What is and what should never be

"When I stepped out into the bright sunlight…” You probably recognize this line as the very first words uttered at the beginning of “The Outsiders” (those of you who don’t should rent the movie) and you’re wondering how it fits with the XBOX 360 (Going forward I’ll refer to the console as the 360)…

Well, there are many in and around the gaming industry that don’t believe the 360 has an outsiders chance in hell of displacing Sony at the top of the Home Videogame market… MS may or may not have a chance at this but that doesn’t mean the system will be a failure either.

Allow me to begin by saying that I’ve been around Videogames for 25 years and I’ve seen both the good and bad of these systems… I’ve seen every success story and a whole lot of failures that many might not even remember (anyone remember the Vectrex)… While this may not make me an expert on the subject it certainly does qualify me as an experienced veteran.

Now, I won’t bore you with the specs of the 360 (they’re on every website that pertains to the console) as these have been done to death and they don’t mean a whole lot to the 45 year old mom and pop who could care less about the details… I will say that this system has some revolutionary technology that isn’t found anywhere else outside of the 360 and this qualifies it as a Next Gen System.

Options
As most of you may already know the XBOX comes in two flavors, Fully Loaded (Premium Edition retailing for $399) and well Value Packed (Core Edition retailing for $299)… Of course most of us, me included, feel that the VP version should never have been released as it takes away one key component that presented a key reason why many of us bought the original XBOX… What is this component, the Hard Drive! Now instead of being able to save our games right out of the box we need to either buy the missing Hard Drive (for $99) or get a very small memory card (for $39)… If you haven’t done the math the Core unit and the Hard Drive alone will require you to spend as much as the Premium Edition and you still don’t have as many accessories as the Premium.

The Core Edition comes with a base 360 unit, standard RCA connectors, Wired Controller, 12 Month Subscription to XBOX Silver and a Power Supply.

The Premium Edition comes with a base 360 unit, 20 Gig Hard Drive, Wireless Controller, Headset, Bonus Media Remote, HD-AV Cables with Optical Audio Output, 12 Month Subscription to XBOX Live Silver and a power cord… The total retail cost for the extra accessories not present in the Core would cost you roughly $175 (assuming you traded in the wired controller for a wireless controller) and you can’t even buy the bonus DVD remote.

Honestly, I don’t know who had the bright idea to create the Core Edition but many of use would like to have him flogged!

Graphics
The 360 currently represents the only rival to the PC in terms of picture quality and graphic prowess. It features a revolutionary new Graphics Processing Unit from ATI Technologies; this GPU is an industry first in that it contains a cache controller and 10 Megs of cache right on the chip and this technology allows the 360 to process textures and shading at a rate rivaled only by those systems with 2x the power.

Of course, it should also be noted that the 360 carried on the original XBOX tradition of being HD Compatible and the Microsoft Consoles are the only two, presently on the market, that can claim this advanced feature.

Let me also add that the Graphics are truly Next Gen and unrivaled by any of the 360s piers at the present time.

CPU
Of course everyone can see from the specs the 360 uses a tri-core PowerPC running at 3.2 GHz per core (this effectively makes the machine a 3 way SMP 3.2 GHz); this processor was co-designed by IBM and Microsoft and is exclusive to the 360. Now you may have heard of the PowerPC CPU before and although this is a close cousin to those previously used in the Apple Mac Line it isn’t exactly the same CPU.

What makes this CPU so special? Why couldn’t they use an off the shelf Dual Core Intel or AMD? Well, the CPU isn’t a true PC style CPU as it lacks out of order execution which requires it to run exclusively in FIFO (First In First Out) mode, it also has a cache controller integrated right on the chip which helps eliminate latency (this feature isn’t present in any PC or Mac CPU) and of course the final piece that I find interesting is the CPUs ability to combine complex Geometric Shapes right in the CPU instead of rendering them on the fly (this will also allow the 360 to accomplish more with less hardware).

Sound
This is ambiguous because the Core System straight out of the box with the RCA connectors will have Stereo Quality Sound and will use Dolby Pro-logic to emulate Surround Sound. The Premium System however, has the bundled HD-AV cables that allow you the benefit of an Optical Audio Connector which will give you true Dolby Surround Sound through your receiver (if you have THX this is even better).

