Slashdot Mirror
XBox Goes Down in Public
rosewood sent in a story about the X-Box Crashing in Public. Of course, it obviously is beta hardware so such things are to be expected, but that doesn't mean that you can't point your fingers and generate a nelson style HAHA at a multi billion dollar corporation's expense. They'll get the last laugh in 24 months when no software vendor dares release a game for any other system.
Gates has about 1000 MS products crash during public demos over the years. It's only in the last couple years that's it's been worthy of CNN. It's also only in the last couple years that Gates has started to take showers and comb his hair before standing up in front of people. Personally, I think greasy messed up hair and bent geek glasses is more funny than Windows 9x somehow crashing.
Jobs had MacOS X crash on him last year. Just mentioning so someone can whore a link.
You must have been at the wrong E3, then. Even MSNBC admits that the X-Box was the flop of the show.
It is amazing how Microsoft has got the world accustomed with rebooting as an acceptable practice. This would never be acceptable in the mini or mainframe world. Please God tell us that there will never be Microsoft MVS. I have developed realtime applications on PC's connected to some industrial machine, that if the computer failed, more than likely death would result of some worker. Microsoft products were never considered. Nathan Atlanta Ga. USA
Bollocks.
W2K has been running on my CAD station at work extremely well. The only time I have had to reboot it has been after installing patches and even Linux people do that, so get your bigoted ass out of here. I know what I'm talking about. I've been using Linux at home since 1994. Linux and W2K are just as stable. Game platforms such as Win95/98/ME suck, though.
Posting anonymously to avoid rabid anti-Microsoft moderation.
Actually, my ps2 crashed about five minutes ago, while playing NHL Hockey. Just as I was about to finish kicking some Maple Leaf ass too. It just froze solid, alas.
--
"Don't trolls get tired?"
10 gigs? Not just 8?
Why, then, it will certainly succeed.
- A.P.
--
Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
- A.P.
--
Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
...which is to say Microsoft is demoing their stuff on hardware that is _better_ than the final product is going to be? I don't remember anyone saying XBox was going to be gigahertz athlons...
If I put a metallic external program in my Microwave it'll crash.
And spark and smoke.
there's no comparison. J Random 14 yr old is way smarter than mega-corp
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
For comparison purposes, when was the last time any other console crashed at a show?
Shows are an opportunity to show off unfinished software. Frequent crashes are par for the course. I had a play with the demo Dreamcast version of Disney's Dinosaur at last year's ECTS -- it would freeze up frequenly, requiring a soft reset, and pressing obscure button combinations would cause diagnostic messages to appear on screen.
I wouldn't say this story is a big deal, any more than I would whinge if I downloaded an alpha version of a kernel driver, and my Linux box crashed.
--
disagree with you on this one. there is one advantage that I can think of and thats peripherals.
I remember john carmack talking about console manufacturers dipping their toes into using adding standard hardware (USB mice, HDD, etc.) and potentially running into driver problems. x-box (correct me if I wrong) uses pretty much standard HW and drivers and will have less problems (as much as ms os's permit). there's probably a few other things he mentions (graphics card support, latter release and more processing horsepower, ease of development etc.)
check the links.
xbox.consoles-france.com/hardware/ (french - x-late here).
http://www.dailyradar.com/features/game_feature_p
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
This PS/2 owner won't buy an X-box. Not because of loyalty to Sony or hatred toward MS, but because I suspect the X-box will be junk. Prove me wrong in November and maybe I'll reconsider... for now I'll play SSX and enjoy. --M
X-Box could be an absolute and complete failure, probably will, but there's nothing that will stop Microsoft from releasing X-Box V2 in a year, and X-Box V3 the year after that, at which point it will probably be worth buying.
They're certainly not going to run out of money before some version of the X-Box is a dominating succuss, and if history tells us anything, it will probably be version 3 or 4.
ENDUT! HOCH HECH!
This would lead me to believe they should have been showing their final hardware at E3.
Since they weren't, I can only assume there will be a shortage just like ths ps2, and/or their launch date is gonna get moved back.
Vermifax
Vermifax
Logout
If it doesn't exist yet how could they possibly be telling the truth about their planned release date? When did they start producing final hardware? today?
Vermifax
Vermifax
Logout
You wonder if "such things are to be expected" Why the GC didn't crash this year, and why the ps2 didn't crash last year.
Vermifax
Vermifax
Logout
You are the only one who seems to think so. Most people (console gamers, and console reporters) consider the DC to be in the same generation as the psx. (or at least in an inbetween generation) and the xbox, the ps2, and the GC to be the same generation. Certainly if you were to consider the gc and the xbox to be in the next, one would have expected much more powerful boxes in comparison to the ps2.
Vermifax
Vermifax
Logout
Hrm...lets think about that for a second. The PSX certainly came with the same amount of bootsrap code (relatively) that the Dreamcast did. It also had the psx's os on every game disk, just like the dreamcast games. The only difference was people could develop either to Sega's api, or WinCE.
Vermifax
Vermifax
Logout
Did the PS2 ever crash during public demos?
Did the GC ever...
I'm sure you get my point.
I also think that with their near release date, they should have been showing final hardware.
Vermifax
Vermifax
Logout
Care to provide a link to that information.
Vermifax
Vermifax
Logout
Link to it or go home
Vermifax
Vermifax
Logout
Proove it.
Vermifax
Vermifax
Logout
Game development by nature has a severely accelerating pace. And it's certainly not unheard of to release a game for duplication a week and a half before it is scheduled to be on shelves, since all the packaging is printed in advance. Six, er, five and a half months is still a ton of time to fix crashes from the E3 demo, then put in all new crashes and fix those too. Also, developers are receiving actual Xbox hardware after the gray Xbox development PC systems have been out there for something like a year now, and the actual consoles are reportedly already in production south of the border. So all in all, I don't think they're in a lot of trouble right now.
