X-box hardware is complete

Xbox hardware finalised

In an article on Xbox.com, Jeff Henshaw, executive producer of Xbox development kits, has announced that Xbox hardware is now complete and heading into the hands of eager game-makers

At last month’s Gamestock in Seattle, Xbox was on show in a still incomplete form, with the final version of the nVidia graphics chip waiting to arrive. It would now seem, however, that all obstacles have been overcome, and the final hardware is ready and waiting for E3. Jeff Henshaw explains his relief at reaching the goal:
“For some time, we\'ve been promising to get the first hardware into developers\' hands before the Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3) in May. Making sure that happens has been our collective purpose in life ever since. It has meant having Xbox engineers work around the clock on pre-production units, bringing up software, testing hardware, and flying constantly between Redmond and our development partners\' sites. It was rough going for a while, but light at the end of the tunnel appeared.”

This coupled with news of an exclusive deal on The Matrix today paints a very different picture of the way Xbox will be percieved at E3. We\'ll have full updates from the showfloor.


Johnny Minkley
Wednesday, 02 May 2001

guess we won\'t have to hear / read anymore excuses from now on,if a pic shown on this forum isn\'t up to snuff i sure don\'t want to hear "well,x-box hardware is only 50 % complete" crap again!  

Welp Ya figure it will take a few months to really optomize code to take full advantage of the new found power


I\'m excited, if XBox blows me away graphically I\'ll excercise my pre-order for sure

Hopefully there will be a taste at E3

ya\' i\'m sure there will be some sweet game pics (over time for sure,just like all consoles),but i was taking a light-hearted approach (stabbing if i may) about the whole thing...no doubt E3 will show some good stuff,but i\'m not jumping on no friggin band wagon (ahem like some are doing way before things are even finalized) because it has a stamp saying it\'s 3 times the power..hehe..but now if a game looks like it sux,there is no more excuses,it sux!! ok,maybe it just isn\'t as good as should be (for the "be kind to X-box fans because they could erupt in tears" people in this forum ) lol

First off don\'t expect the dev to have enough time to take advantage of the new hardware for E3. Second it will be months before the developers really begin to show what the NV2A is all about.

Originally posted by TheOgodlyThing
First off don\'t expect the dev to have enough time to take advantage of the new hardware for E3. Second it will be months before the developers really begin to show what the NV2A is all about.

Wow there\'s an echo

I believe I sad the same thing

it don\'t matter though, Until XBox is firing on all cylinders people are gonna nit pick

Originally posted by TheOgodlyThing
It will be months before the developers really begin to show what the NV2A is all about.

Odd.  I thought the Xbox made developing easy... my bad I guess.

For some time, we\'ve been promising to get the first hardware into developers\' hands before the Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3) in May.

Funny how this article said first hardware into developers hands I wonder what is meant by that?

Odd. I thought the Xbox made developing easy... my bad I guess.

Odd i thought you actually had a brain, i\'m not even going to bother to try explain this one to you, cause i know i\'ll just be waisting my time. Maybe Dr Yassam, Ethugg, or someone else will take the time to explain this to you.

Originally posted by TheOgodlyThing


Odd i thought you actually had a brain, i\'m not even going to bother to try explain this one to you, cause i know i\'ll just be waisting my time. Maybe Dr Yassam, Ethugg, or someone else will take the time to explain this to you.

Hmmm.. seems kinda harsh to me.. unless you think I was being sarcastic.  I was under the impression, however, that the xbox\'s \'close to PC\' architecture made designing for it much easier than most consoles.  

Newho, you really should avoid fanboyism.  I have stated that I\'m a PS2 owner for the simple reason that it was out first.  Had the box and PS2 come out at the same time, and the box been better, well, I\'m not a sony fanboy (though I do think they\'re a better company than microsoft), so I would have gone with the better console.

though I do think they\'re a better company than microsoft

Your kidding me right, SONY this generation didn\'t give two SHlT\'s about us gamers, ONLY our money. (don\'t get me wrong MS, and Nintendo want our money as well)

Just look at the psx2
-2 controller ports
-no HD built in
-No ethernet buitl in
-same S***ty controller(and don\'t give this **** about how the psx controller is so good it didn\'t need to get changed)
-They made it a BlTCH to program for
-it\'s GS is nothing impressive, SONY could have done alot better(although some might argue, only time will tell
-it\'s sound processor is utter crap compared to XBOX\'s
-No hardware AA
etc.....

