New Maps Delayed Until July 5
Frankie's What's What Update for May 13, 2005 mentions that the next map release date is now July 5 instead of June 28.
Death by intelligence.
More Monstrous Shit
At Penny Arcade, Gabe and Tycho don't seem to think much of MTV in general or the Xbox 360 Special in specific. They do highly recommend the tech-specific, geek-laden five minute video from OurColony.net, instead. That's a short summary; check Penny Arcade for the more humorous, more verbose version.
Whose Round Is It, Anyway?
Cortana pays the price for Master Chief's wardrobe malfunction in this week's Halo Babies cartoon. Thanks mrsmiley.
Son Of Xbox 360 News Roundup
Yet another site has got into the business of listings links to Xbox 360 news; Slashdot's Xbox 360 thread is quite worthwhile if for nothing else than the sarcastic advice to Xbox-bashing trolls. In addition to sources we cited earlier, they also mention the following:
Please Show Bungie The Whine List
Bungie's put up their side of their loss to the Xbox Live team in the Humpday Challenge; they allege that XBL used a ringer. And according to SketchFactor, Major Nelson Suxorz.
UPDATE: Major Nelson is denying the charge of ringer leveled by Bungie against one member of the XBL team that played in the Humpday.
Will you buy Xbox 360 without a Bungie launch title?
Yes
46% (547 votes)
No
33% (395 votes)
Maybe
21% (248 votes)
Total votes: 1190
Xbox 360 Announced; Halo 3 Nowhere To Be Seen
I haven't been able to catch the MTV Special yet; however, the official press release does reveal quite a bit of information and confirms things that were previously only rumored. The expected release date is indeed the 2005 holiday season, as widely predicted. Here's a quick run-down of confirmed features:
Xbox 360 News Roundup
Microsoft's new console is officially called Xbox 360 we know now because of happened on MTV on May 12. Here are links to some of the stories published after that special:
- Voodoo Extreme has a detailed rundown on the technical specifications. The basics? Three 3.2Ghz PPC cores, 1MB L2 cache. 500Mhz ATI GPU. 512MB GDDR3 RAM running at 700Mhz. Detachable, upgradeable 20Mb HDD. Support for 64MB flash memory units. All games to support 16:9 widescreen 720p and 1080i HDTV modes. Built-in Media Center Extender connectivity. Standard wireless controller and support for 802.11 a, b and g wireless network protocols. Voodoo's Robert "Apache" Howarth also says the system "looks pretty nice".
- GameSpot summarizes the revelations in the MTV special, including details and photos. This article is interesting because it asks about backwards compatibility with the first Xbox. The answer? They'll talk about it at E3, says Xbox's Robbie Bach.
- Xbox.com has an official Console and Peripherals Fact Sheet for the Xbox 360.
- IGN has opened a whole new subsite, xbox360.ign.com, for their information.
- GameInformer has photos and a description of the unit, as well as the official specifications and their take on them.
- MTV has a page on the special; however, try as I might I can't get it to show me anything but a short flash ad for it. YMMV. What they do have is an MTV page for the Xbox 360 console itself.
- Joystiq's Ben Zackheim acknowledges that the MTV special was for a mass audience, not really hardcore gamers, but says it was still "well done" and acquitted the console well. Some of the commenters are less charitable, calling the special "uninformative and simply a waste of time".
- Joystiq and Engadget teamed up for blow-by-blow coverage of the MTV special, including many screen captures. I've heard rumors that Halo 2 was shown during the show, but the captures I've seen so far are all from other games.
- Major Nelson has a special pre-special Blogcast, and links to the Official Xbox 360 site as well as three interviews by TriXie with Xbox 360 developers.
- TeamXbox's rundown on the Xbox 360 reports that it is apparently water-cooled.
More Xbox 360 Spec Rumors
Gaming site news.botros.net has linked to scanned magazine pages including specs and photos of the Xbox 360 and supposed shots from Ghost Recon 3.
It looks to me to be a Swedish or Norwegian gaming magazine, although botros incorrectly guesses it to be German.
UPDATE: Apparently this is in fact the Danish magazine Game Reactor, which is getting a lot of attention for reporting the rumor that Halo 3 will be out in one year. Take that with heaps of salt, folks.
Analysts Speculate About Xbox 360 Platform
GameSpot has an article interviewing representatives from industry groups about the information so far available on the Xbox 360 and how it is expected to stack up against the competition, including American Technology, UBS, and DFC Intelligence Voodoo Extreme linked to the story.
Xbox 360 Revealed, This Time Officially
Microsoft has put out an official press release for the Xbox 360's MTV Special launch.
Xbox 360 Ushers In The Future Of Games And Entertainment
Highly anticipated video game console is unveiled on an MTV special.
NEW YORK -- May 12, 2005 -- Celebrating the dawn of a new era in entertainment, millions of game fanatics around the globe came together tonight for the televised unveiling of the Xbox 360(TM) future-generation game and entertainment system from Microsoft. An audience of millions watched "MTV Presents: The Next-Generation Xbox Revealed" as celebrities, professional athletes, musicians and Xbox officials took the wraps off the much-anticipated system, ending months of intense speculation and satiating consumers worldwide.
The new Xbox 360 system places players at the center of powerful next-generation games and entertainment experiences. The elegant design features a breakthrough wireless controller and an array of Faces, interchangeable faceplates that let gamers personalize their console. The unveiling spotlighted some of the groundbreaking games in development for the new Xbox 360 system, advancements for the Xbox Live(TM) service -- the only unified console gaming service-- and new digital media experiences that only Xbox 360 can deliver.
"With the first generation of Xbox, our ambition was to change the way people think about video games," said Robbie Bach, chief Xbox officer at Microsoft. "Starting today with Xbox 360, our ambition is to transform the way people play games and have fun."
Xbox 360 will unleash the greatest game lineup in the history of video games when it launches in North America, Europe and Japan this Christmas holiday. The games that captured the color, drama and fun of high-definition gameplay at the MTV unveiling included 2K Sports' "NBA 2K6"; Activision Publishing Inc.'s "Call of Duty(R) 2" and "Tony Hawk's American Wasteland(TM)", along with id Software's "QUAKE 4(TM)"; Electronic Arts' "Madden NFL 06," "Need for Speed(TM) Most Wanted" and "Tiger Woods PGA TOUR(R) 06"; Majesco Entertainment's "The Darkness"; Microsoft Game Studios' "Perfect Dark: Zero(TM)," "Kameo(TM): Elements of Power(TM)," "Project Gotham Racing(TM) 3" and "Gears of War"; THQ Inc.'s "Saint's Row"; and Ubisoft Entertainment's "Ghost Recon 3."
The Platform and Partners Power the Portfolio
Xbox 360 ignites a new era of digital entertainment that is always connected, always personalized and always in high definition. It is the only system designed with a singular platform vision that combines the most-powerful hardware with intelligent software and services advancements.
Every Xbox 360 game is designed for high-definition, wide-screen televisions. Regardless of the television Xbox 360 connects to, gamers will experience smooth, cinematic experiences that far exceed anything they've seen or felt in games before. And these experiences are never more than a click away. The Xbox Guide Button is the launch pad that connects gamers to their games, friends and music from the wireless controller.
With more than one teraflop of system-floating point performance, a three-core PowerPC-based CPU for the most-advanced artificial intelligence and physics processing, a custom ATI graphics processor, and more than 512 MB of memory for the ultimate in visual fidelity, the Xbox 360 hardware is a perfect blend of power, elegance and balance. Xbox 360 also features software so smart it remembers what gamers have achieved, continually evolving and enhancing the game experience. When the system is combined with unrivaled Microsoft(R) XNA(TM) software development tools, game creators can produce truly believable, thriving worlds.
Fabled game studios such as BioWare Corp., Bizarre Creations Ltd., Bungie Studios and Rare Ltd., as well as legendary Japanese game creators Hironobu Sakaguchi, Tetsuya Mizuguchi, and Yoshiki Okamoto, are harnessing the powerful Xbox 360 platform to create exclusive games for Microsoft Game Studios. Equally commanding, game-changing publishers such as 2K Games, Activision Publishing Inc., Capcom Co. Ltd., Electronic Arts, Tecmo Inc., Namco Hometek Inc., Rockstar Games, SEGA of America Inc., THQ and Ubisoft Entertainment -- just to name a few -- are flocking to Xbox 360.
"Xbox 360 marks the beginning of a renaissance in video games," said Don Mattrick, president of Worldwide Studios for Electronic Arts. "The unbelievable Xbox 360 games in development at Electronic Arts will accelerate the industry's mission to make video games the pre-eminent form of all entertainment."
"With Xbox 360, a new chapter in video game history is being written," said Kathy Vrabeck, president of Activision Publishing. "The platform liberates us to achieve new levels of graphics and gameplay so our audiences connect emotionally with more riveting stories, more believable characters and more open, living worlds."
Xbox Live: New Levels of Service Get Everyone in the Game
Xbox Live Team Beats Bungie At Halo
Major Nelson has put up his summary of the latest Humpday Challenge that pitted Xbox Live against Bungie. Xbox Live prevailed, winning narrowly in Team Slayer and 3 Plots and pulling out a tie in Multi Flag CTF. All three games were played on new maps; Sanctuary, Turf, and Containment, respectively. (Against anyone else, Bungie might have an advantage playing on the new maps, but I'm betting Xbox Live personnel probably also got a chance to test them prior to release, so that advantage may have been negated in this case--Ed.)
Blam! Dink! Your Blog!
XerxdeeJ has announced in the HBO forum that he's started a Halo blog called Tied The Leader. There's an interesting piece there now called Sportsmanship and Anonymity that covers some well-traveled territory; the seeming need for many XBL players-- regardless of ability-- to utilize proximity voice for displaying their facility with colorful language.
(This is one of those rare social problems with a clear technical solution. Proximity voice is cool, but useless. It's only ever used for trash talk, swearing and racism. And the possibility of being overheard via proximity voice while talking to your team discourages the use of the communicator for legitimate purposes. Bungie, please-- make team talk the default without pressing any buttons, and either remove proximity voice entirely, or make the button-press a "broadcast" to all players in the game, like countless of other PC shooters with keyboard interfaces-- like PC Halo, for instance. Kudos for the innovation, but extra credit for realizing the experiment's gone wrong. The potential coolness of proximity voice for well-meant, consensual, and witty taunting is more than overwhelmed by everything else--Ed.)
Halo 2 Ranking Dashboard Widget
Just a short while ago, Apple released version 10.4 of OS X, codenamed Tiger. One of the new features it introduced was Dashboard, a controversially Konfabulator-like feature.
Lacsap has created a Dashboard widget that displays your Halo 2 ranking. He announced it in an HBO forum post; you can download it from Dashboardwidgets.com.