The first time you saw XBOX was coming out, did you think it was a joke?

[Hobo Xiphas]

UK rocks too! Bullfrog, anyone?

Part of the evil Electronic Arts empire, so it doesn't count anymore. 

[Seldane]

So that's where they went... damn.

EA sucks almost as much as Microsoft. Or maybe they suck even more?

[offsidewing]

The Japanese definately have better post-apocalyptic imaginations than Americans do!

Yeah, its like we cant think of shit to do after the world gets fucked up, except maybe guarding our property with a 12 gauge.

If there's one thing I've learned about the post-apocalypic world from Anime, it's that no matter what happens, Biker Punks will be involved.

[Golgo13]

Yeah, biker punks are never a good thing.

[Kitsunexus]

Yeah, that biker thing was started by Mad Max, an AMERICAN movie...

[Nazi NecroPhile]

Mad Max is better known as an Australian movie.

[Kitsunexus]

Well my bad, I haven't seen it in like 10 years. 

[kenomac78]

when i saw the first xbox commercial and then its release in stores i just stoodback and said. 'well its over'

what was over you ask? the days of alternative gaming, or niche systems and titles. 

with M$ in the game along with sorny and ninyendo  there would truly never be anymore room to have a dark horse company develop a new system, much like our own beloved TG 16, but also other things that used to pop up, cd-i, 3do,  vectrex, neogeo and etc. not all of them may have been great or very widespread but they were able to capure a sliver to keep going. now no more. since then only the n-gage has tried, and failed. but thats a hand held anyways.  phantom and other vapor ware has nevr seen the light of day where as maybe with only 1 dominant company we may have seen these, but with in essence a 3 way tie (even if  'losing' the generation means selling a paltry 20 million)  the chance to be the one to be the next hot thing is split even further.  i doubt if we will ever see a new console outside the big 3

as for titles, M$ bled the red white and blue, i epected and was right about endless ports titles and shooters as well as the endless  ports of movie and tv based games. not that football and halo are terrible, but they do lead to 100 copycats of which most of those are terrible, though they sell. it means les  R and D for games that go off the beaten path. i am not talking about otaku wet dream repetitive cutsey RPG that isnt very good to start with (read: mother) but just any game that turns a genre on its ear like REZ or a game of great quality that wont sell alot of numbers, but will recoup its losses (working designs) its the same for  M$ and sorny. for sorny the PS1 had such a diverse library, which i belive alowed them to be the new (then?) top dog. but compared to PS2 the variation in titles is half or less. probably to stay competitive in the american market against the XTREEEEEME XBOX DUDE!!

 as for ninyendo, they are so up their butts with  'quality control' so few games came out as is (like n64) and while it had some great games, very few were  truly original and many were delayed as is.

it also meant that consoles would finally be locked into some sort of release pattern. if you start from the nes, you have the nes in 85 , sms and 7800 in 86.  but then you have the genesis and tg16 in 89, while the nes is still hot, snes in 91, 3d0 and jag in 93, saturn and ps in 95  n 64 in 96  dreamcast in 99 and ps2 in 2000. theres a large gap of years between the definate end of one generation and the start of the next,  now we see  xbox 360 in 05 and wii / ps3 in 06.  all 4-5 years past the last release,and all very close to each other. never again will a company wait 2-3 years while comparable technology is already for sale by the competition (though the ps3 almost did!) so gone are the days of leapfrogging as well.

it also took away insteresting packaging too. now all games are in DVD cases with the systems name on top. like there was a caucus held on uniformity in game packaging.

these are things  i saw the xbox doing, for good or for bad

as for japan thinking they own the world, while they were busy cranking out a billion famicoms, apple and microsoft  were making sure every computer in used would have an OS made in the USA. and it seriously bugs the crap out of them that they missed the boat.

[Golgo13]

I think your right man, the Xbox ushered in the standard for the "Modern Gaming" era.

Im not saying the Xbox does not have any good games, it certainly does, Ninja Gaiden I thought was pretty cool, as for the FPS games, they are good but the PC will always be better for that type of game in my opinion.  The console itself just irritates me.


I just found overall the Xbox was disappointing, I thought, that with all microsofts money and clout, they could manage to create a sleek looking compact console with the most kick ass custom graphics chipset, I mean they have so much money, they could have hired some high profile italian designer who works for ferrari or some other japanese video game people to design the console look and chipset. 

Instead they went the cheap route and took a plastic boxed shaped case, and grabbed PC parts they had laying around, slaped it together, and they knew every joe six pack would buy it, or sally soccer mom would buy it for the kids anyway, no need to think of what gamers might like in a console.

Its really a shame.

[kenomac78]

youre right too! knowing now that they kne all along to take the loss on the xbox, create it mainly jut so that the 360 coud be lanched and start to turn a profit, they coudl have really done anything.  i think the 360 is  much sleeker looking and the live arcade seems o be a good deal. but honestly i have never actually plaxed either xbox ever.

[Seldane]

What about the GP2X? That's a modern machine and it's pretty damn weird. Too bad it sucks. Hard.

[Kitsunexus]

What about the GP2X? That's a modern machine and it's pretty damn weird. Too bad it sucks. Hard.

Yeah, running SEGA CD, Genesis, SNES and CPS2 at 100% accuracy and speed while running Neo·Geo at 98%a/s and doing it all on a portable.


Yeah, that's got to suck pretty hard. 

[Seldane]

Yeah, emulation sucks. Especially on portable consoles. You'd think it could be fun, but when you actually get to try it yourself, it sucks. I have yet to talk to a single person who thinks otherwise. I've used emulators on my DS and PSP. It's horrible. The emulation's fine, but it's so mind numbingly boring to play.

[Kitsunexus]

Well you see, a lot of times I just play emulators all day. When I was in high-school, that's all I'd do certain periods of the day. On the uber-long bus ride I would have killed for an emulator. I have my old PC in my room just to run ZSNES, Genecyst, and ME among others. A lot of times I get on this computer just to play some Blazing Star.

Maybe you don't like emulators, but I would love them.

[Joe Redifer]

100% accuracy, I doubt it.  NO emulator has 100% accuracy, even if it runs all available games..

[Kitsunexus]

100% accuracy, I doubt it.  NO emulator has 100% accuracy, even if it runs all available games..

I didn't quote anything, did I? Then perhaps I mean that it's 100% to ME. And that's all that matters.

It's damn close to 100% for everyone else, too.

[GUTS]

I'm glad the Xbox is basically just computer parts, I've made shitloads of money over the years repairing and modding the things.  Xbox rules.