# XBox360 - hit or miss?



## Winters_Sorrow (Oct 18, 2006)

So, what's the feeling on this bit of kit now that's been out for a while?

I never early adopt, I wait for the kinks to be worked out, decent games to be released and then decide whether or not to put my money in the pot.

I was dubious when the Xbox360 was first released. It seemed 'rushed' out to beat the PS3 to the shops and the launch games didn't seem up to much. I was also of the impression that lacking a HDTV meant that it wouldn't be next gen to me until I did. 
However time turns and I've found myself mulling over buying one recently. I put this partly down to the fact that my PC is too slow to play games like Oblivion but not slow enough to seriously contemplate replacing and that the Xbox Live & marketplace sound interesting - although the gamerpoints sound gimicky to me.

So what I'm looking for is comments from people that have already taken the plunge. Is it worth the money and are the games good enough that not having a HDTV doesn't matter?


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## Lucien21 (Oct 18, 2006)

I'm biased.

I luv my 360. A plutonic luv you understand brought about by hours of joy.

Personally I plug mine into my Dell monitor (24" widescreen LCD) which can display in HDTV resolution.

The obvious drawback of not having HDTV is that although the graphics are at a lower resolution, but still miles ahead of the PS2 and Xbox in graphical terms.

On an HDTV it looks amazing.

The marketplace is fine for what it does, downloading demos and Live Arcade games.

Xbox live is cool. Playing Project Gotham Racer online is great fun or you can just watch others race on Gotham TV.

Best games imo

Call of Duty 2
Oblivion
Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfare
Dead Rising -----> Hours of Zombie Dawn of the Dead bloodshed (can be boring after a while though)
Project Gotham Racer

It's also amazing how addictive it can become trying to gain the Achievement points or how strange it is to get all excited about playing Doom again on Live Arcade, or Texas Poker online.

Coming soon i'm really looking forward to:

Gears of War
PES 6
Splinter Cell 4 (Out on Friday)
Halo 3
Mass Effect
Bioshock
Rainbow 6 Las Vegas
Alan Wake

I'm sure the PS3 will be a lovely bit of kit, but the 360 is up and around.

To be honest the Wii is more exciting than the PS3 at the moment (And a lot cheaper)


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## Evolution (Oct 18, 2006)

Hey! Although I don't personely own a Xbox 360, my friend does and he thinks it's the best thing since sliced bread.  I'm waiting for the Wii and the PS3. Lucien is right, the new gen consoles are made for HDTV, and look there best when viewed on these.  Graphically the 360 is very glossy and light years ahead of the last gen.  When you say "are there any decent games coming out" that all depends on what genre your into.  If you like first person shooters then the answer is a big YES.

All three of the new gen consoles, the 360, Wii and PS3 are going to give gamers a whole new experience, obviously the PS3 is the superior unit being much more technically advanced, but that is reflected in the price.  Whatever console people buy today there going to get a cool machine, at the end of the day it comes down to personnal choice, how much you can afford and the exclusive game titles.


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## C. Craig R. McNeil (Oct 18, 2006)

Lucien says it all for me! I love my 360. Oblivion is stunning and worth getting the 360 for alone! I'm lucky enough to have a 45" HDTV coupled with surround sound and it's a big wow! indeed.

Evolution - can I just add that the PS3 isn't necessary more advanced than the 360. From what we're hearing there isn't that much of a difference between the two apart from the PS3 having an unnecessary Blu-Ray drive. However, as they say, watch this space when the PS3 is released as it's only then when we'll find out.


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## Aes (Oct 19, 2006)

> From what we're hearing there isn't that much of a difference between the two apart from the PS3 having an unnecessary Blu-Ray drive.



Saying that the blu-ray drive is unnecessary is horrifying to me.  Regular DVDs only hold 4.7gb for single layer, or 8.5gb for dual layer.  Blu-ray discs, on the other hand, hold 25gb for single layer, or 50gb for dual layer.  This media size increase is very important for a HD-based gaming system, as finer-resolution graphics require more storage space.  One blu-ray disc is far more desireable than a bundle of 5 dvds with the same content.

Blu-ray is going to be taking the spotlight from standard DVDs in time, and when the time comes, wouldn't it be nice to already have a blu-ray player handy?

The xbox 360 has an optional hd-dvd (not the same as standard dvd) addon for playing hd-dvds (15gb/30gb...blu-ray's genetically inferior/retarded cousin) but that'll be another $150 or so on top of the 360's cost.

 - - -

Anyway, in regards to the original post:  I think the xbox360 is should be a decent enough system.  Obviously right now, it's the best, but whether or not it's going to end up failing can't really be determined until the PS3 and Wii make their appearances.

Generally, the first one out is the least advanced of the lot, as the others have time to make improvements and throw in extras in hopes of putting out something somewhat better.


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## C. Craig R. McNeil (Oct 19, 2006)

Aes said:
			
		

> Saying that the blu-ray drive is unnecessary is horrifying to me. Regular DVDs only hold 4.7gb for single layer, or 8.5gb for dual layer. Blu-ray discs, on the other hand, hold 25gb for single layer, or 50gb for dual layer. This media size increase is very important for a HD-based gaming system, as finer-resolution graphics require more storage space. One blu-ray disc is far more desireable than a bundle of 5 dvds with the same content.
> 
> Blu-ray is going to be taking the spotlight from standard DVDs in time, and when the time comes, wouldn't it be nice to already have a blu-ray player handy?


 
So how come the 360 is managing so well with standard DVDs and similarly high resolution graphics? I stand by what I say about the BluRay player as it has held up the PS3 by 7 months (as of writing) due to manufacturing difficulties and is only included in the PS3 because Sony wish to shoehorn it's own standard on the world.

From what I've been reading on some AV websites, BluRay isn't clicking with the bleeding edge AV crowd as it's currently expensive and the extra space isn't necessary (yet, I hasten to add). It's going to end up like the Betamax/ VHS fight again and my impression is that Sony once again will be on the losing side. But I digress from the OT and this isn't a techy forum so I really shouldn't be writing this


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## Winters_Sorrow (Oct 19, 2006)

Thanks for your replies.
I couldn't care less about the Bluray/HDDVD war to be honest. It's all very early to be wanting/having these enhanced DVD formats anyway. Let's face it, films won't be made/sold specifically for these formats for years, but which point they'll be more advanced and cheaper than now anyway, so the PS3 having a bluray drive is meaningless to me as is the HDDVD functionality for the Xbox360. I buy a games console to play games. If I want to watch movies, I have a perfectly adequate televison & dvd player already.


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## Lucien21 (Oct 19, 2006)

The PS3 and Xbox 360 are fairly even in technical ability.

The Blu Ray drive was added because Sony loves it's propietary media (UMD, Memory stick, Mini-disk) however each time they have tried it they have failed miserably. They hope adding the Blu-ray drive to the PS3 will aid in the format war.

My moneys on HD-DVD it's cheaper and easier to use.


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## Evolution (Oct 19, 2006)

Here's the spec's of both the Xbox 360 and the PS3.

Complete Sony PS3 Specifications: 



CPU 
 Cell Processor 


 PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz 


 1 VMX vector unit per core 512KB L2 cache 


 7 x SPE @3.2GHz 


 7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs 


 7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE 


 * 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy total floating point performance : 218 GFLOPS 

GPU 
 RSX @550MHz 


 1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance 


 Full HD (up to 1080p) x 2 channels 


 Multi-way programmable parallel floating point shader pipelines 

Sound 
 Dolby 5.1ch, DTS, LPCM, etc. (Cell-base processing) 

Memory 
 256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz 


 256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz 

System Bandwidth 
 Main RAM 25.6GB/s 


 VRAM 22.4GB/s 


 RSX 20GB/s (write) + 15GB/s (read) SB 2.5GB/s (write) + 2.5GB/s (read) 

System Floating Point Performance 
 2 TFLOPS 

Storage 
 HDD 
 Detachable 2.5” HDD slot x 1 

I/O 
 USB 
 Front x 4, Rear x 2 (USB2.0) 

Memory Stick 
 standard/Duo, PRO x 1 

SD 
 standard/mini x 1 

CompactFlash 
 (Type I, II) x 1 

Communication 
 Ethernet 
 (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T) x 3 (input x 1 + output x 2) 

Wi-Fi 
 IEEE 802.11 b/g 

Bluetooth 
 Bluetooth 2.0 (EDR) 

Controller 
 Bluetooth (up to 7) 


 USB2.0 (wired) 


 Wi-Fi (PSP®) Network (over IP) 

AV Output 
 Screen size 
 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p 


 HDMI 
 HDMI out x 2 


 Analog 
 AV MULTI OUT x 1 


 Digital audio 
 DIGITAL OUT (OPTICAL) x 1 

Disc media * read only 
 CD 
 PlayStation® 
 CD-ROM 

PlayStation®2 
 CD-ROM 

CD-DA 
 CD-DA (ROM), CD-R, CD-RW 


 SACD 
 SACD Hybrid (CD layer), SACD HD 


 DualDisc 
 DualDisc (audio side), DualDisc (DVD side) 

