It's creepy and curious...all at the same time. XboxVoice.com give your Xbox 360 the ability to blog all by itself. In other words, you enter your gamertag at the site, and based on what you do on Xbox Live (games played etc) Xbox360voice will creat a blog for your 360.  Each day your Xbox 360 will blog an entry…even if you don’t game. You can even subscribe to an RSS feed of your Xbox’s blog…or anyone else's Xbox that signed up for the service. Gives a new meaning to the term stalker, huh?

So, the next time you go to game and your significant other gives you ‘that look’…just let them know you need to keep your console company or it will get lonely…and point them to your console’s blog as proof.

here is the link to my 360 blog, keep an eye on it daily to see what my 360 blogs about

http://www.360voice.com/blog.asp?tag=lilan#top

APRIL
13 * Battlefield 2 Modern Combat
13 * Dead or Alive 4
13 * Tomb Raider Legend

APRIL
20 * Final Fantasy XI (Only on XBox Live) $79.95
21 * NBA 2K6
21 * NHL 2K6
21 * Top Spin 2

APRIL
28 * LMA Manager 2006

MAY
04 * 2006 FIFA World Cup

MAY
12 * TimeShift

MAY
19 * Rumble Roses Double XX

MAY
24 * X-Men 3 The Official Game
25 * Over G Fighters
26 * Prey
26 * Table Tennis

JUNE
15 * Moto GP 2006

JUNE
22 * Battlefield 2 - Bundle (Game + War Faceplate)
22 * The Lord of the Rings The Battle for Middle-earth 2
23 * Test Drive Unlimited

JUNE
00 * Chromehounds
00 * Hitman Blood Money

JULY
13 * Superman Returns

AUGUST
00 * Frame City Killer
00 * Madden NFL 07
00 * Saint's Row
00 * Star Trek Legacy

SEPTEMBER
29 * Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent

SEPTEMBER
00 * Just Cause
00 * Ninety-Nine Nights
00 * Sabotage 1943

NOVEMBER
00 * Viva Piñata
00 * WWE SmackDown vs. RAW 2007

Well, everyone has an opinion on the Xbox 360. But, as a proud new owner, I figured I’d share my perspective on how I feel about it. Forgetting all the “which is better the 360 or the PS3 or the Revolution” crap. What has *my* experience been with the 360, over the last 38 hours or so?

Here are my thoughts on the good and the bad. I’ll start with the bad first, since there are so few things I don’t like so far:

The Bad

LOUD: When playing games, the 360 is LOUD. If you’ve got the volume up loud enough to hear, you won’t even notice it, but when you first turn it on it can be shockingly loud. I mean, I’m not used to hearing a console at the same volume as a PC (and that’s about how loud it is).

Downloads: Downloads kickass. More on that later. I just thought it’d make sense to download the latest 500MB demo in the background, instead of needing to tie up the 360 for an hour, y’know?

The Good

Okay, those are the “bad”. Wasnt Much Bad Stuff.

Wireless controllers: This might sound silly. A friend of mine was over last night and said “who cares? I don’t really notice the wires, it’s not like I’m dancing while I’m playing”. But y’know what, I’ve already had several occasions where I appreciated the wireless. One was when I was playing an Xbox Live game and someone came to the door. I was able to park my car somewhere safe, walk to the door, chat for a few minutes and not miss a beat of the action (voice chat was still working). The other was while downloading a 600MB demo, I just kept the controller beside my desk, so I could periodically check on how the download was doing. No, wireless isn’t going to change your life, but it’s… freeing. You can sit wherever you want in the living room. You don’t need to wrap up wires when you’re done playing. It’s just… nice. I love them.

Xbox Live Arcade: Okay, I’m addicted to Geometry Wars. I’ve only hit about 300K as my max score, but I love it. And the ability to download silly games like Marble Blast for like 5$ is awesome.

Xbox Live Marketplace: This is even better. Downloading demos. Downloading trailers. I love it! To me, this is one of the key benefits of the 360. Sure, spending money on silly things like badges and whatever sucks. So I don’t. I just grab the gobs of free content and love every minute of it.

Games: three of the games I bought, as well as every demo I’ve played, have been awesome. I love Burnout. The graphics aren’t that much different than the Xbox. Perfect Dark looks amazing. Graw is an awesome game. I’ll probably pick up Call of Duty 2 based on the demo as well. Gaming is all about the games, and so far there are some great ones on the 360, with plenty more to come (I might actually pick up Dead Rising, because it looks like Sean of the Dead, heh).

Overall

Overall I’m very happy. I’m not happy about the pricetag, but I’ve been without a gaming system for about 4 months now, and while I was getting used to it, the 360 hasn’t disappointed in any way. Do I feel like there’s been a quantum leap in gaming? No. But that’s largely because the Xbox was, to me, a great package. This is a fairly big improvement on it. If I hadn’t owned an Xbox, though, Xbox Live would have floored me.

I’m looking forward to meeting up with friends on Live, having some good times and generally just being a casual / social gamer. I don’t have time for anything more, but I’m quite confident that as long as Microsoft doesn’t go bankrupt, there’ll be lots of great games for me to play over the next 5 years, and I’m doubtful that I’ll regret my decision to choose the 360 over other consoles that still have no release date.

