on tuesday i went to the videogame store to grab a copy of tribes2. Whilst there i converesed with the shopkeeper.

I basically asked him about the Xbox and how much it was because i was thining of getting one, $679 i think the shop sold it for. He then went on to tell me about the fact that they've just come down in price, and its not likely that they're going to move from the 600 dollar mark. Apparently microsoft are loosing alot of money from the Xbox, and they dont stand to gain any profits from the Xbox til 2004, and thats just from games alone. So if your holding out until the Xbox becomes a little cheaper, it'll probably take a long time :\

He also had a new nintendo gamecube there, just for demo purposes, they are bloody tiny things. I could prbably fit it in my mouth if someone paid me enough. Looking down on it, its roughly the size of a standard cd case, mabe a little larger, but alot fatter. After talking to him about it,and displaying a bit of intrest in it, he then went to the TV screen it was running on, turned it around and gave us a go of some mario game (gay) the graphics aren't half bad (pretty :P), and the controllers looked and felt pretty good aswell. I then asked him what games will be comming out for it, because knowing ninetendo, it looked rather child orientated, he told me they're going to have alot more blood and guts games to, alot more than the n64, not just G and PG rated games.

I personally think the gamecube has more potential than the Xbox looking at the price differences,
650-700 mark for the Xbox, and 399 for the gamecube, which nintendo can afford to lower.

I think im gonna wait and see what game titles come out for the gamecube, and make my mind up which or even if i should get a console

your thoughts.

In the end ps2 will be best again... trust me, wait and see!

Gamecube 2nd and Xbox last! Thats imo anwyays...

ps2 :| i dont see it becomming any bigger with more competition, cheaper mabe. just depends on game titles really, and i think the ps2 takes the cake in that area of the console industry but then again, its slow compared to the xbox and gamecube

Should've played Rogue Leader.

Atm PS2 has the market. As for Xbox. PPL are slowly gettin over the Anti Microsoft attitude and realising Xbox has great potential. And well gamecube its already preselling more units then Xbox and PS2. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets presold more then PS2 and XBOX combined. But then it all comes down to games. We all know Nintendo have their loyal gamers and Sony so on and so forth.So its all up to you. I personally got an xbox because i can't wait to see all the Xbox ONLY games to come out. I'll be picking up a cube thanks to the $399 price tag anything dearer and i'd probably stay with my xbox for another month. I am however keeping my Xbox. Mainly for the fact of the Exclusive games. But also. to test each console. Soul Calibur 2 for me. Is the game that will settle which is more powerful and which is not. Anyway in the long run its down to what games you like. Theres nothing wrong with Halo/Project Gotham and DoA3 nor GTA3 and State o Emergency and GT3 and Devil May Cry and ( all the other awesome games i missed) its all about the games. If you can afford it get all 3 machines. You'll be laughing!

The only XBox exclusive games that are worth having are JSRF and Project Ego (when it comes out).

Oh ok. And you know every exclusive Xbox game coming to it in its life span? ( no i don't i am just saying wait and see) i never said Xbox was the f***ing best console. I totally Agree PS2 has it in the bag with its support from developers. Hopefully the cube will get a descent share of developers aswell

No, I was judging by the titles that have been announced as being in development for each of the systems. And the GameCube has 3rd party support that's about equal with that of the PS2.

Bout time Nintendo got support. Heh can't wait. Hopefully this time Pal release won't be as dismal as N64

the shopkeeper told me th Xbox by far is the fastest and most advanced, its also internet ready.

the gamecube is just really nicely priced, he said we was even getting one for himself.

i've just had a bad experience with the console market,

i had a megadrive 1, which was well worth the money, after being happy with sega, i got a saturn because of the amount of games it had out incomparison to the ps1. They released alot of games really early which was because sega must of wanted to get as much money as possible and discontinue their campaign once they stood to benifit, which kind of left you with someting completly worthless, and no new games to buy :|. I was tempted to buy a dreamcast, but seing all those games come out at the same time as the actual console, made me realise they were going to do exactly the same thing with it as they did with the saturn.

sony as far as i've seen can be very trusted once you've bought a product, nintendo, would have to be the smallest company out of the 3 and therefore, possibly more unstable, and less money to fool around with. And Microsoft, they've just started out in the console industry.

