XBOX 360?

[yellowlightman]

From the front that thing looks like a vase. Shape of the controler don't look that great either.

Er, looks just like the current XBox controller?

[Radd]

Most people don't seem to be too keen on the shape of the current Xbox controller.

[CoryHolmes]

Most people don't seem to be too keen on the shape of the current Xbox controller.

I still prefer the original controller.

[mikeszekely]

I think the controller looks fine. What's more, I think the console itself looks fine. Yeah, it's not the slickest design I've seen, but the "endearing" design of the original Xbox was huge and clunky, with a plastic green dot on top. The Xbox 360 is no worse.

It seems that Microsoft will be ripping off Sony's Eyetoy in the next gen...

Edited May 9, 2005 by mikeszekely

[mikeszekely]

Latest rumor is that Perfect Dark Zero will be a launch title and "do what Halo did for the X-box".

There's another rumor that PDZ may have an X-box live element during single-player gaming. Not only will there be the standard deathmatching, co-op, etc., but they're making it so common enemies you face in single player can actually be controlled by other people over Live. If true, sounds interesting.

Gives the annoying kids something to do besides team-kill, anyways.

...

Wasn't that supposed to come out for the CURRENT XBox?

Actually, it was supposed to be for Gamecube. Development switched over to Xbox after Microsoft bought Rare, then time passed without any updates, and suddendly it was reannounced for the Xbox 360, with rumors hinting that it'd be available at launch.

I really enjoyed the original. Hopefully, for as long as Zero's been in development, it'll turn out to be equally enjoyable.

[Ladic]

I think the console and the controller look Ugly.

But I don't really care as long as the controller feel comfortable and the console has good games.

[yellowlightman]

I really enjoyed the original. Hopefully, for as long as Zero's been in development, it'll turn out to be equally enjoyable.

I agree, back in the day I played tons of Goldeneye and Perfect Dark so I hope PD0 doesn't drop the ball. My only concern is how it'll shape up when compared to Halo2. I just recently picked up TimeSplitters 3 (I played the 2nd one to death) and it's not a bad game, and if I wasn't continually comparing it to Halo2 I'd love it... as it is, I played it for a week and haven't touched it since.

[Druna Skass]

From the front that thing looks like a vase. Shape of the controler don't look that great either.

Er, looks just like the current XBox controller?

It looks wider than the original controler to me. I'm kind of surprised they didn't just model it after the controler-s since that one seems the more popular one.

Is this thing still the size of a VCR?

Edited May 9, 2005 by Druna Skass

[JB0]

Latest rumor is that Perfect Dark Zero will be a launch title and "do what Halo did for the X-box".

There's another rumor that PDZ may have an X-box live element during single-player gaming. Not only will there be the standard deathmatching, co-op, etc., but they're making it so common enemies you face in single player can actually be controlled by other people over Live. If true, sounds interesting.

Gives the annoying kids something to do besides team-kill, anyways.

...

Wasn't that supposed to come out for the CURRENT XBox?

Actually, it was supposed to be for Gamecube. Development switched over to Xbox after Microsoft bought Rare, then time passed without any updates, and suddendly it was reannounced for the Xbox 360, with rumors hinting that it'd be available at launch.

It's been so long since it was announced that I'd forgotten a lot of the details, clearly.

Thanks.

I really enjoyed the original.  Hopefully, for as long as Zero's been in development, it'll turn out to be equally enjoyable.

And Duke Nukem Forever!

[yellowlightman]

It looks wider than the original controler to me. I'm kind of surprised they didn't just model it after the controler-s since that one seems the more popular one.

I think it's modeled after the controller S pretty closely. Comparing my controller with the pic, the thumbsticks and d-pad seem to be the same distance apart from each other, or at least damn close. Assuming the picture is real, it looks like they ended up putting the black and white buttons on the back afterall. Considering how poorly place they were on the controller S, definately not a bad thing.

[Hoptimus]

The digital D-Pad looks like crap though. Why cant they rip off the one from the Japanese Sega Saturn.

[Druna Skass]

It looks wider than the original controler to me. I'm kind of surprised they didn't just model it after the controler-s since that one seems the more popular one.

I think it's modeled after the controller S pretty closely. Comparing my controller with the pic, the thumbsticks and d-pad seem to be the same distance apart from each other, or at least damn close. Assuming the picture is real, it looks like they ended up putting the black and white buttons on the back afterall. Considering how poorly place they were on the controller S, definately not a bad thing.

