Posts filed under 'Console Hardware'
Positively ecstatic feedback continues to come in for the new Xbox360 Wireless Racing Wheel. We are due to receive ours soon, and will post our findings. For now, check out some of the coverage:
Gizmodo: Fans of driving games traditionally either had to put up with filmsy wheels that made racing less convenient than using the standard analog stick controllers. With the Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheel from Microsoft, lousy first party racing accessories are a thing of the past.
In all honesty, this was the best racing experience we’ve ever had.
and a solid endorsement from Techie Musings with a few complaints I hope get addressed in the next version:
The wheel feels very solid and “real” - when you hold it, you feel like you can throw it around and it has a satisfying length of travel (270 degrees)…. all in all, if you’re into driving games, this is highly recommended.
Technorati Tags: Xbox360, Racing Wheel
November 27th, 2006
As part of the Amazon Customer Vote deal ( cool concept by the way ), customers picked the $100 Xbox360. What should have been a nice PR move for Amazon and a good deal for 1000 customers, turned into a classic slashdot / digg effect ( crunchgear blog for details ). By that I mean an overload of traffic all trying to access the same site at the same time. Not only was the Xbox360 product page not available, but the whole Amazon.com site appeared to be down for several minutes costing the site untold revenue.
While not a remarkable event in itself — walmart.com and other sites have been down this holiday season — it is extra troubling to see Amazon go down as they are now touting their S3 platform for all kinds of services with a focus on reliability and uptime:
Built to be flexible so that protocol or functional layers can easily be added. Default download protocol is HTTP. A BitTorrent(TM) protocol interface is provided to lower costs for high-scale distribution. Additional interfaces will be added in the future.
Scalable: Amazon S3 can scale in terms of storage, request rate, and users to support an unlimited number of web-scale applications. It uses scale as an advantage: Adding nodes to the system increases, not decreases, its availability, speed, throughput, capacity, and robustness.
Failure tolerant: The system considers the failure of components to be a normal mode of operation, and continues operation with no or minimal interruption.
We’ll check back next week to see if this happens again with the next specially discounted Amazon offer. Right now the “Axion Portable DVD Player” is leading the vote :)
Technorati Tags: Xbox360, amazon, deals
November 25th, 2006
Great article up on Gamasutra tackling the question of HD and games and if the console developers have jumped in to early. They spoke to three industry experts re: twobig questions: “Are Microsoft and Sony emphasizing HDTV too much, not enough, or just enough? Has Nintendo made a mistake by not providing HDTV resolution for the Wii?”
As we reported earlier, microsoft claims that 90% of xbox360 gamers either own an HDTV or plan on purchasing one soon. So based on that data point, the gamers have spoken and they want HD.
GigaOM also has there take on it here:
“Amazingly, all three analysts are bullish on HDTV, particularly Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan Securities (”I think HD resolution is the essential difference between this cycle and the last”) and Ben Bajarin of Creative Strategies. (”I do not think the gaming industry is jumping in prematurely at all”) In my read, only Mike Wolf of ABI Research couches his bullishness with caution, saying “HDTV is a critical feature of the new generation of consoles, particularly down the road 2-3 years.”
For us xbox360 game content is already in great HD and here today, so we don’t see a reason to wait 2-3 years. But given that the gaming console has a life cycle of 4 or 5 years, it does seem odd that Nintendo elected to not include HD support in the Wii - a decision that could come back to bite them.
October 11th, 2006
several sources are now confirming two big HD updates to the Xbox 360 platform:
1) 1080p support coming soon — kinda. What does this mean ? Engadget HD breaks it down
VGA:
- HD DVD - 1080p resolution and all others
- DVD - Upscaled as high as 1080p resolution and all others
- Games - 720p games upscaled to 1080p, also supports native-1080p games in the future
Component:
- HD DVD - 1080i resolution maximum, limited by AACS
- DVD - Upscaled to 480p maximum, limited by CSS
- Games - 720p games upscaled to 1080p, also supports native-1080p games in the future
2) The much rumored HD-DVD now has a date and pricing — at least in Japan. About $180 and scheduled for Nov 22. We hope to have US pricing and dates soon.
September 23rd, 2006
Some pretty cool new camera tech for Xbox 360 was demo’d at Gamefest Expo recently.
Gamasutra has a great write-up, so instead of trying to summarize here, just click over and read for yourself — very cool stuff.
August 19th, 2006
Joystick has a post saying that:
IT Wire in Australia has spoken with Mark Whittard, general manager of Toshiba’s Information Systems Division in Australia, about the possibility of an internal HD-DVD drive making it into next generations of the Xbox 360 before the end of the year.
