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The X-Box: An Emulator's Dream Platform?
Fros1y asks: "Okay, it seems like Microsoft may well make a big splash in the console market when they unroll the X-Box. With all the emulators out there, why wouldn't Microsoft expand their box's ability? If they took the new Playstation emulator and ported it for the system, they could tap a large market right off the bat. Roll in some cute NES and SNES emulators and they'd have an interesting system. Being Microsoft and all, they might even want to reverse engineer or license N64 and PSX systems. I guess there might be problems with ROM loading and such, but I'd bet that Microsoft could use their clout to license older games and put them onto a network pay system. Why wouldn't Microsoft want to pursue this kind of market strategy? Or have they already and I'm just out of the loop?" A nice thought, but Microsoft would have to play extremely nice with a lot of people to pull this one off. Thoughts?
I'm sure Bleem will have a PSX and possibly a PS2 emulator out for the X-Box a few months after it's release. That is, if Bleem is still around Q1 2002.
I just can't wait for the DC version of Bleem to come out. Seeing side by side the differences at E3 was amazing.
When money talks anything can be possible. Just my 2 cents though.
Microsoft support other people's software/hardware?
That would be very un-Microsoft.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
Well, it's an interesting thought but is this the Microsoft way of doing things?
Usually when M$ find something they like they buy the company and merges their software (or hardware) with their current strategies. I don't know of any kind of software that Microsoft licenses from others, but say they wanted to, would the SNES/N64 guys really allow it?
Nah.. No licensing. With their size and cashmachine, they will succeed anyway.
Sure, Microsoft could do some great things with the X-Box, and it could be a great console. The only problem is they don't get along well enough with others to get enough good games. I'll stick with Sony and quality game makers like Square and Electronic Arts, thank you very much.
Okay, so it wouldn't be too hard to port an emulator. Of course, Sony would object, and might posibly sue. Microsoft vs. Sony - That would be a bloodbath. Neither side wants to get into that fight, and Microsoft have easily enough clout to make sure they have a good line up at launch.
Add to this the relative ease of porting PC games, I think we'll see Microsoft just porting them.
Of course, a third part emulator is almost certain. There will also probably be a PC X-Box emulator.
Given the availability of tools for the DC out there, and the fact that bleemcast is almost ready to roll, what's to stop anyone developing mamecast or similar for that box? If not mamecast, the next version of the sega browser will supposedly have java support built in to it, and that would be able to run this version of Pacman. I wouldn't think that XBox will be very open to develop for, but the DC might be.
i hope so. heres why. .nes files for your fav nes-8bit carts, though good luck buying them at anywhere but a thrift store or ebay.
First off emulation of consoles isnt nesecarily illegal but playing a rom you dont own on cart certainly is. Meaning these companies that disown roms would have to take them and use them. I doubt on nintendo.com you are going to see anytime soon
Not only would ms microsoft have to play nice with companies like nintendo who i doubt it has ties with which would be lame, but it would take off the flash of newness that the x-console would have. If people start using it for nesticle wouldnt people ( hopfully) find out that its free and with enough crawling the net you can GET THOSE ROMS FREE anyways.
Microsoft wont make any money from the hardware, just as all the other console manufacturers they will make their money from licencing fees. I dont see how they can do that when people play old PSX games on their hardware.
The Xbox seems nice but I dont see what It can do that my present computer cant.
/das Ix
This is my sig, show me yours
Perhaps it's all a ploy and Microsoft is just goign to buy Sony, and Nintendo.
"as plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee" - Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz. (One man's humorous is another mans flamebait)
http://www.xbuk.co.uk/features/2000060 4a.asp
Lets bring it up to our playing field....
The X-Box looks to be a great piece of hardware, but personally I don't see much that it's doing that you don't already see in high-end graphics engines. Personally, I might buy one just to figure out how to slap Linux or *BSD on it and get it running in the corner as a rendering powerhouse, but other then that...I don't view it as that special.
Kind of sad about Bleem...there was going to be a Linux port of their new game Halo, which looks schweet (and I spend much more time coding than gaming, so that's a real compliment). Now that MS has 'em, probably no port. :(
To die, to code, perchance to sleep; aye, there's the rub. For in this code of grep what sleep may come?
Why was this even posted? It seems fairly obvious to me that this is a ridiculous idea. Microsoft is in a very precarious position right now - I don't know if you've read the news, but they are about to get broken up until further notice. Another thread on slashdot covered the very topic of this, and how microsoft might appeal, etc...
Trying to monopolize the console market like this, by taking away the advantages of each separate console manufacturer and putting it into their own hands would hardly help Microsoft establish its angelic look.
It's just another thorn in Microsoft's already bleeding foot. I think they would rather let it heal...
If Microsoft was going into the video game emulation business, wouldn't they have already done it for Windows?
You might wanna have a look at this thread.
I agree, if your gonna say, have the gut's to stick your name behind it.
"Semper in excretum set alta variant"
If such a thing were ever to happen, or even if a commercial S/NES, N64, Genesis, etc., emulator were to hit store shelves, then the game companies would kill off the whole semi-legit side of emulation. As it stands now, there are many websites which have been around for over a year, which are the center of the emulation scene. Some of these sites literally have tens of thousands of ROMS for download, everything from early 80s arcade games to Nes and Genesis to 90s NeoGeo stuff. And as of yet, no one except for the N64 emulator people (N64 is too recent--still being sold--so Nintendo cares about preventing ROM download) and Bleem! have been hit by the game companies.
But if a widely sold commercial product offered to play these ROMs, Nintendo and Sega and SNK and the rest would sick the lawyers. It would be a horrible bloodbath, since using emulators is legal but offering ROMs for download isn't. I hope no one ever, ever, tries that.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
How easy is it going to be for somebody familiar with Windows to reverse-engineer an X-Box (presumably there's very little non-standard about the hardware) and write an emulator to run on another MS platform? You'll sure-as-hell not going to need to emulate the processor, for one. I can imagine that should someone do an emulator, their desktop dominance might become a big stumbling block for them: I mean, how do you sell an X-Box to people who've bought a PC who know they can play the X-Box games just as easily...?
Or are MS going to take the chance and sell an X-Box emulator to keep people with Windows? Hmm, quite a few possibilities / conspiracy theories there.
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
a) a high margin on the blades which they achieve through developers licensing model at minimal risk (they get a slice no matter what games are produced)
b) blades wear out and thus require replacement. Now the trick with this is to periodically make the razor slightly incompatible enough that people are motivated to buy the new version. A more sophisticated form is make the product so compelling (a la Gilette) that the competition is basically sidelined by the hype
c) you retain control over the distribution/branding of the razor/blades. If people forgot, Sony has recently purchased a bank. Given their technical wizardry and ability to interface every consumer electronics gadget known to man-kind into their system (not to mention owning significant audio/video/digital content) then you can probably guess their strategy.