It's the grips the looked wider to me. Good they learned their lesson about button placement. The placement of the black and white buttons on the controler-s was a serious flaw. Even after pulling an all nighter on Halo 2, I still had to either look at the controler or fumble around to hit those buttons.

[Druna Skass]

The digital D-Pad looks like crap though. Why cant they rip off the one from the Japanese Sega Saturn.

Personaly I'd rather they ripped off the SNES or PS style pads.

**Waits to get yelled at by the so-called "true" gamers**

[yellowlightman]

It's the grips the looked wider to me. Good they learned their lesson about button placement. The placement of the black and white buttons on the controler-s was a serious flaw. Even after pulling an all nighter on Halo 2, I still had to either look at the controler or fumble around to hit those buttons.

I totally agree, the placement is a major flaw when you need to switch grenades in the middle of a firefight. Personally I'd prefer if they just relocated the black and white buttons to be above the other buttons, rather than below... it would make them much easier to hit. Not sure how necessary four triggers really will be, or how comfortable it'll be.

Personaly I'd rather they ripped off the SNES or PS style pads.

**Waits to get yelled at by the so-called "true" gamers**

[mikeszekely]

I got used to the placement of the black and white buttons on the controller-S... but I'm definately in favor of moving them to the shoulders. But if you really don't like the 360 controllers, rumor has it that the current Xbox controllers will be useable.

As for PD0... I think the original would still be my favorite console FPS if it wasn't so ugly by today's standards. A lot of what they did with the original would carry over well if they do it right... great maps, smart AI, a variety of sims, the ranking system, dual functions on weapons... and proximity mines . Rare's biggest challenge should be to work out a good control scheme (using a button for aiming and the C buttons for strafing on the N64 made sense, but it's not necessary with a dual analog setup), crafting a good story mode, get everything looking good, and then convincing Johnny-come-latelys that it really is worth putting Halo down for.

[JB0]

The digital D-Pad looks like crap though. Why cant they rip off the one from the Japanese Sega Saturn.

Personaly I'd rather they ripped off the SNES or PS style pads.

**Waits to get yelled at by the so-called "true" gamers**

I'd rather they scrapped the gamepad totally and packed a half-decent joystick in.

[mikeszekely]

The digital D-Pad looks like crap though. Why cant they rip off the one from the Japanese Sega Saturn.

Personaly I'd rather they ripped off the SNES or PS style pads.

**Waits to get yelled at by the so-called "true" gamers**

I'd rather they scrapped the gamepad totally and packed a half-decent joystick in.

If it's like the d-pad on the regular Xbox controller-S, it shouldn't be too bad.

[mikeszekely]

Endgadget has some leaked specs for the Xbox 360. Obviously, we're going to have to wait until at least Thursday before we know if they're real or not.

2 types of Xbox Live:

Xbox Live Silver (no subscription required)

Xbox Live Gold (subscription benefits)

Features for Gold service

* Also for Silver

# Also for Offline

- Seamless transition to Xbox Live account from Xbox to Xbox 360

- Access to MMOs (additional fees may apply) *

- Free Xbox Live weekends *

- Multiplayer online gameplay

- Avatar for gamer profile * #

- Motto for gamer profile * #

- Personalized look for Xbox System Guide * #

- Offline achievments * #

- Online achievements *

- Access to other players’ Gamer cards via Live *

- Cumulative gamer score * #

- Location/language profile * #

- Reputation *

- Enahnced matchmaking using above

- Skill level matchmaking

- Gameplay style profile (casual, competitive, etc.)

- Recent players list *

- Free and premium download game content *

- Free and premium downloadable movies, music, tv *

- Downloadable demos/trailers *

- Microtransactions *

- Custom playlist in every game * #

- Play music from portable devices * #

- View images from digital camera * #

- Strem media from Windows XP * #

- Interactive screen savers * #

- Track info for CDs * #

- Communication with voice, video or text *

360 HW:

1. Support for DVD-video, DVD-Rom, DVD-R/RW, CD-DA, CD-Rom, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 cd, JPEG photo CD

