360 – Page 2 – Ian Dick

Playstation Network?

Semi-interesting article discussing potential Xbox Live killer from Sony. It plods through the potential weapons that Sony has at it’s disposal if it builds it’s own internet service for the PS3.

Sony needs to do this. Despite the lead MS has had on a developing a gaming service it has only just brought out the marketplace functionality which when used is clunky and not thought out properly. PS3 will sell more than the 360 and hence a network service that connects Sony’s platform – video, music, photo’s and games would be adopted by a lot more people than Xbox Live. I guess the key is at what price and when? The hardware is all still rumours and it could be this time next year before us in the UK get to play with the new toys.

MS also need a challenger in this field. Many games still only support 8 players as they use peer to peer hosting. Increased broadband speeds haven’t seen the jump in the number of users that can be hosted but that’s more to do with latency (ping times) being the key to a good host – not 10Meg download & 500k upload speeds. Server based hosting (even paid) is required so we can see the numbers that PC games can support on consoles. Sony having a similar service would also see a lot more development from Japan where originality can be found more often than the sequel fueled USA & European markets. MS also dropped their XSN sports network which had so much potential. It sorted out leagues and scoring and meant that joining online tournaments was easy and the admin work zero for all competitors. Sony would win a lot of friends if this type of functionality was added to Pro Evo 6 for example.

So many hardware vendors are chasing the all in one media player but very few have come near or have the infrastructure to do it. I would have said Sony a year ago wouldn’t stand a chance as they still didn’t support mp3 playback on their devices. They’ve changed a lot though in a short time. Looking at all the different parts of the puzzle surely a unifying network/service on the PS3 would deliver PS3 users a killer app without even buying a game. I can dream…especially as I’ve got all the other Sony hardware to make up the jigsaw.

Pronto Marathon

I do love my Pronto remote but it takes ages to update. I had three new devices to add – new tele, new Freeview box and the 360. Thankfully I managed to find discrete off and on codes for the TV (Philips 32pf9830) and the Freeview box (Sony VTX-D800U) which means I’m now in macro heaven. One touch and all the devices will switch on and off as I please – the ultimate in couch potato laziness. The ccf file for the Pronto can be found below – I would upload to Remotecentral but I’ve set things up just so for me so I feel it’s a bit of a waste dumping it on their site.

download My Pronto ccf

While I was updating the Pronto it struck me I would hate to replace this remote – it’s had a few knocks and mishaps but it’s just so expensive for what it is. A PDA with an IR port could do a better job and is more cost effective – just need the right software and a good range on the IR port.

360 Hour Tour

Visited the 360 Hour Tour at The Lighthouse this morning. Turned up at 10AM thinking it would be busy but it was pretty quiet – just a few other geeks and two loud neds…welcome to Glasgow. Finally got into the show at 10:30. First impressions were very good – around 50-60 360’s all with hi-def screens were spread around the room – some on stands and some with sofa’s to allow more comfortable gaming. Pictures from this morning can be found at Flickr.

Made a dash (brisk walk really) for a PGR3 console. After getting through the very impressive menu’s it was into a street race round London. Graphics are excellent although there seemed to be a few ‘jaggies’ on view. The background detail is amazing – the environments are so rich that it’s hard to take it all in. There was no slowdown to be seen even with the other five cars on track. Certain sections of the tracks were very dark – so dark that you couldn’t make out the track and that wasn’t down to the room lighting or reflections. I’m hoping that it was more due to the screens MS were using. Played this game the most this morning but seeing as I loved PGR2 that’s no surprise. Speed of the cars was good and the handling model was similar to PGR2 if not a little more tricky – the TVR Cerbera was a beast to handle and also very very fast. One odd point – background textures. Compared to the screens that I’d previously seen they looked a bit low-res. We were told that this was a 90% complete build so maybe there was more to be done but they looked a bit ‘tacky’. It also didn’t feel hi-res. Certainly a lot more could be seen and you knew you were playing a more powerful console – Graham commented on the feeling it was a 480 rather than 720p game. I tend to agree.

Next I tried Perfect Dark Zero. This is the one game that’s had most pre launch hype and also been the most disappointing. Ramped up the difficulty to max and found it was just too tough. Graphics looked very good though – a lot better than I had expected. The level started indoors and again looked very dark though. Some really nice touches though – I was hiding behind a jeep and zoomed in on an enemy – he too was behind a jeep but I could see his legs. I shot him in the leg – he leaned down to feel his leg and I was able to shoot him in the head – really nice moment. Explosions were also great to watch. Tried an outdoor level too – bright, colourful clear graphics and zooming in and around this level showed just how big the environments were. We tried to set-up a co-op game but it wasn’t for doing it. Menu’s felt a little clunky. I want to play this now.

