Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft's X-Box Specs Revealed

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the getting-the-know dept.

Some information about Microsoft's rumored X-Box console has been leaked. Features are said to include a DVD drive, a 56K modem, a windows derived OS, a 1GHz CPU, 64 MB memory and 4 GB of HD space. Nintendonext has the scoop. All that, a possible $149 price tag.

3 of 312 comments (clear)

  1. M$ is not ready for this by Enoch+Root · · Score: 4
    Let's face it, M$ is gonna need some serious expertise if they want to pull this off. Their onlook on Operating Systems right now is, as long as it's stable enough, it'll fly. They also have a tendency to rush a production and issue bugs afterwards.

    Did you ever hear about the PSX needing upgrades and service packs? No, because the idea is to release the platform spotless from the start. The 4 GB hard drive is worth nothing; it's not a feature, it's a way to circumvent future bugs M$ know they're gonna get. Who wants to connect to the Internet and download service packs for your platform? That's gonna hurt the X-Box's reputation immensely.

    Incidentally, did anyone notice how M$ and Nintendo always explain their performance by comparing it to the PS2? 'We'll be faster than the PS2'. Hmm. It's just funny how the PS2 is already a standard, a full month before its Japanese release.

    Finally, if they need a 1 GHz processor to work this thing, then they're doing something wrong. The PS2 achieves 25M pps with only a dedicated 266 processor. A 1 GHz processor sounds like infinitely more than what's needed to power a cutting-edge gaming platform at this time.

    This is gonna bomb. M$ is not ready for this.

  2. It's just SO rediculous!!! by nft · · Score: 5

    I'd hardly think of a harddrive as an asset to a gaming console. What's it good for? An internet cache? I've got dsl, and I load database driven sites. New games? Let 'em stay on the server. When I connect to the server, I'm playing version 1.2.7 automatically without having to patch it.

    Playstion games look better now than five years ago when the PS first came out. Why? Because the programmers got better. Why? Because they weren't wasting time trying to integrate COM 2.0, or Direct X 12a, or whatever MS trys to sove down developers throuts. PS programmers just focus on the task at hand.

    So a winders based platform means Joey down the street can develop his own games. You think Joey won't need to replace DLL's? That's one of the reasons why winders crashes. And yup, harddrives will help that problem manifest.

    Next, let's talk about the price. If(the nintendo site didn't state any sources for their info, mind you) it really does come out in 2001 with a 1GHZ cpu, I'd think it'd cost WAY more than $150 with those specs.

    If there was a 1ghz cpu to be had for under $400, that'd kill the PC industry all together. Think about it. Way more power than you need, in a $150 box? Where's the space to squeeze in a $40(or whatever...) winders licence? They'd be killing themselves!

    Lastly, comparing a console to computer hardware is the old apples/oranges argument. PC gamers buy athlon 800's and GeForces to be able to run 3d games with 5000-10000 on-screen polygons at 1280x1024x32bit color. NTSC (that's those TV thingies) are more like 378x200 something. If you do the math, it take rediculously less power to drive the same number of polygons around at that resolution. The propossed x-boxen would have idle CPU cycles, which means it was over engineered, which means it costs too much to build regaurdless of the price. : )

    So maybe MS is thinking about a PC replacement? That kind of power would run winders NT pretty well, but it seems a little light for winders2k. That much hardware could drive a real monitor just fine. It'd also run Linux pretty well, and I'd guess it will about 4 months if it ever comes out, which it won't.

    The whole thing is just so rediculous...

    -=nft1999=-

    --
    "We must be the change we wish to see in the world." -Gandhi
  3. Nintendo Next is not trustworthy!!! by m3000 · · Score: 5

    This is not a flame or some stupid AC, but a valid warning. Anyone who follows Nintendo news will relieze that Nintendo Next is the "tabloids" of videogame reporting. They've mislead SOOOO many people with their bogus stories. I HIGHLY doubt anything they said in the article is true, or if it is, they sure as hell just heard it from rumors or unconfirmed reports. I'd take this article with a HUGE grain of salt. Story after story they "broke" has proven to be just based off of rumors or have been very misleading. I can't believe Slashdot would even post anything from somewhere as unreliable as NN.

    So to sum it up, I wouldn't trust anything you read in the article, especially since none of the major gaming sites have had anything new on the X-Box at all.