A gaggle of new games for Xbox 360

(continued from previous page)

in all three major regions--North America, Asia and Europe. Rivals Sony and Nintendo are expected to release their next-generation consoles early next year.

Microsoft's head start--which puts it in a prime spot for the key holiday buying season--combined with more experience than it had with its first console, should significantly boost the company's fortunes, analysts said.

The software giant unveiled the Xbox 360 during a pre-taped MTV broadcast last Thursday. The most anticipated feature of the Xbox 360's specifications is its high-definition picture display. Details of Sony's rival PlayStation 3 were revealed earlier today; Nintendo is also expected to take the lid off its next-generation console in the days leading up to the Wednesday start of the show.

The new systems are expected to revitalize the game industry, which typically sees an upgrade cycle in consoles about every five years.

Microsoft is slightly ahead of that schedule, likely because it's eager to get leverage from the games foothold it got with its first Xbox, launched in 2001, and, naturally, itching to get a jump on its competitors.

The Xbox 360 will display games in high definition when used with HDTVs, but the resolution will scale down to fit other television sets, Microsoft said.

In addition, the redesigned white console will be able to connect to the Xbox Live Marketplace using a built-in Ethernet port and broadband Internet access. At the Marketplace, gamers will be able to download content such as new game trailers, new game levels, weapons and vehicles for games and more.

The console will come with a 20GB detachable and upgradeable hard drive and a 12x dual-layer DVD drive that reads DVD, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD-R/RW, WMA and MP3, among other formats. It will also stream media from other Windows XP-based PCs, Microsoft said.

The console will also act as an extension of PCs that are running Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system.

[sevanthson]

Where is the Phantom?

Yet another year of InfiniumLabs vapor... :)

phantom is a rip off

phantom is a rippoff designed to fatten the pricks pockets and not develope a product they never respond to emails i was a sucker and bought there stock i would be impressed if they could do what they claimed they could how stupid was i

[201293546946733175101343322673]

No Wonder It's XBox 1.5 ...

Nothing fancy for the software lineup, where is the innovation? Just pushing the graphic to the next level means nothing since the games are still shallow anyway :)

[NWLB]

The World is Flat.

"Backward-compatibility is not the reason people buy a new system," said David Hufford, Microsoft Xbox group product manager.

Yeah, just like nobody cares about running older versions of software on the newest Windows system. Who'd ever want to do such a thing.

It isn't like people would want to use proven applications or beloved games on new OS' to such a degree that companies are forced to design them to allow it, or that more than a decade of CPU design winds up being tailored to allow for it.

Backward compatibility? What a joke! :)

Now how many combined titles will PS3 have if you add-up PS1 and PS2 titles?

MS will be in the game, and the titles will flow. Some thought Nintendo would never be dethroned but they were, soundly. It may be that getting introduction cycles offset by a year will help the industry more than hurt either it, MS, or Sony for the short run. But production costs will force game studios to pick sides more and more, and after awhile, that is going to effect the market greatly.

NWLB
****
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.NWLB.net" target="_newWindow">http://www.NWLB.net</a>

[198775425444042216790779840523]

All Mac Compatible

The best part about this is that there all going to be on the Mac
platform..the 360 is being demoed on Apple G5s right now. It will
actually be more difficult to port these games to the PC because of
the platform they run on (basically G5 processors).
What does it say when Apple's biggest competitor uses Apple
hardware when they want the best.

"the best"

I think it has less to do with "the best", and more to do with the chips that IBM designed happen to closely resemble the G5 architecture.

[p_reviewer]

Xbox - PC - Ageia

Hope the new Xbox will support or include Ageia hardware - so there is a way to standardize on games played on PCs and the new Xboxes - this would make it a better platform than PS3

[Stan Johnson]

If XBOX 360 isn't backwards compatible --- bye, bye XBOX

If XBOX 360 isn't backwards compatible --- bye, bye XBOX

I refuse to repurchase old games for the XBOX 360. XBOX 360 had better be 100% backwards compatible or I will just move to the Play Station 3 and forget about XBOX all together