A game demo on the Xbox crashed, and restarting it revealed that it was running on Xbox-like PC hardware. In the uncomfortable pause while the system was restarting, a PR droid gamely tried to explain that the demo systems don't have the unified memory architecture of the Xbox itself.
So, a pre-alpha demo of an Xbox game crashed? Shocking. No, actually, it would be news if a E3 demo of a game which is six months or more away from release never crashed during a demonstration.
Maybe the news is that the final hardware wasn't ready to show at E3. But everyone expected that. Again, it was news that Nintendo did have GameCube hardware at the show.
But hey, good excuse for a link to the GIA!
Actually there were a few demos on the Sony stand you could always get to. The three Barbie screens were usually free. Wasn't too hard to grab a go on a Gameboy Advance either.
It was impossible to get to a Sega machine though, as they kept them ALL in the corporate area. Never saw a vacant X-Box either, but then the Microsoft stand just wasn't that big when compared to Sony or Nintendo.
Who gives a shit if it's beta hardware? It was running pre-alpha software. Even if the final hardware has bugs (and it will, they all do) it's the software's responsibility to work around it.
Virtually every demo box at E3 will have crashed once or twice. They have people there to press the reset button when things go wrong. E3 is a pre-release show, to preview product that's still under development, to store buyers, and the media. E3 demos are often being polished right up until the last minute. They are not finished product.
Sonic The Hedgehog Advance?
I think you'll find CodeMasters were the last, with their hacked genesis/megadrive carts. They also went to court with Nintendo over their hack-cart, and won.
The reason no-one ports those dating sims, is because they wouldn't sell enough copies to pay for the localisation and reproduction. Same goes for the horse racing, mah-jong, and pachinko games.
M$ will take a loss on each of these puppies in hopes of making their money from licensing and future games. So buy one, cmon a GEFORCE3 video card, it is gonna BLOW away the competition. When you have it just never play it or pirate the games and M$ will lose even more. The parent of this comment said it best, IT KILLED THE DREAMCAST :)
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
they make good games :)
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I've never seen my playstation crash. There are places in the Tomb Raider games where your character can get stuck and have trouble getting unstuck, though, which can have the same effect. Even those are bizarre aberrations: you don't expect the console to crash, and it almost never does.
I've seen my Dreamcast crash once, on Skies of Arcadia. It never happened again, and I've never had another problem.
On the other hand, with Windows, it can be a matter of when will it crash TODAY, and major apps like Word and IE5 exhibit major bugs and crashes on a continuous basis. That's much worse than would be tolerated on a console.
Consoles are about cheap thrills, instant gratification and lack of hassles. If people buy X-boxen, and they get sidelined by crashes even once a week, MS is screwed, because they're not only going to lose $125 on the sale, they're going to lose $300 more when the XBox gets returned to the store.
Jon
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Please tell us how you were able to determine that the cause of the glitch wasn't a hardware problem.
Because he's a super 31337 Linux programmer and he is well aware of how horrible M$ programmers are. All Linux programmers are of impeccable credentials and they produce code of utmost quality (not only is it hyper-optimized and with 0 defects, but it also manages to fix faults in third party software too!). All M$ programmers are losers who don't know how to program and whose code defect rate is horrible.
At least that's what I've learned on Slashdot. Surely it's true though right?
How can we assume it is the platform's fault, it could have been the programming of the actual game. And if you think about it what should the game console do if the actual game that is running freaks out and causes some kind of unrecoverable error... Being that it is a gaming console, I guess reboot would be the best action as it has nothing else to do.
His statement implied that the Xboxen had the idea that they had more memory than they really did, as if MS had told the kernel that it had 256MB of RAM, but only given it 128. This is not the case. There is no way that those machines crashed because they were trying to access "non-existant memory" except by plain old (and I'm talking OLD) Microsoft style bugs.
While you _can_ tell Linux that it has more RAM than it does, the result will not be what the previous poster implied. Linux will not boot if you lie to it.
How so? Well, I ran Win2k at home on a box whose purpose was only playing games and viewing multimedia, with an Nvidia card. Sounds a lot like the Xbox, doesn't it? That box crashed about every other day, making Win98 more that 50 times as stable (it crashed about every two months). I originally installed Win2k because I thought I might end up doing development, but I'm not. (Not on Windows, anyway). After putting up with it for about a month and a half, my girlfriend asked me to remove it. These numbers are accurate for this installation. I've kept track because I was curious.
I'm glad Win2k is stable for you. I'd heard that it was for a lot of people, which is one of the reasons that I installed it. However, for a gaming platform, it's not even close to stable. NVidia better come out with a damn good driver for the Xbox, cuz the latest *stable* driver on their site ate my balls. At this rate, the Xbox is going to ruin a lot of otherwise good games.
one sentance about the X-Box crashing
I don't know about you, but one crash is about all I need. Seems to me that Microsoft products seem to crash in just about every public demo that I actually attend or hear about.
namely lacking memory
Now, the rep. said that the memory configuration will be different. He did not say that the final Xbox will have more memory. Since the Xbox has been switched to an Intel CPU, I'm guessing that either he meant something related to RAMBUS/SDRAM, or he was just plain spin doctoring. I'm inclined to beleive the latter, since his statement was so vague.
if I tell the kernel it has 256MB
Totally m00t point. You can't *tell* the 2000 kernel how much memory the system has. You obviously know nothing about kernel design. Stop and think about this for a moment. The hecklers aren't really being immature about this, they're pointing out that their suspicions all along that the Xbox would just be another crashy MS PC are right. If this crash were due to a missing piece of hardware, they all would have crashed. Maturity has nothing to do with deriding the Xbox. What do you expect us to do? Ignore it? Buy the Xbox because Bill tells us to? Screw that. I want hardware (and software) with a proven record of stability and quality. The Xbox has neither of those. Intel/RAMBUS has had serious stability issues. Windows 2000 has serious stability issues. The Xbox has been demonstrated to be instable. Conclusion: I'm not buying one! If I did, it wouldn't be a console, it would be a Linux PC that MS generously paid most of the cost for. (If MS wants to buy me a Linux capable PC with a sweet video card to repay me for the trouble they've caused, who am I to argue!?)