Basically, the sound is awesome if it is setup right and again remains unrivaled among consoles presently on the market.

DVD Player
The DVD Player is a typical Progressive Scan DVD player capable of reading dual layer DVDs. The progressive scan allows you to interpolate the output of the graphics to provide you with a simulated HD output; basically it allows you to double the resolution through upsizing but it isn’t a true HD-DVD player.

Now the lack of a “Next Gen” DVD Drive in the 360 seems to be a point of contention for some… However, people should note that Microsoft does what makes sense and using technology so new without any real support, as well as the lack of a clearly defined standard, would have been an expensive gamble that increased the price of the physical hardware. Basically, any technology that becomes standard (HD-DVD or Blue Ray) will easily be 2 to 3 years away from any mass market penetration worth owning the technology so using these drives now would only serve marketing hype. Also, how ticked would most people be if MS gambled on HD-DVD and Blue Ray became the standard? Sony may be willing to take this gamble but MS wasn’t (Sony will look the fool when Hollywood rejects Blue-Ray in a few months like the DVD Consortium has already done once).

Controllers
The controllers are version 3 of the original design created for the XBOX 3 years ago and outside of being smaller and somewhat more comfortable they’re nothing revolutionary. Of course most have grown fond of the layout and it provides a common interface so why change now…

One note about the controllers though, the Console can support either 4 wireless controllers or 2 wired controllers. The wireless controller requires a rechargeable battery (unless you prefer to load up on Double A’s) as well as a play and charge kit which are sold separately from the premium unit (see you premium guys thought you got off cheap!).

Launch Titles
The launch line-up is arguably the second best in the history of home videogame consoles (most agree the Dreamcast had the most prolific launch line-up to date). The 360 launch titles represented the Sports, Extreme Sports, First Person Shooter, Action/Adventure and Movie Genres … Lacking are 3rd Person Shooters, Role Playing Games and Fighting Games (all 3 of which will be represented by early January)…

The best launch titles in my opinion are:

Call Of Duty II - This games is an impressive showing of the Hardware but isn’t very different from the PC version so look at the other titles if you’ve already beat the PC version.

Project Gotham Racing 3 – This is a great arcade style racing simulation with some of the best graphics the console has seen to date. If you prefer the Fast and the Furious Style of games then pass this one up because it won’t satisfy you.

Perfect Dark Zero – An all around great game in the spirit of 007 Goldeneye for the Nintendo 64 with excellent Graphics. This game represents one of the best the console presently has but isn’t as fast paced or action packed as some of the other First Person Shooters so it won’t be appreciated by everyone.

NBA 2k6 – This is Take2’s premier launch title and has by all accounts the best Basketball simulation experience of any hoops game on the market. This lacks appeal to some people that don’t care for basketball but unfortunately the NFL and EA took away Take2’s premier NFL 2K series (if you can’t beat them bully them right?).

Condemned – Excellent Suspenseful Adventure game where you have to solve a crime spree (reminiscent of the story line in the movie Seven). This game is the most creative title available at launch and doesn’t represent a rehashed title like most of the other games on the market.

Kameo – This is another great title that Sony lost when they sold Rare to Microsoft. It is a 3D platform adventure game that represents what Odd World should’ve been and fills the 3D platform void noticeably absent on the XBOX (Sega didn’t think it profitable to release Sonic on the XBOX and Mario will always be Nintendo Exclusives).


Conclusion
Well, Other than the titles I’ve mentioned above you’re not really getting anything but improved graphics from the remaining launch titles and some games even took a step back in game play (read Madden).

Now, the launch titles coupled with some outrageous price tags being placed on these consoles make the 360 a tough sell for most people that aren’t diehard about their gaming. Does this make it a bad system, not at all but it certainly isn’t ready to appeal to the broadest of audiences just yet. If you’re diehard, go for it as you won’t regret it and if you want to a hero to your kids (read me) then by all means seize the opportunity but the rest of you can safely wait for sane pricing and availability before make the Next Gen Jump.

Now for those of you that want to know, is it better than the PS3? I don't know that it is for sure but I do believe it will be competitive and there is one thing it has that the PS3 doesn't! It is available for Gaming Right Now!