A tale of two 360s

Well, after weeks of no real news for gamers, several big announcements have come to light. The firs two being bad. One of the premiere games for the 360-Full Auto(think Burnout with guns), has been officially pushed back till next year. No one really knows how much This will affect the launch until we see what else is actually available, but it was something I had fully pre-ordered, so I'll have to think about what else I'd want to put that money on.

But much worse for Gamecube owners is that Zelda: The Twilight Princess has officially been delayed until at least the middle of 2006. This is realistically the one great game that was worth holding onto your Gamecube for, now with it possibly being pushed relatively close to the launch of the Revolution, they may even just move it on to their next system, as it would be a garaunteed system-seller.

And now for the big news-The 360's price was finally announced, and the rumors about there being a stripped-down and deluxe version were confirmed. The basic $299 model will not come with a hard drive or wireless controllers, but you also apparently won't need the hard drive to play most games (inlcuding the new Morrowind title, which is probably my most anticipated 360 game). But for only a $100 more (which it will cost to buy the 20 gig hard drive seperately), you will get a wireless controller, the hard drive, a head set and a dvd remote. In addition, the 360 only becomes backwards compatible with the hard drive, and obviously any downloadable content or media files you'd want to store and use for games or other purposes would very quickly fill up the standard memory card.

But the bigger implication here is that the hard drive will not be a standard in every 360 bought, possibly even only a small minority, meaning that most 360 games really won't take advantage of the possible features (i.e. save a game anywhere, faster loading, downloadable content, etc.). For me personally, things like downloadable content and backwards compatability aren't really a big deal though, so I'll have to see what if any affect the hard drive will have on any launch or near launch titles. If all it's good for is getting extra money out of me through downloadable content, I'll probably skip it.

Moving on-after a couple of weeks of mediocre offerings, we finally have some good-looking films open this weekend. First up is Wes Craven's Red Eye. This actually looks like the first promising thriller in a few years, but the previews already have given too much away, showing that Rachael Mcadams gets off the plane. Sure, it would've been harder to pull off, but a thriller taking place entirely in the confined space of a plane that has nothing to do with terrorists or prisoners would be a very cool idea.
And then there is Steve Carrell's first starring role-The 40-year Old Virgin. Normally, I would toss this off as another bad sex comedy about a total loser, but the great cast and suprisingly funny previews give me hope that this will be a great comedy.

Ok, that's really all for today, now excuse me while I readjust me 360 launch day budget.....