The problem with games is that the significant up-front costs of development is so high that you really want a block-buster (a la movie studios) to recoup additional money through merchandising (can we say Laura Croft?). Microsoft certainly has the cash-cow, but do they have the creative smarts to become a content powerhouse like Sony? While putting out emulators may be a short-term win, what they really want is control of your cable and entryway into your house (he who has the beachhead, controls the shores). Whichever group gets a 50% market share can then have more leeway in dictating access rights and conditions of entry (e.g. insistence of "inspection" of code against "viruses"). It doesn't have to be anal-retentive to be classified as anti-competitive (and risk bringing more anti-trust lawsuits), just onerous enough that they can delay and browbeat content producers into submission (think musicians but on larger scale). The problem is not so much *development*, but *distribution*. Control, control, control ... of the key nexuses and technologies is enough.
However, the fatal assumption is that the blades (software) can wear out fast enough to gain significant revenue flow. Emulators have a purpose, they preserve the value of any large-scale software collection against hardware obsolescence (deliberate or otherwise). One can see the case in Inform, the Infocode compiler for interactive text adventures from Infocom which a certain group wishes to preserve for their own enjoyment. It was not intended for wholescale piracy of existing works but to maintain portability of the software across multiple platforms and across a longer time scale than the fortunes of any single company.
<rant mode=on>
***** PROSUMER PROTEST *****
I reject the presumption of media companies that digital media (especially games) are a disposable item. When I acquire an item to add to my not-inconsiderable collection, I expect the value (include resale) of that collection to be retained over time. While OSs are clearly a service industry (their job is to maintain system stability and interoperability), the computing games industry business is entertainment and I expect to recreate the pleasureable experience from fragging (in the nicest possible digital way) my younger brother for many years to come in the future.
Altering the system from a durable item (console + disk + game) to a mere temporary license to use for a limited period due to the "oh, so sorry, parts for your failed console are unavailable" is a subtle form of *BAIT and SWITCH* IMHO. Hardware is failable, but software can always be recreated/emulated. Why won't companies like MS or Sony play fair? Think about it. If there was a *CREDIBLE* (ie FUD-proof) software competitor to their hardware, guess how they would retain long-term control over developers who can bypass them and go straight to the software emulator? From the point of view of a prosumer (ie take the con- out of consumer), I would prefer a long-term competitive landscape so that prices reflect reality and also give incentives for the smaller niche players (e.g. MUD) to develop really innovative games (plus as a matter of principle, I like supporting the underdogs).
If people are serious about preserving the long-term value of any games they may buy, I would strongly urge you to support the WulfStation project on SourceForge. It is in *your* long-term interests to keep any PSX2 games you buy when they roll around with the PSX3 in 5-6 years time. The X-Box may or may not be worthwhile emulation platform but that's irrelevant if the goal is to preserve your priviledges as a collector. Ditto for any X-box/Dreamcast/Amiga/Sega games in that any good ones should be preserved for prosperity if possible.
</rant>
LL
Don't you mean it's sad that MS bought Bungie? I know I do. I really hope MS gets broken up before Halo comes out. If it does then MS-App will have no reason to not release a Linux port, because they won't have any great interest in Window's survival.
If you don't care about Microsoft, don't talk about them at all. You think this is the only place on the Internet to go whine about them? Please. And so you say, "Well we can't ignore them. They're an unfortunate reality in the business world, and so to ignore them would be unrealistic." Yeah, almost as unrealistic as discussing the "possibility" (snicker) of GNU/Linux taking the desktop from Windows?
This site was better when no one was under the illusion that it's either a political force or a real news outlet.
Slashdot openly proclaims its hostility with that [mildly amusung, I'll admit] Borg icon. And all pro-Microsoft posters are flamed into oblivion. I see more anti-MS FUD in one day here than I've ever seen anti-Linux FUD in Redmond. And yet we still have those that would say, "It's news for nerds, not just news for Linux users." And then we see stories about the X-box and Windows-only games.
The FUD is going to be this movement's downfall. There's enough wrong with Microsoft; who needs to make stuff up? But every day I see more and more of this childish anti-"Windoze" attitude. When did it become so trendy to constantly talk about how much Microsoft sucks? When you installed your l337 Red Hat 6.2 distro? And why do I know that 99% of those poseurs could't even begin to discuss the technical merits of UNIX and NT kernels? But I digress. The childish attitude prompts people to say things like, "Oh, well I'm sorry, but I cannot possibly [do something on a computer] because I use Linux . <snobbish, elitist sneer>" Is that kind of attitude going to help us? No. The average luser sees that and thinks, "This guy uses some crazy, fringe OS. Apparently this OS can't do anything Windows can. And its users are mean and talk down to people." The fact that Malda, who usually rises above that crap, did this exact same thing in a story post a few days ago seems to be an omen. (Come on, Rob, you're as elite as it gets. You don't need do act that way. You should be encouraging the same mature activism that you applaud Maddog for, instead of perpetuating the snobbish-yet-amazingly-ignorant-5cr1p7-k1dd13 act. If you're willing to waste hours playing games on that Windows box, you should be willing to turn it on to see a video clip for a story post. For the amount of cash you get to run this site, you'd better be fucking willing to.)
In today's world, each and every Linux user on this site is a spokesman for our cause. Maturity and a realistic attitude, combined with a real knowledge of what makes Linux the best choice in some situations, is the only hope we have to take any real market share away from the "dreaded" Microsoft.
LOL, this is what happens when you start a rant at four in the morning. G'night.
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I like to watch.
...yes, you are out of the loop.
Not a chance. Microsoft wants the X-Box to be seen as a completely unique and revolutionary platform by consumers (although it presents a familiar face to developers). They'd never go for something like a PS emulator simply because it would make the average consumer view it as "that PS compatible that also plays some PC games". That's the last thing that MS would want to happen. The only way you'd see something like that would be (A) if some third party developer ports an emulator or (B) after the X-Box has been on the market for a while and has started to lose the "new product" gloss.
Emulating is a nice gimmick, but nothing more. MS needs to market their x-box as on par with the current generation of game consoles. Being compatible with a few obsolete platforms is not very relevant for them.
In addition they need to market their own platform, so they'll focus on marketing directX games. Unlike other game console platforms they will have a huge amount of existing directX games when this thing is launched (assuming it is relatively easy to port them). So the need to include support for obsolete platforms is not very high.
And finally, emulators could be ported to other game consoles as well. There is not much stopping Sony from porting mame to their platform, yet they are not doing it. The reason is simple, you don't buy a playstation 2 to play old nintendo games.
Jilles
MS has produced one of the most popular game emulators out there. They spent a considerable amount of time and effort to emulate a deck of cards using the advanced innovative technology of Windows, but right now their emulator is only limited to one game, solitaire. They are planning to rectify this by adding support for Poker and Blackjack in a service pack that is slated for release by Fall 2014.