DVD 
 PlayStation®2 
 DVD-ROM 

PLAYSTATION®3 
 DVD-ROM 

DVD-Video 
 DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, 




 DVD+RW 

Blu-ray Disc 
 PLAYSTATION®3 
 BD-ROM 

BD-Video 
 BD-ROM, BD-R, BD-RE 


**********************************************************


Xbox 360 Specifications:





Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU 
                   3 symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each 

                  2 hardware threads per core; 6 hardware threads total 

                 1 VMX-128 vector unit per core; 3 total 

                  128 VMX-128 registers per hardware thread 

                  1 MB L2 cache

CPU Game Math Performance 
                  9 billion dot product operations per second 

Custom ATI Graphics Processor 
                   500 MHz 

                  10 MB embedded DRAM 

                  48-way parallel floating-point dynamically-scheduled shader pipelines 

                  Unified shader architecture 

Polygon Performance 
                   500 million triangles per second 

Pixel Fill Rate 
                   16 gigasamples per second fillrate using 4X MSAA 

Shader Performance 
                   48 billion shader operations per second 

Memory 
                   512 MB GDDR3 RAM 

                  700 MHz DDR 

                  Unified memory architecture 

Memory Bandwidth 
                   22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth 

                  256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM 

                  21.6 GB/s front-side bus 

Overall System Floating-Point Performance 
                   1 TFLOP 

Storage 
                   Detachable and upgradeable 20 GB hard drive 

                  12X dual-layer DVD-ROM 

                  Memory unit support starting at 64 MB 

I/O 
                   Support for up to 4 wireless game controllers 

                  3 USB 2.0 ports 

                  2 memory unit slots 

Optimized for Online 
                   Instant, out-of-the-box access to Xbox Live features, including Xbox Live Marketplace for downloadable content, Gamer Profile for digital identity and voice chat to talk to friends while playing games, watching movies or listening to music 

                  Built in Ethernet Port 

                  Wi-Fi Ready: 802.11 A, B and G 

                  Video Camera Ready

Digital Media Support 
                   Support for DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 CD, JPEG Photo CD 

                  Stream media from portable music devices, digital cameras, Windows XP PCs 
                  Rip music to Xbox 360 hard drive 

                 Custom playlists in every game 

                  Windows Media Center Extender built in 

                  Interactive, full screen 3D visualizers 

HD Game Support 
                   All games supported at 16:9, 720p and 1080i, anti-aliasing 

                 Standard definition and high definition video output supported 

Audio 
                   Multichannel surround sound output 

                  Supports 48 KHz 16-bit audio 

                  320 independent decompression channels 

                  32-bit audio processing 

                 Over 256 audio channels 

System Orientation 
                  Stands vertically or horizontally 

Customizable Face Plates 
                   Interchangeable to personalize the console


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## Aes (Oct 20, 2006)

> I stand by what I say about the BluRay player as it has held up the PS3 by 7 months (as of writing) due to manufacturing difficulties and is only included in the PS3 because Sony wish to shoehorn it's own standard on the world.


Blu-ray has far more supporters than just Sony:



			
				from blu-ray.com said:
			
		

> 1.3   	 Who developed Blu-ray?
> 
> The Blu-ray Disc format was developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), a group of leading consumer electronics, personal computer and media manufacturers, with more than 170 member companies from all over the world.



If anything Microsoft is the one trying to shoehorn the format it's supporting onto the world.  HD-DVD was a sinking ship, with only a handful of supportaing due to its technical inferiority.  However, the fact that Microsoft is supporting it means they'll somehow manage to muscle yet another mediocre product into everyone's home and rake in the profits.  It's really quite disgusting.

Blu-ray might be more expensive to produce, however it is superior in every way.  Many humans only seem to think about what's important right now, rather than looking into the future.  While we may not need that much space for the games we play currently, HD games -will- be larger.  If we just stick with standard DVDs, we'll be dealing with 4-5 disc games, like the PS1 Final Fantasies.


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## C. Craig R. McNeil (Oct 20, 2006)

You're forgetting that many of those that support Blu Ray also support HD DVD. No one really gives a damn what format they make money from. Warner Studios have created a disc format that can hold BluRay,HD-DVD and normal DVD films all on one disk so in the long run neither side will win outright. It's likely that you'll be able to purchase  players that support both formats within a couple of years anyway.

