Topic: XBox360 E3 Game Demos

[Talon]

This is something that has been annoying me for a while.  Why the hell would Microsoft run all of their game demos at E3 on single core PowerMac G5's with a supposedly inferrior graphics card to the XBox 360?

Did Microsoft forget they are launching this console this year? Why werent the games running on the actual hardware?  In all honesty I was quite disappointed by the graphics of the games from all of the hype of the system.

There is a few possible scenarios that are going through my head currently about this

1.) Xbox 360 hardware still hasnt been finalised and thus all those game demos are a result of early development kits

2.) Xbox 360 software is far from close to finished and developers are going to be pushed to meet the launch deadline. (I for one am not looking forward to first generation Xbox 360 games)

3.) Microsoft really f!@#ed up

To me it doesnt make sense. That was their unveiling, their chance to shine. But alas they decide to show allegedly inferior looking games.  Its funny how the media debunks these demos and make up excuses like this

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When they're running the right software, G5s fly, but they're certainly not a hard-core gaming machine like the 360. X360 developers had to scale back their demos to make them run as features such as anti-aliasing (effectively smoothes out the jaggies) were switched off.

- gamepower

I have a feeling the Xbox 360 is not going to live up to its hype and is really going to be the Xbox 1.5... This years E3 should have been all about the XBox 360 for microsoft purely and soley because they are launching this year unlike their competitors.  Thus it has got me baffled that they would chose to downplay the Xbox 360's power.

[Spak-Spang]

I think Microsoft is rushing to launch.  They need to be out before Sony, and they weren't completely able to the hardware ready for E3.  

Does that mean I think the hardware isn't finalized, no its finalized...production just is either slow at this point or has not fully started yet.  I am sure there are already complete units working and ready, just not enough to do E3.  Which was really stupid.

I am sure Xbox 360 will launch with one great game and others will not be as hot...that is how it always is.  However, give it time.  I am sure by Playstation 3s launch it will have a couple of great games ready for this system.

[KDR_11k]

They finalized the hardware weeks before E3, too short for game developers to port their code and make sure it runs properly (since it would be damn embarrassing if your game crashed at E3. When you're not Microsoft you can't afford a crash at the unveilling*). Ati only had a simple demo so they managed to make it run on the final hardware by E3. Yes, Ati actually used the X360.

*= All Windowses crashed during their first unveilling except for Windows 2000, where an earthquake devastated the conference room. I think God hates them.

[Djunknown]

Remember that MS is no stranger to bad shows/bad press. The 'Box was written off when they were showing it around, and Halo didn't look like a winner. Now they're going balls to wall, consequences be damned.

Interestingly enough, it seems Perfect Dark Zero has been getting synonoumous press with the '360. Could the PD0 be the new Halo/Halo place holder until part 3 arrives?

Now if they can once and for all answer questions concerning backwards compatibility: Yay or nay?

[BlackNMild2k1]

well from reports that I have been hearing(on a develpoer/tech head forum) is that BETA SDK's have just been sent out to developers and the beta kita are almost final kits. What was being used at E3 were actually ALPHA kits which were mostly just dual G5's with Dual Video cards(2 SLi'ed Radeon 6800), which equalled (from MS's mouth) 1/5th of the actual X360 power.  

[KDR_11k]

Would be damn funny if the end result didn't turn out to be five times as fast. Especially if the code they throw at it isn't optimized for three in-order HT cores.

[BlackNMild2k1]

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Originally posted by: KDR_11k
Would be damn funny if the end result didn't turn out to be five times as fast. Especially if the code they throw at it isn't optimized for three in-order HT cores.

Dead Rising: The Keiji Inafune Interview
GameInformer.com

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GI: We’ve heard that some dev kits have been hard to come by lately. Is the game running on an alpha kit and how fluid has the development process gone so far?

Inafune: Everything you’ve seen here (at E3) is based only on the alpha kits. Everything that we’ve seen so far is indicating that the final kits will be about four to five times more powerful than what you’re seeing here today.

How much faith can you put in this?  I don't know but its straight from the developers mouth.....

Screenshot

according to the interview this screen shot should run smoothly and be a little more diversified(zombie models)

Quote
So now, the graphical quality of the zombies is a lot less than what we want since we want to get as many zombies on-screen as we can. But I guarantee that in the end the game will have a lot better graphics with all of those on-screen zombies

[KDR_11k]

"indicate" "will be". Sorry, until the code is ported I'm not going to take anything anyone says as a fact because it isn't. He's just speculating.

And about that screenshot: Ewww, somebody please tell these people what specmaps are for and how to use them properly!

[ThePerm]

hmmm thats alot of zombies...cool now crowds in video games wont be damn sprites...

[KDR_11k]

I wonder how it runs once you try to use something smarter than a zombie.

[jasonditz]

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Originally posted by: KDR_11k
I wonder how it runs once you try to use something smarter than a zombie.

Its an Xbox... if you try to stick anything smarter than a zombie in the game its going to be way too hard for the average user.  

[KDR_11k]

Last I checked Halo was the most popular game on the Box and its enemies were slightly smarter than zombies.