Bill Cable wrote:
> Perfect wrote:
> > "Brenden D. Chase" <brenden.chaseREMOVE@THISgmail.com> wrote in message
> > ...You probably didn't read many post E3 articles that weren't about
> > Sony/PS3.  The Alpha Xbox 360 dev kits on hand at E3 have only 1/3 the
> > capabilites/power of the (final relase) Xbox 360 console.  This fact was
> > pretty much plastered all over most videogame websites.
> >
> > http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/615/615667p1.html?
>
> "A rough estimate placed these machines at about one-third as powerful
> as the 360."
>
> Yes... a "rough" estimate from a 3rd-party developer trying their best
> to cover their asses for their sub-par E3 demo.  They could just have
> easily claimed "Sure our demo looked like shit... but we were running
> it on an Apple IIe!  When it's on the final hardware it's gonna look
> freakin' SWEET!"
>
> So we're 4 to 5 months from the xbox360 launch, and game developers
> haven't yet received their final devkits?  They're gonna have what... 3
> months to tweak and optimize their games?  If that's the case, the
> xbox360 launch line-up is gonna both look and play like shit.  Forget
> the devkits... shouldn't the final xbox HARDWARE be ready by now??  How
> are they going to have any appreciable number of consoles available to
> consumers before Christmas if they don't start manufacturing them until
> fall?  Granted much of the xbox360 hardware is off-the-shelf, but
> still... it takes a while to really ramp up production on consoles.

Put very succinctly. It isn't Sony that is in a huge rush to get
something...anything...out on the shelves first. It is now almost July
and there hasn't yet been a single sighting of a working xflop 1.5 full
circle, prototype or otherwise, only a lot empty cases and loud
bragging about what it WILL do. To say all the the developers need is
alpha kit that is REPRESENTATIVE of the final hardware is stupid and
ignorant to the extreme. For launch games that are supposed to be
hitting store shelves in 4 months, you better have beta testing on
actual hardware for at least 3 months prior to that.