As for emulating the X-box, I wouldn't have thought it would have been particularly difficult, but why!?? The clear benifit for game developers using the X-box platform is that they can build simultaneously and easily for both x-box & win32... hence low end users will buy the xbox version and high end users can buy the windows version. Disclaimer - I have no information to back this up but if it's not the case then M$ are fools (but they are anwyay)
Right now it's nintendo and sony that should be worried. Now that developers need only make their software once over to have Windows, X-box, Linux (if wine catches up with all the DX8 stuff), and possibly even MacOS (since Macs appear to be soon using a similar nvidia graphics chip and recompiling the code wouldn't be too difficult, particularly if a subdivided microsoft starting supporting apple better).
As far as I understand it, consoles are sold at a substantial markdown, so that companies can recoup their losses on game sales. Any company that actively supports an emulator for another company's platform keeps the games sales for that platform alive, and profits high.
Does that sound like a Microsoft tactic?
Gingko
i don't do sigs. oops.
To do what this article suggests would open up all kinds of legal nastiness for Microsoft when it's quite apparent their lawyers are needed elsewhere. Ahh, but what if this idea really appealled to Microsoft, then what would they do between wanting to do it, and having legal ramifications?
Get somebody else to do it for them!!
Document the heck out of whatever interface talks to this thing, and provide it to a couple of smaller hardware companies, possibly some new upstarts. With the possibility of making the doohicky that gets tacked on to an MS console selling to millions of folks, you'd bet there'd be folks in line to do this.
Once all the legalities have been fought out by the wee upstart, draining them of any capitol they may have been able to put together from actually selling products, big friendly MS swoops in and buys them out. Everybody wins but the competition, and all it cost to MS was a little extra documentation and a possible loophole in their licensing.
Some day I want to run my own evil company! <audio src="evillaughter.mp3">
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
PEACE, Journey ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Every week or so we have another article about X-box. It won't even be around for over a year.(esp with the way MS keeps dates) Yes it will have nice hardware, but then so will the Indrema, In fact they seem almost identical hardware wise. (except Indrema can have a larger harddrive up to 50gigs, think TIVO, it comes with a MPEG encoder).
As far as software goes the Indrema is much more interesting because the SDK is free and the licensing very open.
Why would anyone bother with an X-box? The only reason I can think is to try to load linux or something inorder to screw MS from licensing fees.
Then again maybe I just hate MS.;)
They misunderestimated me. -- George W. Bush
>When did it become so trendy to constantly
>talk about how much Microsoft sucks?
This is just a natural reaction to release from as big an 'authority figure' as Microsoft. Microsoft is the doorkeeper from Kafka's 'Before the Law'. When you realise you can just walk right by, you trip out on endorphins for a while and rail against MS. You're out of your reins! All those blue screens, and all the time you could simply have WALKED ON BY. So you start crowing about your heroic defeat of MS, and overenthusiatically advocate emacs.
What we need to do is catch people earlier, so they don't come TO Linux FROM Windows. I'd imagine if someone was used to Linux, they'd look at Windows and just shrug. "Can't think of a good reason to use it." But when they 'find' Linux after years of MS, they get discombobulated about having been on the wrong end of the stick for so long, and MS becomes The Evil Empire.
What we clearly need are "My Little Linux" toy PCs. Tux gives us an immediate advantage in the preschool sector. Let's go!
Wow, quite a rant! I'm not quite there with you on the tone it was delivered in, but I agree with the basic point you're trying to get at.
/. really need to be covering this stuff, both the good and bad.
As I've begun to post more frequently around here I keep finding myself in the position of defending Microsoft. Thing is, in the off-line world I'm usually the first one in line to give them a hard time, especially concerning Internet technologies.
I don't think of myself as being two-faced or hypocritical in my opinions on this. I firmly believe in giving credit where it's due, and pointing out flaws where they exist. In so doing, I don't fit neatly into any of the on-line cliques that form up around product lines. Perhaps it's this aspect of the whole "Everything MS Sucks" crowd that appeals to many of the folks around here.
The importance of Linux taking market share seems to keep getting lost on a lot of folks. The battle isn't over releasing the source code of every bit of software. The real battle is to get enough Linux and other alternate OS's out there to insure that the entire computer industry HAS to rely on open standards to survive. As citizens of a much large community than just Open Source or FSF we all need to keep this in mind.
Here's where I'm gonna get skewered here, but MS brings a lot of cool stuff to the table. They're directly involved with darn near every standards body that has the possibility of making a difference to what the future holds for the whole of the industry. Heck, they had a huge part in helping build this industry from the very beginnings of the very first PC. Sites like
There's a lot to be learned from Microsoft that seems to get lost on the Open Source crowd. Yes, they've done some stupid things, but if that's all you can see then you've got some serious side blinders on. I personally love the "NT crashes every 5 minutes" posts. I've got enough experience with NT to know one hell of a lot better, and to also know where NT truly does fall short. What I find odd is how you never see those NT crashing posts in the same thread as some fella bouncing his Linux distro hard due to a bad make.
For whatever reasons, it's cooler to just be a zealot than to evaluate based on merits.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
I am a full-time "professional" videogame developer in the process of building my first software studio. I have worked on projects from Corporate Flagship Title all the way down to shareware puzzle game, but almost always on PC (the occasional Mac title being the exception) I have been watching the console market for quite a while, looking for my chance to jump in, and I must say this is an extremely interesting point.
Most of the posts so far have been concerned with either Playstation emulation or older cart game emulation like mame. I have a much different take on the situation, namely that the Dreamcast is the most obvious target for emulation on the X-Box, as it is WinCE/COM based code already. Right? Not only that, but with the hardware being sold as a loss leader for software recouping, and Sega's position as an underdog in the market, this would be a dream come true for Sega. Not to mention [Sega's] recent and heartening madcap maneuvering with ideas like free Dreamcasts with Internet service, broadband support, etc. I think they would embrace this wholeheartedly. It even makes me think there is room for a Sega buyout by Microsoft. Not totally out of the question, if you ask me.
This makes a huge impact on my strategizing, as I have been deliberating with my partners about whether to pursue psx2, psx1, Dreamcast or PC. We aren't even thinking about Dolphin or N64 for what are to me obvious reasons. We have been leaning in the direction of a PC title, because of the promise of quick porting to the X-Box. Also, we don't necessarily want to spend the $250,000 to $1,000,000 that the console mfctrs. are asking for development rights. X-Box doesn't look to be heading in this direction, which is the surest sign that it will succeed (If I am wrong here, I would love to know, I have been looking for any hints as to what licensing model is actually being planned). Another point in favor of X-box development (for developers) is that MS probably won't be nearly as anal as Sony approving a game. Sony (and to a much worse extent, Nintendo) is notorious for their strong-arming over final approval.