2. All games supported at 16:9, 720p and 1080i, anti-aliasing

3. Customizable face plates to change appearance

4. 3 USB 2.0 ports

5. Support for 4 wireless controllers

6. Detachable 20GB drive

7. Wi-Fi ready

Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU

- 3 symmetrical cores at 3.2 GHz each

- 2 hardware threads per core

- 1 VMX-128 vector unit per core

- 1 MB L2 cache

CPU Game Math Performance

- 9 billion dots per second

Custom ATI Graphics Processor

- 500 MNz

- 10 MB embedded DRAM

- 48-way parallel floating-point shader pipelines

- unified shader architecture

Memory

-512 MB GDDR3 RAM

- 700 MNz DDR

Memory Bandwidth

- 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth

- 256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM

- 21.6 GB/s frontside bus

Audio

- Mulitchannel surround sond output

- Supports 48khz 16-bit audio

- 320 independent decompression channels

- 32 bit processing

- 256+ audio channels

Edited May 10, 2005 by mikeszekely

[JB0]

The digital D-Pad looks like crap though. Why cant they rip off the one from the Japanese Sega Saturn.

Personaly I'd rather they ripped off the SNES or PS style pads.

**Waits to get yelled at by the so-called "true" gamers**

I'd rather they scrapped the gamepad totally and packed a half-decent joystick in.

If it's like the d-pad on the regular Xbox controller-S, it shouldn't be too bad.

Yah. I've heard it's a darn nice d-pad.

And in a moment of rationality, I DO admit that joysticks don't work as well for the kind of games that are usually released currently.

Though I could argue that that's partially because they develop games for the controllers instead of controllers for the games.

[Gaijin]

The digital D-Pad looks like crap though. Why cant they rip off the one from the Japanese Sega Saturn.

Ditto that...the Saturn and Genesis 6 button D-Pads were the best ever!

[mikeszekely]

The digital D-Pad looks like crap though. Why cant they rip off the one from the Japanese Sega Saturn.

Personaly I'd rather they ripped off the SNES or PS style pads.

**Waits to get yelled at by the so-called "true" gamers**

I'd rather they scrapped the gamepad totally and packed a half-decent joystick in.

If it's like the d-pad on the regular Xbox controller-S, it shouldn't be too bad.

Yah. I've heard it's a darn nice d-pad.

And in a moment of rationality, I DO admit that joysticks don't work as well for the kind of games that are usually released currently.

Though I could argue that that's partially because they develop games for the controllers instead of controllers for the games.

You could argue that. It seems that when they make controllers for games, you wind up with something gimmicky, like the bongos for Donkey Konga or the touch screen for the DS.

[Gunbuster]

Endgadget has some leaked specs for the Xbox 360. Obviously, we're going to have to wait until at least Thursday before we know if they're real or not.

I have 2 questions on those specs;

1. I thought 360 will support HD-DVD, no?

2. I guess no backward compatibiltiy?

[JB0]

The digital D-Pad looks like crap though. Why cant they rip off the one from the Japanese Sega Saturn.

Personaly I'd rather they ripped off the SNES or PS style pads.

**Waits to get yelled at by the so-called "true" gamers**

I'd rather they scrapped the gamepad totally and packed a half-decent joystick in.

If it's like the d-pad on the regular Xbox controller-S, it shouldn't be too bad.

Yah. I've heard it's a darn nice d-pad.

And in a moment of rationality, I DO admit that joysticks don't work as well for the kind of games that are usually released currently.

Though I could argue that that's partially because they develop games for the controllers instead of controllers for the games.

You could argue that. It seems that when they make controllers for games, you wind up with something gimmicky, like the bongos for Donkey Konga or the touch screen for the DS.

DS touch screen is games made for the controller again.

Anyways, for every DK bongo, there's a... ummm... no, RAD used the standard Dual Shock 2... and... errr.... that train simulator seris in Japan?

Okay, it was a stupid extension of the sentence. But like I said, they make games to match the controllers.

It'd be stupid to make a game that expected you to do something that's just awkward on a given gamepad. Genesis games aren't big on using A and C at the same time, for example.

In my experience, joysticks work nicely for fast-action stuff like shooters and fighters.

Pads work better for the less-frantic, but longer gaming sessions that you get from adventure and 3D action games.

RPGs... who cares? You can play most of those with your feet anyways.

(note that I DO enjoy several RPGs greatly, but really, gameplay was never the genre's strong point)

[mikeszekely]

Endgadget has some leaked specs for the Xbox 360.  Obviously, we're going to have to wait until at least Thursday before we know if they're real or not.

