Has gone Gold! Yipee!

Tecmo have anounced that it has shipped, so with some luck we should have it before 2006 (if the shops are open near you that is).

Go to Sky1 (106) press red, press A-Z press 9 select XBox 360, when the advert is showing press 344, that’s level 1 of the hidden game…. Have fun

I have had the HDTV over at home now (Panasonic TX32LXD5) for the weekend, so here is my initial thought’s on the whole HDTV thing.

HD Source - 9/10 (xbox 360 at 720p) Sharp clear an full of detail I did not know existed before trying it, brilliant

SD Source - Sky+ standard scart cables in RGB mode - Watchable but not really impressive enough to show off the new toy, my wife actualy sid it’s not a very good picture!

SD Source - Denon Progressive scan DVD player - Lovely picture, clear colours and nice picture, better than my CRT (using RGB Scart)

So then should you upgrade? Yes Sky+ HD is coming soon I have also ordered some good quality scart cables (QED P2110’s) so hopefuly that will improve the pictue from Sky dramaticaly. I’ll let you know.

One of my all tme favorites has hit Live, go and download RoboTron 2084 NOW! It’s in the Coin Ops section

So then, the last time I wrote about what TV to get, I was set on a Panasonic Plasma of either 37 or 42 inches.

Well the wife had a think, and said no, 37 is too big, my mistake? I took her to the local Panasonic dealer and setup a side by side viewing of the 37 and the 42, hoping I could stear her in the 42″ area; what a mistake, after seeing 37″ in the flesh I was told it was too big for the room, Damn! Well it sort of made my decision I have bought and take collection shortly of a very fine Panasonic TX32LXD52 LCD screen.

LCD, yes I know Plasma is ‘better’ as the blacks are better defined and they are 42″ but hey, I was told 32″ so that is what I have bought. It has HDMI input, the same panel as the Panasonic TX32LXD500 and for £1000 it’s not badly priced.

The XBox360 should hook upto 1080i very nicely, and from all the reviews I have read the ‘52′ is the best HD LCD there is at the moment.

Let’s hope it is as good as the one in the Panasonic shop (brought it in and ran some Sky, DVD and HD on it). It looks great aside from some of the lower definition channels on Sky.

Should get me by for a few years at least, just hoping now it has no dead pixels!

Let you know what it’s like when it’s delivered, oh bought it from Empire if you would like to know as the Panasonic shop wanted £1500 for it.

Else to put these items, here goes :-

• XBox Live Marketplace RSS Feed
• Sega announce PSP Title - OutRun 2006 Coast to Coast
• The 360 Compatibility list updated
• IBM Release spec on the 360 Chip
• New Sniff Petrol

Thats about it, have fun

P.S. Oh yeah, the zip file attached is the opensource XBox360 ISO viewer/extractor.

Well then the wait is over. With some help from Dan I have got my grubby mitts on a console; so now I can play my games! Yippee! 

I have got it all plugged in and working, so here are a few observations from an afternoons worth of playing. 

• The Dolby 5.1 in most of the games is fantastic. 
• PGR3 is brilliant no matter how many FPS it runs at. 
• Gun is good, looks like it will be a good story driven game. 
• Kameo is pretty but not played it much. 
• Halo2 runs fine. 
• Condemned is scary as hell. 
• Kong is beautiful, some of the scenery detail is awesome 
• NFS-MW Pretty, although there seems to be slight hiccups as it loads textures? 
• PD-0 not played enough but it moves fluidly and looks great 
• Call of Duty is very pretty, will play that more later 
• Tiger Woods looks pretty seems to play well enough, but apparently online play is flawed 
• Hexic great for a no cost (well the cosole is 279 pounds) game. 
• Gauntlet brilliant 

Some other observations are things like the text on a lot of the games is very small obviously designed for larger than your average 30ish inch screens. The console has also ‘crashed’ twice on me, only whilst coming out of a game back to the desktop. I’ve also noticed it makes a fair chunk of noise, now that did not bother me earlier as I could have the sound up nice and high, but the wife will kill me if I do that while she is in bed ;) 

On a plus side the integration with WinXP MCE 2005 is great, works a treat, I can watch telly on my telly using the 360, it somehow makes it cooler! ;) The visualisations for music are great as well. 

More of a proper ‘review’ when I get the time. However I’m sure you are sick of people telling you how great the machine is, and it is, the way it is all linked together at the desktop is brilliant, Microsoft obviously did a lot of research into the interface, and for the most part I think they got it right.

Bad week for technology, not only did my 360 not arrive, but I got word that it would be difficult to locate my choice of TV (PDP-436XDE). However that may actually turn out to be a good thing.

Since I did my research a few months ago some other plasma TV’s have come into my price range.

My current choices are as follows (in order of choice) :- 

1. Panasonic TH-42PV500
2. LG RZ-42PY10X
3. Hitachi 42PD7500
   and if the wife decides that 42 is too big then 
4. Panasonic TH-37PV500(37″ baby brother to number 1) 

Why these devices? Well they all are HD Ready, and all have HD input’s. I shall pop out and have a look at them during the week, check back for which one I choose (may even get here before the 360 ;))

Some good articles over at Joystiq

• XBox vs. Xbox 360 — Kong vs. Kong
• Xbox vs. 360: Do you really need HD?

Also for you American readers try this site that will let you know when a 360 is available near you. Also this site (overloaded at the moment) will try to track the stock levels at various places for you.

Also I have been onto Amazon about my order and have been told that my XBox360 will go out when the next batch of consoles come in from Microsoft (early this week), all I had to do was kick up a stink

So with a little luck I will be playing the games I have sat here before my birthday! Yippee!

It has not really bothered me yet as I’m dying of a cold and cough that is stripping the lining off my throat; however after having 4 360’s on order I got you guessed it none! 

Amazing you say, Well Amazon are dragging there heals (I have 9 games a second controller, a wireless bridge, a charge kit from them already) but no console! and I ’spent’ nearly a grand with them, oh well. 

My Game console was bumped down to a core kit instead of a full one, and though I was sorely tempted to take the core I did not, so I got my deposit back. My wife had one on order from game but tried too late so had already been told she would not get one. 

The last 360 was organised by a friend of mine, and was in holding at Milton Keynes Asda; they could only hold it for an hour after midnight for me though, and I just could not face driving that far feeling like I did. 

So at the minute I am waiting for Amazon to sort their life out and get me my 360 out (which has been on order for about 6 months! my mistake was adding items to that order apparently) 

Oh well, let’s just hope it’s here before my birthday.