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With Microsoft and the Xbox getting so much negative press, and only having a small percentage of the home console market, it still amazes me why. I own a PS2, Xbox and GameCube. I read 3 specialist magazines and one multiformat, Edge. Yet, with all these cries of the Xbox getting no good games, it has one hell of a lot more good looking games than the PS2 or Cube. By nature, I'm a Cubist, but I'm getting a bit too annoyed now at the number of people slating the Xbox. It's a great console, with great capabilities, and the future for the Xbox looks a lot brighter than the PS2 or Cube. At least for the Xbox, all the online stuff, online games and what not has been sorted, and by the end of the year I'll be playing Knights of the Old Republic online while you misfortunate others will be playing 2 player Pro Evolution 2 and sniggering to each other that the PS2 will be online 'sometime next year'. As if. The PSone screen was meant to come out half way through last year, and, oh look, a year delayed. Not good omens then for the PS2 modem and broadband adaptors. They've not even got any connection details or information sorted yet. As for GameCube, that's not even confirmed!
The Xbox has got loads of great games, amazing Microsoft support and quite a few diehard fans. Just because it isn't the most widespread console, it doesn't mean there are no good games and it's going to die next year. The Xbox has its future sorted, and a brilliant campaign from Microsoft this Christmas could mean many more sales. That would certainly wipe the smiles off your faces.
Grow up, y'all.
The Xbox has got loads of great games, amazing Microsoft support and quite a few diehard fans. Just because it isn't the most widespread console, it doesn't mean there are no good games and it's going to die next year. The Xbox has its future sorted, and a brilliant campaign from Microsoft this Christmas could mean many more sales. That would certainly wipe the smiles off your faces.
Grow up, y'all.
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Sony have mass-market appeal for no apparent reason. Well, OK, there are LOTS of games, LOTS of liscenses, and some of them are pretty good.
Nintendo have a niche, and a bunch of really good games soon to be available - they appeal to people who don't like the PS2.
X-Box appears to be a large PS2, with far fewer games. Even if 70% were exceptionally good, it seems unlikely that they'll sell well unless they're different.
See Ya ;-)
PinkPig
P.s. You lucky devil, having 3 consoles. I had to save up for 12 months just to get a Gamecube......
Nintendo have a niche, and a bunch of really good games soon to be available - they appeal to people who don't like the PS2.
X-Box appears to be a large PS2, with far fewer games. Even if 70% were exceptionally good, it seems unlikely that they'll sell well unless they're different.
See Ya ;-)
PinkPig
P.s. You lucky devil, having 3 consoles. I had to save up for 12 months just to get a Gamecube......
people have to pay 5 doolrs a month to get x box online so i dont think i like x box very much in there selling stratagies
½pint wrote:
> Whereas with Sony, you'll HAVE to sign up with
> OneTel (I think) and pay their extreme prices, and then you'll also
> have to pay for the service.
Incorrect. Sony will be providing a package that lets you get online with your existing broadband supplier. Charges for server access - if any - are likely to be decided by the publishers, who will provide their own game servers.
No doubt Sony will charge for any of their own services - as does everyone.
> Whereas with Sony, you'll HAVE to sign up with
> OneTel (I think) and pay their extreme prices, and then you'll also
> have to pay for the service.
Incorrect. Sony will be providing a package that lets you get online with your existing broadband supplier. Charges for server access - if any - are likely to be decided by the publishers, who will provide their own game servers.
No doubt Sony will charge for any of their own services - as does everyone.
today at the games trial thingy by FAR the best graphics were the cube ones. Much smoother edges on things.
Dave RJR wrote:
> ½pint wrote:
> Pointless Babble wrote:
> And remember,
> about 1,000,000 households in the UK now have broadband. Ah.