I have 2 questions on those specs;

1. I thought 360 will support HD-DVD, no?

2. I guess no backward compatibiltiy?

The HD-DVD thing was a rumor, but Microsoft, perhaps wisely, decided against it. For starters, using standard DVDs will keep the cost of the Xbox 360 down. Most of the games on the market barely break 4 gigs, so there's still room to grow on a dual-layer DVD. Also, it's insurance. Right now, the're a lot of competition between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. By using regular DVDs for the 360, it's kind of like not taking sides.

As for backwards compatibility... the rumors are saying that backwards compatibility is looking good... if you buy the hard drive. This is another smart business move. Backwards compatibility was good for the PS2, the GBA, and the Nintendo DS. Even though most people eventually quit playing the older stuff, at launch (especially if the launch is a little on the weak side), it gives users a huge library of games to play on their new system. Not having any backwards compatibility could hurt them, since the Revolution and the PS3 are almost confirmed to have it. But getting people to shell out extra money for it, knowing full well that a lot of them will... you get the idea.

[Black Valkyrie]

The digital D-Pad looks like crap though. Why cant they rip off the one from the Japanese Sega Saturn.

Indeed the best pad ever. I already ordered a Saturn-PS2 pad

SIEG SATURN PAD.

[MGREXX]

IMO, the Xbox 360 is not REALLY a revolutionalry next gen system.

Why?

1. Uses standard DVD's.

2. No HD support. Yes, J. Allard said they would support HD but it's not out of the box........but more like that Bull$hit they pulled when you HAD to buy a freaking controller to play DVD's. Fu*k that man!!!!!!!!!!

It's just going to be another system with more RAM and a bitc*ing video card. BIg deal.

I will take Sony's Blue Ray PS3 system anyday. Sure, it will cost more to produce but think about it. In 2 years, BLue-Ray/HD-DVD will be the standard (they are repordedly finalizing a deal where one standard will be greenlighted). Who wants to buy a blue-ray/HD-DVD DVD player when the already own multiple DVD players including the DVD XBOX 1 and 2? If you have a PS3, you are all set baby!!!!!

SONY is being smart by releasing the PS3 next fall. That way, they will be in a better position to kepp leading the charge with a bigger game library and revolutionary technology. Sure they will be late but will catch up quickly because in this market, the quick are not necesarily the winners..........Saturn anybody??

There are already rumblings that the PS3 will be a lot more powerful than the Xbox.

SONY will do for blue ray, what it did for DVD's in the turn of the century.....move discs!!!! My money is on th PS3 to take 1st with Xbox 2 in well.......look at the name.....second (pun intended) and Nintendo 3rd unless they get their act together and leave the little kids to play with the GBA and a lollypop, instead of catiring to them with consoles.

Edited May 10, 2005 by MGREXX

[yellowlightman]

1. Uses standard DVD's.

2. No HD support. Yes, J. Allard said they would support HD but it's not out of the box........but more like that Bull$hit they pulled when you HAD to buy a freaking controller to play DVD's. Fu*k that man!!!!!!!!!!

1. Dual-layer DVDs will have more than enough space to hold the games, not to mention.. how much more space do you need? FMV isn't nearly as popular, and if you look at systems like the N64 with the "wrong" media type, they still had plenty of great games. Not to mention using regular DVDs will keep costs down.

2. You'll still be able to buy an XBox 360 with an hard drive, there's just a more economical option for those who don't care or need one. Not big deal. As for paying for the DVD remote, that was to keep costs down. In order to have a DVD player, the manufacturer has to pay a liscensing fee. By making the remote a seperate peripheral, it allowed those who didn't want to use the XBox as a DVD player to save that money.

SONY is being smart by releasing the PS3 next fall.  That way, they will be in a better position to kepp leading the charge with a bigger game library and revolutionary technology.  Sure they will be late but will catch up quickly because in this market, the quick are not necesarily the winners..........Saturn anybody??

The PS2 was released before the XBox and Gamecube and benefitted considerably for it. The PS2 was technologically inferior and had weaker launch games, but won out because it established a large user base early on. Not to mention the majority of Japanese buying the first wave of PS2's weren't buying it for the craptastic launch games, but because it was an affordable DVD player.

There are already rumblings that the PS3 will be a lot more powerful than the Xbox.

