X-Box prices at Gameplay...

pointon

Established Member
Joined
Oct 21, 2001
Messages
1,381
Reaction score
3
Points
216
Age
43
Location
Right behind you!!!
Gameplay just emailed me with details of three X-Box pre-order options, and prices are just silly:

1) X-Box on its own - £297.99

2) Xbox Accelerator Pack: Xbox, 2 Controllers, Project Gotham Racing and Amped - £396.99

3)Xbox Combat Pack: Xbox, 2 Controllers, Halo and Dead or Alive III - £396.99

Bloody expensive!

Of course, add another £30 to the amounts above for memory cards. Frankly I'm disappointed to see the memory card rip off scam continue with the X-Box's launch. A memory card should be included with every console, instead of being priced seperately at ludicrous charges the manufacturer knows every buyer will pay, simply because without them there's no point to buying the machines.

There can be no way that a memory card can justify a price tag of almost £30 as in the PS2's case - unless its insides are constructed from pure gold.
 
shouldnt the on board HD remove the need for a memory card or am I merely being very naive!
 
You would think so wouldn't you? But no. Saved games go onto a 'Memory Unit' (costs the same as a PS2 memory card at Gameplay) which is inserted into the game controllers, as with the N64. The HD seems to be in use for other purposes, such as copying a whole CD to the machine to replace in game sound tracks.

Even so, I would also assume that the HD by default would be used for saving games... but from what I've read it would appear not.

Five minutes later...

Went looking for an answer and found that we're all correct. It is possible to copy saved games from the memory unit in the game pad to the hard drive and vice versa. However, it didn't say whether games can be saved directly to the hard drive negating the need for a memory unit. I would think this would be possible, and if so, perhaps the memory unit is merely for expandability purposes. Which would be good news.
 
The Hard Drive on the Xbox is more useful than people realise.

Its a Huge Memory Card with over 50,000 memory slots (used by games as default)

Data Caching, the technique that lets the CPU/GPU to manipulate data files that are larger than the system's memory.

More Textures - Low Load Times, the hard drive can also be used as a texture cache to store extra textures.

Rewritability, the constant exchange and saving of game data - bullets you shot at a wall are still there when you revisit the level, two days later

Custom Soundtracks, so looks like I will be driving in Project Gotham listening to Prodigy :)

Regarding Price, I think £299 is not expensive, considering the PS and Saturn launched for more than that and the PS2 was £299 for over a year after is was released, and none of them had Hard Drives - I can even remember paying over £300 for the Mega CD addon for the Mega Drive :eek:

Anne
(gets her info from TeamXbox )
 
£300 is expenisive. The fact that consoles have always been released at such a price is no justification. No console is worth £300 in my estimation.
 
Well if you consider components that are in the new X-box and that the Graphics functions of it are Nvidia Geforce 3 based and that a Geforce 3 graphics card is anywere upto £300 alone, then £300 for a complete console with HD etc is pretty good pricing in my opinion.

I bought the Playstation when it first came out, cost just over £500 with a some games and memory card - compared to the X-box cost/performance wise - no contest

cheers
Gary
 
X-Box is a waste of time- its not a console its a PC that plugs into a TV.

Great if you havent got a PC and want one cheap, but if you want quality console gaming get a GameCube (got one- excellent, absolutely gobsmacking graphics and games, kid you not) or even PS2.

Its not even the most powerful console- Microsoft are selling it as such, but its 733 PIII processor is 32-bit compared to your 128-bit custom built (ie optomised for gaming) Gekko and er Emotion Engine. Plus the GEForce card may chuck around loads of Polygons, as does PS2, but in real world tests with lighting, bump and tetra mapping, Z-buffering on etc the kiddies GameCube comes top.

Seriously if you doubt me try and play Rogue Squadron II or Wave Race, and dont even get me started about Monkey Ball.