BTW Microsoft happens to be a supporter of the HD-DVD standard because it's also an excellent format for PC applications. Their partnership with Toshiba and the continuing manufacturing problems with BluRay drives probably pushed them towards HD-DVD rather than there being any attempt to shoehorn the standard on the world.


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## Green (Oct 20, 2006)

Neither product has really even begun to take off yet, so I think it's a bit premature to say one is better than the other.

The Blu-Ray is more expensive, but it's got much better storage capabilities.

HD-DVD is cheaper, but it's got much worse storage capabilities.

Meh. I won't be blowing my money on either until one of them (or both of them) are much more secure. I think Blue-Ray is relying on the PS3 to make a big impact on the console market. If PS3 fails, I think Blu-Ray will as well. Which would be a shame, because it won't have failed on its own merits, but rather on the PS3's.


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## Lucien21 (Oct 20, 2006)

I'm waiting for either the Holographic Disc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Versatile_Disc (3.9Terabytes)

or the Protein Coated Disc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein-coated_disc (50 Terabytes)


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## Green (Oct 20, 2006)

I'm waiting for when Cyberdyne Systems finish their revolutionary new CPUs so that Skynet can take over the world, armageddon-style,  and we can run in fear from robotic hunter-killers 

There will be lots of cool gadgets around.


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## C. Craig R. McNeil (Oct 20, 2006)

Green said:
			
		

> There will be lots of cool gadgets around.



Sure. And they'll all be running around trying to kill you!


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## Aes (Oct 20, 2006)

C. Craig R. McNeil said:
			
		

> You're forgetting that many of those that support Blu Ray also support HD DVD. No one really gives a damn what format they make money from.


While that's true, if you look at them closely, you'll see that most of the companies supporting HD-DVD are also supporting blu-ray.  However, there are far more behind -just- blu-ray, as opposed to those who are only supporting HD-DVD.



> BTW Microsoft happens to be a supporter of the HD-DVD standard because it's also an excellent format for PC applications.


Not to seem like I'm trying to be overly argumentitive, but where did you read this?  I ask because, in theory, either would be good for PC applications since they allow for the storing of data.  If anything, basic DVDs and even CDs are more than enough space for most standard, non-game apps, and will probably remain so for some time to come.  In terms of games, I'd also imagine that the higher capacity of blu-ray makes it much more appealing than HD-DVD.



> Their partnership with Toshiba and the continuing manufacturing problems with BluRay drives probably pushed them towards HD-DVD rather than there being any attempt to shoehorn the standard on the world.


Any technology this early in its life is bound to have some kind of manufacturing problems.  I highly doubt they're so short-sighted to where that alone would influence their decision.  More likely is the fact that HD-DVD presents them with the option to scoop up the dying neanderthal of next-gen storage media and invest in it.  Thanks to their already painfully obvious monopoly over the computer industry, they can then defy natural selection and push it into the spotlight of success, even though it should've died off due to its obvious inferiorities.  Result:  Mad profits, the number one goal of any and all corporations.

Lucien21:  Yes, HVD and even the undeveloped protein coated disc look really hot.  However, it's still way too early for such large-capacity media.  Perhaps when the PS3, 360, and Wii are ready to renege to the generation after them, and when HD-TV starts going the way of standard TV for something even bigger & better, we'll be seeing VCDs and PCDs make an appearance.  Right now, they're just not practical--when they are, something with over 100x their capacity will probably be on the horizon.

You gotta love how quickly technology is advancing.


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## kyektulu (Oct 20, 2006)

*I have to admit to not liking the Xbox 360 much, I have played on my friends a few times, and to be honest I think I will stick 2 my Ps2. *


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## Evolution (Oct 21, 2006)

Well whoever wins - HD or Blu-Ray its the way forward.  With storage capabilities of 50Gb you could have an entire boxset of your favourite show on just one disc, or say have your favourite film in twice the picture quality that your viewing it in now.  

 In an effort to maximize the quality of DVD for display on today's HDTVs, many manufacturers have introduced upscaling capabilities through DVI and/or HDMI output connections on newer DVD players. 

Upscaling is a process that mathematically matches the pixel count of the output of the DVD signal to the physical pixel count on an HDTV, which is typically 1280x720 (720p) or 1920x1080 (1080i). 

The upscaling process does a good job of matching the upscaled pixel output of a DVD player to the native pixel display resolution of an HDTV capable television, resulting in better detail and color consistency.

Its the way forward and we should embrace this new technology.


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