Irrelevant. Modern PS2 games still look worse than some Dreamcast games. VHS was inferior to Beta. The Gamboy dominated the handheld market for years with outdated technology.

SONY will do for blue ray, what it did for DVD's in the turn of the century.....move discs!!!!  My money is on th PS3 to take 1st with Xbox 2 in well.......look at the name.....second (pun intended) and Nintendo 3rd unless they get their act together and leave the little kids to play with the GBA and a lollypop, instead of catiring to them with consoles.    

I have my doubts about Microsoft overtaking Sony this generation, but it will happen eventually. Microsoft will eventually throw enough money and eventually get things "good enough" to dominate the console industry. Sony is egotistical and has stopped innovating, their days are numbered. The exact same thing happened with Nintendo.

That said, all this new system mumbo-jumbo makes me think about how much I should spending on filling out my Saturn and Dreamcast collections.

[Black Valkyrie]

Same here just PS3, I`ve retired from Nintendo I lost so many games to play cuz of them, even I`m thing to sell my GBA-SP.

[mikeszekely]

IMO, the Xbox 360 is not REALLY a revolutionalry next gen system.

Why?

1. Uses standard DVD's.

Assuming that next-gen games double in size, why use a more expensive 15-20GB format when your games are going to be MAYBE 8GB? Using regular DVDs will keep the cost down. Besides, what if Microsoft went with HD-DVD for the 360, and Blu-Ray wound up winning the format war?

2. No HD support. Yes, J. Allard said they would support HD but it's not out of the box........but more like that Bull$hit they pulled when you HAD to buy a freaking controller to play DVD's. Fu*k that man!!!!!!!!!!

Shell out maybe $30 for a memory card, or shell out an extra $100 for the hard drive. I'm probably going to shell out money for the hard drive. If the rumors about it doubling as an iPod-like music player are true, it'd be worth it.

SONY will do for blue ray, what it did for DVD's in the turn of the century.....move discs!

Supposing Blu-Ray wins the format war, I have no doubt that that's true. But I'm also not going to rush out and buy my 100+ DVDs again on Blu-Ray just because they'll look better on an HDTV. Also, while I did start buying DVDs to watch on the PS2, within a year I had a stand alone DVD player. The ability to play movies isn't a strong selling point, IMHO.

In any case, no one said people can only have one console in the future. At this point, I plan to buy a 360 this year and a PS3 next year.

[JB0]

IMO, the Xbox 360 is not REALLY a revolutionalry next gen system.

So?

My list of revolutionary systems and the reasons is as follows:

Odyssey.

First home video game.

First light gun.

Channel F.

First programmable game system. It set the paradigm that literally EVERY game system after it has adhered to, although CDs have taken the place of ROMs in the intervening decades.

Intellivision.

First "next-gen" system, and the beginning of the console wars(Round 1: 2600 VS INTV).

Also features the first gamepad which, though it is a somewhat cumbersome device, had 8 switches allowing for 16-direction gameplay instead of the 8-way play of more conventional 4-switch controllers.

Perhaps most signifigantly, it had a BIOS ROM with a splash screen and many useful subroutines integrated into it.

5200. Input-wise, this is the most modern pre-N64 system.

Analog joysticks.

The integration of universal, well-labelled start and pause controls to the controller(also added a reset button to the sticks, though that idea fell flat).

4 controller ports.

Vectrex.

True 3D graphics through the use of the 3D Imager accessory.

Scaling and rotation of objects(thanks to the integrated vector display).

7800.

Backwards-compatiblity with the VCS/2600.

NES.

Created the gamepad as we now know it, as well as having a serial data stream coming from the controllers(by far more signifigant, really).

Resurrected the US game market.

Genesis.

Multiple background layers allowing for parallax effects to create the illusion of depth.

SNES.

Shoulder buttons.

Sample-based audio hardware.

3D effects through graphics mode 7, while not exactly the most robust ever made, are the beginning of a new era of raster-based 3D illusions(but not the first era).

PCEngine/TurboGrafX16.

CD-ROM games.

Playstation.

Transition from a focus on sprite/tile to polygon-based graphics, commonly mislabeled as 2D and 3D graphics.

Virtual Boy.

The first system with true 3D graphics on every game.

DS.

Touch-screen gaming.

You know what the REALLY interesting part of this list is?

