Well regardless of the piracy argument I would think the reason they would go with xvid support as opposed to Divx is to sidestep the Divx certification. If you have a Divx player it will coincidentally play xvid and I suppose the same works the other way around. I doubt they care much about illegal downloads, adding the feature is sure to sell at least a couple more units for people who want media functionality at zero cost to MS themselves.

You need to have a talk with her about microtransactions.

This is the first time I've heard this. Do you have a source?

We posted a few times about it earlier in the 360 thread. Bungie has a response on it in regards to Halo 3 here under the "You Owe me 80p" post.

http://www.bungie.net/News/content.a...news&cid=12821

Here's a link about Halo 3:

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/09/28/ha...ounters-claim/

Otherwise you can lurk around the Beyond3D forums, very technical stuff, but there's some threads about 360 games and their rendered resolutions; ~95% games render at 720p, a small handful render at 600p or 640p and only a couple render at 1080p. I believe Virtual Tennis 3 was one of the true 1080p games, I can't remember the other(s).

http://forum.beyond3d.com/index.php

"Virtua Tennis 3 is the first native 1080p game on XBOX 360."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtua_Tennis_3

I don't get all the hub-bub about a few lines of resolution. Most of the people here wouldn't even notice or care unless they had been told. Games look great regardless and as far as I'm concerned I'd rather have good frame rates.

Agreed. Who cares? If it looks good, it looks good. That's all that matters. People get way too anal over stuff like this.

Good idea. I didn't think about my toddler spending points. I tend to unplug the 360 during the day though - the big green power button and the loud whining noise the 360 makes are apparently irresistable to toddlers.

She likes Wiimotes better anyway, they look like remote controls, another favorite, and I worry less about her breaking them.

Agreed. I guess it comes along with the "HD arms race", but I don't think anyone would have noticed if not for those few elite nerds breaking out their rulers and counting pixels. :lol: -ohbfrank-

At least they weren't breaking out their rulers to measure what they are normally measuring in flame wars on forums. :lol:

:lol: Pixels are the new e-wangs.

Halo 3's graphics are nothing to write home about. That doesn't surprise me at all.

They're pretty good.

It actually hasn't been a big deal. It was around the net for a day, and seems like no one gives a shit since. :shrug:

They made a big enough deal about it for it to become news on multiple websites and Bungie to give a formal explanation about it.

As far as the graphics not being impressive, I'm not sure what some people are looking for. The game supports big battlefields with multiple enemies all on screen at the same time, plus all the vehicles. I especially liked the battle with the two Scarabs. Beauty IS in the eye of the beholder, and I think Halo 3 is beautiful.

That's cool. I just had never heard of 600p or 640p resolutions before. The games look great to me, even Halo 3.

360 newbie question: If you delete a game save and/or arcade live game...do you lose your achievements & gamer score points?

Nope. You're forever stuck with those achievements for Open Season.

Thanks for the reminder! I need to Gamefly that game. :lol:

Well, it's certainly news worthy I think that the flagship game for the XBox 360 isn't running at a "true HD" resolution.

But if it was a bigger deal, it's probably something that would have been bitched out for much longer, particularly from Sony fanboys i'm sure. It actually all seemed to blow over after a day, which is surprising.

It's funny how much apathy has been created due to it being Halo 3 being rendered under 720p. Remember how much Resistance was chided for not being 1080p when it first came out? Full 1080p support was such a huge bullet point for the PS3. Remember how much Sony fanboys stood strong that their console would be the 1080p king and all the 360 could do was 1080i (this was before the 1080p dashboard update and before people started figuring out that the 360's 1080i "support" was just upscaling)? And you know damn well that had Halo 3 been 1080p, it would have been the fucking holy golden standard for all games after it, anything NOT 1080p would have been shat on under Halo 3's ethereal godliness.. but now because it's not even 720p the attitude is "It looks great who the fuck cares about resolution?!"

For the record, I don't really care (remember, I'm a big Wii supporter, 480p only yay).. I am just annoyed that Microsoft falsely reports the resolutions of games on their boxes, at least Sony is honest in that regard (as far as I can tell, at least). I simply would have liked to have known which 360 games would have had an extra crispness to them on my TV but now I know the information on the box is worthless.

I think it is a non-issue because of two reasons: 1)the graphics (while not Bioshock) still look good whether they are 640p, 720p or 1080p and 2)people play Halo for the gameplay, not for the graphics.

If this had been a title where no one knew much about the gameplay and all that had seen of it and was bragged about was the graphics, then I think people would give more of a crap.

I knew Halo3's graphics would be better than Halo2 but I was not expecting anything earth-shattering. What I was expecting was awesome multiplayer gameplay. That is mostly what matters to Halo fans and the developers delivered...as usual.

Exactly.

Yeah, I remember. I remember how SONY was making it a point to let everyone know that the PS3 was able to push 1080p and its competitor couldn't.
Halo 3 not being 720p IS a non issue because you can't tell the fucking difference. If your tv is 720p then you're ultimately seeing the game at 720p. Also, your point about it being a standard if it did run at 1080p... well, yeah, I think it would raise the standard for other similar games.

Self-described Australian "lifestyle technology guide" Smarthouse is citing "a senior Toshiba executive in Singapore" as saying that Microsoft and Toshiba are working on a new Xbox 360 with a built-in HD DVD drive. "An Xbox with a built in HD DVD drive is critical. They and we are working on it," the unnamed executive told the site, adding that the system might have Toshiba branding rather than Microsoft (Panasonic Q, anyone?). As if that weren't enough, the article also hints at the possibility of wireless networking, an HDTV tuner and and MP3 player dock for the super-system, which would at the point probably have the MSRP of a small house.

This isn't the first time that rumors of an internal HD DVD drive for the 360 have leaked out, and it's just as hard to give them much credence now. The HD DVD-free system is soundly beating the Blu-ray equipped PS3 in sales and the $179 external drive is already serving the smallish segment market that wants high-def movies. Then again, with Blu-ray movies threatening to run away with the high-def movie crown and developers saying additional storage space is a must, maybe Microsoft is finally ready to make a strong move toward the format.

Or maybe not. According to Smarthouse, the new device won't be announced until late 2008 or even the January 2009 CES. We're not holding our breath but we're not exactly ignoring the possibility either.

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/10/19/ru...-for-xbox-360/