franc11s

Been popping into local Wallmart every now and then. Went yesterday morning, manager told me deliveries are made around 4pm. 3 trucks due in, could be unloaded anytime between 4pm and 12am and no guarantee they'll be any xboxes.

Turn up at 5:30pm. Sent son in who asked guy in electronics if they had any - he said NO - try Best Buy. I followed my son in and made sure I spoke with the same Manager from the morning. He looked at me and said "Boy, what perfect timing and radio'd to the back to bring one forward. He said they had just unloaded 2 from the first truck.

Turns out, the wallmart guy who told my son, "NO", had called his friend to come get one. Bastxxrd... probably was going to flog it on ebay.

Weird, the manager wouldn't let them put it on the counter, told him to put it striaght into a bag - he said there's a frenzy when they get them out. The guy who had told my son "NO" was real pissed. I paid and walked out with my XBOX - normally I'd complain but I was just so pleased...

The whole thing is a farce I know. Probably be 2 million on the shelves next week. I'd heard people were queuing from Friday night through Sunday for last nights shipments to Best Buy

tony_2003

I'll wait a couple years until the ridiculous cost of it comes down, like I did with the last one. Also by then someone will have been able to mod it so I can add my own hard drive and not pay for microsofts overpriced crappy small one which will fill up within a week. Nice system though.

syllk

Aye, I made the mistake of venturing to Best Buy yesterday, and there were tents everywhere.

Big D

I'm sure you'll all enjoy it - but in fact its pretty disappointing - the Sony PS3 is way better - even if it is still a few months out. M/soft will really have to do something special in that 3 month window to stop Sony pissing all over them again!

Circus-of-Power

If you think the queues are bad now ..... just wait till after Christmas when they all start taking the things back ...
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/21...eakage-limited

I have read about this on various gaming forums, Microsoft says its a limited number.... but seeing as the majority of the systems will have been bought as Christmas presents and therefore remain unused then this story may become more widespread in the coming weeks.

I'll wait for the opposition to release there new systems before taking the plunge and from what I have read the new Nintendo model maybe about to upset the other two...

Dan725

I thought they were supposed to be about the same?

USBound

they have EXACTLY the same speed CPU with some differences but largely the same, they have almost exactly the same GPU but by different companies and again with some small differences, they have exactly the same amount of ram but it is used differently... in short they are probably within 5% of each other in terms of RAW power.

PS3 will be MUCH harder short term to program for due to Sony shitness (libraries are really bad) but later on it will hit its stride as people get used to it. x360 is VERY easy to program for out of the box and should hit its stride pretty quickly probably within 2 generations of releases.

Both require a paradigm shift in terms of programming style from single thread to multi-thread with ps3 requiring MORE of a shirt in that its secondary processors are NOT general purpose and do not have full memory access whereas the x360 are all general purpose and all access all areas of memory but there are fewer of them.

Ps3 isn't out in "a few months" it may be out in Japan for summer but I doubt it. It may be out here (US) by next xmas... but again I doubt it... I work for a very large publisher and we are not yet using "real" devkits for ps3 development.

just thought I'd share this before the thread tumbles into a battle of the opinions... they are so Ray.

BritGuyTN

If they are about the same then the ps3 will be shit

my PC right now does not struggle playing quake 4 - xbox360 does

COD2 is no better on xbox and I think it actually looks worse than on the PC

i'm completely underwhelmed right now by the '360, if the ps3 is not out till early 2007 then it will be completely outclassed technically by current higher-end pc's of the time

comparing it to a sega dreamcast will make it look great - but looking great period? NOPE

USBound

ahh... I should point you at the xbox-scene.com forums... lots of discussion regarding Quake4 and why it runs slow - I gave a pretty good explanation of why it has its issues - basics... its a rush port from a pc centric engine to x360 which doesn't work; games should be designed specifically for it.

If you'd like to be impressed re: graphics then play kameo past the initial level until you get to the kingdom - THAT looks amazing... the game is good too.

further - try NFS:MW, fantastic looking game and it plays like a dream ( if you like racing games that is ).

COD2 looks fantastic IFF you play in HD.. otherwise it has aliasing issues and generally looks like Xbox. This isn't so if you compare them side by side but if you have no frame of reference then its forgivable to compare the two.

PDZ - meh... not really impressed, some nice shaderwork but no game elements that I like enough to actually buy it (I played it at work last week).

oh - and technically, PC's won't catch up to the next gen consoles for about 3 years from now. The CPU is WAAAAAY Ahead of Intel/AMD in every way, the memory speed of x360 is 256GB/s... a pc manages around 25GB/s... yes thats 10x the speed.

you might want to read up on the tech involved here...

Jabba1

I'll be the first to admit I'm not a tech head, but I do have a lot of great memories from video gaming's past. I still remember when the Odyssey 100 first hit shelves waaaay back in 1971. My old Fairchild Channel F still works perfectly, to say nothing of my Atari 2600.

I remember when the next gen systems were the Atari 5200, Intelivision and Colecovision. The gaming mags back then were full of articles on which of the three was the best. For my money, Colecovision kicked butt on Intelivision and the 5200, but strangely enough, no-one seems to remember it as much as the others.

Now the showdown is between X-Box 360, PS3 and Nintendo Revolution, which is the best? Who cares, I don't. As long as the systems are there and game developers are hard at work developing new titles for the systems, then it really doesn't matter which is the best, all will be good enough.

franc11s

As I said, I'm a geek. I'll get around any problems. It's a neat TOY. It'll be half the price next year or less and won't be without some flaws but who care's - it's Christmas 05 and I'll be playing it on my HD DLP2 Sharp projector on my Stuart 110" screen with THX surround My wife won't let me open it till Christmas day and since I'll be cooking the turkey I THINK my present will be played by my kids more that me - AND they'll be sober

I love the way people try to put a product down from the outset. It's a darned toy. Yes an expensive one but I remember tickle me elmo and beanie babies. We live in a pathetic world where sometimes it's fun to go with a little bit of hype. I know I will be disappointed with some aspects of the XBOX 360 - Its been on my Christmas list since may (how sad is that), but I'm going to have a blast with it and get my arze whipped by my boys who will beat me in every game, every time..... PRICELESS.

Big D

You are completely right - enjoy every minute of it, sorry for pissing on your bonfire!

USBound

quick note - ask your wifey to buy you a live registration for 12months now... its pretty damned cool and costs $60 (ish)...

once you get that... download Geometry wars & ZUMA.... you'll love them.