The GHZ Forum

Even though I didn't ask you... I agree

Looks rather like a Bandai Pippin.

"We didn't steal that design style off Apple, nosiree bob!"

Come to think of it, didn't Apple have a hand in the creation and rapid demise of the pippin as well?

All I know about the Pippin is that it was a power mac marketed by Bandai as a console.

Looks shit.

There's not really much to say; Apple and Bandai wanted to launch a joint assault on the booming console market to rival newcomer Sony's playstation. The pippin was the result; armed with a modem, a drive that doubled as a CD player (complete with naff play buttons on the front), and a housebrick of a remote/joypad.

It was scrapped partly because it looked like a grey sandcastle that had been sat on, but mostly because the general public, presented with a machine that was more expensive, had fewer games and wasn't nearly as well designed as the playstation did not hesitate in buying the latter.

Old!

But yeah, it sure looks funky. I like the comparison Ngangbius has mentioned about it looking like a bone. =Þ

So just outa curiousity, why the hell does it matter what the thing looks like? You stare at the TV, not the bigass thing underneath it.

Handhelds are what need to look sexy.

Xbox 360 Specs

Good tech. in this one.

Yeah, it pretty much is a gaming PC with all the non-gaming functions tore out. Pretty much what I predicted.

Zeta wrote:Yeah, it pretty much is a gaming PC with all the non-gaming functions tore out. Pretty much what I predicted.

Which could be said of all current next-gen consoles.

Light Speed wrote:So just outa curiousity, why the hell does it matter what the thing looks like?

It doesn't. But that does not keep us from praising or mocking a console design anyway.

On the bright side, it does look better than the original Xbox.

Also, the lack of any mention of backwards compatiblity in the specs concerns me.

No Blu-Ray or TiVo features?

I believe that both the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD formats have been scrapped so that Sony and Toshiba can work together on one unified format to rule them all.

Yeah, that's what I just read too.

But chances are, this isn't going to support that.

There's no way it could... not with a 2005 release date. It has to use regular DVDs.

X-Box 360? What the hell is that?
~Neo

Backwards compatiblity doesn't really concern me. I already have an Xbox, why would I need to have a new system that can play the old games? Besides saving shelf space, I don't really see a benefit.

The only thing that does bother me is the HD as an add-on. Just as I was getting used to not having to use memory cards.

The benefit for them would be that the XBox 360 wouldn't have to compete with the original in sales. And for the consumer, it's just convenient.

Microsoft said a while ago that they were having trouble incorporating backwards compatability into the 360, and so far it looks like it's going to go without.

I find the trackball on the controller of the XBox 360 kinda interesting. Not sure how many games will utilize it, but the option is there, and it's not going to make game developers wreck their brain trying to find a way to utilize it. We also might have a more genuine SegaSonic the Arcade experience, if a port ever makes it.

It seems the <a href="http://www.theapplecollection.com/desig ... tml">Apple Pippin</a> also had a trackball on it.

What trackball? If you're talking about the thing in the center, that's a button that takes you to the XBox Live menu at any time.

http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=4828

Oh, oops, silly me.

If it was a trackball, it would fit in nicely with the console's name.

Wouldn't it be awesome if there were a controller with dual trackballs and a joystick right in the middle?

Looks okay to me but like Light Speed says, I could care less about it's design...I don't even stare at my PS2 while playing games, only if it decides to not work and I kick it...