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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?
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
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
... 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...
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.
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!
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.
> 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.
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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
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"
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
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.---------///----------
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I like to watch.