As an aside, if you lie to Linux, and tell it that it has more RAM than it does, it won't complete booting. You can't break Linux this way.
Your link isn't to a "more accurate story", it points to a story about an entirely different crash! The story on xbox.com was written prior to E3 (see the beginning of the last paragraph), while the story on thegia.com is about a crash that happened *during* E3, almost a month later.
:-)
Do I think it's unreasonable for the box to crash? Maybe not, but at this point, late in the develpment, it sure doesn't bode well for the release of the product, does it?
Take those informative moderation points and put them where they belong... On informative (and correct) posts
Finally a sensible comment.
-- Cheers!
Has an MS product ever NOT crashed at the first showing? IIRC 2000, 98, and 95 all did, but perhaps I am mistaken.
If you think you know what the hell is going on you're probably full of shit. -- Robert Anton Wilson
If you think you know what the hell is going on you're probably full of shit. -- Robert Anton Wilson
jdube is who
now if I could just get the dream world were computers DON'T crash.
You could buy an older 1980s generation computer like an Amiga or a NeXT box. Such machines do most of what computers do today (just slower).
Or you could buy a Sun Sparc and run Solarus..
I'm a Linux guy.. You've heard it all before..
But it's true.. and not just for Linux. A number of operating systems and computers produced today run fine.
Hay for the people who like Windows the most it dosen't crash.
I won't use anything that dosen't work correctly.
It isn't worth my time to fight with defective technology...
I don't actually exist.
I had a defective Microwave...
The counter would wig out and I'd have to unplug it to make it reset.
I replaced it...
I don't actually exist.
I had a microwave that did crash once.. I replaced it.. :) ... Rember those Interactive CD video players? Didn't crash...
As for a CD player...
On the issue of external programs...
Video game console makers have an added advantage.. Game companys MUST go through the console maker to sell games. If the game is flaky the console maker can just say "No"...
Microsoft and Apple do not have this advantage...
App makers can sell crummy software and blame the os or computer.
I've never actually had that problem. All the apps I've ever used were pritty good quality. But then I'm very selective and rarely buy any software. I usually just write what I need.
I don't actually exist.
Actually there is a simple and well tested way of making an operating system run perfictly...
Remove anything that dosen't work.
Test the system extensively and just scrap any feature that isn't functioning correctly.
This was done often in the 1980s..
Also a lot of times whole computers would be scrapped becouse they had problems.
I don't actually exist.
we're talking about computers and consoles which run complicated software that are not 100% stable.
Console makers can say no to low quality software.. Computer makers don't have that advantage.
You don't get 100% all the time.. stuff happends. That is true for TVs and radios as much as computers and consoles.
But writing software is nowhere near as complex as you make it out to be.
I don't actually exist.
This is gonna get modded down as a troll, but it's true
First.. I certenly hope not... This is a reasonable argument...
Messing with your system is an easy way to make it crash. Stick tinfoil in a microwave.. Dust in a CD player.. etc...
I expect 75% from my technology...
Potted plant on the TV is asking for trubble...
I don't actually exist.
Consoles crash all the time, they always have and always will.
What consoles do you use? I'd like to know what to avoid in the future.
Hay why don't you put yourself on my suckers list. I mean you'll get on one eventually. Why fight it?
You have accepted the notion that defective products are an unavoidable reality.
This is an excuse for producing poor quality.
Forget Microsoft for a moment.
A lot of companys sell shotty quality and they run around saying everyone is this bad.
People who make shotty cars clame all cars are shotty.
People who sell poor quality knifes clame all knifes are the same.
People who sell high quality end up having to fight this fiction.
Quality is not a myth.
If all game consoles are defective.. why would anyone buy them?
I have never had any problems with the game consoles I've used and I only had computer problems becouse I occasionally buy cutting edge.
(When buying cutting edge you don't know if it is defective or not... and if it is you are betting the company will fix it. If it is defective and the company won't fix it you are screwed. It's worth the risk... It's usually defective it is usually fixed and the bug is usually minnor.)
But I will not ever buy from a company that isn't sereous about producing a good quality product.
Stuff happends. Clean it up.. don't plug your nose and ignore it.
(You know the correct word isn't STUFF.. but I'll leave it to you to mentally insert the correct word)
I don't actually exist.
If YOU think that computers shouldn't crash then you're living in a dream world.
I have a number of computers and game consoles that do not crash.
I'm not going to say Windows crashes all the time. How could I know? I don't use Windows. I don't need Windows. I don't know what is normal for Windows.
What I do use dosn't crash.
If Microsoft asks me to live with a defective game console I just won't buy it.
If the Xbox is all there is and it's defective I just won't buy a game console.
Nobody is twisting my arm...
If computers truely were so complex that they must all be defective I would not be using computers today.
I'm patent but not enough to deal with flaky technology...
I don't actually exist.
One key diffrence between the game market and the PC market is gamers are almost expected to have more than one console.
Also PCs are productivity machines game consoles are entertainment.
If the only productivity software available is for one platform you are screwed. Use it no matter how flaky.
If however all the games are for one platform and that platform is no-fun.. We get a new video game dark age.
(Like the last video game dark age... when nobody could sell video games and everyone was playing non-computer based games like chess and RPGs)
You are kinda locked into your computer platform. When you upgrade you only upgrade a part of the system. You need to maintain compatability with your old hardware.
Compaire this to video game consoles. Every upgrade you toss the whole box and start over from scratch. You aren't locked into anything.
Microsoft CAN get all the video game makers to produce all games for Xbox. Microsoft CAN get a lot of gammers to buy the box. But if it dosn't rock it is dead.
The problem is simple. The Xbox dosen't simply compleate with every game console. It compeates with the fickle short attention span of the gamers.
Only the early addopters will scoop them up and try them out. If they suck then you'll see a bunch of web pages on installing Linux on an Xbox and other such uses. This becouse the early adopters will simply put the investment to good use.. That use being something other than playing games.
I expect Microsoft isn't aware of the realitys of the video game console world and think if they can throw out some fancy hardware (working or not) and sell games they'll make money.
If the box is defective then someone will produce something better.
I don't actually exist.
If you wanted to play Rouge Squadron 2 , you'd be out of luck, people were at least 6 deep around the two demo boxes, and the suround sound booth was too packed to get into.
I guess Nintendo is finally trying to make video games that appeal to girls..
cpeterso
This article is pretty much a Troll as far as I'm concerned. I was at E3 last year for the unveiling of the PS2 and there were plenty of crashed demo stations, the same goes for the Dreamcast games that were showing of the new online play back then.
;).
Now, they didn't put up a blue screen or anything, they just locked up hard on screen, but it's E3, most of this stuff isn't even beta yet. Ya can't blame M$ for someone else's mistake (as much as I'd like to
The Dreamcast doesn't come with an OS either, it's included on the game-CD (GD, whatever). Some games are written for WinCE and thus include it. Others are written for SegaOS (or whatever it's called) and thus include that instead. But there's no OS in the hardware. And thank (insert deity) that not more games take "advantage" of WinCE as the few I've seen that do use it look and work like sh*t.
Didn't that happen with windows 98? An omen of things to come? Or maybe they just forgot to add the bluescreen routine, so the hardware just died instead of giving the notorious error message.
o mdex/
Yep, here's the story from CNN, complete with videos:
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9804/20/gates.c
What's your damage, Heather?
I wonder what the real reason the X-Box crash. Am I the only one who thinks that PR generally doesn't have a clue when things go wrong or when trying to be informative?
---
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
There were also indications that the hardware is not entirely stable yet - a crash during Nightcaster revealed a familiar looking PC boot screen, and a Microsoft representative explained that the memory configuration on the floor models was different than that of the final version.
I don't quite get how a memory configuration is a hardware error, unless they were using shoddy ram, but why would you use bad ram in a public display of your product? I don't recall windows crashing because of insufficient ram either, and am I really to believe that they only stocked the machine with 64-128 megs or so of ram for their public display? Ram is cheap, and for one of the richest companies on earth i'm sure they can afford to make their testing models as good as the soon to be released models.
So it might be a wash . . .
I have to say, out of all the games I did play, only one really looked *fun* -- it's called "Cel Damage" and it uses that cool Cel Shading technique, which isn't even really 3D! But other than that, visually etc the system wasn't very impressive. We'll have to see post-beta games I guess.
I was initially really surprised to see "playable Xboxes" on the show floor because I'd just read in Wired that Nvidia was nowhere near ready to start fabbing the chips, and wouldn't be ready until mid or late summer. So these machines (whatever they have inside) don't have either the right processor or the right graphics card -- so however they look (and crash :) has really nothing to do with what the production Xbox will be.
"Now all they have left is testing,"
What do you think that testing is for, a quick laugh? They have all the components, and are now moving onto the debugging stage. The hardware is nowhere near "gone gold"!
Nobody is selling GNOME. Some people thinks it's better to "realease early, release often".
War is necrophilia.
I went to the EMP (Experience Music Project) in Seattle, which is owned by Paul Allen. Naturally, they had these nifty little audio thingies that you carried arround with you that gave information relative to the exibit you were near.
Well, they all ran windowsCE. Mine crashed three times!! They had a technical support staff there and when I came to them with my problem, the person pulled out some kind of key, opened the unit, and then pulled out the battery to reboot the damn thing, every time!!! I was nearly on the floor laughing. My sister was with me at the time and she had heard my evangelizing about the virtues of linux, one of which being stability, and she didn't want to hear about it.
Anyway, I found it very ironic that I, as a linux user and advocate, had the newfangled device, powered by windowsCE, crash on me in what is supposed to be this showcase of technology. Horray for progress!
Midnight Club for the PS2 crashed on me every 20 to 30 minutes (not usually in game mind you, but as I was manuvering menus...) when I was playing it. And others I've played have done the same (no names coming to mind).
This is just an occurance nowadays when companies are rushing their products to market before it is done. Blame the marketing department!
It's gotta be prone to crashing. That way in two years they can do a big advertising blitz for "X-BOX 2004, better stability than the original X-BOX, upgrade today."
Don't forget DVD and hard drive.... at 299 $, it will make terrific Linux/BSD boxes, all subsidised by MS as they are selling at a loss and hope to make it even on games :)
You really think this gets your message across?
Microsoft are going to change their attitude because one person chooses N64 over Xbox?
Likewise, the money you spend on an Xbox is nothing to Microsoft. It is not as if you are financing their evil empire -- they will do equally well (or badly) with or without your dollars.
Surely it makes sense to register your objections in a notable way (perhaps gather support, get a discussion going, send email, etc.) and buy whichever console is best for you on that console's individual merits.
Xbox and PC have similarities in the hardware and the OS. I'd bet my bottom dollar that Microsoft's longterm plan involves Xbox and PC interoperability, so that they can use their share in each market to fuel the other. Who wouldn't want a game that runs on both PC and gameconsole?
This is in the USA or what? I've been looking for this figure for a while, because the annual road-toll in my country of 3.5 million is 500. In other words, one person in 7,000 dies on the roads each year. Translated to the USA, that would be 40,000 deaths per year -- 110 per day -- an horrific amount.
Unfortunately, what (realistically) can we do?
DOS *is* stable as a rock. The only way you'll crash it is to run a program which writes over DOS memory or files, or that program itself crashes.
What? Sure, game houses can design games to install to hard disk. Then, to release the game, MS just install the game to some HD, burn it to a CD, distribute this CD as the game. The system boots up, mounts the CD, and voila.
It's beta hardware...get over it. Did the Indrema ever crash in demos? I guess we'll never know since there weren't any.
This sounds oddly like that Win 98 demo a few years back when it blue screened after the guy plugged a USB scanner into it. Right in front of Billy Gates, also. Sure, everyone pointed fingers and laughed at the time. The video even made its rounds on the internet. But after a few months did anyone really care? No. And once the XBox is released in November and all the games are sitting at home happy will they care that it crashed during its first public showing? I don't think so.
SYSOP ('sih-sop) n.: the guy laughing at your typing.
Who's to say the PS2/N64/Dreamcast weren't further along in development than the XBox is. And if I recall correctly, the earliest reports of the XBox came about August of last year. Lets assume development started a month prior. That would mean the XBox has been in development for less than a year. So it's very well possible the above mentioned consoles were further along in their development process than the XBox is.
SYSOP ('sih-sop) n.: the guy laughing at your typing.
Of course, you're completely under-researched but I won't hold that against you... What I will do is attempt to show, using a few of your examples and a few others, why the X-box is very likely to annihilate the competition.
The DC's specs were about the same jump over the PSX. The PS2 was a year and a half after that and had even less of a jump comparatively. This is actually a next-gen console to the PS2 the same way the PS2 was over the DC. Sega always caught the downslope of the market with their console releases... X-box should actually come out at the right time to catch the rising wave. The PS2 will not have released the 2nd generation games yet(which is what most people who own the system are waiting for, and several people are waiting for to buy the system), Gamecube will be just released (with very few 'must-buy' games lined up for launch, IMHO) and the DC support will be almost totally drained by then. And as the GameCube will be just released, let's take a look there, since that's what you think it needs to be compared to...
The X-box, as you mentioned, has a 700Mhz Intel processor, a 300 Mhz custom nVidia chip, 64MBs of RAM with 6.4GB/second of bandwidth. It also boasts 4x-DVD media (with normal movie DVD capability), an 8GB scratch drive, 3D audio support, 4 USB controller ports, 100 Mbps ethernet and 1920x1080 HDTV output (which can also be converted to a monitor signal, as HDTV hasn't yet reached that resolution). (from www.planetxbox.com)
The GameCube has a 405 Mhz IBM processor (it sounds as though this 'Gekko' chip actually works faster for gaming purposes, and it's a 64-bit chip rather than a 32-bit chip so the comparison may not be a good one), a 202.5 Mhz graphics chip (with about the same HW T&L and anti-aliasing features), 24 MBs of RAM with 3.2 GB/second bandwidth, and additional 16 MB of RAM with err.. less bandwidth. It also includes 3D audio on par with the Xbox, proprietary mini-DVD disc format with associated drive, 4 controller ports, both a 56k modem and some sort of broadband ethernet support, and both analog and digital TV ouput (monitor cables are expected as well, no word on resolutions). (from www.planetgamecube.com)
So, the Xbox specs are equivalent or possibly slightly better (in graphics) or slightly worse (in main processor and possibly in RAM access) but still close enough for appropriate comparison to the generation you wanted it to be compared to. If the Xbox isn't a big jump, then neither is the GameCube. I don't care which one you choose (big jump or not), but the Xbox compares favorably or at least equitably with the systems people have seen (DC, PS2) and those that have been kept as far out of the public eye as possible (GameCube).
Now for the games... The X-box currently has a a decent number of exclusive games (pure console-style games) announced. It also has several PC and other console system ports announced. The reason ports from console to PC have done poorly is because console programmers can't handle the vast variety of weird configurations people have in their PCs. The sheer number of combinations of graphics, motherboard, audio and video cards (not to mention bizarre peripherals) that could potentially cause a problem is enormous. This is why developers like consoles. On the flipside, developers like PCs because there are few restrictions on what can be done, and the programming is generally greatly simplified over trying to write to the exact hardware requirements. The X-box is the best of both (or so MS hopes)... It has a stable configuration, and a PC-style architecture. It has certainly attracted many developers sick of the PS2's insanely complex SDK.
Now, why don't those ports work? First, they're generally buggy, and look worse on whatever they end up ported to. No problems with that for Windows games going to X-box, since it'll be the same type of system. Don't even neccesarily need to worry about control set reductions, as the Xbox can handle a USB keyboard and mouse. Reverse? Well, the X-box is as good as any initial test-bed for a PC game in development. Console to Console? These generally fare much better, (as Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver and Tony Hawk 2 show) and should like-wise not be a huge problem for most companies used to much nastier alterations being required to port the games.
Now for the OS... You do realize that the DC can and does run a WinCE OS for some things... It can also rune Linux if you'd like, but that's besides the point. What generally crashes an OS? Hardware conflicts, memory errors or malicious code. If the OS is written to the hardware, you shouldn't have to worry about conflicts occuring. Memory errors and malicious code, if they occur, will be the game developer's fault more than Microsoft's (although I'm not certain MS is doing the rigorous and often insane amount of testing for liscensed games before they get released. The number of hoops a developer has to jump through for most consoles is rather high, and many are centered around making sure the game won't crash ever, though the PS2 seems to crash often enough...)
As a side note, even if ports do poorly, emulation does quite well... Free (as in beer) often does that, though Bleem! did relatively good sales.
Final word, X-box has the game developers under it. This is what makes or breaks a console, no matter what anyone else says. The PSX flew high because Sony attracted those all important third-party game developers. MS is doing the same with X-box. They have several good games lined up: Oddworld- Munch's Oddysee, Black&White, Crash Bandicoot X, Dead or Alive 3, Halo, Metal Gear Solid X, and several others, games that have a past and will attract gamers who liked the originals, or the developers. Looks like at least Halo and Oddworld will be launch titles, giving the system a relatively good base as well.
Price... PS2 set the line with their initial $400 tag. PS2 is currently down to $300 itself, so X-box's launch price sounds pretty darn good for an integrated CD/DVD player. All in all, It looks like the X-box is set up for success in the console market, not failure.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
QA: The art of telling someone that their baby is ugly without getting punched.
Reboot after patches? I reboot after a new kernel, but not for the average patch.
My Super Nintendo crashed. Once. I was playing Donkey Kong Country, had just found a new bonus area, and suddenly a weird glitch caused the screen to fill with ostrich parts (various tiles that composed Espresso the ostrich) and freeze.
I was extremely surprised, then pissed.
I will be surprised and then pissed again if Microsoft gets the typical gamer used to the idea of crashing.
--
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
One of the major incentives for developing on consoles is that you don't have to do huge amounts of testing to make sure it works on different hardware configurations. The idea is that if it runs on one then it'll run on all.
Now Microsoft is already trying to excuse crashes by claiming hardware differences. These differences simply should not be there. It's supposed to be a console dammit!
Now many people are either predicting the success or failure of the X-Box. I just like to think of one constant that has been with Microsoft from the beginning.
The first version of pretty much every Microsoft product sucks.
-- That which does not kill us has made its last mistake.
Just give microsoft some time. If they can make you accept a non-stable PC then they can sure as hell make you accept a non-stable console. If you change this comment to read "I can't accept computers crashing occasionally".. you might sound like an [insert your fav non-MS OS here] advocate =). ~Marshall
-------------------
arcane for life
Most console gamers i know would throw out their console if it 'crashed.' indeed, while its been a while since i've played console games, i've nevre known the system to crash.
I'm not a die hard MS fan; quite the opposite, i've found most of their products to be shoddy pieces of crap. I was suprised however when win2k actually does seem pretty stable. Yes it crashes, but crashes for me have been a rarity, and all the blue screens i have were b/c of a gravis gamepad driver...and even that has happened maybe 5 times in 9 months. To me its ironic that MS finally produces something thats pretty stable, yet not many people are buying it...but i guess their past reputation has caught up with them.
From my experience with laptops, it was windows, not the laptop that was being fiesty. I even had an old dell laptop that ran linux wonderfully, and didn't shit bricks when i plugged in pc cards. I agree w/you about win2k..if you're going to have windows, i would think thats the version to have.
From everything i have been hearing, win2k sales have been very disapointing. Even if they have 5 million copies, thats not a lot concidering the number of computers out there.
As far as uptime goes, you're right, home user joe may not care for a 300+ day uptime. However, even joe user seems to be leaving his computer on more (probably b/c it eliminates boot time), and i'm sure they want an uptime of more then 30mins...which is about as good as you could get with previous versions. Even NT4 gave me alot of headaches during the day when we used that at work. Win9x and NT always seemed to crash at least once a day.
Besides, you seem to forget that NT4 may be stable enough for the home user, BUT, most home users DON'T have NT; they have that shitty DOS upgrade, win9x/ME.
he is going to be horribly insulted when his game console crashes.
Rubbish. You don't know crap about consoles.
On one hand, no game console should ever crash. On the other, having owned EVERY game console, and spent immeasurable hours in arcades, I've seen just about every machine crash.
From the Atari 2600 all the way up to the Playstation 2 I've seen games lock up, crap out, go blank, reset, garble the screen, make horrible noises, and just plain die in plain view.
It's not a matter of -IF- game systems are going to have problems. But it's going to be a matter of how LONG you're going to go before you see them.
Until the Playstation came along, crashes were very, very rare. Now it wouldn't be hard to compile a nice list of modern console games with SERIOUS issues. (I think there are even a few N64 games with serious issues!)
The X-Box is not going to be that much worse than the Playstation 2 because software developers will know it's a static machine and they'll learn how to avoid crashing the system.
Consoles are not PCs, and the software developement process is not the same. It's a static environment that lends it's self to a deeper level of mastery.
So, in 2 years if we see games crashing, rest assured they'll all be Electronic Arts and Acclaim titles.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
As much as I hate MS to push the other guys out of the game console market (I actually mean "strongarm" them out), and as much as I wish you were right, I can't hep but see flaws in your post, as the people before me have noted.
However, the one thinkg I do agree with you is, MS has NEVER ever introduced a product that was as flaweless as a game console needs to be.
Sigged!
But why would you do that? To make Linux look bad?
Well in this particular situation, Microsoft was demoing their product, and tried to show it in the best light, and thus really had no interest whatsoever to sabotage their own product. And you can be pretty damn sure that they have enough money to put a decent enough amount of memory in the box too.
Say no to software patents.
