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Last night (well, early hours of this morning) MTV hosted a half hour special which spilled the beans on the next Microsoft console. As expected, the console is called the Xbox 360. Throughout the morning news websites updated with their own looks at the hardware and a number of the games. It was a bit frantic, so we’ll try and summarise it all for you.
Firstly, those specs that were leaked from a magazine are 100% true; the 360 looks to be one powerful machine. Secondly, the games shown so far are a very mixed bag. They range from “OMG, that is stunning,” to “OMG, that is next-gen?” It is believed that a lot of games seen so far are only running on early model development kits that don’t include the final hardware and are nowhere near their full power.
A lot of games that people expected to be on the 360 were officially announced. These included Quake 4, NBA 2K6, Call of Duty 2, Tony Hawk’s Wasteland, Ghost Recon 3, Saint’s Row, Test Drive Unlimited and a slew of Microsoft and EA titles.
“With the first generation of Xbox, our ambition was to change the way people think about video games,” said Robbie Bach, Microsoft’s chief Xbox officer. “Starting today with Xbox 360, our ambition is to revolutionize the way people think about fun.”
Some of the key points about the Xbox 360 were revealed prior to the MTV show when the ourcolony.net website released a video (direct link) showcasing the system. Here we were shown the system close-up for the first time and heard about the Xbox 360 Guide Button and the water-cooling that will keep your system running at safe temperatures.
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The Xbox 360 Guide
Finally, the system is confirmed for a worldwide release this year. That’s right; all three major territories (US, Japan and Europe) will be seeing some 360 action in 2005. No exact release date was announced, but a November release date seems likely. There’s a load of things that we are still to waiting to hear about, most notably a launch price. Everything should be cleared up once and for all at the Microsoft Pre-E3 conference on Monday.
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