A lot of darn good systems aren't on it, as well as some amazingly successful ones(try as I may, I can find nothing revolutionary about the legendary VCS/2600).

Furthermore, some of the most important ones were commercial disasters.

The Channel F is the single most important revolution in the entire history of the industry, and it was only on shelves for a few months before Atari's Video Computer System came out and decimated it.

The Virtual Boy was almost as revolutionary(we still haven't seen the full impact yet), and it was perhaps an even bigger bomb.

[Druna Skass]

I have my doubts about Microsoft overtaking Sony this generation, but it will happen eventually. Microsoft will eventually throw enough money and eventually get things "good enough" to dominate the console industry. Sony is egotistical and has stopped innovating, their days are numbered. The exact same thing happened with Nintendo.

Ugh, that would be a nightmare if craposoft dominates the console market. If my gaming console crashes, somebody is going to DIE.

You said if yourself Sony is egotistical, I doubt they're just going to give up their bragging rights and ability to say they're at the top. It's not like microsoft is a great innovator either.

Edited May 10, 2005 by Druna Skass

[buffalobob77]

IMO, the Xbox 360 is not REALLY a revolutionalry next gen system.

So?

My list of revolutionary systems and the reasons is as follows:

Odyssey.

First home video game.

First light gun.

Channel F.

First programmable game system. It set the paradigm that literally EVERY game system after it has adhered to, although CDs have taken the place of ROMs in the intervening decades.

Intellivision.

First "next-gen" system, and the beginning of the console wars(Round 1: 2600 VS INTV).

Also features the first gamepad which, though it is a somewhat cumbersome device, had 8 switches allowing for 16-direction gameplay instead of the 8-way play of more conventional 4-switch controllers.

Perhaps most signifigantly, it had a BIOS ROM with a splash screen and many useful subroutines integrated into it.

5200. Input-wise, this is the most modern pre-N64 system.

Analog joysticks.

The integration of universal, well-labelled start and pause controls to the controller(also added a reset button to the sticks, though that idea fell flat).

4 controller ports.

Vectrex.

True 3D graphics through the use of the 3D Imager accessory.

Scaling and rotation of objects(thanks to the integrated vector display).

7800.

Backwards-compatiblity with the VCS/2600.

NES.

Created the gamepad as we now know it, as well as having a serial data stream coming from the controllers(by far more signifigant, really).

Resurrected the US game market.

Genesis.

Multiple background layers allowing for parallax effects to create the illusion of depth.

SNES.

Shoulder buttons.

Sample-based audio hardware.

3D effects through graphics mode 7, while not exactly the most robust ever made, are the beginning of a new era of raster-based 3D illusions(but not the first era).

PCEngine/TurboGrafX16.

CD-ROM games.

Playstation.

Transition from a focus on sprite/tile to polygon-based graphics, commonly mislabeled as 2D and 3D graphics.

Virtual Boy.

The first system with true 3D graphics on every game.

DS.

Touch-screen gaming.

You forgot:

1997 Cyberdine systems creates an intelligent gaming machine testing players ability's to fullest and giving them the ultimate gaming experience.

[JB0]

IMO, the Xbox 360 is not REALLY a revolutionalry next gen system.

So?

My list of revolutionary systems and the reasons is as follows:

Odyssey.

First home video game.

First light gun.

Channel F.

First programmable game system. It set the paradigm that literally EVERY game system after it has adhered to, although CDs have taken the place of ROMs in the intervening decades.

Intellivision.

First "next-gen" system, and the beginning of the console wars(Round 1: 2600 VS INTV).

Also features the first gamepad which, though it is a somewhat cumbersome device, had 8 switches allowing for 16-direction gameplay instead of the 8-way play of more conventional 4-switch controllers.

Perhaps most signifigantly, it had a BIOS ROM with a splash screen and many useful subroutines integrated into it.

5200. Input-wise, this is the most modern pre-N64 system.

Analog joysticks.

The integration of universal, well-labelled start and pause controls to the controller(also added a reset button to the sticks, though that idea fell flat).

4 controller ports.

Vectrex.

True 3D graphics through the use of the 3D Imager accessory.

Scaling and rotation of objects(thanks to the integrated vector display).

7800.

Backwards-compatiblity with the VCS/2600.

NES.

Created the gamepad as we now know it, as well as having a serial data stream coming from the controllers(by far more signifigant, really).

Resurrected the US game market.

Genesis.