Already Nintendo have surpassed what is on PS2 after PS2 has been out 2 years, and my X-Box owning friend is in the process of unloading his to get a GameCube due to the uninspired launch lineup of X-Box.

Microsofts immaturity in the console market is showing, as is Sonys with PS2- after all PSone was designed by Nintendo as an add on for SNES........
 
Here we go again with the same old, unjustifiable arguement that the XBox is just a PC for playing games on.

Please explain why this is so, explaining why this means that every other console is not also a PC for playing games on.

Every console has a processor, memory etc...

Is it because of the hard drive? If so is the TiVo simply a PC for recording video on?

Is it because of the internet capabilities? If so are my mobile phone and Digital TV box PC's for using the internet with?

Of course they aren't. Anything with a Processor or software can broadly but accurately be described as a computer... my watch, my car, my clock, my minidisc player, my CD player, DVD player, TV, washing machine etc... all have processors, and some sort of software that runs them... so I suppose they must be PC's also?

Face it... there is no arguement that can be applied exclusively to the XBox and not to anything else to prove that it is just a PC for playing games on.
 
Oops nearly forgot- the IBM Gekko chip runs at approximately 493mhz which because it is a RISK rather than CISK chip the CPU which is a tweaked Power PC processor as used in Apples very, very powerful G4 computers (I wont say PC, as they are more than that). A Power PC G4 processor running at this speed is roughly the equivilant of a 1.5ghz P4.

Now where Nintendo have been clever is that by dropping extras that are irrelevent to console gamers, like hard drives (games on GC load in approx 2 seconds due to the new DVD like disk format) and DVD support- they have managed to create a console cheaper and more powerful than its competitors.

And anyone who really thinks a GeForce 3 card is worth 300 quid should know how much OEM suppliers buy the chipset for...........try dividing that figure by around 7.

Oh and I suppose that Microsoft havent mentioned that the GeForce chipset can only render 2 levels of textures, Gamecube does 8.
 
Pointon- you fail to see my arguement, I am arguing from the same position all the pro X-Box junkies do.

Put simply console gaming is gaming in its purest and simplest form, something Microsoft have missed- the awful controllers are another good example of how little thought has really gone into the design of the console.

But the real thing that leaves me cold- is that X-Box hasnt got a great lineup of software, there is nothing you cant get on PC and most of the software is more suited to a PC, many games such as FPS and RTS games are unsuited for play with a joypad.

So little focus has been put on the gaming element of X-Box that you cant help but be concerned, if Microsoft had been serious about entering the console wars they would have steered clear of the PC architecture, dropped the HD, made a decent joypad and designed an architecture that was suitable for console gaming.

Not some behometh that has so obviously been chucked together.

If you cant see what I am saying then you dont understand the difference between console and PC gaming- the difference isnt subtle.
 
Oh there is one game Id like on X-Box DOA3- but again initial reviews compare it to DOA2 on DC and PS2, none of which have been ecstatic. IGN wondering why DOA3 isnt more distinct from DOA2.
 
I would certainly agree with you about the controller. Look awful. The GBA is smaller and sleeker.

But the hard drive in my opinion is a fantastic idea. As for the architecture... it all has potential. Potential either to become a PC and stuff up all the time, or potential to actually work and be a games machine. It's the latter that I am expecting, and this will allow games developers to develop for a pure games machine.

I understand the difference between console and PC gaming, and it means I never ever play games on my PC. It doesn't feel right. I just don't write something off before it's had a chance to prove itself. A PC had that chance, and for me, failed. The XBox has not even had a chance.
 
The main thing attracting me to the xbox is 5.1 sound. I know you can get Pro Logic 2 on the others now but I don't have that on my amp. On looks I would go for the PS2. I don't think I would go for the cube because it's not being pushed enough and will probably go the way of Dreamcast. The public are very fickle and it's not always the best format that wins. Just my opinion, never seen an Xbox or cube working so I'm not really in a position to comment on their respective gaming qualities.

S
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom