it will defend it like a Nintendo Fanboy defends his Pokemon themed Gamecube. People who don't buy it won't be missing anything. Just like all the other consoles.
Personally, I'll be buying a Revolution (if it gets a Metroid game) and a PS3. Why? because I like the games.
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Nice. Get all 3 while your at it.
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Originally posted by Charismatic
Lol. Back to gameings roots? Gameing is about good games, great graphics and lots of fun. I personally dont forsee any perversion of the gameing industry.
*cough* EA Games *cough*
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Originally posted by Charismatic
Nice. Get all 3 while your at it.
I'll likely only get ONE. The only way I'll get anything other than the PS3 (I like to carry my games over, you see) is if there's a proper new Metroid game. I'll buy any system that gets a proper Metroid game. That's why I never bought into the N64, for example. :D
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the xbox's hdd was never really used untill people started cracking it. the point of having 20 gbs for save files never made any sense. consols priced over $300 never really do well, ms just needs a price to compete with sony. theres gonna be a few dumbasses who go for the hdd version but hell. if it turns out my 360 needs a hdd ill wait till somone cracks it and i can throw my own in there for cheap
im getting a 360 because of all the kickass games that are coming out day 1, specially the ghost recon and gears of war cod2 **** like that. the unreal 3 engine looks to best anything put out there; awesome engines is where awesome graphics come from, hardware specs dont truly make a killer machine
the revolution looks pretty tight; free multiplay would be awesome