It's official, X-Box is pap!

From the same news group as the Nintendo Wii comes this:-

http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6148512.html

Who was it who didn't believe that Microsoft weren't selling X-Box consoles at a loss? The sooner Microsoft stop polluting the console market the better.

another interesting read here:-

http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6148476.html

this is what MS does, they force everyone else out of the running by tossing lots of money at things, then when no one else can compete those companies die out. MS will get a run for it's money with sony though.

In some ways, I hope MS and Sony burn themselves out in this war they started. Maybe it will eventually save games, or maybe it will kill them off forever... who knows.

The units themselves are not being sold at a loss, just because the cost of production and marketing is greater than the ammount of revenue earned on each sale, does not mean it's being sold at a loss.

If Microsoft didn't spend such ridiculous ammounts of money on worthless promotion strategies, and instead invested more money in getting a few must have games out instead, maybe the XBox 360 wouldn't be doing so badly?

But yeah, lets hope Microsoft pulls out from the console wars.

How is this any different to Sony, who are expected to make a far bigger loss on the PS3. They both want to take over your libving room, Sony more than anyone with their plans for a itunes like video and music distribution service.

the ps3 is going to either be priced out of range of the average consumer or they will also take a huge loss on the hardware. It was estimated recently that just the parts to make a blu-ray dvd player was sitting around 400 dollars. So that pretty much explains why the delay in PS3 production. They are attempting to wait out the industry until the blu-ray drives come down in price.

the problem is, ps3 is likely to have a couple good games for launch... 360 had 0

that just depends on what games you like. There were several good games at lauch, but only one worth spending $60, and that was a driving game. Unfortunately for me I prefer driving real cars and Oblivion was delayed.

Apparently the PS3 currently weighs in at $900 to make, hopefully the cost will have come down by the time it launches in any large numbers.

I'm going to wait till next year before I decide what to get. Currently I don't see anything I want for PS3, and surprisingly PC is getting all the games I do want. Next year the 360 is going to be upgraded to a 65nm from the current 90 fabrication and is expected to be lower power, run cooler and get a price cut. So I'll probably pick something up then. Probably a new monitor and vid card ;P

Why is that a problem?

I do agree with Evak on console titles looking fairly bleak in the immediate future.

Oblivion came out on the PC as well, and there is nothing really next gen about that particular driving game... 360 is just Xbox with some slightly better GFX... hopefully the Ps3 will have more innovation.

hee hee

I really like my 360. It's best feature is the amazing interface and Xbox Live support. It's by far the best console designed so far. Great games? Geometry Wars was worth the price of the system alone and Perfect Dark wasn't bad either. Are any of the games so far worthy of classic status? Well, I'd say Geometry Wars as far as fun games go and then I'd like to give Fight Night props for excellent graphics, gameplay, and Live support.

The only people I see dogging the 360 are people that don't have one. I think that should tell you something. The 360 is not something you can judge fairly unless you've got it hooked up all the way and fully experienced, that's just the way it is.

> 360 had 0

Still has 0, and many of its better games, you can get for original X-Box.

Yeah, if you read that second link I posted, that Japanese guy predicts a bleak future for pretty much all companies in the next year, and with games taking so long to make atm, they're probably only making 2-3 games per year at best. I mean imagine if noone barely buys two of them? Disaster.

> The only people I see dogging the 360 are
> people that don't have one.

First person shooters, sports games and driving games. I'm overwhelmingly bored to death by just even looking at them.

Ah, I only read the first article, not the second. Reading it now. Thanks for the link!

The Xbox 360 is an awesome console... but they really should have had more games. Of the two games games that I purchased, Ghost Recon and Oblivion, only Oblivion was an amazing game. There are several more must-have games coming out in the next month or two (Dead Rising and Test Drive Unlimited), and there will be Halo 3 and Fable 2 eventually... but the biggest handicap the Xbox 360 has is lack of games.

Not that there is any Playstation game that I am excited about. Grand Theft Auto games are awesome, but for me those are the only Playstation exclusive games I care about.

I was impressed with how well the 360 was deisgned compared to the old one.



Currently the PS3 uses an entire Cell unit to power its dashboard, and developers have been told to take this into account when developing their games. Makes you wonder what exactly Sony are doing that they need something that resource hungry.

Probably something to make an impression on Antony, who seems to be their demographic with PS3. I'm really impressed with 360's Dash, the ammount of effort that went into the design is obvious the minute you start playing with it.

Without proper support from Japan (where so many games come from and get translated abroard to other consoles), the X-Box 360 is as dead as the original X-Box. Infact it seems even more so with the lack of games coming out (or even planned in the future)

Microsoft have always known they'd have to sell at a loss, they're not looking to win the console war, they want the x360 in every living room as a media device that sells services.
I'm amazed there's so many sony fanboys claiming the x360 is dead, the ps3 is still struggling to even reach an acceptable price level for release, despite various cutbacks.

It's crazy,m but one will win and in a year or so it'll have some good games, and I'll buy it then...maybe.

Xbox was a dead console? Hmmm, don't remember that...

Perspective is a funny thing. Evak and I used to have this problem when talking about Nintendo. Apparently, NES wasn't in Europe what it was in the US and so while from my perspective Nintendo = Games, Evak's was quite different. Since his experience started mainly with computer games which were apparently much more popular in Europe.

Now with this Xbox debate ... Xbox in the US is huge. From my perspective over here ... sure Sony sold more PS2's than MS did Xbox's but the Xbox was no failure. This next round, the 360 has just as much of a chance as the PS3 at dominating the scene. It's a popular system over here and there are always people on Xbox Live to play with.

As for the Japanese support. With all due respect for Japanese designers ... they just aren't what they used to be relative to their US counterparts. There used to be a huge difference in the quality of a US Vs. Japanese game and that gap just isn't there any more. The only Japanese games I buy are Nintendo's. Heck, the only new PS2 game I bought last year, God of War, was American and don't even try to tell me there was a single Japanese game that could hold a candle to God of War.

The way I see it as an Xbox 360 fan, if it's from Japan and it's not Nintendo I couldn't care less because we're not dealing with Super NES and Genesis anymore.

Additionally, MS has brought on Hironobu Sakaguchi (creator of Final Fantasy), Tetsuya Mizuguchi (creator of Rez), and Yoshiki Okamoto (Street Fighter and Resident Evil) to do exclusive games for the 360. If it's Japanese support that you crave then that'll be there too.

heh, well 360 isn't doing too bad with over 3 million units sold, they are making a huge loss though, ammounting to $388 million. But a lot of thats to be expected as it includes things like marketing, advertising and all the rest of what goes with trying for a spectacular media launch.

Thats quite a headstart and with fabrication at about 1million a month, MS are now expected to meet their target of 5-5.5 million units in June.

Thats going to be a huge headstart when PS3 won't be readily avaliable till early next year. We can pretty much expect the same situation as last november next year with PS3. Some people still don't have their preorders for premium packs.

well xbox 360 seems to be very popular nd x box was too, so whats with all the negatuive stuff

Yeh, I am thinking about buying one. I want to play that Gothic Dodgem racing game thing.

However, every console I have ever bought has been left to gather dust after a very short space of time - even the PS2 only held my interest for a month or 2.

For games overall, I'd say game originality has hit rock bottom lately, reminds me of the days towards the end of the SNES and Genesis' life where almost every game was platform game. Now it's FPS's.

I've only bought 2 games made outside of Japan in the past 6 years and both of them were Grand Theft Auto. And with the current trend of games made seemingly becoming even more bleak, it's not gonna
It's a good job I don't play games as much as I used to do, that allows me to play the games I bought 3 years ago, as if they were brand new games.

There are so many games never released outside of Japan and ones that you'll never ever see. X-Box will also be popular in America because of the way many Americans never look too much further than their noses.

Oh yeah, MS may have bought out the rights to Final Fantasy, but that gaming tradition has significantly reduced in recent years so they're welcome it.