But yer kaygen, now that i think of it, the Xbox looks like it'll be the best investment out of the 3, I just remembered that the shopkeeper told me about the fact that the Xbox is easily upgradable, so even though they're going to stay around the $600 mark, they're probably goin to be faster in speed as the months go on, for example, atm you'll get a 700 and something mghz processor in and xbox, mabe next year, if you buy one, you'll find yourse;f with a 1 or 2 ghz+ processor. I dont know about the gamecube or the ps2's upgradability, but as far as the Xbox goes, its apprently a good investment :)

I could prbably fit it in my mouth if someone paid me enough

hmm, what else do you put in your mouth for money? though I spose there's not much dirtier than nintendo

The only thing that stopped them having support with the N64 was the cartridge medium and the difficulty of developing for the N64. That made development costs quite high, and the third pary titles that did get released didn't sell well (mostly because some of them were s*** attempts to make a 2d series 3d e.g. Castlevania).

Now, they got back the support of nearly every developer they lost. Enix is probably the only developer who hasn't announced any major support.

You also have to remember. The PS2 has been around for (roughly) 2 yrs now. And the games you are seeing are 3rd and 4th gen games Whereas XBOX has just came out and GAMECUBE is about to come out. And they are first release titles!!!! I mean f***s sake. Everyone is just too used to PS2. As in. They forget that when the PS2 first came out it was pretty shoddy. Just give the Xbox and Gamecube a chance. Wait till Next year this time and or even end of this year. Gaming is gonna f***ing rawk

The Saturn failed because Sony had to restrict the number of developers making games for the PSX, because they had too many developers wanting to make games. Most of the big names got in first, and all the s*** developers went to the Saturn. This gave the Saturn a swag of s*** games, the only real decent games were made by Sega.

i dont really like people who support the playstation, i mean get some console culture or hertitage up ya with nintento

respect

Quality not Quantity

trog: i dont put much in my mouth, just depends on what and how much. :P

but I sometimes like to put food in my mouth, foods good i hear, namely morteon bay bugs, they're delicous!

seriously though,

The gamecube truned out to be far smaller than i expected

Everyone is just too used to PS2.

I think everyone's just used to 3rd/4th gen (ie, good) games.

You'd think with the technology its got in it. It'd cost more......... mebbe?

btw, does anyone know for sure on the Xbox's upgradability?

Upgradability? Only thing i could think of is that he meant 2nd and 3rd gen games not any plug and play peripheals making it better performance wise. But there are things like the Voice Commander etc coming out for it

I agree with kaygen
Every body is bagging the XBOX for the FIRST round of games

Give it time and I bet the quality of games will rock

halo rocks :) but yer, thats probably the only goodgame out for the xbox atm, afaik

For the love of god, take everything the EB guy says with a grain of salt.

I mean first and foremost, they are salesmen. Sure they know some s*** and there nice, but there salesmen.

e.g. When I bought Metal Gear Solid 2, the guy flat out lied to me. Tried to get me to buy a memory card. Said I couldn't finish the game unless I had a completely blank memory card. "$5 off!" He said. Bulls***. I couldn't believe he would actually try and pull that on me.

Don't get me wrong, that was one guy, the rest of them are pretty nice. Besides I am not really referring to just EB, all sellers are capable of it.

All that s*** about being the fastest console and upgradeability don't mean jack s***.

1) Look at the 64. more powerful then playstation one. Look which one sold by teh bucketloads?

2) I can't think of one upgrade to a console that has sold successfully. 32x, 64DD etc.

People don't buy a console to upgrade them.

YA EB is good for their 7 day return policy :) i made the mistake of listening to one of them talk me into buying Renegade NEVER GAIN!

cailean, thats just your opinion.

... and ofcourse they're salesmen, they sit behind a counter and have to sell things, as you would.

cailean, thats just your opinion

well if that's what you think.

Besides just get the ones with the games you want. If you get one where the specs look good, you will end up regetting it for sure. Unless ofcoruse that is the one with the games you like best.

well i remember when i got the sega saturn, i got it soley because it had game titles wich i wanted and more games than the playstation, lots more games, yet the saturn is slightly slower, and in the end i turned out to be very dissapointed by the saturn

I think that performance and software titles are the main criteria you should look in when purchasing a console, upgradability sounds good, but noone really knows if it'll work out. I think it just hasn't worked in the past cos of advertisment, I didn't even know you could upgrade any consoles (besides the Xbox).

64 can be. you cna get that extra RAM thing. actually that is one that DID work. mind you it was small, but still.

I was the same, I got a 64, thinking wow, zelda goldeneye etc.