Played it on a Playstation, though... :)
--
Never mind Spamassassin. When's Spammerassassin coming out?
Consoles crash all the time
The last game I crashed was Final Fantasy 3(6) when I had Relm sketch invisible enemies, and I was trying to crash it so it would screw up my items and give me 255 Excaliburs.
Didn't that happen with windows 98? An omen of things to come? Or maybe they just forgot to add the bluescreen routine, so the hardware just died instead of giving the notorious error message.
I am !amused.
It was even really Beta hardware. What they had going to pretty much a super powered PC running an xbox emulator. Teh graphics chip hasn't even been fabed yet. It's almost understandable that something as complex as teh xbox could crash when it was being run totally as a software emulator.= \=\=\=\=\=\
=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\
Stole the show?? Every single article I have read about E3 gave the graphics nod to Rogue Leader for GameCube. Where did you hear that DOA3 was the show-stealer?
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
"The new wave is not value-added; it's garbage-subtracted" - Esther Dyson, Dec 1994
I think Microsoft is going to have to swallow hard and accept the fact that while Joe Sixpack may find his computer complex and doesn't find it odd that it crashes every once in a while, he is going to be horribly insulted when his game console crashes. ("What the..? Piece of shit..")
This is one arena where MS is not the "OS" leader. Nintendo, Sega, Sony, even Atari have established "operating systems" that work damn well on their games boxes and don't blue screen every couple of hours. The fact that XBox crashed in such a high-profile tradeshow displays pathetic programming. When Joe Sixpack learns that this is what he can expect from XBox, he will quite simply go with one of the established gaming vendors that has a box that can actually run.
On one hand, nobody will get XBox bundled with anything - presumably PC manufacturers will be loth to bundle a gaming console that will make you use your PC less?
On the other hand, game developers might love it. A more-or-less common shared platform with the PC running DirectX (sigh...), solid bucks supporting it from the M$30 billion...
Sony looks likely to survive the console shake-up, let's hope Nintendo does too. Let's hope the GameCube gets more titles than the N64...
-michel-
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
My playstation crashes. My Super Nintendo crashes. My NES crashed. My Linux box crashes. My windows box crashes. My ACD system running on os/2 warp crashes. Christ, I've had my DD reciever crash on days with lots of static electricity kicking around.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Trying to figure out how to write games for it.[1]
And remember that up til the Dreamcast these machines did NOT come with a OS![2]
The X-Box is completely new in the area, and it will take time to get all the 'bugs' out, but if they're willing to spend the time and money to fix these problems, and if they can get these items fix in time, I'll certainly take a good look at the underlying system and see just how hackable it really is.
[1] Wrote the Sega Genesis Programming FAQ
[2] Not that I'll call Windows CE a gamer's OS, but kudos to MS for getting Sega to include it in the first place. And even more to MS for making the thing work on Sega's box, even though there is only a few games that take use of it.
Hummm.... Now that the Dreamcast is going, I wonder if Sega would be willing to release the developer's software for it?
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
Um, no. This may be "OK" for desktop computers, [...]
You have to remember that to M$ (like Netscrape) `beta' means `alpha'. They presumably don't bother with alpha tests.
_O_
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
Congratulations, you have just discovered the big secret M$ has been trying to bury:-).
If YOU think that computers shouldn't crash then you're living in a dream world.
If you think computers should, I recommend a job ast M$. The rest of us think crashes are faults.
I see no reason why this would be a "good indication" of what can be expected at launch.
If they can't be arsed to test it properly even for a high profile event they clearly haven't moved from their normal development process -- release crap and let the users test it.
_O_
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
You realy think they waited until they had something that sort of worked and immediatly put it out in public?
he machine was running pre-alpha code
An even more bizzare idea. Pre alpha software would be still-being-constructued software not yet ready to be tested by the development team. So, you are saying M$ let outsiders play with software which even the developers wouldn't try and use in anger...
You work for Sony don't you:-)
_O_
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
Every time I put a CD in?:-)
Note that M$ had complete control of what they chose to demo, they didn't have to cope with arbitrary code being thrown at them (not that the latter shou;ld be a problem for a real OS).
_O_
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
If the computer crashes the OS is broken. (the app may or may not be broken too of course).
_O_
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
I don't think so, because you wouldn't say "they runs" or "they is going".
This is because English agreement rules are grammatically based, not semantically based. So the verb as to agree with the number of the pronoun, not of the thing referred to.
Rather than I think the latter is what you get in some dialects, but not the main ones.Not strange, think of gender in French, you need to know the gender of the word to get the agreement right, not the sex (if any) of the thing referred to. IIRC there are languages where it is the other way around, but it's been a long time since I was reading this stuff.
_O_
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
What planet are you on?
Just because they crash less than Windoze, that doesn't mean they don't crash at all.
The most reliable OS I have used hard is the 16 bit Psion OS on the 3 series, 3 years of constant use and only one crash (and that hardware related). EPOC on the 5 is doing well too.
_O_
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
The `big deal' is that they shouldn't. If you acce[t thi missbehaviour you have been got to. My CD player doesn't crash, my microwave doesn't crash.
Additionally the fact that they didn't sufficiantly test the hardware they were going to show to the world at a high profile event is a good indication of their quality control standards and what can be expected in production (remember the Win95 crash when Bill was demoing it).
_O_
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
Is it out for the PlayStation yet?
_O_
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
Hah! And I thought the Democratic Party was bad about wild speculation without any facts to back them up... Look, [insert name of slashdot staffer that wrote that], KEEP AN OPEN MIND. And, for your own good, I recommend not lashing out with such boldly unfounded assumptions in the future. You know what they say about those who assume... (Well, all but the me part.)
With all the news and information about the X-Box, I am convinced that the X-Box is doomed to fail at market for a number of reasons.
