Mystery building in Japan revealed as Xbox 360 Lounge
by Dan Choi 
{ Sep 20th 2005 at 9:30PM }
Not too long ago, we brought you
news of a mystery building going up in Japan. It was
obviously promoting the Xbox 360 on Sony and Nintendo's home turf, but we couldn't definitely ascertain its
purpose… until now. The Xbox 360 Lounge, as it's called, will be used to showcase the console and games that
constitute and surround its envisioned HD lifestyle.
GameSpot reports that the building's ultimate
purpose was revealed during Microsoft's press conference at [or the day before?] the Tokyo Game Show by Yoshihiro
Maruyama, general manager of the Xbox division for MS in Japan. He was quoted as saying, "We will begin promoting the
Xbox 360 on TV, newspapers, and magazines. We also plan on promotions that integrate various forms of entertainment,
such as sports, fashion, arts, and music. And as a symbol to our promotions, we will open an Xbox 360 Lounge, where
people can experience the high-definition entertainment that will be offered by the Xbox 360."
As the Lounge will not open until November, we can only guess that its showrooms will resemble the sleek design of
Apple's urban retail outlets and/or the ultra-modern living-room setup you see pictured
here and above (from Joystiq's belated look at
Microsoft's Xbox 360 booth at TGS posted earlier today). All right, what other promotional wackiness will those three
floors hold? Only time (and Maruyama's marketing skills)
will tell.
[UPDATE: Spiffae has provided us links to
a couple
more pics of the Lounge (prototype?) from TGS.
Check out the main photo-filled, TGS-centered post on his blog
here. Thanks, Spiffae!]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
bo @ Dec 18th 2005 9:36PM
first post sweet!!!! but yeah that thing looks awesome
Andrew Hsieh @ Dec 18th 2005 9:36PM
I don't know about you people, but this looks to me like a blatant cry for help.
CapTn_InSanO @ Dec 18th 2005 9:36PM
Just proof that in Japan Xbox needs all the help it can get.
A lounge no doubt to get the kids all hopped up on sugar, drugs, alcohol, or whatever they use in Japan and trick them into buying an xbox hidden in a Nintendo bag!
Zer0her0 @ Dec 18th 2005 9:36PM
Hello Ikea meets Apple Retail...
Spiffae @ Dec 18th 2005 9:36PM
Ha, I was at TGS, I played Ninety Nine Nights in the "Xbox Lounge" - it was strange, to say the least because they had a booth babe sit with you and give you pointers. It was much more comfortable than the PS2 areas or the stand-up X360 areas, and the screens were gorgeous, so it certainly didn't do the games any disservice.
I left with so-so feelings on the X360, but the lounge was cool, and really nicely designed.
Two pictures I took:
http://photos1.blogger.com/img/31/888/1024/tgs-05.jpg
http://photos1.blogger.com/img/31/888/1024/tgs-06.jpg
Dan Choi @ Dec 18th 2005 9:36PM
Thanks for linking those pics, Spiffae! I'll add 'em to the original post.
robotplague @ Dec 18th 2005 9:36PM
Not saying they shouldn't try...but it's my understanding that there really isn't a whole lot they can do the change Japanese gamers minds to like the Xbox.
Rare Hare @ Dec 18th 2005 9:36PM
spiffae, i'm curious.. what aspects of the 360 left the mixed emotions? if a fellow gamer only has so-so feelings after playing a next-gen console, it concerns me.
Smaug @ Dec 18th 2005 9:36PM
I think Mistwalker may be able to get the Japanese to at least consider the 360. That is if Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey are any good.....
Spiffae @ Dec 18th 2005 9:36PM
Hare, to be honest the system felt fine, the controller had some bugs that needed working out (namely Ninety Nine Nights asked you to please connect a controller to start the game, and they had to plug in the wireless controller, press a button, and then unplug it) but it felt good, about as heavy as the regular Xbox controller S, but better shaped.
What really disappointed me was the games. They were showing a Japanese pro wrestling game, Kameo, 99 Nights, Dead Rising, Chrome Hounds, NFS: Most Wanted, Test Drive: Unlimited, Ridge Racer 6, as well as some others that I didn't play.
I love racing games, and the three they were showing were terrible in their current state. NFS was slow, slightly chuggy, no sensation of speed, and terrible AI (the cops drive faster than you, so you are just racing - and losing to - police cars). They used HDR coming out of a tunnel, and besides that, the graphics were mediocre. Test Drive was the worst of the bunch, awful aliasing, bad camera, no sense of speed, terrible controls, and a piss-poor frame rate. I kept thinking I was just trying the wrong combo of car, track, and camera, but every time I tried it, it was bad. Ridge racer was the best of the bunch, even that felt decidedly last-gen in the gameplay department.
99 Nights was gorgeous to look at but nearly identical to the new Dynasty Warriors that I played on the PS2 at the show. Sure, there were more enemies, and the graphics were nice, but it didn't feel new or interesting. It was sharp on the HDTV, but there was some pretty bad aliasing. It felt like a complete game, but a pretty mediocre one. It was like "yeah, cool, the graphics are really hot. but do I care about this game? no, not really."
