Anand: X-Box 360 internals

[Jammrock]

looks shiny. i'm not that impressed with the graphics i've seen so far though - the games look like very smooth/optimized PC games. the texture filtering was poor on CoD2 and I was not impressed with the normal mapping in it.

it is however very sharp. and very fluid. the display and digital connection no doubt helps that. the console-centric "shortcuts"/optimizations no doubt help the fluidity though.

They look pretty good to me:

http://g-prime.net/x360/

[Marshmallowman]

About a month ago I read that almost all stores are getting a limited amount of them, and the rest are staying in the warehouse for "a while", so MS can announce that "XBOX 360 SOLD OUT", then week later their in stock.

I thought it was just some BS rumor at the time.......

[GT98]

About a month ago I read that almost all stores are getting a limited amount of them, and the rest are staying in the warehouse for "a while", so MS can announce that "XBOX 360 SOLD OUT", then week later their in stock.

I thought it was just some BS rumor at the time.......

Well they are looking at selling nearly 3 million or some crazy number in the next 3 months. I'm on the second shipment for the Xbox360 at the local gamestop...I really dont care if I get it next week, as long as its before Christmas it really doesnt matter. I already got calls for 2 of the games I preorder...lots of good that does me without the system LOL

[Kooldino]

As far as I'm concerned, Gamestop better make it up to the guys who get the 2nd batch of 360s.

Wonder how long it will take people to hack the 360...

Might be tough getting Linux to run on this one.

[schmosef]

I don't know about the various sales rumours...

I asked about these issues at the EB when I was placing the order but the sales weasles couldn't wrap their heads around the idea that they might not have sufficient inventory on the 22nd.

Stores generally make about $5 on the sale of a console and about $10 on the sale of most first party accessories. The real profit is in the games which, depending on the game, sell for anywhere from $5-$50 above cost. From what I've seen games generally start out expensive and the price drops quickly. Much faster than the retail price drop that we see. I know this because one of my PC distributors, Ingram Micro, is Canada's exclusive distributor for M$'s XBox division and we've been playing with the idea of getting approved to sell that line... Our only reservation is that they seriously frown on orders less than $500 at a time and would drop our approval for that line if we didn't meet an annual sales quota so we don't want to pursue that until we know we can sustain it. They've told us that all we need to do is call them when we're ready to get activated for it.

At the time I placed my order they had no ETAs for 360 games and no idea which ones would make launch. They demonstrated complete apathy for placing pre-orders for 360 games. It doesn't make sense that they'd favour pre-orders for consoles with accessories when there's so little profit involved. The backlash for something like this seems like a big risk.

This issue is debated on the Xbox forums and people who work for various chains have piped in to say that although their store isn't doing it and that there's no corporate policy suggesting it, they don't rule out individual store managers from deciding to do this on their own.

[GT98]

Alright got a call from Gamestop werid voice lady tonight again...told me my order might not be in till AFTER Christmas...WTF

[TransformX]

I think I'll wait for the PS3 and if I hate it, buy another Dreamcast

[Nowhere]

You will love this (especially Doc...)

While reading through site dealing with Xbox specs/ways to use its controller on PC (I'll buy original Xbox S cotroller anyway probably...) I've found link to this page on SiS (provider of Xbox360 southbridge) site:

http://www.sis.com/pressroom/pressrelease_000207.htm

The press release is...cautious

"The Xbox 360 is the next generation version of Microsoft’s Xbox, attempting to ride the five-year console-generation wave."