Now, with the notion of easy console-to-console emulation being planned/thrown about, it makes the Dreamcast extremely appealing, because we could finish two or three titles before the X-Box hits the shelves. We could possibly have our first title ported by that time, but with emulation as a built in feature, we wouldn't even need to worry about it. X-box market share could be viewed as a subset of Dreamcast market share for as long as the first year X-box is out! This would definately make courting investors much much easier.
:)Fudboy
:)Fudboy
I guess I'm only a Fudboy, looking for that real Transmeta
What commies, where? Oh my god, reds under the bed, reds in my hard drive, the ILOVEREDS virus on the internet, where is it going to end? Will General McCarthy come back in our hour of need and save us from the Soviet menace.
PS the Cold War is over and Communism is dead(except in North Korea and Cuba - China is not Communist any more). I thank you.
... and then they could emulate MAME on it... and then perhaps emulate PhotoShop... and slap in a hard-drive... and a monitor and...
... oops! Suddenly they've created a PC!
Surely the point is that MS are creating a games console, because of the particular economics of game consoles - lock people into a platform and then make money off selling the games to go with the system. Why would they want to open up the system so that other companies could make money from the games?
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
A little planning goes a long way...
Exactly. I think this is vapourware designed to hurt the PSX2. Specs may be available and respected programmers may be talking about it, but I think it's more about hurting the sales of a machine that could be a PC replacement and has nothing to do with Microsoft. Actually though I hope it isn't and Microsoft try to take on Sony and Nintendo. That would be very entertaining.
Until I see one in the shops I'm not going to give a toss.
I could probably go to xbox.ign.com and find this out in two seconds, but I feel like contributing some ignorance to this excellent discussion.
Oh, by the way, Tracy Bonham owns me. Guess why I'm still up at 6:45AM.
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I like to watch.
As far as I know (applys probably better to the time before PS2) the most money the console game industry is making is coming from the games. I even heard discussions about giving consoles away for free, since they would earn enough from the games. So it would be highly illogical to produce a console on which you could play games that other companys get money from (not all the games are designed by the console companys themselves, but rather from the game industry where the money the customer is paying gets divided between the console company, which gets a large share and the game producing company).
You all should really check out this modified Furby. http://www.fdcor.net/misc/borgby.shtml
Scene: Microsoft and Sony Suits, in a plush but generic corporate boardroom, commence negotiation.
MS: We are very interested in running Sony Playstation titles on our new X-Box.
Sony: We are not interested in licensing our technology to you for that purpose.
MS: We hear that you are also losing interest in licensing our Windows technology.
Sony: Ah, well, when I said that we weren't interested in licensing our Playstation technology to you, what I really meant was that we are interested. Yes. Definitely very interested.
MS: Good! Now to details...
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
excellent... pure sweetness... a truly amazing post.
if i could moderate you up to 5, i would.
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We all know full well M$ has a team of trained monkeys watching this site 24/7! Stop Giving them ideas! Good ones at least...
Shift happens. Fire it up.
C.Lee, you're a twit. You're a complete moron -- nobody on Slashdot likes you. In fact, nobody likes you, period. You're a idiot who can't go for 2 seconds around here without flaming someone. And when you do flame someone, you just sound like more of a moron. You're a dumbass. A failed slashbot. A slashdot-terminal wannabe. You really need to take a gun to your head before you somehow get extremely lucky and propagate.
There's been a history of you sounding like a jackass. Nothing you ever post is credible, or intelligible, at all -- a drunken 2 year old makes more sense than you do. And a drunken 2 year old is nicer too. Have you had a lobotomy? That would explain quite a few things. If not, may I recommend one? You should also have a castration done as well, nobody wants your genetic material to be passed on in the gene pool. We'd be better off if you were a eunuch. At least that way all the pent up testosterone wouldn't become a factor. You should seriously seek mental help. And physical help. Emotional help would be a good idea, as well. Or you can take care of all 3 at once, and just put a gun to your head. Or at least to your gonads. And if you're unwilling, I'm sure there's plenty of people around here who are.
I think it is unlikely that Microsoft would ever create emulators for other console games.. I think they would see is as a subtle way of "discourging" X-Box developent. With their mentality, I see them trying as hard as they can to just get PC game companies to port their software to the X-Box or offering "incentives" for N64 or Sega developers to move to X-Box.
The X Box does not yet exist.
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"When did it become so trendy
to constantly talk about how
much Microsoft sucks?"
hm, i think i've been saying it since 1989, that was when i first got a pc. i found them very frustrating compared to the c64 and the apple ][.
then i got to uni and used unix, and then i *really* couldn't see why people used dos. i watched how borland went from having a great suite of compilers on dos to being frozen out of windows (and their widgets and dialog boxes looked much niftier). then after uni i worked at a place with macs and while i found them wanting compared to my unix workstations i couldn't see how people could pick ms over macs for personal use.
i still think the cheapest way to run an office of word proccessing users is to use macs with unix based infrastructure. and use an internal web site for collaboration.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
Apparently nobody read my reply the last time you brought this up.
And so I will repeat it
I believe that everyone has the right to his own opinion, but with that right comes the responsibillity to take ownership for it. If you wish to say something, have the guts not to hide behind AC
I am certainly taking a lot of flak for that post, but quite frankly this proves my point, had I been an AC, you would not have been able to respond with your flames etc. I knew when I posted it that there would be those who dissagreed, and those who didn't, I took responsibillity for my views, and that is exactly why I dissaprove of AC's, by implication an anonymous COWARD is too scared to do that.
This is not a troll, it is my opinion in truth, that I have every right to, I don't demand that anybody agree, but I have the right to voice it, just as much as you have the right to flame it.
I always try to respond to the replies my posts get, but I am not always able to (my bos seems to think I should work ocasionally) and I have never in my life made a first post - or tried to.
PS. If you don't get the Al Bundy analogy, I suggest you hang out on AlfDot instead of slashdot.
"Semper in excretum set alta variant"
Sounds about right, I doubt there is much chance of this happening, if it does it'll be better than wrestlemania. Thanks, it seems your the only replyer who bothered to read my post before replying to it.
"Semper in excretum set alta variant"
(This assumes that all X-Boxes will be hooked up to the net using broadband access and will have a nice big hard drive.)
This should be quite leagal, ROM images downloaded would be crippled to run only with that specific enulator. I would imagine that the X-Box harddrive will not be accessable as you would find in a PC, files could be locked so that they can only be accessed with the emulator. Add auto deletetion once the rental has expired (although i would imagine that the user would be prompted to renew the rental (for more $$$) so that they do not have to download the game image again.) and you have a nice locked system.
This would work well for older systems, small rom images etc. but for a large full CD game then the download will be longer than most people would endure.
Sure people would hack the system, but more will just keep forking over the cash.
Rental is the way Microsoft is heading and they have the infrastructure. If it is not them another company will fill this market.
I want an Indrema too.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
Let's look at this another way: Would the average mid-teen (12-16) really be interested in these old games?
These younger teenagers never played the original super mario. Or Metroid. Or Zelda. All these games bring back amazing memories. But, compared to the gee-whiz-pop-bang games of today, they're practically legos to a corvette. They're basic. They're simple. The require less than half the "skill" required in games like Perfect Dark or Resident Evil 23: The Final Evil. For Microsoft to put ALL this money and ALL the time it would require to even get the licensing, would it truly be worth it? A few old games would do nothing but collect (electronic) dust. Newer games might fare a bit better, but lets face it: the 'look' is what most of these 'gamers' look for. The best game on the planet could be released today, have graphics equal to the NES and never sell a copy.
sigh.
I was just thinking "why yet another article on the X-box"? When I got to your comment. Given that the product is still vapor and Microsoft hates everything that Linux and open source stand for, why is X-box getting such frequent news?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
The real test, of course, will be to emulate a Zebra vagina.
huh?
> I hate to say it, but the troll is right. This site may claim to not give a shit about Microsoft, but jumps at the chance to post anything concerning them,
When you live in the gorilla cage at the zoo, everything the 900lb alpha male does is a big concern to you, even if you're just an adolescent have-nothing trying to mind your own business.
> I see more anti-MS FUD in one day here than I've ever seen anti-Linux FUD in Redmond.
Check your definition of FUD. A steamin' heap of the MS criticism given here is fact. Just because you don't like the implications of a fact, does not make it FUD.
And when you do see FUD, whether anti-MS, anti-Linux, or whatever, you are perfectly free in this forum to counter it with facts. (And people do correct the unfounded claims, you might notice.)
> The FUD is going to be this movement's downfall.
Assuming even that it was as bad as you say it is, how does this follow? MS and IBM got good mileage out of FUD in their time.
> When did it become so trendy to constantly talk about how much Microsoft sucks?
When we got the internet and could start infoming people that they didn't have to buy MS products just because an article in PC Mag or a Gartner report said it didn't really suck.
> And why do I know that 99% of those poseurs could't even begin to discuss the technical merits of UNIX and NT kernels?
So, only the techno-elite are allowed to hold opinions, eh? If my MSware is unreliable, am I unqualified to point it out unless I have a degree in CS?
I, for one, don't give a fig whether my OS is running a microkernel, nor how religiously it sticks to the tenants of uK design. I want something that works, and once I've filtered out the ones that don't work, I want the one left that give the best price.
Yes, there's some anti-MS FUD going around, but not everything said against MS is FUD. Not by a long shot.
And even if the grass-roots FUD becomes as bad as the commercial-grade FUD... well, that would be nothing more nor less than poetic justice. What comes around goes around, and all that. If the company that killed DR-DOS with FUD died by FUD in turn, will the angels weep? No, not unless they own MSFT or do all their work in VB.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
This implies 2 things:
- Emulation on consoles would be nothing new (even barring bleemcast).
- Future emulation on the X-Box (or other consoles) is likely to be transparent to the user -- people buy rereleases of the games they want (or developers write emulators for current games!) which may require emulation, but the user doesn't necessarily have to know that it's going on behind the scenes.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Square re-releasing some of their PSX games onto the X-Box with emulators built into the discs (that is, if they're not still miffed about MS trying to buy them out...).-ubermuffin
Arcade, Return Of Arcade & Revenge of Arcade emulate about 12 titles between them, which would have been licensed from Namco. Of course compared to MAME, the implementation sucks, but it has been done.
And yet again I get atacked for things I did not say.
First of all, I see that my grammar is under atack, it might do the people who do this a bit of good to keep in mind that grammar rules differ around the world, even spelling, (color is correct in America, but here the correct spelling is considdered colour) in other words with the exception of the occasional typo I miss while previewing, I have yet to use grammar that would not have recieved full marks in my old high-school.
And yet again I repeat, I do not have a problem with anybodies wishes for anonimity, I was trying to point out, that by using my nick, I am identifying myself to a sufficient degree for you to differ from my views, and as seems to be the case with some people, stalk my posts on other topics into infinity with regard to opinions they dissagreed with. In other words, I take the responsibillity and the possible flames, trolls, spams etc. that might result from a controversial view. It has nothing to do with elitism. This whole argument started after someone anonymously cried over the validity of a story I rather enjoyed. I merely stated then that since he did not wish to be in any way associated with his complaint, I had litle reason to take him seriously. My previous post was somewhat angered, I appologize for that, it's not my style. Feel free to post anonymously if you feel such a dire need therefore, but keep in mind that I rarely read nor take seriously the words of someone who does not have enough trust of conviction to be associated with those words.
Perhaps I am not enough of a karma whore, wishing only to be associated with those posts I think will be generally agreed apon, instead I get modded up when I post good posts and down when I don't (the latter in the past having been a very rare occurence)
Anyway I never used the words "1337 nick" that was a description by the AC's whose been flaming to eternall suntandomn, I guess that's a compliment.
I will not be responding to further posts on this topic, nor will I reply to e-mails or in any way allow myself to be bothered as it appears that I have been erronously marked as an enemy of privacy and people appear intent to misinterpret my statements. This debate over AC/nick is hardly anything I wanted to spark, and I have tried severall times to explain my feelings, instead people don't even seem able to understand what those feelings are. Wether I am incapable of explaining it clearly or wether it is misunderstood (delliberately or otherwize) this debate is bringing us nowhere so we might as well cease to waste bandwith on it.
"Semper in excretum set alta variant"
The speed of the processor is not very important anymore because there are other bottlenecks (unless your entire game is a simple for loop that sits in cache). The bus is a major one, especially for graphics applications. Just because you have hardware T&L it doesn't mean your bus is less saturated... you still have to send down the vertices, etc. (which can be larger that pre-transformed screen coordinate data!)
The benifit of consoles is the guaranteed hardware so you can squeeze every ounce of performance out.
Senior Manager: " ... and another thing is that we are all going to have to play "nice" now. Is there anyone who knows the definition of this word?"
{a few seconds pass with muted mumbling}
Senior Manager: "Not a problem I had to look it up my self. Let me read it to you from the dictionary."
Senior Manager: "After discussing it with the other manager we all agreed that the most appropriate definition to use is this one: "What this means in this case is that we should be even more bold and brazen than ever! Any Questions? Good! Let's do it!""It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Be prepared for disappointment.
I eat the flesh off the living, and I vote!
I see that you are having trouble with the zombie carrying the chainsaw. May I suggest using the shotgun?
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
If M$ were to do this, I'm sure that everyone and their grandmother would all sue M$ for trying to take over the console buisness. That's the popular thing to do these days. I agree with the people that said to simply let Bleem do it.
-Derick
-Derick
I can just see how pissed off this will make those other companies. One _console_ platform that can run anything and everything that the competitors put out there. If such a beast did exist, it would be almost a no-brainer which one to get.
;P. But thats just my opinion.
I mean.. get a PSX to play PSX games, a N64 to play N64 games, etc... but wouldn't a single box that playes PSX, N64 and all the rest on ONE platform RUIN competition? The other companies would have easy grounds for unfair competition (Microsoft has the resources and the clout to pull something like this off).
As I see it, PC empulators for the PSX and whatnot don't harm the console industry for many reasons. Mainly, the 'desktop' is generally more complicated to use than the console and is also not generally hooked up to the television (giving that the average person has a 14"-18" monitor and a 27" TV).
A console is easy to use. The computer is not as easy. But there are PC users who want to play console games and not fork over more cash for an extra console. THAT is the market for emulators. If you get one console running EVERYTHING, you can be sure that those other boxes will go out of buisness and their games will also go away.
I am assuming in this rant that the X-Box is powerful enough to emulate the games smoothly. It wouldn't matter if the X-Box is a pile of junk.. which it more than likely will be
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
Sorry Fros1y, you made the same mistake that I and most of the other nerds out there make.
You're thinking about this from a technical standpoint, not a corporate one.
Technically, the idea of emu on the X-box sounds great. It's a single spec machine that is optomized for gaming, it would be relatively easy to write good emu progs for it and to dump roms onto it. So the idea sounds great.
From a corporate standpoint however, it doesn't work. Why would MS want to make X-box do other console emu? So that more people would want to buy the X-box. They wouldn't sell more games, but they would sell more boxes. Okay. So now how do they do it. They could go the way of current emulators, providing you with the emulator (or selling it to you) and leaving you to find pirated ROMs on your own, or they could legally license the technology, maybe even license the games and build an archive of ROMs that you could get cheap.
If they go the first way, building an emulator only and leaving you to find pirated ROMs, they expose themselves to big legal risk. Now as I recall, Bleem got away with this, but it's a fine line and it's not the kind of legal problems MS wants to deal with. They won't take on the console companies in head to head legal battles like this.
So now that leaves the option of legally licensing the material. The console companies aren't going to want to license the tech to MS, because the whole reason MS wants it is to sell more X-boxes and to compete with the console companies.
So I doubt you're going to see any MS backed Emu on the X-box. Maybe some creative hacker types will get it done, but don't look to the companies on this one.
An interesting question does arise if we turn this around and ask how Microsoft is going to protect itself from emulators. Sony tried to sue Connectix for Virtual PlayStation and gave up. Connectix has a lot of experience writing Window emulators, as well as writing game emulators for Windows. They should be able to write an Xbox emulator in no time at all.
In addition, FWB now has the Windows emulator for Macintoshes and Unix Alpha machines. I suspect that the Xbox will provide a way for them to leverage that property. I bet they will sell Xbox emulators for both platforms.
All in all, I think we will be able to run Xbox in our current machines for about $100.
Take a look at the best option out there right now: the Dreamcast. Although sega might not admit it, they've got a winner already by bleem! look at: http://www.dailyradar.com/features/game_feature_pa ge_745_1.html for some PSX emulation goodness And don't forget PC-Engine and Turbographix emulation for Dreamcast is already available in Japan -- Bill
Actually, I believe it's the games that generate the revenues for a company, not the system itself. Sony actually loses money on selling the playstation consoles, but they more than make up for it by getting a cut of all the games (I believe this came up during the whole Sony vs. Bleem thing). Anyway, if X-Box had emulators for all of these other systems they would be doing Sony/Sega/Nintendo/Vectorex (ha) a favor rather than helping themselves. The last thing they want is to encourage their users to buy competitors' games.
magic chef
I wonder that if someone makes a Dreamcast emulator, that I will be able to pop in my Bleemcast disc and emulate a playstation on my emulation of dreamcast on my XBox. Even better! How about emulating Dreamcast and using Bleemcast to play the emulation of those "Arcade Classics" that Namco and a few others made. Nothing is better than 3rd order emulation! (Ok, well, there are plenty of things better, like the cool KLAT2 computer, but just think of the emulating possibilities!)
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
Your sig says all generalizations are false
I guess this applies here as well.........................
Seriously, I have been reading Slashdot for awhile and I think that you are missing the point I think most readers get irrate about their anti-competitive business practices not so much the technologies that they produce.
IMHO-The X-Box does not seem to be vaporware I think you should look up the definition it seems to me you may be mistaken.
snip-Maturity and a realistic attitude, combined with a real knowledge-snip
There does not seem to be alot of that going around these days especially when it comes to open and honest debate on the "Microsoft" empire
PS - My comments are as much a product of a generalized brain and are equally as full of shit as yourself.
"The way she used to say Rimmer as if it rhymed with scum" Red Dwarf
...conspiracy of some kind. Or at least, maybe MS already expects other people to port some of the existing emulators over to XBox. Although I don't know much about emulation in general, considering that the thing's supposed to be pretty much like a PC, how hard would it be? And if people are already emulating things on dreamcast... well, I'm sure somebody there has already considered the possiblility. Great reason to buy an X-Box, and MS would have kept their dirty hands out of it...
Just as an aside, MS really could get by selling X-Box versions of games for other platforms. What if they wrote the emulator, but only made it work with ROMS that they had made? Then they could advertise that their system can play all those playstation games and so on, and not have to worry about entanglement because of illegal ROMs. Not to mention the profit margin in selling already developed games at standard console game prices.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
as far as i can tell, it's just idle speculation. and particularly fruitless speculation at that.
Wouldn't the fact that the X-Box is using x86 assembly make it easier to make an emulator for it? IIRC, isn't one of the most difficult problems with current reverse engineering for emulation the translation of different assembly calls?
JoeLinux
Dear all,
For a public forum supposedly composed of rational intelligent people I am often amazed at the complete naivety and complacency when it comes to politics and philosophy.
COMMUNISM
China, Korea, Cuba , Russia etc have nothing to do with Communism. They were NOT communist. Just because someone applies a name/label to their being does not mean they are actually what they claim to be.
All the above countries have adopted the label of Communism to further their own causes, whatever they may be.
COMMUNISM is a system which will...
completely liberate the worlds potential to create wealth for everyone. Capitalism does not create wealth in any real sense. Capitalism does not want to create wealth. It wants to create riches for those whom it serves and not the people of this world in general.....
You should know by now that the world is not becoming a better place to live in each year....in spite of the giant increases in knowledge we see. None of it gets applied to make the world a better place unless a capitalist can skim a profit from it....great system...
Communism wants to take knowledge and use it to produce wealth/produce based on the needs of the people.
You may all be laughing at what I write here, but I bet none of you have ever read up or studied or even considered questioning the capitalist view of communism.
