I know the games were still early but talk about an underwhelming presence...

Every game had framerate issues in some way. Some incredibly minor and others more noticeable..

Sega' s offerings were quite disappointing to be honest.. The dark and gritty, ' Condemned Criminal Origins' looked like a First-person bore with inconsistent framerates. Full Auto was definitely better and was sorta like a next-gen version of Road Blasters that utilized what' s quickly becoming the now overused REWIND feature!

Need for Speed was a bit ' meh' as well, graphics were nice but " nice" just doesn' t cut it for a future generation console and the game had its own little issues...

And DO NOT get me started on the videos I' ve seen of Test Drive Unlimited... Simply WOW! I thought I was watching a first-generation Xbox game in motion..
Pop-up and fluctuating framerates. I can' t wait till some developer tries to tell us how slowdown and framerate problems will be a thing of the past with the arrival of the Xbox360, Playstation 3, and Revolution.. I remember when some of the idiots said that about the Xbox, GameCube, and Playstation 2!


Overall I' d have to say that out of all the games at the show the WORST Framerate award actually went to an Xbox title. JAWS Unleashed... NEVER in my life have I seen a game' s framerate take a nosedive so badly that it made even the Super Nintendo' s slowest games seem speedy by comparison, lol..



p.s.- That Dead Or Alive 4 video did look pretty badass in ' some' spots though!

Were you actually able to play any of the Xbox360 demos?

Just Need For Speed... I played it twice. The Condemned and Full Auto gaming setups were always occupied. Would have liked to give Full Auto a try. NOT Condemned..

Xbox360 controller feels NICE!! Definitely a significant improvement over the current Xbox controller!

That' s good to hear. I never really cared for the buttons on the current Xbox controllers. They felt too stiff or something. How do the buttons feel when you press them compared to say, the Saturn controller, or the Dreamcast? Or the Sega Master System? On the SMS the buttons pressed down nearly a half an inch. I always jumped and fired too late.

The Xbox360 controller is a really snug fit.

The problem I have with the current Xbox controller is that the button placement feels a little odd.. The Xbox controller is the only controller that I find myself still looking down at sometimes while playing a game just to make sure I' m hitting the correct buttons. And let' s not forget those two annoying buttons on the lower right portion of the controller, I almost always forget they' re even there, lol.. Then you have the start and back button on the left side of the controller which felt awkward as well..

The Xbox360 controller fixes a lot of those issues.. For starters the feel of the controller is a bit softer than the Xbox controller. The placement of the face buttons also feels a lot better now and the button to access the console' s media center is conveniently placed at the top center spot of the controller making it easy to quickly tap it with your thumb or index finger. Everything about the controller felt softer.

Definitely felt better than the Dreamcastro controller but that' s not hard to do given the major step backwards that the Dreamcast controller was when compared to the godly Saturn pad. Of course no controller can hope to compare to the Saturn pad but as far as 3D controllers go, the Xbox360 version is off to a great start.

Awesome! I can' t wait until they redisign it completely for the worse!

Every game had framerate issues in some way. Some incredibly minor and others more noticeable..

Sounds like Star Wars Episode III. What a pitiful game that is.

And let' s not forget those two annoying buttons on the lower right portion of the controller, I almost always forget they' re even there, lol..

That' s why I bought Gamestop' s Xbox controller -- the two buttons are in the top right and the controller is also larger and fits better in the hand.

That' s why I bought Gamestop' s Xbox controller -- the two buttons are in the top right and the controller is also larger and fits better in the hand.

Sounds like the original Xbox controller (the Duke). I still use it, btw. Boy the original sure was made for big, manly hands.

You were playing the games on a Mac G5 which is only around 30% as powerful as the final build which explains the issues with frame rate and such.

Did you get to actually play any PS3 games... didn' t think so.

Actually, I think it was 2 G5s running side-by-side, so that should be roughly 60% of the final system' s power. Could be wrong, though.

It was 30% power...read that in some E3 article. Anyways, Penny Arcade mentioned today that the only console that was really launched at this years E3 was the Xbox 360. They mentioned the demo of " Gears of War" ...so yeah...just wanted to mention that.

I love this 30% the power bullshit Microsoft is trying to spout!!!! Just like sony' s PS2 crap they tried to yap about 5 years ago. Companies should just learn to say " yeah, it' s early stages sorry that things don' t look great, it takes time" Not make up lame excuses only to dissapoint fans later.