>
> O for gods sake, 128k broadband is going to cost at least £20
> per month and that's nothing special. I use ISDN which is 128 and it's
> not a great step up from 56k modem. Now 512k broadband is more like
> it, but prices start at about £30 per month. This does not
> include any extra charges made by Sony, MS, Nintendo, and any third
> party game charges. This is too much to pay!!!!!! There is no way i
> could afford this sort of cash every month, and i suspect i am not the
> only one. And anyway, according to BT's web site, my local exchange is
> not even on the upgrade list. There's also a map of the wider area,
> and there are very few "green" (ADSL on) area's.
With Microsoft, you don't have to sign up for the actual broadband with them or an associate company - it's just the service you pay for (ie. using their servers) which will only be about £5-10 a month, my guess. Whereas with Sony, you'll HAVE to sign up with OneTel (I think) and pay their extreme prices, and then you'll also have to pay for the service. Which is stupid. No games will make you pay extra charges, and if they do, you can always just use different servers. If you can't play online games because you don't have broadband, so be it. The fact is, by the time Sony HAVE implemented their online services, games will be too advanced to effectively use 56 K modem, and broadband will be more widespread. Obviously you'd have problems paying for it anyway, so you shouldn't complain.
I've had enough. Xbox sucks. GameCube rocks. Live with it.
> ½pint wrote:
> Pointless Babble wrote:
> And remember,
> about 1,000,000 households in the UK now have broadband. Ah.
>
> O for gods sake, 128k broadband is going to cost at least £20
> per month and that's nothing special. I use ISDN which is 128 and it's
> not a great step up from 56k modem. Now 512k broadband is more like
> it, but prices start at about £30 per month. This does not
> include any extra charges made by Sony, MS, Nintendo, and any third
> party game charges. This is too much to pay!!!!!! There is no way i
> could afford this sort of cash every month, and i suspect i am not the
> only one. And anyway, according to BT's web site, my local exchange is
> not even on the upgrade list. There's also a map of the wider area,
> and there are very few "green" (ADSL on) area's.
With Microsoft, you don't have to sign up for the actual broadband with them or an associate company - it's just the service you pay for (ie. using their servers) which will only be about £5-10 a month, my guess. Whereas with Sony, you'll HAVE to sign up with OneTel (I think) and pay their extreme prices, and then you'll also have to pay for the service. Which is stupid. No games will make you pay extra charges, and if they do, you can always just use different servers. If you can't play online games because you don't have broadband, so be it. The fact is, by the time Sony HAVE implemented their online services, games will be too advanced to effectively use 56 K modem, and broadband will be more widespread. Obviously you'd have problems paying for it anyway, so you shouldn't complain.
I've had enough. Xbox sucks. GameCube rocks. Live with it.
WòókieeMøn§†€® wrote:
> you probably think that Ethiopia has an ample water supply!
I shouldn't laugh, but when I read that... :D
> you probably think that Ethiopia has an ample water supply!
I shouldn't laugh, but when I read that... :D
½pint wrote:
> The Xbox has loads of games - in November, 30 are being
> released. Don't tell me there's a drought of games.
No drought? Loads of games in November? The machine was launched in March, and if you look on the shelves in shops today, 90% of the titles are those which were available at launch! If you don't consider that a drought, you probably think that Ethiopia has an ample water supply!
I like my Xbox as far as the machine itself goes, but I don't see how anyone can truly believe - hand on heart - that Microsoft didn't get it all wrong.
They launched with a few very good titles, and several decidedly average ones.
Mistake #1: Just four weeks after launch, with few sales, they decide to hack £100 off the price. So that people don't hate them, they announce a pay-off of a free controller and two games. Everyone thinks 'Wow, great!' - at least until they see the dire titles available. Personally, I'd rather have had my hundred quid refunded. Potential harm: A company already regarded with some suspicion by many receives another knock to its image; people question the worth of the machine if the price requires cutting so early and may choose another platform instead.
Mistake #2: The following five-and-a-half months (bringing us up to the current time... SEVEN-and-a-half if we take your November quote as a guide) see precious little in the way of quality titles, and nothing approaching triple-A standard. Potential harm: People get concerned about the quality and quantity of software available, possibly leading to purchase of other established & trusted platforms.