The world has unlimited potential. It will never realise this potential under a system which rewards exploitation and negative practices, be these practices aimed at people, the environment or the suppression of questioning and reasoning......
Look at open-source...by no means a model of communism but it is very closely tied. It is the contribution of knowledge to create something for the people and by the people. Just think if this was applied to the world in general...
And if anyone says it is against human nature then I say that is a more an indication of your own nature than of human nature in general.
all the best, Guy
I'm an equal-opportunity geek, and I'm for using the right tool for the job. I wouldn't serve a high-traffic e-commerce site from the J2EE test server any more than I would install Linux as a PHB's desktop OS. I wouldn't recommend Visual Basic for numerical analysis, and I wouldn't recommend Perl for coding a 3D flight sim. Every tool has a place, and every tool should be in its place. NT has place just like Linux does.
Don't diss NT because it's from Microsoft. For Linux to succeed in the business world, its users must realize the fact that ethics don't mean anything. The greed for profit breeds a ruthlessness that is what helps large companies survive. Joe Corporate couldn't give a damn what Microsoft does unless it directly affects their profits. And for 99% of companies, it doesn't, at least directly. Joe Corporate buys Microsoft because the users need less training, the admins are easy to find and can be paid less, and because he has the assurance that Microsoft isn't going anywhere. Sure, the software licensing is expensive as hell, but in the end the cost is put on their customers. And maybe Joe Corporate is a Microsoft stockholder and doesn't mind greasing the wheels that his investment runs on.
So Joe Corporate keeps buying Microsoft, and once things get rolling in a large company, they tend not to stop until paradigms shift. Windows wasn't an overnight hit. It took them years to become the business world's standard. I believe that the PC world will be completely different before another company can claim the same that Microsoft can. Maybe we'll all be living in Scott McNealy's dream world, where everyone owns JavaStation NC's feeding off Solaris servers. Maybe it will be something I can't even imagine. Who knows? But I am certain that the drive to get us there is the same thing that drove the Wintel duopoly to lead us into the current PC age: unabashed greed.
Microsoft is firmly entrenched in corporate culture. The only way that Linuxers have hope of taking market share is if they can clearly, calmly, and unconditionally show that Linux is better for a job. Today. It's possible that it can, but not after the next paradigm shift. I love Linux, but the OS is a hack of commercial UNIX, and the window managers are poor copies of old Apple, NeXT, and Windows designs. If Linux is going to be a part of the next wave, it's not going to look anything like it does know. Maybe we should stop worrying about POSIX and go for straight-out, good-old-fashioned innovation.
That's the whole basis of my argument: use the right tool for the job. NT can do a lot that Linux cannot, and vice-versa. Zealotry has made much of this site's patrons blind to that fact.Not at all. But what percentage of those who claim that Windows is obsolete crap and that Linux is technically superior could begin to back up these statements? All I'm saying is: there will come a time, perhaps very soon, when Linux can compete, and IT professionals will as Linux users to explain it. It's best that we refine our arguments and opinions here, in a group of our peers, so that we're prepared to answer those quesions. My advice is not to make such claims unless you can back them up, for when you are asked to represent our causes at your company because you have said such things, answering with "b1ll g473z sUZ0rz!!" is going to us great harm.
I think that after another five years the current crop of OSes will begin to stagnate, and OS R&D will become a big deal again. Of course I'm just speculating, but my guess is as good as anyone else's. I think that in the immediate post-2.4 hype, we need to reorganize our efforts and go all out. We should be doing our advocacy basic-training now.
In conclusion: everyone is entitled to an opinion, but as the spokesman for our favorite little OS, we must be prepared to back our opinions up with documented facts and proper research and analysis. If we want Linux to succeed before some other OS comes and steals our hype.
The DR-DOS story is a crying shame, but they knew they game they were playing. Ain't no pity in the naked city. The ruthless company is the company that profits, makes shareholders happy, and survives to the next year. Many say that Microsoft is an evil monopoly, but others might say they just played the game too well.
I am in quite the ranting mood today, eh?
---------///----------
--
I like to watch.
The xbox is still EVIL. Do we need more MS is the homes of the world? No. PSX2 is the lesser of two evils.
Trolls, it must be cool to be that bored.
And my point is that for Linux to succeed, we'll have to forget our ethics. Not to be too mean, but only lifelong academics like Stallman can afford to debate the ethics of it all. Like I said in another post from this thread, business users don't give a damn about Microsoft's anticompetitive business practices unless it affects their bottom line. Sad but true. I suppose that being technology enthusiasts, we can afford to debate too. But market share is what we need to succeed, and ethical arguments are all but useless to your boss. Does it work better, cheaper than NT? Tell us how and why. Tell us how it compares in terms of hardware costs. Tell us what the necessary steps and costs are for installation, training, and maintainence. Tell us how compatible it is with our other systems. Tell us what support options are available. Tell us this and tell us that. Don't even mention any ethical shit to your boss unless you're prepared to answer all that and more. In fact, I recommend not mentioning the "free" nature at all. And, God help you, don't mention the GPL. Tell him it's a high-performace, low-cost Unix-like OS that gets very respectable results on low-cost hardware. Tell him it's a big thing and the industry is abuzz and there's more hardware and software support every day. Tell him it has a industry-standard C compiler, support for Java 2, and features the most popular web server in the world. (Leave the more bitter truth for later.) Tell him that IBM, Oracle, and Sun Microsystems have been supporting Linux. And if your boss is more technical, feel free to blab on for hours about finely-grained kernel locking, software RAID, and support for tons of filesystems, et cetera. Just don't give him a blank look and stutter, "Uhh... Bill Gates sucks and, uh, Microsoft is a monopoly, and, uh, Linux is elite and I am an elite hacker, and uh, MP3s and wares."
Please.
Usually I'm not so feverent (or I try not to be) but lately I've had the nagging feeling that if Linux is going to "make it" in the business world, we have to get off our asses now. Drop the childish attitudes and just make it happen. For such an intelligent and determined group of people, it shouldn't be as hard as Microsoft would like us to think.
I prefer to think that neither of us is too full of shit.---------///----------
--
I like to watch.
I know this was a rant, and I've seen you toss around more than your share of flames here, but why doesn't it make sense to you that Rob doesn't want to boot Windows to see a 5-minute video clip? If someone wants to fire up Diablo or something, he's probably going to play a couple of HOURS, not a couple of minutes... Windows takes longer than 5 minutes to BOOT on some machines with enough software and enough fonts... So you'd think it would make perfect sense he doesn't want to waste his time.
Think about it for a few minutes.
Why would I buy a home console running off a PIII and not really taking advantage of other special hardware, running a variety of emulators for other home console systems, when I can just buy a PIII *computer* with those emulators (which will be dirt cheap by the time the X-Box actually gets into production)?