Well that was pretty much all I got. zelda and goldeneye for 3 years. Pretty lame really.

That's why i got a ps2 this time. It can play dvd's straight out of the box, has a bunch of fricking cool games that rocks my jocks, and so far I am extremely happy with it.

microsoft are probably losing money cause of all that disc-scratching shttt that went down in japan ;p
anyway IMHO... xbox isnt really worth the money, there are some really awesome games on it (ie. halo - which is coming out on pc i think?) but doesnt have much coming out as such..
i dunno about the gamecube, but theres 2 guys in my t2 clan that own one and wont shutup about it.(they both own a ps2 aswell)
i personally own a ps2 and love it, heaaaps of awesome games out and ones still coming out.

still diff consoles for diff people.. go with what you want

yet the saturn is slightly slower

Actually, the Saturn was technically superior to the playstation, it was just harder to write code for and fully utilise its potential (plus it just got s*** support as was mentioned above).

As for the Gamecube, I'm still not even vaguely impressed by it. I saw the much touted Rogue Leader being played in EB the other day and I totally failed to see whats so special about it. The graphics looked good, but its not like they were anything special, I could have seen the same thing on my ps2 (or even my pc) a year ago. And the game itself looks exactly like the Rogue Squadron game that came out 4 or 5 years ago.

I was think the same thing Khel when I saw it in action.

Khel - That's BS. Perhaps if you wiped the semen out of your eyes you'd realise that.

http://ps2media.ign.com/ps2/image/jedistar_17.jpg
Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter (PS2)

http://www.lucasarts.com/products/rogueleader/images/levels/maw/5.jpg
Star Wars: Rogue Leader - Rogue Squadron II (GCN)

still, you should play it before totally judging it.

If games like VF4, MGS2 and GT3, and GTA3 were on the cube, I wold buy it in a sec flat. I feel the whole console is designed much better. I haven't tried it yet (yeh yeh..) but I trust nintendo with quality.

However I just know the games I want won't be coming out for it.

Since you haven't asked for them, here are my thoughts.

In the US, the xbox had a good start. This is mainly because it was on an equal price to the PS2, and it was released during xmas. Unfortunately, xbox sales have started to slow down, and they now officially are in 3rd place for sales, 100k units behind the GameCube (which in the US is going through a game drought, which we'll quite handily avoid by recieving it in May :)).

Fast forward to Feburary, when it's released in Japan. Not only is the main AAA title (Halo) absent, but the console is 150% more expensive than everything else. Poor launch (125k), and sales figures have completely flattened out. If it wasn't for DoA3, there wouldn't have been an xbox title in the Top 50 games sold last week.

And then that leaves us with Australia. While different since the GC hasn't been released, The console is stil ~150% more expensive, and barely making it past the fun game stakes. Not only that, but some retailers refuse to stock it. As seen in Japan, sales flatten out after release as well, although not as badly as the Japanese launch, still dramatically badly to screw up MS's estimate of shipping 100k consoles in 3 months (which now looks like shipping 40k at most, and that's only if they retain the same amount of sales that they got in the second week). To add insult to injury, EB have already started pimping the GC, and started actively trying to get people to buy the PS2+MGS2 pack when talking about the xbox (witnessed first hand).

My thoughts for the future? Europe and Japan are writeoffs for the xbox. It's had a lacklustre launch, without the followup sales to save it.

If the xbox is to succeed, then it needs to announce something huge at E3. It's only hanging on barely right now in the US, and if it doesn't have any huge titles to fight the already-stocked xmas rush by the GC and PS2, then it'll go into a DC death spiral.

Actually, the Saturn was technically superior to the playstation, it was just harder to write code for and fully utilise its potential (plus it just got s*** support as was mentioned above).

You are smoking crack, right?

The Saturn was designed as a 2D system, and was planned to be until about 4-6(?) months before launch, at which point the PSX was announced by Sony. Sega panicked, realising that they couldn't slip their release date, and literally forced in another processor just to get some 3D support in. Due to this, programming it was more than just a little painful, made worse from the fact that there were no development tools for it since, well, it wasn't planned.

Launch was dismal, since not only did they have titles only in development for 4-6 months, but also because they were outclassed by polished titles like Ridge Racer.

Thus ends the history lesson.

Oh ok. And you know every exclusive Xbox game coming to it in its life span?