Well its nearly here iv been anxiously waiting for the arrival of the 360 in australia. Its been long and bumpy road for us aussies. I have read mostly everything thats related to the 360, read every article, watched every review, and listend to every podcast and now finaly in a week i get to own my own 360. The delay from the intial release date set for us has made me appreciate the 360 more than any other console. On that note hopefully the wait was worth it......

Apparantly a couple of weeks ago Sony fired one of it's developers for slagging the PS3. This person contributed to a demo that ran on the PS3 alpha hardware back at E3 2005.

The post was removed but thanks to google cache it has made it's way back.

It is said this guy was not in breach of his NDA with Sony but got the boot just the same. So much for freedom of speach.

Complete transcript of the original.

 

"I’ve spent some time the past year developing for the PS3. Actually it was a cinematic demo to be shown at e3 in 2005 at a closed door viewing. I was one of the few artists selected to work on it for the demo. My job was primarily asset creation. I was creating assets to populate the path where our camera would be flying during the demo. The company I work for is also working on a launch title that I am quite familiar with. In short, I’ve spent some time around the PS3 and or the teams developing for it.

I’ve really had to sit here and think for a long time about what my first comment about the PS3 would be. Will I say, its GREAT or will I give it two thumbs down. Well my immediate impression of the PS3 is…where is it? Seriously, where is it? They have a case, a controller and a dev kit. But the system still doesn’t even exist. So what is there to say? We received one of 5 PS3 dev kits in the United States some time ago. Several companies in the US as well as companies over seas were given the daunting task of creating a demo in less than 9 weeks on a first generation dev kit. Now I’ll be honest with you. What most companies do is fake the entire demo. I mean they come up with some great visuals and neat tricks and scripted events. In the end however, its not a real time demo and its not running ON the actual box. We were the only company to my knowledge that showed something that ran it live on the box. Even then it was a scripted event. You could not pause the camera and fly around the scene. So if you saw the demo once, you saw it again the exact same way the second time. Also this was on a brutally early dev box. You could always tell where the PS3 dev box was because it’s the room that had the f-bomb coming out of it half the day.

Lots of time has passed since that demo and the dev box has gone from a totally jimmy rigged computer and box of parts about the size of a small child, to a much more realistic size. Although its still the size of a normal pc. I have been pretty excited about the whole cell processing thing. I am not a very technical person but my understanding of it was pretty clear. (Multiple processors to handle individual events in parallel). Sounds pretty good to me! To hear people talk, you’d thing that a processor revolution was about to happen. So I’ve been pretty excited to say the least. Now in my opinion it doesn’t matter how good the PS3 is. If the XBOX 360 is better, then it doesn’t really matter how the cell processors work or how good they say it is. Realistically one of them will be better over all. Now I’ve spoken with people who are on the technical side of the PS3. I’ve also talked with people on the technical side of the XBOX 360. The consistent comment I am hearing from people on my end is, “The XBOX 360 is better”. They are saying that it is capable of just doing more. (shrugs) Now take that for what its worth. If you watch all the videos on the PS3 they will say how much more powerful it is than the XBOX and vice versa. Im just telling you what I am hearing. They proceeded to go into a lot of technical info that I don’t understand. So I just nod.

The game that we are creating for a launch title is a “just get it out” title in my opinion. It doesn’t look next generation. I don’t see how anyone could debate otherwise. It looks good. But it looks good for a game that has come out in the last couple years or so. I mean we are talking about a box that will be with us for the next 5+ years! In 5 years will the games we are making today look good? The only way for that to be possible is if the new games coming out for the PS3 are drastically improved. So good that they can stand the test of time until the next system comes out. We’ve all seen Gears of War for the xbox 360. If that even looks half as good when it comes out then I’ll be floored! The game we are making isn’t even in the same league as Gears of War. In fact there are many current games out that look just as good and are using the exact same specs. So, on our end we are either not pushing the bar or were just trying to “get a title out”. To be fair, this is a business. Sometimes you have to treat it as a business and not make the best title you can. The best title you can make usually costs 20-40million dollars/3 start overs and 4 years of your life. You just cant do that every time out. Its impossible. Our game just keeps getting moved back….and back…..and back…..and back. Again, where is the box? Where is the final system? When is it coming out? No one knows and in the mean time people in the industry are starting to get just a little salty. I mean I was at e3 2005 and PS3 was almost no where to be seen.

In closing, I started of VERY excited about the PS3. I was very confident that it was going to just destroy the XBOX 360 just on the name SONY alone. The more time that goes by the more I am becoming doubtful. Everything I’ve developed or seen developed has yet to be “next gen”. The poly counts are not really any higher, im not seeing sub surface scattering, im not seeing much HDR lighting. (or they are faking it and not really doing it), I’m not seeing next gen fluid dynamics or object dynamics. I suspect that you’ll be able to have more dynamic objects in a scene than before. But im not seeing games doing this yet. We dont have a controller, there is no network code and there is no box. Its still the size of a normal PC. Oh well, at least they have normal maps. Although I’m over the normal maps fad ok everyone!

I’m confident that the PS3 will have a few “crazy” games that show it off to its potential. But I would expect the full capabilities of the box to not show up until the system has been released PUBLICALLY for over a year. This is the extra time the developers will need with a FINAL system to truly make next gen games."
 

 

If the above is true then Sony may just have a real fight on their hands this time around....

I know we can only speculate but what are your thoughts on the above transcript.

• Disgruntled SONY employee
• Under cover agent for Microsoft
• Doesn't know what he's talking about
• Speaks the truth