Mistake #3: A number of previously exlusive Xbox titles are announced for rival platforms. Potential harm: Regardless of which turns out to be the 'best' version (pretty graphics excluded), this negates the need to buy an Xbox to play these titles - thus potentially harming sales even further.
With that in mind, and with both PS2 and Gamecube reportedly selling more units, I don't see how anyone can honestly suggest that Xbox has so far been a major success, by any stretch of the imagination.
I'm not saying that it WON'T be a success, but we'll have to wait until January 2003 to see how the Xmas sales go before we know. It's generally accepted within the industry that no-one is likely to overtake Sony's PS2, but you never know.
Even so, I don't see why everyone gets so wound up about it, because the market is big enough to house all three platforms. We can pick and choose what platforms and games we like; as long as there are games for our platform of choice, it shouldn't matter to us who leads the market, surely? The only people who should be concerned with that are the people working at Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo - because their jobs may depend on it, but our lives certainly don't.
> The Xbox has loads of games - in November, 30 are being
> released. Don't tell me there's a drought of games.
No drought? Loads of games in November? The machine was launched in March, and if you look on the shelves in shops today, 90% of the titles are those which were available at launch! If you don't consider that a drought, you probably think that Ethiopia has an ample water supply!
I like my Xbox as far as the machine itself goes, but I don't see how anyone can truly believe - hand on heart - that Microsoft didn't get it all wrong.
They launched with a few very good titles, and several decidedly average ones.
Mistake #1: Just four weeks after launch, with few sales, they decide to hack £100 off the price. So that people don't hate them, they announce a pay-off of a free controller and two games. Everyone thinks 'Wow, great!' - at least until they see the dire titles available. Personally, I'd rather have had my hundred quid refunded. Potential harm: A company already regarded with some suspicion by many receives another knock to its image; people question the worth of the machine if the price requires cutting so early and may choose another platform instead.
Mistake #2: The following five-and-a-half months (bringing us up to the current time... SEVEN-and-a-half if we take your November quote as a guide) see precious little in the way of quality titles, and nothing approaching triple-A standard. Potential harm: People get concerned about the quality and quantity of software available, possibly leading to purchase of other established & trusted platforms.
Mistake #3: A number of previously exlusive Xbox titles are announced for rival platforms. Potential harm: Regardless of which turns out to be the 'best' version (pretty graphics excluded), this negates the need to buy an Xbox to play these titles - thus potentially harming sales even further.
With that in mind, and with both PS2 and Gamecube reportedly selling more units, I don't see how anyone can honestly suggest that Xbox has so far been a major success, by any stretch of the imagination.
I'm not saying that it WON'T be a success, but we'll have to wait until January 2003 to see how the Xmas sales go before we know. It's generally accepted within the industry that no-one is likely to overtake Sony's PS2, but you never know.
Even so, I don't see why everyone gets so wound up about it, because the market is big enough to house all three platforms. We can pick and choose what platforms and games we like; as long as there are games for our platform of choice, it shouldn't matter to us who leads the market, surely? The only people who should be concerned with that are the people working at Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo - because their jobs may depend on it, but our lives certainly don't.
½pint wrote:
> Pointless Babble wrote:
And remember,
> about 1,000,000 households in the UK now have broadband. Ah.
O for gods sake, 128k broadband is going to cost at least £20 per month and that's nothing special. I use ISDN which is 128 and it's not a great step up from 56k modem. Now 512k broadband is more like it, but prices start at about £30 per month. This does not include any extra charges made by Sony, MS, Nintendo, and any third party game charges. This is too much to pay!!!!!! There is no way i could afford this sort of cash every month, and i suspect i am not the only one. And anyway, according to BT's web site, my local exchange is not even on the upgrade list. There's also a map of the wider area, and there are very few "green" (ADSL on) area's.
> Pointless Babble wrote:
And remember,
> about 1,000,000 households in the UK now have broadband. Ah.
O for gods sake, 128k broadband is going to cost at least £20 per month and that's nothing special. I use ISDN which is 128 and it's not a great step up from 56k modem. Now 512k broadband is more like it, but prices start at about £30 per month. This does not include any extra charges made by Sony, MS, Nintendo, and any third party game charges. This is too much to pay!!!!!! There is no way i could afford this sort of cash every month, and i suspect i am not the only one. And anyway, according to BT's web site, my local exchange is not even on the upgrade list. There's also a map of the wider area, and there are very few "green" (ADSL on) area's.
Pointless Babble wrote:
> Personally I don't think Christmas is the right time to be releasing a
> broadband ONLY online feature for a console, too small a percentage of
> the UK currently has access to broadband, which will seriously harm
> X-Box sales because it is completely incompatible with 56K or normal
> lines. Another thing that's going to blow up in their face is the
> monthly fee for using X-Box Live, granted you get your first year free
> when you fork out £40 for the software, but most people tend to
> see past marketing gimmicks and look at what it's going to cost them
> in the long run. Which if memory serves was £72 per annum, on
> top of the £40 you'll pay for the DVD, so there are as many
> drawbacks and downfalls to MS's plan as there are advantages. That is
> down to someone useless being left incharge of planning things.
How can it damage Xbox sales? It's like saying that if the Xbox was released 2 years earlier it would have damaged sales. The fact is, releasing it early means people with broadband are able to take advantage of it, without having to wait a year for everyone else to catch up, at that point then it being much slower. It also means when Sony and Nintendo get their acts together, Xbox will be in the market.
I don't want to have this discussion. I love Nintendo and the Xbox (not Microsoft though), and the fact is, many people are ignoring the Xbox for what it is. Proof is given in many of the replies posted here, because people have talked about the Xbox having no games and what not. The Xbox has loads of games - in November, 30 are being released. Don't tell me there's a drought of games. And remember, about 1,000,000 households in the UK now have broadband. Ah.
> Personally I don't think Christmas is the right time to be releasing a
> broadband ONLY online feature for a console, too small a percentage of
> the UK currently has access to broadband, which will seriously harm
> X-Box sales because it is completely incompatible with 56K or normal
> lines. Another thing that's going to blow up in their face is the
> monthly fee for using X-Box Live, granted you get your first year free
> when you fork out £40 for the software, but most people tend to
> see past marketing gimmicks and look at what it's going to cost them
> in the long run. Which if memory serves was £72 per annum, on
> top of the £40 you'll pay for the DVD, so there are as many
> drawbacks and downfalls to MS's plan as there are advantages. That is
> down to someone useless being left incharge of planning things.
How can it damage Xbox sales? It's like saying that if the Xbox was released 2 years earlier it would have damaged sales. The fact is, releasing it early means people with broadband are able to take advantage of it, without having to wait a year for everyone else to catch up, at that point then it being much slower. It also means when Sony and Nintendo get their acts together, Xbox will be in the market.
I don't want to have this discussion. I love Nintendo and the Xbox (not Microsoft though), and the fact is, many people are ignoring the Xbox for what it is. Proof is given in many of the replies posted here, because people have talked about the Xbox having no games and what not. The Xbox has loads of games - in November, 30 are being released. Don't tell me there's a drought of games. And remember, about 1,000,000 households in the UK now have broadband. Ah.
Thing is, the great N64 drought has been mentioned, but the Xbox has got absolutely loads of future releases. More than double the GameCube, and about on par with the PS2. Now, specifications and online play aside, the Xbox still has a really promising future. It's got some very strong 3rd party support, with many exclusive developers signed on. Also, there are 3 new Sega games in the works, along with many Microsoft-backed games. I'm sure everybody's argument is valid, but the thing is, if you love the PS2, you're never going to hear of half the Xbox games ever. If you really must see what's coming up, check out an Xbox web site. Then you'll see that there are more than 'a few' games coming out soon.
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