According to a recent press release, the XBox's production is slowing down a bit. The reason, a flaw in Intel Corp.'s design of the motherboard, or main computer component of the Xbox, may set production of the much-hyped new game player back by three to four weeks . However, the console will still launch on November 8. Microsoft spokesman James Bernard has denied these claims, saying there's absolutely no problem with the design of Intel's motherboard.
Well, in a (small) reversal of the trend that Microsoft has been touting since the announcement of their next generation console machine, one developer is shutting down their Xbox development operations in order to focus on... get this.... PC games.According to this story on xbox.ign.com, Funcom, the developers of the massively multiplayer game Anarchy Online have ceased their console operations.
Pythos found an interview at PC Rave that should stir up some comments. Some of you may not be familiar with Michael Hara, Vice President of Investor Relations and Communications for NVidia, but he's got an interesting perspective on the XBox and relations with Apple. Rather than quote a particular question or two, I'm going to place some of the quotes I found interesting, but you'll have to check out the interview to read the rest.
Blue's News' own Loonyboi came in awhile back with a parting shot on E3, and mentioned both the Xbox and Halo:
Since the start of E3, complaints of choppy framerates in Halo have been pouring in, with the attendant explanations about unfinished hardware, incomplete optimization, sound emulation, and whatnot.
Microsoft has its work cut out for it.
That's the news from Xbox.ign.com-- an Xbox gaming site.
What's going on here?
While IGN admitted Halo was impressive, they don't think it's quite enough to sell systems all by itself, and the supporting cast of games wasn't quite there yet:
Halo will be the best console FPS to hit a console this side of PS2 Half-Life, but outside that, the big guns didn't look so massive at E3.
R.net reader Mark Diller wrote in to let us know about an E3 wrapup article at Salon-- and it mentions Halo and the Xbox front and center. Just not in a good way:
Intelligamer has posted their E3 wrapup, and while it doesn't mention Halo by name or focus particularly on the Xbox, it does have a couple of items of note.
In the last page of their report, they give awards for best booth and best game at the show. As for the first: