Welcome to Modojo, 
T-minus: one week
Written by Snow Wolf on Tuesday, November 15, 2005
At this time next week, lucky folks who manage to find Xbox360s for sale will be ushering in the next generation. This is just exciting stuff. How can any self-respecting tech geek not be thrilled by the impending launch?
Update on my Zero Hour status: ultimate cool boss John Benyamine was able to get GameDaily to cover my transportation costs over to Palmdale, California, but it turns out I can't make it out there because of my schedule anyway. But thanks again for his efforts! No, you don't get a free 360 by going to the event, though you do get to participate in an awesome party and get cool swag like a Zero Hour faceplate (and we all know how crazy people get about these faceplates). But you are guaranteed a 360 system if you want to buy one, which might not sound too hot, but considering the ridiculous system shortages, this sounds awfully appealing to someone like me who doesn't have a preorder.
Speaking of faceplates, the guys at Bizarre Creations have put up a charity auction for a Project Gotham Racing 3 faceplate with autographs from everybody on the development team. This faceplate is not available for retail, what a collector's item! Being such a huge fan of PGR, I must have this. The only problem is that the current bid is at $650 U.S...
Finally, finally, an official launch day release list has been released by Microsoft:
Amped 3
Call of Duty 2
Condemned: Criminal Origins
FIFA 06: Road to the World Cup
Gun
Kameo: Elements of Power
Madden NFL 06
NBA 2K6
NBA Live 06
Need for Speed Most Wanted
NHL 2K6
Perfect Dark Zero
Peter Jackson's King Kong
Project Gotham Racing 3
Quake 4
Ridge Racer 6
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06
Tony Hawk's American Wasteland
My definite buys: Kameo, Project Gotham Racing 3, Ridge Racer 6
Maybes depending on how my colleagues review them: NBA2K6, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Perfect Dark Zero, King Kong
Pretty solid launch, clearly very American.
One last thing, the power transformer for the 360 is becoming a favorite subject of many jokes, but the size of it shouldn't surprise anybody who is tuned into the tech world. I'm talking specifically about desktop replacement notebooks. Powerful hardware needs a lot of juice, folks. My two year old laptop has a power brick longer than a PSP that gets ridiculously warm. It's nothing compared to my brother's state of the art Sager laptop though, which has a power brick pretty much the same size as the 360's. Let's just say it keeps him nice and toasty during a freezing Boston winter.
This will probably be my last update until launch day. Next week I'll have an account of the trials and tribulations in locating a system, and if I strike gold, full impressions of the system hardware, services, interface and games.
EDIT: Ok, I don't think this is worth a full blog post so I'll just tag it onto here. I got into a bike accident about two hours ago. I've been looked over by a response unit and I've spent the last couple hours holding ice to my face. Luckily the injuries are pretty minor: I just have a gash under my left eye and above my lip, cuts on both hands and my right knee. But I'm still thinking coherently enough to type this so I guess I'm ok.
What happened was I was coming home from a recitation section at night and somehow I wasn't paying attention and went over the curb of a sidewalk. What's funny is that as I flew over, I had enough time to think to stop my fall with my hands, but I had too much momentum and my head bounced off the sidewalk anyways. Ugh... yeah, that'll leave a bruise tomorrow.
The bright side is that I'm climbing my way up to the coolness and extreme level of Microsoft Vice President J Allard, only I didn't break any bones =P.
Oh, and my bike's ok.
posted November 15, 2005