xbox 360 Archives - PSX Extreme

Ubisoft Promises Support For PS3/360 For Several More Years

Ben-Dutka March 31, 2014 Archive 9 Comments

If you haven't yet leaped aboard the next-gen bandwagon, don't worry. Publishers aren't planning to leave the last generation behind any time soon.

Take Ubisoft, for example. Executive Lionel Raynaud told Edge that his company will continue to support the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 for several years to come:

"We will have games for PS3 and 360 for this year and probably the years after. We want to be able to provide games to people who are playing on these consoles. [Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag] was the first Assassin's Creed game of this new generation but it was designed with that in mind, but I wouldn't say it was a cross-generation game, as it has features that could only be for this generation."

As for the upcoming Assassin's Creed: Unity , that may only be available for the PS4 and Xbox One, but there are rumors that a completely different entry, subtitled "Coment," will land on last-gen systems. This continued support shouldn't surprise anyone; publishers of this size require as many consumers as possible. The combined userbase for the PS3/360 is probably at around 160 million, while the combined userbase of the PS4/Xbox One is only around 10 or 11 million right now.

So, I mean…duh.

John Carmack: PS3 And 360 Are “Far From Being Tapped Out”

John-Shepard December 12, 2013 Archive 19 Comments

Many gamers and developers were anxious to start a new generation, but one iconic designer says we actually could've waited.

During a recent Wired interview , John Carmack, id Software co-founder and partly responsible for the legendary Doom and Quake franchises, said the current-gen consoles still had plenty of juice left.

"…there’s so much you can still do on the previous console generation. The PS3 and Xbox 360 are far from tapped out in terms of what a developer could do with them, but the whole world’s gonna move over towards next-gen and high-end PCs and all these other things. Part of me still frets a little bit about that, where just as you fully understand a previous generation, you have to put it away to kind of surf forward on the tidal wave of technology that’s always moving."

That being said, Carmack added that he feels comfortable with the current technology, which is part of the reason he doesn't want to part with it. That's probably a very common feeling among game developers: The new hardware is all sorts of cool, but that means we have to start learning again. Yeah, well, we figure everyone benefits from that, right?

As for the PS3 and 360, I'm willing to bet the PS3 wasn't tapped out but the 360…? Yeah, that thing was done. Sorry, John.

NPD Report: 360 Is 50% More Popular Than PS3 For Online

Ben-Dutka October 14, 2013 Archive 18 Comments

I don't think anyone is all that surprised, are they?

According to the results of the NPD Group's 2013 Online Gaming report released by Microsoft and cited by GameSpot , almost 50 percent more online console gamers use the Xbox 360 to play online than the PlayStation 3.

The NPD tracks numbers for the US only, so that's part of why the numbers aren't too shocking. It was also revealed that in the past year, Microsoft has delivered over 20 billion hours of online gaming and entertainment via Xbox 360, which is a 17 percent year-over-year increase. These stats are part of Microsoft's "Week of Xbox Live" campaign that kicks off today, so you'll probably be seeing and hearing a lot about the Xbox online service.

I knew this was probably true, but do you think the numbers will change at all in the new generation? As more and more people go online to play games, it seems likely that the entire gaming community will continue to shift en masse towards the online world. To me, such numbers just say there were far better offline experiences on the PS3 but then again, that's only one interpretation. And that may not be the case for the PS4/Xbox One era, so the online stats may even out.

Forget Halo, There’s Only One Game I Care About On The 360

Ben-Dutka November 30, 2012 Archive 21 Comments

For the record, I've played every Halo to date and I fully intend to play Halo 4 . I expect it to be fantastic.

I have also played and enjoyed every Gears of War , and I have 15 other Xbox 360 games in my collection as well. I've got maybe 70 PS3 titles but that's because- 1. I work for a PlayStation-centric website and I get a lot of PS3 review copies, some of which I keep, and 2. There are simply waaaaaay more worthwhile exclusive titles on the PS3. And for the latter reason, the 360 mostly just gathers dust these days.

However, there is one game I'll go back to and play. There's one game that will force me to keep my Xbox 360 and amazingly enough, it's because this title allows me to relive the glory days of the PS1, when the JRPG ruled. The game, of course, is Lost Odyssey , which featured a true turn-based mechanic ('gasp'), a pretty decent story, strong characters, beautifully drawn environments, and perhaps strangely, some of the finest writing of the generation. I'm not talking about the actual script; I'm talking about the wonderfully penned dream sequences that were essentially short stories. A professional did those, I'm fairly certain.

At any rate, I definitely want to go back and play it again, and I can't say that about any other 360 game. Hell, I'm willing to keep the 360 plugged in and ready to go until I have time to play Lost Odyssey again. If you were a hardcore JRPG fan in the PS1 days like me and you haven't played the game in question, buy a 360. No, I'm not kidding. You can thank me later.

Dishonored Dev: Current Consoles Not Close To Maxing Out

Ben-Dutka October 1, 2012 Archive 15 Comments

The new generation will undoubtedly deliver better technology and even more amazing graphics.

But is it safe to assume the current consoles are maxed out? Many believe the Xbox 360 has long since hit the technological wall but the PlayStation 3 still has some life left. Probably accurate.

That being said, Dishonored developer Arkane Studios believes both consoles have more to offer and "it's not really a bottleneck." In speaking to GamingBolt , game designers Raphael Colantonio and Harvey Smith spoke about the current state of development with the "old" systems.

"Technology is not really the bottleneck, and developers have not come close to maxing out what could be done. The photo-realism graphics race eats up a lot of hardware bandwidth for what could be used for interesting, different features and styles of gameplay. That said, new hardware is always exciting."

It's always interesting to hear how designers will approach new hardware, and how they're looking to get the most out of the current machines. Dishonored is slated to drop next week and while it may not be the best-looking game you'll ever see, it still looks pretty dang good.

Related Game(s): Dishonored

Square Enix: “This Generation Has Lasted Way Too Long”

Ben-Dutka July 10, 2012 Archive 91 Comments

Many gamers are fine with an extended console life cycle for this generation, as are several outspoken developers.

But not everyone thinks a console cycle lasting 7-10 years is a good idea. Take Square Enix Worldwide Technology Director Julien Merceron, for example, who told GamesIndustry.biz that Sony and Microsoft's decision to elongate this generation was the "biggest mistake they've ever made."

Merceron weighed the pros and cons of releasing a new machine with simple architecture versus a console with a complex makeup. He also said he'd like to see Sony ditch the Cell and proprietary tech in the next generation. Added Merceron:

"Now you don't need to manage longevity by complexity of programming, because your longevity is ensured by your online model. And I would suggest that maybe we don't want long generations. We have Sony and Microsoft talking about this generation lasting 7,8,9 or even 10 years and it's the biggest mistake they've ever made.

This generation has been way too long, and I say this because you have a lot of developers that work on a new platform, and perhaps will not succeed, so they will wait for the next generation, and will jump on that platform. You could not do that with this generation though. So these developers went elsewhere to see if the grass was greener. They found web browsers, they found iOS, they found other things and a lot of them won't come back to the hardware platforms. So you could look at it that thanks to Microsoft and Sony and the length of this generation, it helped the emergence of other platforms and helped them get strong before the next hardware comes out."

Do you believe that the added years in this generation have opened the door for other platforms? Or do you think that would've happened, anyway? Personally, I don't think launching the PS4 or Xbox 720 earlier would've had the slightest impact on the casual/mobile gaming explosion, which was inevitable given the extreme popularity of smartphones and tablets. But that's just me.