Or better yet, something with a chip from Motorola?
Zahlman Q. Namlhaz, esq. {:> "Zahl Incorporated - the Last Word in Everything(TM)"
The major hurdle I see is that the large majority of the consoles that enough people want to see emulated to come close to making a profit are platforms owned by companies microsoft plans to compete with(or not compete... as the lawsuit alledged :) ). Both sega and nintendo have their own hardware, and are networked, making an emulation by subscription service just as feasible on star cube (dolphin) or psx 2 or DC. As for stand alone emulaters like bleem, from a copyright standpoint, only CD systems are eligible, since the system doent read carts, and putting cartridge ROM images out on CD would be illegal without prior consent. Basically, I expect to see MAME and a c64 emulater, maybe, on XBox. As for snes emulation, that would detract from the profitablility of the Gameboy Advanced, which is nearly completely designed for snes ports, much like the Gameboy Color did for NES. And I believe someone posted that Sega already has emulation thru subscription on the DC. In a perfect world, XBox would have a MSX emulater, especially since microsoft had a hand in its making, complete with a metal gear 2 in english...
The whole concept of console development is to produce inexpensive hardware then charge moderate license fees to make back the cost and then earn profit. If you didn't have licensing fees, the Playstation 2 wouldn't be $400, it'd be $600-700. The Dreamcast would be closer to $350 than $150.
Nintendo, again, is the exception (their games are extremely expensive, and they make most of their money off of product licensing like the Pokemon line, not game licensing). Still, to shoot down companies like Sega for charging a little for licensing fees, and/or subverting their fees by developing games with hacked systems, defeats their whole profit potential -- and any potential they might have otherwise. Hack the development systems if you want, but do realize there's a good chance there won't be any new systems in the future.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
I never believed CmdrTaco was Rob's real name.
Breace (33955)
Redfine communism all you want, you're still wrong.
Capitalism is not bad. Capitalism often doesn't work because people are lazy and not informed in their purchasing decisions. The system is sound, the people are flawed.
Marxist/Lennonist Communism was and is a joke. A brutal dictatorship with liberal apologists spreading propoganda for them.
Your neo-hippie communism is an LSD dream with no economic viability. Just because the Federation made it work doesn't mean it will work in reality.
An object or job is worth only what people will pay for it. Communists never figured this out and their system failed.
Typically, game companies lose a whole slew of money on selling their game consoles, such as the dreamcast, playstation, or nintendo. But they can overcharge their users on the games themselves, because they have already been driven into the game makers ploy.
If Microsoft removes the need for selling game consoles, and focuses the other game companies attention solely on making the games, then a lot more money can be made for both Microsoft & the game companies [since they wouldn't be losing as much for every console]
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Don't eat your soul to fill your belly.
conesus.com
Exactly. But the point is, since Rob is so addicted to Diablo II, he's going to play it eventually, so can't he wait and just watch the clip before he plays Diablo II?
For things that aren't a high priority, your OS may not have to do every task. As for the five minutes, how many months is he going to have to wait for somebody to port the Sorenson codec anyway? What if someone were to hand him a VHS tape with a movie trailer? I'd bet it'd take a good five minutes for him to walk over to his TV, turn on the VCR, pop in the tape and get everything going. We're living in a world of convenience, and we want every tool to do every job. It just isn't the most efficient that way because we end up with bloated mismanaged tools.
Perspective.
Duh... Micro$oft has a weird habit of helping out smaller companies on a project, then releasing a similar product as competition. Then, markets the living hell out of it and takes over the market that the project/product is in. With that in mind, consider the following:
M$ helps Sega with the operating system (a version of Windows CE). Then, decides to jump into the console market.
Hmmm... Smells like monopolization to me. Why the heck would they not develop emulators for PSX/PS2/N64/Dolphin? If you had the emulators, why buy the hardware from Sony, Sega or Nintendo? Sounds like the next logical step in controling the console market to me...
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"The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad." - Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
Oh, yea thats right, its called a MONOPOLY!
A couple people already brought up the point of if the X-Box will be a lot like windows, people will right their own emulators for it. So i ask you this, who really needs microsoft to develop an emulateor?
Welcome to Fantasyland...population YOU. I have read and understand the fundamentals of what is involved in a purely Communist environment..and the only problem I have with it, and which ultimately kills it as a foundation for society, is that it relies on the suppression of one fundamental human trait.....GREED. Humans want/get/have more than the person next door...and there is nothing anyone can say or do to stop that.
I think we're missing the point here.
The X-box is an example of the fruits of capitalism.
You see, Capitalism is a double-edged sword.
With competition comes competitive products, and theoretically, competitive prices.
However, separate groups do not benefit from each others accomplishments leading to large amounts of duplicated (read: wasted) effort.
Under communism, we probably would have no x-box, and there would be no N64 or Dreamcast
There would be a PlayStation 7 and a N256.
They would play every game on the market, have stunning graphics, run blazingly fast, and cost very little to produce.
The missed point here is that the Open Source movement is parallel to Marxist Communism.
Each person gives according to his ability, and recieves according to his needs.
While the open source movement is aided by the fact that the cost of getting the product to many people is not significantly more than getting it to a few, The fact remains that under the right conditions such a system can be very succesful.
I agree that greed is a very real and necessary motivator, but it doesn't mean wanting more than the person next door, it means wanting more than you need.
This definition makes the matter clearer:
To want/get/have more than the person next door is childish and futile.
To want/get/have more than you need is natural and normal.
The world may not be ready for communism, but the general trend of civilization is that technology allows for needs to be taken care of with less and less effort, and for increasing focus on wants.
Some day, maybe not long from now, software will generally be free, and people will pay programmers for customization, custom solutions, and added features.
Some day, maybe not long from now, food will generally be free, and people will work that extra hour to get a PlayStaion 7.
To be more on topic,
If microsoft made a game console that used a slightly faster version of the same processor as one of their competitors, they could write a program that would be less of an emulator than another implementation of the other game console.
This is, ironically, parallel to the (Marxist?) project that will some day, maybe not long from now, be their downfall.
And my point is that for Linux to succeed, we'll have to forget our ethics.
I honestly couldn't agree with this post any more than I do. This hits a lot of nails on the head. Thing is, I do have a problem with your ethics argument. Perhaps this is nit picking, but as you stated, those reading this are the real spokesmen for Linux.
I believe that what you're trying to get at here is to put the focus on tangible functionality rather than the political aspects behind GNU and the FSF. This can, and must, include "ethical" behavior. Linux can continue maintain high ethics and focus on the needs of the end users both consumer and corporate.
What needs to be pulled out of the debate for now is the "politics" driving this. These arguments can return to the discussion at a point in time where it's been proven that this method of software development and distribution actually work over time. It would certainly give a lot more weight to the political side of this at that time.
Anyhow, keep up the rants!!
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.