World's first look at 'Xbox 2' graphics
20These are the three 'Xbox 2' or 'Xenon' demos that stunned gamers long before the platform became known as "Xbox 360". The first shots in a next-gen battle were officially fired when Microsoft showed the first ever tech demos of what the next Xbox could do at GDC 2004. This was the world’s first peek at a new Xbox and a glimpse at the future of gaming.
Here's what we said at the time:
"Here's your first glimpse at what Xbox 2 might be capable of, fresh from the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, where Microsoft today announced a universal development platform known as XNA - rather clumsily standing for "Cross platform Next generation Architecture". The platform is being used to develop Xbox 2 games, along with next-gen games for Windows and mobile devices - and as you can see right here, it's already pumping out some stunning images.
Robbie Bach and J Allard took the stage at the San Jose Conference Center to explain what the new platform means for developers, and to show off the first ever technical demos the platform is capable of producing - effectively a peek at what the next generation Xbox will be capable of.
Talking about Xbox 2, Microsoft said: "XNA propels us ahead of Sony in the next-generation games race because the future of gaming is in software, not hardware. At GDC you are seeing some of the early possibilities of what the future will bring... Sony's Cell is a hardware solution. This is a software revolution. XNA ultimately deliver thousands of integrated devices that give consumers choice. Sony is talking about a fixed world of hardware that requires everyone to buy everything Sony."
"Film Noir" was developed in-house at Microsoft's Advanced Technology Group. It depicts an a buxom lady, who could have walked straight from the imaginations at Tecmo, being waited on at an outdoor restaurant table, as cigarette smoke slowly fades into the air. The purpose of the demo was to show how artists can focus on "ambience and highly-detailed environments from the get-go".
"Xenomorph", developed by High Voltage, reflected the theme of this year's GDC, "evolve", as a white gorilla thing ran around, and morphed into a crab spider thing, before morphing into a pink lizard thing, before morphing into a furry turtle armadillo thing, before morphing back into the white gorilla thing. Phew! The purpose was not to show the morphing nonsense, but rather to show how "imaginative and intricately detailed characters are possible on the technology", with comparable quality to big-name animated movies. The name "Xenomorph" echoes the Xbox 2 project name, Xenon.
Perhaps the most technically impressive demo, entitled "Crash" and developed by Pseudo Interactive, sees a blue sports car speeding out of its garage before hitting a brick wall at over 300km/h, crumpling to pieces in slow motion and shot from multiple angles. Microsoft say it demonstrates "incredible detail and breakthrough physics" - which would lead us to believe the staggering crumpling effect is real-time. The implications for crashes in games like Project Gotham Racing 3 - which we know to be in development for Xbox 2 - are mouth-watering to say the least. "
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