It's lifespan isn't set to 5 years automatically - just ask any DC fan
:). The point is, MS has announced their release schedule for this year, and has no AAA games announced, and probably only one or two after E3.

The GameCube is stuffed with AAA announced games coming out in the last half of the year already (Metroid, Super Mario Sunshine, Resident Evil, Zelda, Eternal Darkness, Star Fox Adventures, Final Fantasy Anime game), let alone the other AAA titles that I know about that are coming out at E3. (Check out Nintendo Sweeden's release schedule...unless they've changed it already)

The PS2 is in the same situation as the GC.

http://www.members.optushome.com.au/scuzy/Scuzzy-mario.jpg

hehe.

I gotta agree totally really.

Something to add, microsoft will beat the xbox to it is dead and rotting. So it will always project an image of success to the public.

At face value, to be honest, if I had the choice between a $400 GC and a $650 xbox. I know which is better value for money. IMO.

Yeaup. X-Boxes are too expensive and you dont get any good games, sure teh hardware is uber but the games suck. My PS1 has better games then the X-Box and imo is the better console :p

Nintendo have just announced that Mario Sunshine is coming out in Japan July 19th and Zelda should be out by the end of the year.

While you were sleeping, Nintendo Co. Ltd. released more information about 2002's most eagerly awaited video games, all available only on NINTENDO GAMECUBE(tm). Nintendo also announced joint development of new titles based on yet another of the company's unmatched stable of franchises and franchise characters.

· Super Mario Sunshine will be released in Japan on July 19, 2002, exclusively for NINTENDO GAMECUBE. Last week, Nintendo announced the title will hit North American shelves on August 26, 2002.

· Other eagerly anticipated NINTENDO GAMECUBE exclusives, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem(tm) and Star Fox® Adventures, debut in Japan this fall.

· The next installment in the wildly popular Mario Party® franchise will be released for NINTENDO GAMECUBE before the end of this year in Japan. Previous Mario Party titles topped best-seller lists in 2000 and 2001.


· In Japan, 1080° Snowboarding, another NINTENDO GAMECUBE exclusive, will debut this winter.


· Nintendo and SEGA® are teaming up to release two previously unannounced games based on the F-ZERO® franchise, using the next-generation 3D-CG Triforce arcade board and NINTENDO GAMECUBE. Amusement Vision is developing both titles under the supervision of Nintendo, with F-ZERO AC (working title) for the arcade published by SEGA and F-ZERO GC (working title) for NINTENDO GAMECUBE published by Nintendo. Both titles will be released in late 2002 and feature connectivity through the NINTENDO GAMECUBE Memory Card 59.

www.planetgamecube.com

The Gamecube is pretty impressive, I've had mine for over a month now and I have no problems at all. The control pad is fantastic. Super Smash Bros. Melee is one of the best party games I have played for a long time (next to Virtua Tennis).

Don't judge the game because it doesnt have all the blood and guts and violence like GTA3. A game can look very childish but provide some of the best entertainment that you could possibly get. (Zelda 64, Mario 64, Smash Bros)

It's all about the gameplay and whether you enjoyed the game, whether it be hijacking cars, dis-embowing some guy or good 'ol adventure.

someone had to do it...
xbo.cx

Played the XBOX. It was average at best.

And I couldnt agree more with this:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2002/20020325l.gif

The XBox is going to be have to be very lucky to survive in the longterm, and Microsoft is going to have to take a financial caning to do it...they are already losing so much money on it at its current price point. They do have a decent whack of money in their coffers to fight this fight, though...and I think the market might support three consoles in some form, maybe, although the bigger question is whether publishers will want it...M$ seems convinced they can expand the market with XBox, but with their pricepoint and can't imagine how...I think PS2 has and is and will be bringing in more people with its cheaper DVD playback piggybacked on games...

IMO XBox is too expensive with less *important* features than PS2 (ie DVD playback out of the box). Gamecube's point of difference is that its quite a bit cheaper than PS2 (for the moment - I wouldn't count on that lasting), whereas XBox's is...errr...its more expensive and has no DVD playback out of the box, and has a network port that does, hmmm, nothing at the moment (oh, it has a HDD so you don't need a mem card - that's something). The main reason the PS2 did so well with such a s***ty launch line-up IMO (and it was very a crap lineup of games)is that it was of comparable cost to a DVD player at the time, and it still played PS1 games, as well as the (very) few decent PS2 games around. With the XBox, I guess the point of difference is networking, which is all well and good, but the average person is not going to care about it - especially when they find out they have to pay for a modem/broadband adapter, and the monthly cost of that connection (and its not functional yet - hmmmn thinking back to Dreamcast and its network promises). So M$ is gonna have to lose a LOT of money on the XBox to bring it to a price that lots of people (not just gamers) are willing to pay. And Sony and Nintendo can probably afford to match any price drops they make - all these companies will have deep pockets when they want to maintain or grow their market shares...