Multiple background layers allowing for parallax effects to create the illusion of depth.

SNES.

Shoulder buttons.

Sample-based audio hardware.

3D effects through graphics mode 7, while not exactly the most robust ever made, are the beginning of a new era of raster-based 3D illusions(but not the first era).

PCEngine/TurboGrafX16.

CD-ROM games.

Playstation.

Transition from a focus on sprite/tile to polygon-based graphics, commonly mislabeled as 2D and 3D graphics.

Virtual Boy.

The first system with true 3D graphics on every game.

DS.

Touch-screen gaming.

You forgot:

1997 Cyberdine systems creates an intelligent gaming machine testing players ability's to fullest and giving them the ultimate gaming experience.

I don't think Terminator counts.

The Last Starfighter, though... THAT is worth mentioning.

Now if only I could find a machine and get myself recruited...

[mikeszekely]

You know what the REALLY interesting part of this list is?

A lot of darn good systems aren't on it, as well as some amazingly successful ones(try as I may, I can find nothing revolutionary about the legendary VCS/2600).

Furthermore, some of the most important ones were commercial disasters.

JB0 makes an excellent point. Innovation neither guarantees success, nor a fun gameplay experience. Likewise, giving people an upgraded form of what they already have doesn't guarantee boring, stagnant games and commericial failure. Look at the Gameboy family... they've consistantly outsold any of the home consoles, and it was only five or six years ago that the Gameboy even went 32 bit. Many people consider some of the Gameboy/GBA games to some of their favorites, despite the fact that many of them play like old SNES games.

Likewise, the Nintendo DS, which JB0 rightfully included on his list of truly innovative game machines, seems to be suffering. Almost any store that deals in used videogame software/hardware has several (Nintendo's impressive holiday sales figures don't account for how many were apparently sold back). This is largely because developers (including Nintendo themselves) are unsure of how to best take advantage of the DS's innovations. The result is a lack of quality software, and even the good games like Wario Ware and Feel the Magic end up feeling gimmicky.

Now with all that said, let's seperate Microsoft's Xbox division from the rest of the company. They're managed by different people, and aren't even located in the same building. The Xbox team, while far from Sony's spot as top dog, did a lot better that many people thought they would. They've enjoyed a level of success that an American company hasn't seen in the console market since before the NES. Part of that is that Microsoft has tons of money to throw behind the Xbox, but a lot of it was also because they were genuinely taking the time to try to figure out what consumers want, unlike Sony, who markets their stuff until you think you want it, or Nintendo, who just tries to tell you what you want (I still can't believe Iwata's "Gamers don't want online games" remark).

So, I could be totally wrong, but I'm going on good faith that the Xbox team will continue to try to give consumers what they want. (They do seem to be trying, since they are working harder to get Japanese developers on board and since they haven't entirely nixed the hard drive.) And with that good faith, I do intend to give the Xbox 360 a chance at launch.

[yellowlightman]

Part of that is that Microsoft has tons of money to throw behind the Xbox, but a lot of it was also because they were genuinely taking the time to try to figure out what consumers want, unlike Sony, who markets their stuff until you think you want it, or Nintendo, who just tries to tell you what you want (I still can't believe Iwata's "Gamers don't want online games" remark).

I think that's the biggest thing Microsoft has going for it, they're actually making a conscious effort to give gamers what they want. They're certainly not perfect, but they'll get it right eventually. Sony meanwhile released the PS2, which had nothing particularly improved about it (still really irks me they had to audacity to use the same controller, when it was obviously flawed). I think Sony still suffers from this kind of ego, take a look at their response to the complaints about the square button on the PSP...

Nintendo is frustrating in a similar way, but instead of ego I think it's being stubburn. Nintendo enjoyed so much time where they could make whatever they wanted, and have it sell in the millions I don't think they've ever fully recovered and realized they might need to sacrifice a few of their high ideals to sell more units. I love Nintendo, but I wish they wouldn't be so bullheaded.

So, I could be totally wrong, but I'm going on good faith that the Xbox team will continue to try to give consumers what they want.  (They do seem to be trying, since they are working harder to get Japanese developers on board and since they haven't entirely nixed the hard drive.)  And with that good faith, I do intend to give the Xbox 360 a chance at launch.

That's my way of thinking as well, Microsoft is the only one showing that it's trying to make the system people want, rather than making the system they want.