Other games got a small bit of time each:

Kameo – Graphics were very impressive. A bit confusing as to what you had to do but I played it for all of 5 minutes. Depending on reviews this looks to be an essential purchase
Call of Duty 2 – Very sharp graphically – got a quick shot as there were only 3 machines set-up with this game. As it’s a FPS I htink a lot of it’s sales will go to Perfect Dark Zero.
Condemned – Needs a lot of time – more than I could afford but very pretty graphics
Fifa 06 – Nice menu’s, nice grass, really crap game. I thought this felt worse than the Xbox version
NBA 06 – Didn’t have time to play it – player models were very detailed including sweaty faces
Need for Speed – Actually looked very good – some playtime showed a slight jerkiness in the graphics – PGR3 really showed it up to be honest.
Tiger Woods – A prettier version of the original – not much to say really

The pads were excellent. With the black and white buttons now moved to above the triggers they felt very comfortable – even the guide button in the middle was easy to get to. The guide itself was disabled in the demo pods although you could access it on the machines next to the sofa’s. Reboot times were ok and felt roughly the same as Xbox. Loading times too were pretty average – not too long but not short either. One notable exception – Fifa 06 took an absolute age to load.

You’ll notice there is no mention of sound. The demo pods were all muted but there was space for two headphone sockets so if you do get to visit one of these events take a set of headphones. When my PGR screen was finally turned up I was very impressed with the engine sound of the TVR. It sounded great and that was even with the DJ in the background doing his best to drown everything out. Also the demo pod screens are very close to your head – the pads used aren’t wireless and are fixed meaning that you will pay more attention to the graphics than you would at home. Perfect Dark Zero when I played it on the sofa looked amazing – far better than when I played it on the pods. The screens are hopefully the reason why some of the games looked dark – artificially so. I would have thought MS would have made sure that the screens selected would show of the games at their best….who knows – maybe they are and games will be ‘dark’. EA games seemed to all have a graphical filter on their games – like a shadow around the main object. You could see it on NBA and Fifa but it was most noticeable on Need for Speed – any background object seemed to have a shadow effect around it. Don’t know why but it was definitely there.

So after all that – do I want a 360. YES. Without a doubt. Do I wish I had pre-ordered. YES. Will I get a 360 this year – probably not but I’ll still try and get one. However this event didn’t blow me away as much as I thought it would. It made me want to play the games but I feel that the leap forward to the next gen won’t be as big as SNES to PS1/N64 or PS1 to Xbox. Roll on December 2nd when the hunt for my 360 will begin.

Backwards Compatibility

A lot has been made of the ability of the Xbox 360 to play Xbox games. Too much has been said about it – it HAS to have it, why only certain games, this will put me off buying a 360…blah blah blah. I just don’t see the issue – the PS2 has backward compatibility but I’ve never used it – once I see, hear and play next gen games the immediately previous gen just looks poor.

Now that Sony are struggling with not only a new version of the PS2 but have revealed issues on the PS3 maybe the debate will calm down. It’s not about being backward compatible – what about updating older games. Take Halo2 or Pro Evo4/5 – they’ve lost none of their playability since release – wouldn’t it be nice to play hi-res versions on the 360 or with new maps/teams? There are rumours that Halo1/2 will have hi-res graphics on the 360 – it is nice to think they will be true. Ultimately I would rather MS concentrated on the 360 line up rather than wondering about how we can play the old games on the 360. Will I really want to play PGR2 ahead of PGR3? Then again, an updated Halo2 may be THE only other game worth playing on the 360!

360 Titbits

Now that the 360 launch is just over 6 weeks away (for which I didn’t pre-order which makes chances of picking one up slim) there is some nice details coming out about the features we’ll see. My Xbox will launch in the next couple of weeks. For the stat whores and just plain nosey this will allow you to see and compare your friends progress in games, what they are playing and their achievements throughout all their games. Some downtime for Live on Monday 24th will see the upgrades take place – we’ll then see just how good the website integration with the Live service is. This is where MS have a big advantage over Sony – it will be interesting to see just how much they push the web and online gaming features over the coming months.

The 360 pad has had great previews so far. What I’d missed until today is that it connects via a standard USB port. Therefore to use it on Windows you just need to download the correct drivers and you’ll instantly have a great pad for the PC. At last.

Finally – gaming servers. The Live service on the Xbox has been good apart from on thing – no server support. This has meant 16 players games as a max, and more than usual only 8 before lag kicks in. Compare that to PC games where 32-64 player games are more the norm thanks to the games being hosted on servers. The 360 looked to be changing that with Call of Duty 2 rumoured to have 64 player support. Alas, it’s 8 player although they won’t stop you hosting more if your connection can take it. Hopefully Perfect Dark Zero will allow for more…even if you have to pay slightly more for the service I would at least like to have the option.