Inbox

We called EA and their reps told us that the game release date has been changed from spring to fall. They didn’t say why, but our managing editor Greg Orlando suspects that it might be because they want to fit more Nazis in it so that he can shoot them. But that’s Greg.

One criticism: way too many typos in your first and second issue. My wife is a teacher of English as a second language and English for literacy with a degree in English literature. Are you interested in a good proofreader?
Tony Pikos

No thnaks, Tony, we’re dOing fine.

I just want to know what could possibly be holding back GTA3 from coming to the Xbox? I’m sure whatever kind of money Sony could be offering them would be well overcome by the money they would make. When you have something that good, why use its full potential? Any other thoughts on why they are holding out?
Ziggy

We have heard, through a source close to the Grand Theft Auto development team, that GTA 3 is a PlayStation 2 exclusive and that Sony has paid for it to stay that way. Rockstar is not talking (as usual), but there is some good news: According to the same source, GTA 4 is in development for all systems, including Xbox.

I bought myself an Xbox at the end of November 2001. I doubt I’ve logged more than 500 hours of play time on this thing. In five short months, my Xbox has gone from being the coolest thing I could have spent $300 on, to the bane of my existence. I’m starting to wish I’d just spent my money on black tar heroin, I’d have ended up healthier. Over the last two months, my ‘Box has gone from occasional read errors (where the damn thing fails to recognize that, yes, that IS a game disc), and crashing once in a blue moon, to nine times out of 10 NOT reading my game disc, and crashing every 10th time after about half an hour. What’s really sad is that I’m NOT exaggerating; I’ve been keeping notes. And of course, since it didn’t turn into the HellBeast until AFTER a month after I bought it, getting it returned is going to be a nightmare.
Insomnia Bob

Getting it returned should be a breeze if you have a) registered it with Microsoft and b) it’s within 90 days of purchase. If it’s within those 90 days, then Microsoft will fix it free of charge. If it’s after those 90 days, that’s when it gets expensive. There’s a flat fee of $129.00 + tax for any repairs outside of the warranty. Ouch. You will also need proof of purchase, if you haven’t already registered the system.

First off, I would like to say that you guys have one great magazine. I’m glad to see someone out there is out to show both the good and the bad about the Xbox. I was reading the letters in your Spring Issue #2 and I wanted to let people know that the rumors about the Xbox failing are true! I purchased my Xbox in December and four days after the full warranty expired the thing stopped reading any game or audio disc including DVDs. I contacted Microsoft’s customer service department and they basic ally told me that I was SOL and if I wanted it fixed, it would cost me another $275.00 Canadian to get it done.
Bryan Duke

My Xbox is f#cked up too. I had to ship that big @ss box back to Memphis to get repaired. The DVD drive I think is going out already and I bought it before Christmas. I didn’t buy the $50 warranty, so you know they charged me an arm and a leg to ship it out to get repaired when basically it’s their own damn fault it’s messed up anyway. I guarantee you if it comes back still messed up, I’ll be raising some hell. My games just wouldn’t work. It said that my CDs were unrecognizable and that it was either dirty, scratched, or damaged. So I tried it on my friend’s Xbox and it worked fine. So, are my CDs dirty, scratched, or damaged? I don’t think so. Find some more people with the same problem so we could all raise hell together.
Seth Pontiff

My friend’s friend already bought a copy of Grand Theft Auto 3 for Xbox from a store. I want to know how he bought the game before IGN or whoever had a chance to even see screenshots of it. He bought it from a video game store nearby, and I even played it on his Xbox with my very own hands.
Nemesis3975

And then the pizza sent out for you!

You mentioned that some people returned their Xboxes saying that the “games wouldn’t play.” Well, that’s just because they’re impatient. When I first got my Xbox, it said “Your Xbox cannot read this disc, please make sure…” but after trying it a couple of times it worked. All you have to do is put in a different game and then put the game that wasn’t working back in.
OoctokikoO

I bought your first issue and I was blown away. You had so many previews of “what’s to come” on the Xbox, but talk about a 180! The newest issue I bought was garbage, you guys have big previews for multiplatform games, and no info about Xbox exclusives—not to mention you guys seem to have lost some steam on the Xbox bandwagon. That Japan launch coverage was a disgrace also, you sound as if Xbox is done for ‘cause Gamecube and PS2 sold a lot better in Japan, even though Xbox didn’t launch with Halo or many games Japanese people enjoy, you should have at least looked at the bright side and mentioned the successful American launch but I guess in your eyes developers besides Japanese ones suck, huh? Your next magazine is going to be the make or break magazine for me. I hope it’s a lot better.
Jake

It is.

How many of you gamers out there are Christians?
Scott Whitmore

If you’re asking about the Xbox Nation staff, we have two snake worshippers, a reformed Holy Roller who’s now an atheist who believes in God, and a guy who routinely bows down to a picture of Lorenzo Lamas. Oh, and our freelancers are all voodoo shamans.

While I think your magazine has started off pretty well, I took issue with some comments made on page 22, in the “Express” section. In the feature on the new Crash Bandicoot game for Xbox, I was surprised to read that the writer had never heard of Crash, a character who’s been a PlayStation staple for years with numerous TV commercials to “his” fame. While I’m no PlayStation fan per se, I thought I would write to see if the comments were in jest, or if in fact your staff has never heard of Crash. If the latter is the case, perhaps you should scour the industry more deeply for more qualified writers, or at least ones who played video games before.
Tony Pikos

We’re not sure about this “Crash” guy you’re talking about, Tony. But we’ll look into it. Sounds vaguely familiar…he’s sort of a blue hedgehog-type thing, right?

◼ Could this be the mysterious and seldom-seen Crash Bandicoot?

I saw your second magazine on a newsstand and really enjoyed it. I was wondering how I can order the first issue. Can you help?
Mike

No…not really. Well, not until we go monthly and offer subscriptions, anyway. Besides, the first issue was actually the happy result of placing an infinite number of chimpanzees in a room with an infinite number of typewriters. And bananas.

Ponder this point. Why does Sony have to keep throwing large amounts of money at developers to keep them on their team? It’s pretty simple. If anyone out there that has read about how hard it is to write software for the PlayStation 2, they would know why it takes so much time and money to keep the developers working on their projects. Market share is only half of the picture. The development of software for the Xbox is so easy that developers can port anything over to it. That’s why you’re not seeing good, ground-up, re-written titles for it yet. The developers are just porting things over to get on the bandwagon. Once the developers start writing specifically for the Xbox hardware, you will see awesome titles for it.
Michael Conforti

There’s no doubt we’re in a slump right now in terms of original titles, but Xbox Nation agrees with you that, given time, many developers will write Xbox games from the ground up. What is just as likely, however, is that if the Xbox installed user base doesn’t grow quickly enough, the economics of spending millions developing and Xbox-only game become less and less attractive. Whatever the case, we should all reserve judgment until after the next holiday season. We’ll get the advance word on that from the Xbox lineup at E3 this May.