Are you kidding me? I don' t think you' ve seen the press conference. As far as I' m concerned, Xbox360 is the future of video games. It seems like you' ve went on for paragraphs about the console' s graphic capabilities and completely overlooked the social aspect and variety of games already in production. Also, I noticed you didn' t mention how great the PlayStation 3 pre-rendered tech demos played. Give me a break.

Are you kidding me? I don' t think you' ve seen the press conference. As far as I' m concerned, Xbox360 is the future of video games. It seems like you' ve went on for paragraphs about the console' s graphic capabilities and completely overlooked the social aspect and variety of games already in production. Also, I noticed you didn' t mention how great the PlayStation 3 pre-rendered tech demos played. Give me a break.

Why should I have seen the press conference? I was standing right in front of some of the playable games.. How is the press conference better than that? And of course I went on and on and on and ON about the console' s graphic capabilities since Microsoft themselves did just that when the specs were released. And like it or not the graphic capabilities of all of these next-gen consoles will always be called into question..

Take a look at Test Drive Unlimited and tell me you' re impressed by that game. lol.. I didn' t overlook the social aspect of the console, I simply just don' t care about it ;). I buy games based on the type of single player experience they provide. I' m not looking to hang out in some virtual hub of sorts chatting it up with others.

The variety of games in development is impressive especially with Square Enix releasing one of their heavy hitters but the main point of this thread was about the playable games on hand and how underwhelming they were.

The PS3 and Revolution games would have been judged exactly the same way but there were none on hand...

It seems like you' ve went on for paragraphs about the console' s graphic capabilities

Yes, this is always a great sign that a console will be great. It' s enough for me, I' m sold. After all, the other systems will surely be sorely lacking in this dept. and if M$ sais it, it' s got to be true.

The whole social aspect and variety of games, again things that neither of the other systems will be bringing to the table. I hear Sony has decided to only allow Gran Turisimo games for the PS3, and Nintendo is backing off the whole Revolution thingy and decided to just name their system " Nintendo same-as-last-time" .

And I guess the reason you didn' t see me talk about the PS3' s pre-rendered BS at E3 is becuase you didn' t bother checking any of the threads dealing with discussions about the PS3' s pre-rendered BS, or else you surely would have seen me mention it.

ORIGINAL: mxpx182

I love this 30% the power bullshit Microsoft is trying to spout!!!! Just like sony' s PS2 crap they tried to yap about 5 years ago. Companies should just learn to say " yeah, it' s early stages sorry that things don' t look great, it takes time" Not make up lame excuses only to dissapoint fans later.

But they were running on G5s with underpowered graphics cards. It really is the truth that they were on systems only 30% as powerful as the system. It was not on the console at all infact. The G5 only has one power PC core while the 360 has 3. The ATi card that' s in the 360 is also far more advanced than any card on the market and includes integrated ram which has never been done before. They aren' t lying when they made that statement.

I still don' t understand how G5' s are associated with the Xbox360. Can someone enlighten me please?

Actually nearly all G5 systems are dual processors.

Jars, the Xbox360 hardware is not ready, so the games are being programmed and run on Macs right now. It is likely that these first-gen games that are running poorly on Macs probably won' t run very well onb the 360 either... since they were made on the Mac and all. The final official MS Xbox360 development system will probably STILL be on a Mac, but I have heard that they don' t have a final development system ready to go yet.

The bottom line here: Macs are cool and Xbox Live is really not all that great.

Dude, if the software is more advanced tham what the G5 can handle of course it' s gonna bog down. that' s like saying WartCraft 3 sucked on a computer from 1999 with no up grades and that it would suck equally on a brand new Alienware. They won' t run poorly on the 360, plus they still have like six months to work on the games.

Slow down Rampage, Joe' s got a valid point, Every system that has ever launched has always had launch games that were less impressive than the tech demoes and previous games shown running on Dev kits. I have absolutely no reason to believe that this time will be any different. Sony' s already done it with there PS3 vids, and I' m sure Nintendo will do it with the first Revolution stuff they show. It seems pretty obvious to me that you love Microsoft, and that' s fine, I' m just as much of a fanboy to Nintendo, but I' d rather be pleasantly surprised by a system because I expected less than be let down by a system because I believed all the pre-launch BS hype the company barfed out at me before launch.

The bottom line here: Macs are crap and Xbox Live is really not all that great.