More speculation than reality at this point, but given all the cluter we have in our own living rooms, it makes perfect sense to move this HD-DVD USB add-on into the actual console itself.
Here is the quote from the Toshiba GM that has everyone excited:
“The Xbox [360] is coming out with an HD-DVD player towards the end of this year. … I would imagine that there are plans in place to put an HD-DVD drive internally in future revisions of the product. They’re not speaking about it publicly at the moment but I would expect them to do that and fairly soon.”
Could be a good PR move to have that ready before the PS3 ships.
7/7/06 Update: Microsoft is flat out denying this: Cesar Menendez of the Microsoft’s Global Games Marketing Team wrote in the team’s blog:
Saw a few stories online about an Xbox 360 with a built-in HD DVD drive: not true. We have no plans to release an Xbox 360 with an internal HD DVD. What we showcased at E3 was an external HD DVD drive, and we’re sticking with that.
source
July 3rd, 2006
As we reported back in April, this is now official:
This new accessory will connect to the Xbox 360 console with a USB cable, enabling it to harness the power of the Xbox 360 console for the HD video outputs and digital surround sound. As an accessory, it becomes another shining example of the flexibility of Xbox 360 designed into the console in order to grow and add new features. It’s also just one of several new accessories being announced at E3.
“There aren’t any Blu-ray players available to test, but if you compare the requirements on paper it’s going to be a wash in terms of video quality,” said Albert Penello, Director of Global Marketing at Xbox. “At Microsoft, we’ve known that for some time. But the major difference is going to be price, and all the leading indicators point to HD DVD winning.”
Let’s hope the footprint of this external drive isn’t too significant. You can read the full Microsoft announcement here
Technorati Tags: xbox360, hd-dvd
May 8th, 2006
Chris Lewis — Microsot’s regional vice president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa for Xbox 360 gaming console business in Europe — gave a very revealing interview to SPIEGEL ONLINE.
In the interview he spoke very openly about the forthcoming plans for an HD-DVD drive:
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is the HD-DVD-drive for the Xbox 360 still in the pipeline?
Lewis: Absolutely, yes. We’ll say a little bit more about it at E3. It will give people access to HD DVD.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: But the 360 doesn’t have an HDMI-Interface — so you won’t actually be able to watch any HD DVD Movies on it because the obligatory copy protection mechanisms are missing.
Lewis: All I can say to you is — there are interesting developments in the pipeline. We will make sure that the HD-DVD-peripheral device will meet all the requirements for consumers to enjoy high-definition DVD playback.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Meaning, you will be able to watch Hollywood movies in HD through your Xbox?
Lewis: Yes.
Lewis kept referring to E3, which will be in May, as the time and the place where microsoft will make their announcements.
The HDMI issue is very real, so I’m sure everyone is curious as to what microsoft will come up with. But overall this is great news for those who plan on jumping on the HD-DVD format.
HD-DVD, E3
April 18th, 2006
Still trying to figure this one out. The rumor appeared in the official March Xbox360 magazine — so you would think it was not so much a rumor but a way to announce a new PS3 like feature, no ?
According to this scan from the March 2006 issue:
“a DirecTV blade might be added to your Xbox 360 Dashboard to accompany the Xbox Live, Games, Media, and System blades. In that blade, you could download TV episodes in high definition, HD movies on demand, and standard-definition streaming DVR (i.e., TiVo) functions.”
Sounds interesting — and definitely a feature that the PS3 was rumored to have. Also makes sense as Microsoft begins to position the Xbox Live marketplace as a true competitor to iTunes, and downloadable TV episodes is a great space for msft to compete in.
Technorati Tags: direct tv
February 20th, 2006
We posted earlier about our game rental research, and how we selected GameFly. Now for an update.
Two games shipped on Jan 3rd, 2006. They both arrived on Tues Jan 10th. Given that it was shipped in CA, and I live in NYC, I was expecting it to take about a week, and was not surprised that it arrived on the 10th.
The games arrived in nice red envelopes with GameFly branding. I didn’t have a chance to open them up when they first arrived, and when I returned home later that day I could not find them ! Turns out my wife mistook the envelopes for AOL CD junk mail and tossed them ! I was quickly able to retrieve them from the top of the kitchen garbage, but a warning to all of you out there, they do look very much like promotional / junk mail :) I also was concerned that since they were marked as coming from GameFly that they would be targets for mail theft.
Inside the envelopes were pre paid envelopes for shipping it back. No instructions are included for the game, but they do post all the info on the GameFly site (ex: PGR3 ) — which is a nice touch. I now also have the option to purchase the game for $44.95, which if I choose to do, GameFly will send me the original case and manual.
I’ll post another update once I get a few rounds in of returning and requesting other games.
January 13th, 2006
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