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First Looks At XBox
adpowers writes: "You can find a picture and description of the Xbox at the press release from Microsoft." There's also shoots from Gamespy, news from C|Net, and a report from Reuters - and lastly, a report from MSNBC.
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>> The controller design is very innovative. It feels very good in your hands but is extremely intuitive and usable
From what I've read, "No one knows how confusing GameCube may be to operate, however, as Nintendo has not allowed outsiders to touch it."
The XBox joypad looks pretty comfortable. According to people who actually handled it at the CES, it is supposedly VERY comfortable. Have you touched the controller yet? I don't think so, yet you even claim the NGC has a better controller, when nobody in the industry is allowed to hold one yet!
Speaking of Nintendo, I hope and PRAY Nintendo NEVER EVER regains any status near it's old NES/SNES days. Do you actually remember those days? Nintendo was comprised of the biggest group of bastards ever.
Lemme remind you of some things Nintendo did (move over MS!)
1) Remember the artifical shortages for video games... like the time Zelda 2 came out, and 20/20 even ran a 30 minute special on the limited quantity and ended up finding a WAREHOUSE FULL OF THEM!
2) Remember how Nintendo reacted to developer demand to making the N64 CD-based? They ignored them, (which means they lost most of them, including SQUARE!!!) and created a cartridge based system. Why? Because they control the cost and licensing of the cartridges, which is why even today "classic" N64 games cost $39.95.
3) Nintendo of America ALWAYS believed their audience was dumber, and inferior to their japanese market. I can sight NUMEROUS examples, including the censored FFIII (FF4 in Japan) that made it to America with many missing plot elements becasue they believed "American culture can't handle them." Oh, and there was also the dumbed-down version of FFV. At least Sony has never dumbed/censored the FF series (they even synced the numbering with the japanese system.) Oh, and the Japanese version of Super Mario 2 didn't make it to american shores until 7 years later (for the SNES) because they felt Americans wouldn't be able to handle so difficult a game.
4) Nintendo forces companies to get their products authorized for their machines. Remember when Galoob got sued for the Game Genie by Nintendo, and the judge stayed sales so people had to import it from Canada? No OTHER console company has ever sued a product... oh and then Nintendo also sued (and failed at it) TenGen for created "unauthorized" games. So essentially they designed new NESes that stopped them from working!
I can go on and on and on over Nintendo's ridiculous stances. You think MS with a monopoly is bad? You obviously don't remember Nintendo.
-Nick
Be forewarned - this is a long and very XBox friendly rant, going over many of the comments that I've seen posted that have forced me out of my lurker status for a 2nd time. I give this warning because, though I believe I have made rational, unbiased comments, my post does not include the normal slashdot "Yeah Linux, Boo M$" rhetoric most seem accustom to. Here goes...
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The hard drive isn't for MS to store an OS. Or patches. Or ANY of that crap. MS doesn't need to patch the OS. EVER. A copy of the OS is included with every game, tailored to the game (like it should be). This allows MS and developers to do whatever they want with the underlying OS, and not worry about breaking anyone else's code. But if the hard drive isn't in their for the MS, why on earth is it in there? Could it be... for the DEVELOPER? <sarcasm> Wow, what a STRANGE and MYSTICAL idea! A part in the gaming console is actually meant to be used for the gaming console! </sarcasm> I, personally, am THRILLED at this inclusion - now it's possible to cache stuff to a hard drive instead of hitting the DVD, making it SO much simpler and down-right faster to handle gameplay that requires more then what 64 megs'o'ram can hold. And, just to make sure it's mentioned, the OS DOES NOT support virtual memory - the app's get to manage the space for themselves. Why an 8 gig drive? Well, as of this point in time, 8 gig drives are the cheapest, readily available drives that are produced in quantity.
As for the hard drive complaints concerning uptime - I shared them for quite some time... till someone pointed out that the DVD-drive is expected to be the *real* uptime problem. And how many here complained about the PS2 including a DVD drive? Personally, I think a tray-loaded console is just ASKING to be broken...
Also, to respond to the (rather childish) posts saying that 64 megs couldn't possibly be enough to run an MS OS on. Apparently, the XBox is running a heavily stripped derivation of Win2k. The entire OS fits comfortably in ~500k. So, I *think* 64 megs can handle that.
As for MS "redesigning" the USB port - while initially it sounds like an assinine thing to do, it actually does make sense (at least to me). Otherwise, folks are going to see the port and try plugging in all sorts of USB device, and become quite confused and frustrated when nothing happens. Remember, MS isn't building this thing so we can enjoy hacking it - they're building it for the average consumer. And, since the USB port is such a simple pinout, I really found it hard to swallow that MS is doing this just because they're plain greedy - if a hardware house can't figure it out, they don't deserve to be making hardware!
To the folks who say developers "dont have anything to do with hardware" in response to someone's stable system-configuration comment, what the hell have you been smokin'! Do you know how HARD it is to try and wring all the performance out of a chipset without breaking another?! If hardware differences weren't an issue, cap-bits and vendor extensions wouldn't exist...
Also, to the pundits that cry that this thing is bad because it's a PC, I ask, what the hell is wrong with that?! I *like* my PC - it can runs games very well, thank-you-very-much. And Remember that this is a UNIFIED MEMORY SYSTEM, so... there is no AGP BUS!!! And, the thing is going to be running an NV25. To put this in perspective, the GeForce 2 is an NV15. Consequently, this thing is around 2 generations ahead of what nVidia has available for the desktop. My guess is the NV25 is a performance tuned NV20, based off the existence of the special "Enable NV20 Emulation" option in nVidia's drivers.
Also, from what I've gathered, MS *is* including a VGA port in-the-box, so no special breaker box needed for monitor support.
MS is NOT going to be making money of the machines themselves - they are selling these at a loss, just like every other console (don't know about the Indrema, though - anyone know how much that box is expected to cost?). But, from talking with a fellow involved with the XBox, I found that MS isn't expecting to lose more then $20-$30 per box. And, when asked during a tech-talk what the launch price of this thing is going to be, the MS fellow said "No console has ever successfully launched for more the $299 in the US." MS plans on being successful. You do the math...
I, personally, am looking forward to the XBox.
MS has made the entire API available for me to play with on my own PC. MS has set up a hobbyist program to help people to learn to do stuff for the system. MS has TOLD you what is in the box. MS has even setup an "incubator" program to help small game development startups. I'm sorry, but for all the closed-source M$ bashing, MS has made a system that is a shit-load more open and accessible then Nintendo, Sega, or Sony. MS's willingness to give me all the information I need to work with the hardware is why MS has guaranteed that I'll be buying and learning to develop for this box.
And so ends my long and winding post. But before you replay, I would like to state that I tried to be rational, unbias, and coherent throughout my post. I only ask that you do the same.