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Xbox, GameCube Dates Set For Early November
ackthpt writes "According to this Yahoo/Reuters article Nintendo will rollout the GameCube (~$199) on Nov. 5, with Microsoft's Xbox ($299) following on Nov. 8th. Just in time for the season of giving. Sony's PS2 ($299) will still be in the hunt. Is there enough of a market for all three? With Microsoft planning to spend $500 million in advertising, over 18 months, expect them to make a serious attempt to be a survivor when the dust settles, unlike Sega, which has given up selling game machines to focus on titles."
MS' plan is to drive Sony and Nintendo out of the console business. They don't expect to make any money on XBox 1.0.
When XBox 2.0 comes out, and there are no other consoles, then watch MS jack up the prices on consoles and royalties.
Illegal? Sure. But do you seriously expect Dubya to get the Justice Dept. to prosecute MS' predatory behavior against two FOREIGN companies, esp. when MS can legally give donations to the GOP and Sony/Nintendo can't?
-jon
Remember Amalek.
As a game developer, I feel uniquely qualified to ask just what brand of crack you are smoking.
Seriously - It's taken years for Direct3D to basically adopt OpenGL with different names for the same functions. That's an oversimplification, but not much of one. If MS had adopted OpenGL and stayed the course, hardware/software would be much farther along today.
Let's think about this very slowly. $500,000,000 for advertising. Probably anywhere between $50 and $300,000,000 in R&D and god only knows how many billions for production, shipping to stores, etc. Take into account the probability that MS will take a loss on each hardware unit.... that leaves the question, how will they make bookoo bucks? Unless they plan to gouge their developers on royalties, are playing hopeful, a combination of those two or I'm missing something here.
If you want mp3s.. then buy a $99 Dreamcast. There are mp3 players out for DC.. just burn a CD with the mp3 software and all the mp3s you want.
check it out --> dc mp3 player
oh yeah.. don't forget about all the dc emulators too --> emulators
I still can't go into Walmart or CompUSA and find a PS/2 on the shelf. I'm not paying $500 for an overpriced "game pack", I'm not placing a special order, and I'm not going to buy one on Ebay. If I could find one on the shelf at the store, I probably would have bought a PS2. But after 7 months of waiting, and its still not on the shelf, well I changed my mind. Sony, kiss my $299 goodbye. It could have been yours.
Don't make me go through hoops to buy your product. If MS follows this simple rule, they will experience an order of magnitude more sales.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
The only reason I will be sticking to nintendo is game play. Nintendo has a lot of fun original multiplayer games like mario kart, mario party, goldeneye, perfect dark, super smash brothers, etc.. I have yet to see anything compare to these on the playstation or dreamcast lines. Sure, the graphics may not be life like, but you know what? who gives a shit. If I want amazing graphics I'll watch a movie or go for a walk.
Granted I haven't played many of the newer games on the ps2, so this may have changed, but I am sick to death of games that have "awesome mindblowing graphics" achieved through full motion video. Who wants to sit in the middle of a game and watch a movie?
I am looking for games that I can play with and against friends. All of the different rip-offs of super street fighter (or whatever you hard-core gamers claim to be the first person vs person fighter) get boring quickly. I don't have time to memorize all the moves of 150 different characters with 30 moves per character just to properly play a game. This is why smash brothers is so fun, all the characters moves are done exactly the same way (direction + 1 button). It is simple and fun.
Until I can find a system that focuses on game play more than graphics better than nintendo does, I will be sticking with nintendo.
"I have a porkchop, you have a porkchop. I have a veal, you have a veal".
And once Linux is installed you can't play games anymore. Suddenly this hacked box is only appealing to geeks; people who are already running Linux anyway.
Why would the average consumer bother installing Linux on an X-box? What would be the benefit?