Our sweet test setup

I really like the dark model

Glad to hear you've got the team in town, but it looks like you need a second projector.

lucky s.o.b.

I am going to laugh so hard if they fall off of your couch.

Man... I hate you guys :'(

The darker unit looks like one of those cheap Dell desktop computers ... and what was in the silver case?

Woot, and I'm at a LAN party this weekend. (more than) 48 hours solid gaming, no sleep allowed. We'll be awake at the same time! Make sure you make poorly-spelt, sleep deprived posts here; I'll be online in my second monitor refreshing :-)

Red couches in a whitewalled room? What are you, crazy?

Give me an Xbox 360.

Please?

In the silver case:


- one wireless controller and a detacheable wire for it
- a rechargeable battery pack
- an xbox 360 keychain
- a few CDs of stuff (just one game)
- some batteries
- the universal remote
- a slip of paper saying that the memory card is "coming soon"
- the wireless networking adapter
- a reviewer's manual

Andrew: we're nuts.

just think, by 2007 we could have a picture of the final PS3 sitting on top of the developer unit on this very same red couch.

Is that the 360's power unit that the projector is sitting on?

wow, all that expensive geek hardware, on cheap ass furniture. Living large, my man, living large.

That's what ya call priorities! ;)

Let's here some news about the visualizer please. It's the only reason I have designs for an Xbox.

$1000 for a nice hd panasonic projector.
$650 2 red feaux(sp?) leather couches
$400 for an xbox 360 complete with 20gb hdd.

knocking over the xbox 360 causing it to break and give you permanent bad sectors on your hdd...priceless.

I think you should throw in some bourbon whiskey too though. And knives. See my example picture here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fearmattdotcom/48812578/

does anybody know if you can use any usb wireless network adapter or do you have to use the one made by microsoft?

Vlad diddy,
Is that you raising up in front of the lights? "I have a projector this big..."
Good times.

Dat is I!

#16 ronald.raygun, nice Panny HD projector $1000 in our dreams, try $3000 and up!

The projector is about $2000 in most places.

Nome, I will give you this... I froogled the one listed in the blog and found them for as low as $1325 but I bet from a not so trusted website. And DLP is the way to go and those are the expensive ones.

Oooh, a GameCube on the other sofa...nice :)

"I caught an Xbox thiiiisssss big"

lol

*mummble* lucky bastards */mummble*

yeah that stack (is two a stack?) of xbox360s on a couch doesn't look too stable.

Where's the sweet sound setup for your Dolby Digital?

enjoy sitting there playing your 360 and saying to yourself "hey didn't i already do this on the first xbox?". Revo all the way baby!

they don't need a dobly setup, there's a tivoli model three by the GCN.

You'll of all killed each other by the end of it- trying to decide who gets to keep them :p

What games did you get?
Condemmed and PD0 are taken ages to get reviewed, just wondering if you could do a small 1st impressions or summat :)

Shooting the projected image onto bare drywall? Ghetto. Trying to watch TV that way always gives me an eyestrain headache after about 30 minutes.

Joss -- we're not sure what games we got. They haven't arrived yet, so we've been playing Halo 2. ;)

Do yourself a favor and repaint the walls and ceiling a neutral flat gray. Go get one of those kodak ref cards from a photo store and match the paint color, and get a screen :)

Halo 2 is much, much better on the 360. It's farqin sweet.

vc, if you need me to come up for the play-a-thon just let me know bud! Haha, have fun guys...

Cool, read the Bungie update bout it and it does look sweet from the screenies.

Just read some disconcerting news about PD0 though from Ign:

IGN's Doug Perry wrote:
OK, so here's the deal with Perfect Dark Zero. We saw it at E3, we saw and played it at X05, and we played it at MS's gameplay visit the week after X05. That's been our total experience with Rare's FPS. I am on the phone or email with Microsoft daily about everything, and PDZ is always on my list of questions. The answer I get is this "PDZ is coming." No explanation at all. Just "it's coming."

Just like everyone else, I am going to the store tomorrow to buy it. I bought the special edition, hell if I know why... Anyway, the only difference between you and me is that I have a 360 to play it on. (Heh heh heh.)

So, what's going on? In my opinion, Microsoft is worried about Good ol' Joanna Dark and her sequel. They're worried about how much scrutiny it will be under; they're worried that PDZ isn't that good, and they're giving Rare as much time and support it can possibly give. At X05, J Allard said it learned a lot about game development with Halo 1, and it wants to give Rare as much time as possible to finish the title -- seeing how well Halo did with the same treatment. BTW, the game is done. The game will be in stores tomorrow. That's when I'll be picking mine up. Cause MS has not sent it to us. And tomorrow is when we'll be playing it. (In fact, if and when we do get it, make sure to check our site for movies and screens and new impressions. We'll let you know either way.) I dont blame MS at all on this one, either. No matter how good or bad that game ends up being, it's a first-person shooter from Rare, and it's a sequel to a Nintendo game, and for whatever other unbeknownst reasons, it's got the lovers and the haters all ready to do their thing on it.

So I think MS is hiding it from us? The thought had crossed my mind. I mean, why else would we have a copy of Kameo and PGS3, but not the biggy, PDZ? I'm a little confused on that one. Usually, when a publisher holds off a game from us, we know it's going to suck eggs. But would MS really hold off PDZ because it thinks its own game sucks? I don't have an answer to that yet, but I am suspicious. And I'll stop being suspicious when I get a copy and figure out how good or bad that game ends up being. Hopefully, tomorrow we can shed some light on it. Lastly, we won't review the game until we beat it and play it online, considering how important online play is for it. For Call of Duty 2 and PGR3 we played a substantial amount of online and LAN play to get a feel for it prior to their release. With PDZ? not nearly enough. So, expect at least one preview piece before the 22nd, and once it comes out, I think we'll wait to play with you guys before scoring it.

Cheers, Doug

Can't find a link coz I red it off a forum, but I doesn't look good for ol' Rare :'(

Condemmed is shaping up nicely apparantly though :)

next-gen.biz has a piece on the last minute pressings of PDZ which would explain why its slow getting out to reviewers. Question is whether it was too little too late or just in time.

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1662&Itemid=2

Is he flashign signs in that picture or is it just me?

Honestly though, joystiqs coverage of receiving thier XBox360 has been pretty lame. We got pictures and descriptions of every bag and box, but have yet to see or hear anything actually related to using the friggin system.

cool set up, but do you think you could post some thing on how it looks on a regular, non fancy, non hd, non composit TV? Cause thats what I have and I'm afraid its just not going to be very impressive on an already unimpressive tv.

alps, go to http://www.kotaku.com/ . He has a 360 unit just like Joystiq's and he's running it on a 30-something inch CRT without HD.

We will definitely test games at standard TV resolutions. Worry not.

As someone else said, lucky bastards.

And where do you sign up for this job?!?!? Gaming for 48hrs straight. Load me up on coffee and I am so down for that.

Will you guys be releasing before and after pictures of yourselves after this ordeal? ;)

Btw, I hate you guys.

But in a loving sort of way, of course. ;)

Sure its a great set-up people....but the larger the screen the higher quality it ain't in this case. I'll have my dream system saved up for and bought within the next couple of months, and it doesn't include projecting a hundred inches onto my drywall...

Sorry to dog everyone...I still think its bitchin...dont get me wrong. Its a setup that would make me wanna slap my momma

Shawn, what is DLP all about? How is it better than LCD?

Um, Eric, it's a 720p projector. HAVE YOU SEEN ONE OF THOSE?? Get out of the dark ages.

DLP is digital light projection. If you believe the sales hype, DLP tv's and projectors have a higher refresh rate and tighter, crisper colors. In a projector sense, they are supposed to last longer. In an LCD unit, there is a transparent LCD panel with the projector lamp shining through it. The LCD panels can burn out with the high heat. A DLP system has like millions of individual mirrors, the color they project is created by the angle of the individual mirrors, the angle is controlled by small servos.