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The Future is Now: Xbox 360
by Josh Lehman |
Date: Nov 22, 2005 |
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Man, it seems like just yesterday that it was November 2001, and I was anxiously sitting outside my local game store waiting with all the other nerds and geeks for the release of what I hoped would be the next big thing, the Microsoft Xbox. While the Xbox could never break out of third place in terms of sales behind Sony and Nintendo, they were able to deliver the most technically impressive console and, in my opinion, the very best console game of all time, the original Halo: Combat Evolved. Four years later, Microsoft is a year ahead of Sony to release its next gen system, and on Wednesday, November 16, 2005, I received my Xbox 360, and the future is here!
Much like the Apple Power Mac G5, this bad boy is one of the fastest PCs, not just consoles, you will ever use. It has a custom Power PC chipset, with a whopping 3.2GHz processor times three! Add in a 500MNz ATI custom graphics chipset, 512MB of memory and 10MB of embedded DRAM, and you have a PC that smokes almost everything in the marketplace. But how does all this power stack up for gaming?
1. Support for DVD-video, DVD-Rom, DVD-R/RW, CD-DA, CD-Rom, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 CD, JPEG photo CD
2. All games supported at 16:9, 720p and 1080i, anti-aliasing
3. Customizable faceplates to change appearance
4. 3 USB 2.0 ports
5. Support for 4 wireless controllers
6. Detachable 20GB drive
7. Wi-Fi ready
Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU
- 3 symmetrical cores at 3.2 GHz each
- 2 hardware threads per core
- 1 VMX-128 vector unit per core
- 1 MB L2 cache
CPU Game Math Performance
- 9 billion dots per second
Custom ATI Graphics Processor
- 500 MHz
- 10 MB embedded DRAM
- 48-way parallel floating-point shader pipelines
- Unified shader architecture
Memory
-512 MB GDDR3 RAM
- 700 MHz DDR
Memory Bandwidth
- 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
- 256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
- 21.6 GB/s frontside bus
Audio
- Mulitchannel surround sound output
- Supports 48khz 16-bit audio
- 320 independent decompression channels
- 32 bit processing
- 256+ audio channels
The 360 Premium Pack features everything under the sun: the console, a wireless controller, 20GB HDD, HD Component cable and a silver Live membership. A bare-bones system is also available without the goodies. The 360 itself has USB 2.0, Wi-Fi ready, toslink optical digital audio output, and an AV port outputting 720P and 1080I. What’s missing? HDMI and/or DVI. This is a mistake on Microsoft’s behalf, as the PS3 will launch with 2 HDMI simultaneous outputs, and output a whopping 1080P resolution. Microsoft has said that if the demand is there for an HDMI/DVI cable, they will make one (the I/O interface should support this with a firmware flash).
Setting up the 360 is a breeze: after plugging in the component AV cable, switch the cable to HD, turn on your TV, and get the wireless controller ready to go by inserting the batteries included (two of them), or use the Play and Charge kit which charges off the USB 2.0 and a rechargeable battery. Once the battery is in, press the Xbox Guide button on the center of the controller, and you will see the Power button on the Xbox light up, and a green circle begin to spin around it. The controller will auto sync itself into position 1, and each controller you add up to four after that will take the next logical place. Both the controller and the ring of light will display your controller’s numerical assignment.
The wireless controller is where the 360 outshines everyone. When MS said 30ft, they were not lying. Using a proprietary wireless technology, the control does not see interference and legitimately works up to 30 ft. The brilliant dashboard (more on this coming up) works in conjunction with the controller, and the Guide button can power up and down the Xbox without ever leaving your chair. Very nice. The controller also is capable of broadcasting the Headset material for Xbox Live without a wire back to the Xbox in full duplex mode.
The dashboard is very simply one of the nicest we have seen: more TiVo or OS X than Windows, it is easy to use. The first thing the setup does is having you activate Live or transfer your membership, which is a breeze if you have linked your Gamertag to your MSN Passport. Once that is complete, you pick a Gamer Card which is your online representation, and features the games you play the most, your best achievements, a score that you earn by playing games, and a reputation that shows what kind of competitor you are. You can pick a custom avatar from one of the free ones, or buy one on the Marketplace, such as a team logo of the New England Patriots from Madden 2006.
One of the first things to check out on the 360 is definitely the Marketplace. This is where many of your goodies are. You can purchase games that are stored on your HDD, and the system ships with a game similar to Tetris on it already. Available now for free are several high definition travels encoded in Windows Media 9, at both 720P and 480P. Aeon Flux and The Chronicles of Narnia both look marvelous. Also available are HD trailers of most of the games, as well as an Audioslave concert sampler from their upcoming live performance DVD, also in HD.
You can also purchase multiple themes here, for basically every came, and they run $1.50 to $4.00 a piece. They are like a Windows theme, and change the look of your Dashboard. There is one-must have download that is available for free: The optional iPod support. The 360 will playback an iPod out-of-the-box with MP3s stored on it, but to playback AAC, you must download the patch. Once you have done this, the iPod feature is neck and neck for Best Feature with the controller and Dashboard. Simply plug in your iPod, go to Media, then Music, and you will see your iPod listed. When you highlight it, it opens your iPod and shows your playlists, music, album, the works. You can play directly from the iPod integrated into most games, and change your tunes on the fly simply by pressing the Guide button during a game and picking it. You can also use the built-in music player on the Dashboard, and have fullscreen 3D F/X played that look wonderful. You can change the F/X by pressing the new shoulder buttons on the controller that replace the difficult white and black buttons on the original Xbox controller.
I love the overall intuitive feel of everything; you can do everything from your controller if you are a lazy bastard, including going back to the Dashboard to look at your nudie pics stored on your local PC with Windows Connect, and then go right back to the game in the drive.
How are the games? Stay tuned, as we will have reviews of the majority of the 18 titles this week. For now, those of you lucky enough to have this system, get Condemned, Call of Duty 2, King Kong and Project Gotham Racing 3 to start out. They are the must-haves. Perfect Dark Zero, trumpeted as the next big thing, is very good, but lacks some of the visual oomph I was hoping for, and the campaign has some quirks and graphical errors. The multiplayer is solid and fun, so it will provide many hours of good usage. The 360 is the must-have gadget of 2005 and probably half of 2006, and is a definite must-have for those of us of higher defined…now bring me HDMI and 1080P!
Score 9.5/10 |
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Copyright (c) 2007 Rock Star Media Works, Inc. All rights reserved.
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