The two highlights were Chrome Hounds and Dead Rising, and even those with trepidation. Chrome Hounds was running on a 6 player system link setup, a 3v3 battle. You picked your mech, and then you had ten minutes. We all got nice headsets, and the game looked great. All the effects you would hope for were there, the sounds were good, but it just didn't feel balanced yet. Hitting enemy mechs was nearly impossible from anything but point blank, and since each mech has a zoom view, that can't be intentional. It was as if they were doing per-pixel hit detection in a situation where they really needed to be doing hitboxes. It took forever to take down a mech, sometimes 5-6 minutes of constant firing on a single "light" mech to kill him, and that just felt silly. The mechs barely show damage, are not knocked around by shots, and so you really feel like you're never going to kill these guys. The explosions are awesome, but when the mech rolls out from behind the giant fireball and looks perfectly normal and starts shooting you, it kind of kills it for me. Definetly has potential though.
Dead Rising was my pick on the 360, and from what I played, it is going to be a big hit. It's the zombie game everyone has been hoping for, Hundreds and hundreds of zombies ambling around, and you may see videos or screenshots, but nothing can prepapre you for the quality of the modeling on the levels. Every environment feels real, every shelf and tile, every peice of fruit, everything. It looks good, runs well, plays smoothly, and is great. In one play session I found an assault rifle on the top of a big freezer in a supermarket and just stood above a shambling mass of zombies, blowing their heads off just for fun, then I went to a hardware store where i went from a chainsaw to a scythe that let me hook zombies by the head and then throw them to the floor. It was a great ten minutes. The thing is, with worse graphics and less enemies on screen, it would be an xbox game.
The feeling I got from the xbox 360 was that really I should only expect to see better graphics technology and more enemies in higher res. The games felt like high res versions of regular Xbox games, and like any set of games, there were a lot of mediocre and bad games, with a couple gems. It wasn't the amazing next gen feeling I was hoping to get, everything except for the first two minutes of chrome hounds and Dead rising just felt like a letdown.
I left the show feeling like the games are going to make the system, they system is just another xbox, despite all the big promises. If the games are good, the system will be good, but it's just another step along the way.
Sorry, this has become something of an epic. A lot of people will say "well duh, of course it's just another system along the way," but I was hoping for something more. Something that when I sat down, I could say "this is next-gen. this is something new and different, and I am playing it first." instead, I got a bunch of ok games, some disappointments, and one happy surprise.
James @ Dec 18th 2005 9:36PM
Spiffae,
I think you're expecting too much from the first batch of games from the next-gen systems. PS2 launch titles weren't something to scream about over the best of the PS1 games. Wait until the middle of the life cycle to expect something to really blow you away.
Don't expect MGS4 to launch with PS3 either.
Spiffae @ Dec 18th 2005 9:36PM
Maybe it's just all the hoopla over the "next-gen" - I guess I didn't play many PS2 launch titles, and the early crap games are easily forgotten. I'm just posting my impressions. I went in with high expectations, and they weren't quite met. The more I think about Dead Rising though, I think it will be really good.
The other thing is that watching these games you could practically see the thousands of man-hours and millions dollars that went into the modelling, texturing, and polish that had to go into every image on every screen regardless of the quality of the game. As someone who is interested in getting into game design, this trend is depressing. Wish I had gotten into this fifteen years ago.
metal_gear_jello @ Dec 18th 2005 9:36PM
Spiffae, it seems your experience with NFS on the 360 parrallels with Joystiq's review of the game back in the european conference. I'm surprised that at this point it still hasn't changed...
I think of all the games MS was showcasing they picked the wrong ones.
metal_gear_jello @ Dec 18th 2005 9:36PM
Spiffae those were nice pictures you took of TGS and Japan. What camera did you use?
Spiffae @ Dec 18th 2005 9:36PM
Jello, I shoot digital with a Canon EOS 20D paired with an EF 18-85mm image stabilized lens. Thanks for the comments. Funny, I use my blog to write home to my folks, but all of a sudden my traffic is spiking from joystiq. My five minutes, I suppose.
I was really disappointed with NFS - not to say I loved NFS:U2, but the first Underground had a great sensation of speed, and while I was playing the game at TGS, I literally felt like I must not have found the right acceleration button. I asked the game's handler, and I was, the game was just not great.
Also, it wasn't that I was driving a slow car. The demo car is a tweaked out M3 - shouldn't feel sluggish.
metal_gear_jello @ Dec 18th 2005 9:36PM
Sorry to go off topic...
Sweet camera set up. How did you manage to sneak that past the men holdingup the signs, I don't think they should have bothered with the no picture policy. As people were taking pictures of booth babes regardless. I have the Canon Powershot S1-IS. It's pretty good though only takes jpg shots.
I visited your blog to see what it's like living in Japan. I'd definitely like to visit there someday. though I doubt I can work there as I know nothing of the language.
How's the food? :)
Spiffae @ Dec 18th 2005 9:36PM
Before this post slips off the main page...
Living in Japan is pretty crazy, something totally crazy happens just about every day. Not to sound like an advertisment or anything, but when I came I didn't know a word of Japanese, and he JET program really helps you out. If you're interested, it's a really awesome thing to do after school.
As for the no picture policy, it really seemed like no one really cared. The press was allowed to take photos, so I think it was more of a press exclusivity thing than them not wanting anyone to take pictures.
Anyway, off to work.
Spiffae @ Dec 18th 2005 9:36PM
Oops, forgot to answer: the food is awesome, if you have the courage to try new things. There's a lot more than just sushi, and even sushi is quite different. You can order crab brain sushi! There's a lot of fish, a lot of rice, and then all kinds of different things to go along with the fish and the rice. I'm enjoying it, but I like just about any food.