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Microsoft H2O event
The old water towers at the Terkamerenbos were the ideal location to show off the hip and cool image of the Xbox360 console. Through various small workshops, we were shown the stunning graphics, the online possibilities and the compatibility of the console with a variety of other hardware and - off course - with Microsoft’s Windows Media Center Edition.
This was all very handy but also very old information. One thing that was relatively new is the admittance of Microsoft that it is very possible to develop a Blu-ray player compatible with the Xbox360 system just like the current external HD-DVD player. This could be fun and it means that Microsoft still has the possibility to abandon a sinking ship without too many difficulties.
Also in the spotlights; the Xbox Live Vision, a shameless copy of the Eyetoy. With live Vision you can play various games but also engage in a one-to-one videochat. A nice gadget indeed but not without its flaws; you can save only one picture (1, uno) and every picture effect you perform on it and save is permanent and can not be undone.
And although the camera’s aperture seems relatively great; it clearly had trouble with the white balans apart from minor noise presence. The picture’s resolution is 640*480 but when you zoom in - using the digital zoom - you lose a lot of quality. However, the pictures do their job functioning as avatars and the camera’s movement detection seemed very precise during the few demos we were able to test. A clone, but a worthy clone.
Now that we are talking about resolutions anyway, we might as well discuss the HD-possibilities of the console.
The workshops showed the anti-aliasing capacity of the console and stressed that the software driven 1080p resolution of the Xbox360 is just as good as the true 1080p of Sony.
With a head filled with marketing slogans we the other tower where we were able to check out some released and not yet released games. Gears of War looked phenomenal and will without a doubt raise an army of angry moms appalled by the gore; because it is worthwhile wasting ammo on a corpse to get that red impressionistic collection of red spots all over the beautifully detailed place with marvellous lighting effects and so on. To be short: the only pitfall this game should watch out for is unoriginal gameplay.
Among the other playable titles were the newest Splinter Cell, in which Sam Fisher starts to look more and more like Agent 47, Saints Row that disappointed in the graphics department and FEAR, which looked less stunning than Gears of War but could still count on two thumbs up.
All these titles were meant to fight in the front lines against the newly released PS3 but with the delayed release, these titles are filling the shelves on windy November days without any direct competition. News that was unanimously received with lots of happy cheering from the Xbox team but let us hope it doesn’t put Microsoft asleep until March 2007.
This was all very handy but also very old information. One thing that was relatively new is the admittance of Microsoft that it is very possible to develop a Blu-ray player compatible with the Xbox360 system just like the current external HD-DVD player. This could be fun and it means that Microsoft still has the possibility to abandon a sinking ship without too many difficulties.
Also in the spotlights; the Xbox Live Vision, a shameless copy of the Eyetoy. With live Vision you can play various games but also engage in a one-to-one videochat. A nice gadget indeed but not without its flaws; you can save only one picture (1, uno) and every picture effect you perform on it and save is permanent and can not be undone.
And although the camera’s aperture seems relatively great; it clearly had trouble with the white balans apart from minor noise presence. The picture’s resolution is 640*480 but when you zoom in - using the digital zoom - you lose a lot of quality. However, the pictures do their job functioning as avatars and the camera’s movement detection seemed very precise during the few demos we were able to test. A clone, but a worthy clone.
Now that we are talking about resolutions anyway, we might as well discuss the HD-possibilities of the console.
The workshops showed the anti-aliasing capacity of the console and stressed that the software driven 1080p resolution of the Xbox360 is just as good as the true 1080p of Sony.
With a head filled with marketing slogans we the other tower where we were able to check out some released and not yet released games. Gears of War looked phenomenal and will without a doubt raise an army of angry moms appalled by the gore; because it is worthwhile wasting ammo on a corpse to get that red impressionistic collection of red spots all over the beautifully detailed place with marvellous lighting effects and so on. To be short: the only pitfall this game should watch out for is unoriginal gameplay.
Among the other playable titles were the newest Splinter Cell, in which Sam Fisher starts to look more and more like Agent 47, Saints Row that disappointed in the graphics department and FEAR, which looked less stunning than Gears of War but could still count on two thumbs up.
All these titles were meant to fight in the front lines against the newly released PS3 but with the delayed release, these titles are filling the shelves on windy November days without any direct competition. News that was unanimously received with lots of happy cheering from the Xbox team but let us hope it doesn’t put Microsoft asleep until March 2007.
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