Xbox 360 HDTV 720p/1080i Thread

[GS kid]

I don't understand when people say the PS2 was hard to program when they have so many titles! Also the Xbox DVD drive is no work of art either.

People say PS2 was hard to program cuz it was. Boatloads of PS2 developers have said so and it got so bad that even Sony made a public statement conceding the point about a year after the PS2's launch. The PS2 SDK (Software Development Kit) left a lot to be desired. If you wanted to get any decent speed out of the PS2, you had to program in Assembly.... which is a low-level arcane language compared to a high-level language like C++. I should know... I programmed in Assembly extensively back in the 1980's. I had to back in those early days cuz on 8-bit computers like the Apple IIe, Atari 800 and Commodore 64, games ran slow if done in BASIC.

So if it's so hard to program, why does it have so many titles?

Beacuse at the end of the day, these guys have mortgages and bills to pay just like the rest of us. The Playstation fanbase was too large to ignore. So at the end of the day, they had to put their complaints aside and get down to the business of making games no matter how hard it was to program for.

As for the DVD drive?

Well let's put it this way. I don't have a single friend with a PS2 that hasn't had their DVD drive go out on them. Either it stops playing CD media or DVD media or both types of media. One of my friends is on his 3rd DVD drive. My PS2's DVD drive still works, but my PS2 gets little use compared to my Xbox. I only have a few titles for the PS2. Hey Sony... quit giving us a cheap DVD drive in the PS2! Your $70 stand-alone DVD player has a better drive!

As for the Xbox DVD drive? They fail like anything else in life. But their failure rate is a heck of a lot lower then the PS2's drives. The drives used in the first year of the Xbox were Thompson and weren't the best. Although I have a launch day Xbox with a Thompson drive in it, mine is still going. Later Xboxes had Philips or Samsung DVD drives. Although after 4 years of long hour useage, my laser pickup seems to be getting a little weak, cuz every once in a great while it gets dirty disc error. I have opened up the case and cleaned the lens, so it seems to be a weaker laser pickup. DVD drive laser pickups in general eventually weaken and need to be replaced. That includes the ones in your DVD players. But most people just buy a whole new DVD player then replace the laser pickup.

[Andrew Grall]

Anyone have any tips on where to get a system on or near release day without preorder and without waiting forever in a line?

If not, I'm probably going to be sitting and waiting until they are more easily found...

[Mark Strube]

It's all hype. I wouldn't be surprised if you have no trouble getting a system on the day of release (except for possible lines, of course).

[murdoc]

Anyone have any tips on where to get a system on or near release day without preorder and without waiting forever in a line?

If not, I'm probably going to be sitting and waiting until they are more easily found...

If you do find one, you may want to consider selling it on ebay.  When the first Xbox came out, I was lucky enough to snatch one up the day it was released.  I paid $299 for it, and promptly sold it on ebay for $550.  I was not able to find another one before the frenzy died down.  I did pick one up about a month later, but decided to keep this one. :cool:

[Andrew Grall]

If you do find one, you may want to consider selling it on ebay.  When the first Xbox came out, I was lucky enough to snatch one up the day it was released.  I paid $299 for it, and promptly sold it on ebay for $550.  I was not able to find another one before the frenzy died down.  I did pick one up about a month later, but decided to keep this one. :cool:

Nah...

No offense, but I find it personally distasteful to buy one (or more) only with the intent of selling it to someone else at a higher price...

[Paul S.]

I'm getting PS3 purely for Metal Gear 4. :rock:

[louisd13]

sp44again,   it's the 21.  Did you get your 360 on the 19th as promised?  And if so, what are your early thoughts?

[Andrew Grall]

If I can convince my wife that this is my Christmas/birthday present, I might try Best Buy out at 6:00 a.m. or so tomorrow...

Or do you guys think Target is a better bet?

[sp44again]

Yes I did get it, and I didn't even open the box. I sold it on some auction site for a nice chunk. I couldn't pass it up.

[Mark Strube]

Hahaha nice. You got a link to the auction?

[kevbeck122]

So... anyone crazy enough to camp overnight at Best Buy or another store?  I already saw people with sleeping bags and portable TVs at BB around 5 today.  

I convinced myself to get one, so I was gonna go to Walmart since they're opening at 12AM to sell them.  I was told they would give out tickets at 10pm to get in... but I find out today they already gave them out before 4 :mad:.  I think I'm just going to try BB.com when they start selling them.

[GS kid]

Well I have everything for my Xbox 360.... I just don't have the Xbox 360 itself yet. I have been simply told I am going to be in the 2nd shipment. But that was back when I ordered in on Sept. 22nd. Now that there are shortages, I may not be getting it the  first week of December as I had thought.


But right now... I ain't really thinking that. There seems to be a much more bigger issue.


I am reading on the forums of people having there 360s locking up a lot.

Some have said they lock up during games. Some have said that their's only lock up in the dashboard. While others have said that their system will just shutoff for no reason.

Some have also gotten error codes on the screen when they crash.

Some have said these might be overheating issues, but most of these guys said they have plenty open space around the vents... so they ain't buying the "you have your vent holes blocked or not enough space for them to breathe" accusations.

To be fair, people who have problems are the ones most likely to run to a forum and complain, but there is enough credible forum members that have mentioned this.

Now..... there are also people on there that have reported that they have been running their Xbox 360's for many hours without a single problem. So we will have to see over the next week if this is just a small batch of bad units or a real problem. The gaming sites will, I'm sure, bring up the issue with Microsoft to get a response from them if this really does appear to be a widespread problem.

I will keep you guys up to date on this.

Also another problem seems to have come up. If you play Perfect Dark Zero set to 1080i mode whose signal is going to a television that is a CRT based set, you may have overscan issues with it.

It's been said by some that it cuts off some of the HUD display in the game. They had this problem with Halo 2 and it was fixed with an update that you could get on Xbox Live or if you bought the map pack from the store. This problem came up because the game was developed and tested on only fixed-pixel displays like LCD that don't have the issue of overscan to account for.

This seems to only be in 1080i mode and only with Perfect Dark Zero. The rest of the games seem to do fine in 1080i upscale mode. Hopefully they will have an update. Since my Sony 34xbr800 upscales 720p signals to 1080i for me anyways, I have no reason to use the Xbox 360's built-in scaler.

Will let you know how it turns out.


Also... if you have the hard drive for the Xbox 360, you can play some of the old Xbox games on it.

The biggest surprise was that the emulation patch for Halo & Halo 2 allows the games to be upscaled to 720p output and has now added FSAA (Full-Scene Anti-Aliasing) for the games as well. Too cool!

Here is the current Xbox backward compatability list with more to follow. Keep in ming the hard drive is required for this!

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/backwardcompatibilitygameslist.htm



More news to follow in the days ahead.

[Andrew Grall]

I was up at about 3:00 a.m. and did the rounds, but everywhere I looked, the lines were already up to the capacity of the units they would be carrying...

If anyone has any tips as to anywhere to find a premium system (not for a crazy auction price), I would greatly appreciate it!

[Mark Strube]

Hehe this is too good.

I'm interested in getting one soon, but not crazy to get one, so I'm just enjoying the show. Only 40 systems per store... yea that's a way to create buzz, don't let anyone get your system... good one Microsoft! :rofl:

[AndrewP]

I checked this morning on my way to work Racine BB and Circuit City store at 9.15. BB had 53 stations, CC had 12. I was a little bit late for BB.