Also, there is not nearly enough *good* exclusive titles. Halo and DOA3 are nice, but a bit rough in spots, everything else has seemed pretty ordinary to me (Gotham/Munch/Shrek..urrgh Shrek). The only way MS can get the games is to buy off developers. They have done a smart thing paying Sega big bucks to develop for them, but even they are not going totally exclusive. If they don't see big game sales too, I bet that exclusivity will disappear sooner rather than later. And Sega is it for top flight developers for XBox...all the other big devs are multiplatform or PS2 only...and other developers like Capcom (and I guess Konami and EA and people like that)are mostly doing ports to XBox...not many are leading on XBox (mostly ex-PC devs are doing that)...GameCube is in a similar position in regards to 3rd parties, but they have a much more solid (and larger) lineup of 1st and 2nd party titles. If you follow games industry news at all you'll actually see that developers are already considering XBox to be in 3rd place, and are developing for it accordingly...its mainly ex-PC developers that are jazzed over XBox, not console developers - and even then, PC biggies like Deus Ex are coming to PS2 soon and not XBox...

Of course I am biased, though...as I sort of want the XBox to fall over, if for no other reason than to get Sega doing more work on multiple platforms (actually that's the only reason, really). I am going to pre-order a GC in a week or two, and I'll prolly buy a PS2 if they go under 400 bucks, at the moment I don't want one since I don't want to have to pay extra for a second DVD player I won't use...

Still if you XBox guys like em, more power to ya...personally the only thing I think stopping XBox going the way of the 3DO is the amount of money Microsoft is probably willing to spend to get the thing into living rooms - which at least might pressure Sony into dropping the PS2 prices sooner so I can justify buying one...8)

And if the XBox is available one day at 300 bucks, with 10 or 20 really great games for it, I might buy one, but I don't see that happening anytime soon...either on price or on exclusive, great games...maybe time will prove me wrong...

lol

hehe maxe

i saw the pic the other day and i was sooo tempted to start an anti-xbox thread with it but decided to not s***-stir :D.

It always cracks me up when PA lays the smack down on the Xbox and some of their Halo comics are hilarious.

And they aren't biased at all, they own and have owned most of the consoles ever released and are pretty knowlegable gamers.

anywho, imo the Xbox is an overpriced POS mainly because MS brought a PC mentality into the console market. Firstly they used a CPU designed for the PC (a slightly modded P3) and the entire unit just strikes me as a PC except with the ability to only play games none of which stike me as very good anyway.

But that's just my opinion

Well I got an XBox, with Halo, Gotham and DOA3 and i am most impressed.
It is excellent picture quality, good sound and it is cool that you can put your own music in games by putting them on the HDD. It doesn't take too long to load games either.

Overall I am happy with acquiring an XBox. This it just IMHO, and people are entitled to think otherwise.

good on ya Xbox..

I admit, I would love to fiddle around with one.

The HD is certainly something needed on most consoles.

Even a real small one simply for saving games would be good. To e honest looking abck now I am suprised the GC doesn't have something along those lines. Saves spending an extra $50+ on a memory card.

Actually, they plan to allow the GameCube to use SD cards:
SD Card adapter

oh yeh I rmember seeing this doo-dad around.

128+ megs sounds good to me.

Anyway, off to play some MGS2.

Sorry to revive an old thread but I wanted to throw my 2c in.

Microsoft stated initially that they were expecting to make a loss for approximately two years on the X-Box and that they were willing to wear that to "break into the console market". Sorry I don't have a link to the information, I couldn't find it again.

The big thing to remember is the ease of portability between PC and X-Box. There should be a lower development cost to port a successful game between the two. Therefore if something like Dungeon Siege proves wildly successful on PC it can be swiftly (and cheaply) ported to x-Box. Thus the number of games available and the number of people playing games will increase more swiftly.

As I see it MS is buying into the market and planning a longer term profit than either Sony or Nintendo.

BTW, you'll notice I didn't mention anything about which console is better - I'm purely looking at their strategy.