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Official Xbox XDK Details
SpoddySpice writes "Xbox365.com has released some interesting detailed specs about the X-Box" Talks about the UI, mentions that ether and a 56k modem will be supported, what media it will play, formats supported etc etc etc. Gives ya a good idea of where this thing is actually headed. Meanwhile I'm still deciding if I want a PS2, especially since it comes out within a couple days of the next Zelda.
I see no other sensible reason for scrapping red book audio. People, people, remember: this company, when you look at its corporate actions, is _evil_, it's hostile to consumers. Stop creaming over the words 'nVidia custom chips' for a minute and _think_. Of course they're going to f**k you over and make all your CDs obsolete in collusion with the RIAA labels. They're probably being paid to do just that and you know they want to monopolize the 'home entertainment system' which is certainly due to take over from the 'stereo system'. Do you really want to support these people?
At any rate, I would strongly suggest that this means the traditional CD is being 'deprecated'. It's time to buy ALL YOUR CDs over again! Beat the rush! Run out to the store just as soon as somebody figures out a secure digital music format that degrades after ten plays so you can be put on a _rental_ basis!
Microsoft will never learn that any product based on a Windows kernel will at one time or another crash. PS has never crashed, Nintendo has never crashed, but XBox most likely will at one point or another. Heart and anethesia monitors never crashed, but I recently read in a NG about a doctor whose devices used Windows, and one day crashed mid-surgery!
Surgery is one thing, but I don't think I can survive if an intense game of kill the space-ships is interrupted by a BSOD. And what's worse--the more games you install, the longer it will take to boot!
> one can see that the X-box really seems to be just a regular computer with a few things disabled
This is exactly the point. Their strategy is obvious: make a machine that games developers can port to easily. Most game shops target Win32/DirectX. (Sorry, Linux dudes but that's the harsh truth). That makes for a huge base of games that can probably be made to run on Xbox with little or no modification, and a huge base of developers with valuable experience long before the hardware even ships.
The second half of the equation is consistency. The major cause of NT crashes is bogus drivers. With a fixed platform like this they can smoke (most) all of the bugs out of the drivers, not to mention optimizing the snot out of them. They don't have to worry about whether or not the latest driver patch works with last month's firmware upgrade for some bogus 3d card that nobody cares about this week. Each game can be intensively tested since the target hardware/OS is perfectly known.
> who would want a computer that is simply disabled just to play games?
Sure it's just a crippled computer, but I'll work right out of the box. It won't need configuration or tweaking. It won't crash randomly. Plug in your cable modem and it'll surf the web. Kids will be able to use it -- Hell, even parents will be able to use it. It'll be cheap, and games will be everywhere. Most people don't want the hassle of a "computer", they just want lots of cool games and their daily pr0n. Give the users what *they* want, not what *you* want.
Microsoft has come up with a great story (from their point of view). However, it may fail -- they may blow it, or nobody may care when it ships. It wouldn't be the first time, and won't be the last.
Drinking will help us plan!
But unlike most game consoles, the X-Box has a high-speed network connection and a hard drive. Find a buffer overflow exploit in a game, and you're into the kernel. Wait until the script kiddies get going on this one.
And every X-Box is identical. Crack one, and you've cracked them all. It's a monoculture. The distributed denial-of-service attack people are going to love the X-box. Millions of slaves on DSL lines, and no annoying sysadmins to interfere.
I have run Win2k for 6 months without a crash. If anything XBox Win2k will be much more stable because it has been vastly simplified. There is only one hardware configuration.
Why, praytail, would it take longer for games to boot? The HDD is only used as a cache to store frequently accessed data and saved games. Games will still be mostly kept on the DVD (its only an 8 GB HD). Also, considering that I can load a saved game onto another X-Box, it can't store anything permanently on the HDD or I could not play my game anywhere else.
I have probably been successfully trolled, but many people do actually believe what you said, what a shame.