MS has put 10 times more effort into making the ultimate game console, as SONY it seems had gotten lazy.

Sony at this point in time is just like Sega when they  made the saturn, in the sense that they got C0cky, thinking that they were the best, and that they owned the console market, as SEGA thought with the saturn. You can ***** about GT3, MGS2 and so forth all you want but XBOX will be a better console with better games. The HD alone will take gaming to a whole new level

You say your not a fanboy, that you just bought PSX2 cause it came out first( you should of bought a DC) well i\'m not a MS fanboy, I owned the orginal PSX, cause it was a good console(as for PSX2 which is another story)

Now comes this generation and i see XBOX where psx was in the beginning. I see an amazing console, a Company that has put everything they got into this machine to win the gamers over, therefore I choose the XBOX, cause this time round MS is the better company, not SONY.  Now i\'m sure those arrogant assholes over at sony have learned a lesson from the psx2, and when PSX3 comes out, It may very well be the SHlT, and maybe MS get\'s C0cky like sony, and gives us a half ass console XBOX2. WHO knows.

Originally posted by FatalXception
Odd.  I thought the Xbox made developing easy... my bad I guess.

It is. But optimizing code, let alone writing it, always takes time. Xbox can\'t do wonders, it can only aid developers with an easy-to-program backbone.

Actually, I was refering to sony as an overall company.  In all my dealings with MS products I\'ve been dissapointed.. I absolutely hate their customer support.  
I signed up for their beta of IE6 (big mistake), since I generally sign up for betas and try to help out.  The first thing it did was totally %#!@ up my address book, so I lost about 100 email addresses.  I reported it, got a reply back 2 weeks later stating that they had known about this bug BEFORE release!  Had they warned me, I woulda backed-up!
With sony, however, they have always treated me well.  I returned a 300 dollar set of headphones over 2.5 months after Xmas ("policy" says 30 days), and all it took was 30 seconds with the manager to get a full MONEY refund (I ended up spending 180 right away in the store).  When I didn\'t get my demo disk, I talked online to a sony rep, and though she said she couldn\'t do anything, she took my personal info - I got it less than a week later...

Let me tell you something about SONY. Here is what they make good.

-Camcorders
-Portable players [minidisc, discman, walkman]
-headphones are nothing speacial, considering alot of them are over priced, go with sennheiser or Grado. But sony makes good cheap headphones like the street style, or ear buds. Also there MDR700dJ phones are priced fairly.
-TV\'s are good, but not the best. Panasonic TAU is alot better than the WEGA, and when it comes to HDTV sony is nothing special.
-They make AWESOME PC MONITORS

On a side note, when is comes to AUDIO like receivers, cd players, DVD players, speakers, blank cd\'s etc... they are piss ****ty. Have you ever heard a sony reciever, they sound like ****. There home audio is garabage. This is what sony\'s does with there receivers and other not so good products. They design them very well, cause they know the average consumer dosen\'t know F**K all about electronics, and are always won over by looks

Don\'t get me wrong SONY does make a few good products here and there, like the ones i listed above, but as an overall company for consumer products they are NOTHING SPECIAL.


As for MS windows, and the pereprials, i couldn\'t care less. Alothough MS does make a good flight simulator joystick, with forcefeed back

Sony is really losing quality controll.  Have you guys bought anything from them lately?

I bought headphones and there was a short in them (100 dollar headphones), home CD 5 disk changer, had to take back once, second time had to take back again, I had to pay 600 us dollars for the better model to get anything to work.  Look at all the PS2 returns and PS2\'s that are being fixed.

About downloading IE 6... Well anyone that downloads an Alpha or beta software and has issues and expects not to have any problems is really not that bright anyway.

Not to mention that Sony makes anything and everything electronic including Alarm Clocks, VCR\'s, DVD players, monitors, headphones, video game software, computer software, tv\'s, calculators, music, movies, and I am not even going to keep naming stuff because its too long to keep on going, but clearly, Sony is into a lot more things than Microsoft.

Somehow Sony can\'t do anything wrong, they can rip people off, but because people like Sony because even though they are worse than Microsoft, at least they have the "quality myth"...

Concerning the controllers...

(1) They are actually an excellent design, GC controller starting to look like it.
(2) PSXers don\'t have to dole out $100 to get 3 more controllers
(3) What would we do about backwards compatability if controllers were different huh?