First, consider the hardware capabilities of the X-Box. For a console, they may seem impressive, but take a look at what they really are. First, the bogo-measurements: 4.8 gigapixel/sec (antialiased), 100M/sec sustained polygons. This may seem like a lot more than current-generation consoles, but due to diminishing returns, it isn't really.
Now, consider what's inside an X-Box: an Intel 733MHz processor, a (slightly modified) GeForce 3 video card, an 8 gig hard disk, and 64 megs of RAM. Sound like a PC? That's because MS wants easy porting. Unfortunately for Microsoft, historically every port from console to PC or vice versa has been a complete failure without exception. This is because of the different styles of play that consoles demand. Worse, Microsoft seems to promote "lazy" porting (add a few #ifdefs and recompile); this will be a disaster for the X-Box, since PC developers design their games to install to hard disk. There's one thing console users absolutely will not tolerate, and that's having to deal with the installations and disk space issues typical of PCs.
The X-Box is traditionally compared to current-generation consoles, such as the PS2 and Dreamcast. These comparisons are invalid, for two reasons. First, considering the release date, the X-Box must be compared to the next generation (NCube etc). Second, the XBox is, from a hardware perspective, not a console. Consider: it has the form factor of a PC, it is full of PC hardware, and it runs a modified PC operating system with PC APIs. The X-Box is not competing against Sony, Sega, and Nintendo; it is competing against Dell, Gateway, and Micron. The fact that the X-Box is not stable strengthens this argument; people will accept crashing from a PC, but certainly not from a console. X-Box looks good from a cost perspective for now, but its release date is still some ways off, and people will be willing to pay more for a general-purpose device than for an equivalent single-purpose console.
Another indicator is that Microsoft doesn't seem to be very confident in the X-Box. Look at what they've been spewing out to support it: vague promises, specs years in advance, and worse of all, faked screenshots. History has shown that Microsoft never gets anything right on the first try, and the X-Box will be no exception.
------------------
A picture is worth 500 DWORDS.
If YOU think that computers shouldn't crash then you're living in a dream world.
I freely admit I live in the dream world where I beleive computers SHOULDN'T crash, now if I could just get the dream world were computers DON'T crash. Unfortunatly we have low expectations of computers and both the hardware and software manufacturers have been very good at living down to those expectations and even encouraging them.
Jesus died for sombodies sins, but not mine.
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
-Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development
I really don't understand why people are so excited over this product, it's another gaming console with all the instability that microsoft generally has in their products, and horrible controls, I managed to play a prototype on m$'s campus about a year ago, and was not even interested in seeing the final product.
That's right... We should also throw up our hands and stop using linux, because MS is obviously going to beat us here too. There definitely aren't other consoles to provide competition...
Seriously, was there a glitch in the slashdot or something because I thought we didn't see microsoft as invulnerable over here.
not_cub
q='echo "q=$s$q$s;s=$b$s;b=$b$b;$q"';s=\';b=\\;echo "q=$s$q$s;s=$b$s;b=$b$b;$q"
"XBox Goes Down in Public"
Am I the only one that thought unsavoury thoughts when I read that?
True enough... but that's not my reasoning... re-read my comment.
BlackNova Traders
I own a dreamcast, an N64, and a playstation (haven't bought a PS/2 yet)... but I will not buy an Xbox... not just because it is M$ - but because of how they are playing this... exclusivity... yuck.
The only way that I can get my message accross to any company is to NOT buy their product... period.
BlackNova Traders
But this is different... I mean threatening companies that want to produce on Xbox - if they produce on other platforms is just wrong.
BlackNova Traders
...but the point being that I should not be the only one doing it.
BlackNova Traders
I have no clue where the user interface guys will take it, but I'd be stunned if anything even remotely resembling a blue screen will appear in a non-debug build.
Bert Driehuis -- All I asked was a friggin' rotatin' chair. Throw me a bone here, people.
Wrong or not, it's not new tactics. I think Nintendo used this same tactic even before the SNES days.
And have you USED W2K? Granted Win9x/ME is bad and I'm glad it's going to die, but W2K is quitely stable. 20 odd servers, most worked pretty hard, 1 crash for 2001 and that was bad memory.
I say before you go bash the evil empire, go get some facts. Cry out against their licencing. Hell man, there are all sorts of issues we should be complaining about, genuine issues that we should be screaming about! But these claims of bugginess and instability of W2K are just plain FUD in the most cases.
Come on, lets give MS a swording for what it deserves it for. OTOH, when they have done a fairly good job, give them props. I say W2k has made my life easier on the desktop level and that be good thing. At least I can place a W2K desktop on the desk of a techo clown and expect it work for at least a year without any real attention.
Now, the X-Box looks like it could be good, but we should always approach this with the usual MS slant - wait for the third servce release. I would expect the first release to have problems, but I would say MS would be pulling all stops out to get it right in the end and to ride out the initial problems.
I'll wait before passing judgement if it's a pile or not.
"Old Rallydrivers never die - they just fail to book in on time"
you do have to remember that this is a VERY early and VERY VERY pre-release version of the box, and also a pre-release version of the game! Not to mention the fact that the PS2 has crashing problems even in the release version. Although I don't think that's completely the PS2's fault. You see, the game TimeSplitters crashes rather frequently, and a cursory look at the splash screen on reboot says that Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds... etc. Now I don't want to get shot or anything (when in Rome, do as the Romans do::when in Slashdot, throw penguin shit on Microsoft's throne...), but that means that just about the ONLY console game running linux (or at least advertising that it does) is also the only one that has crashing problems.
The PS2 also has some problems playing DVDs, the display algorithm was written like shi-ite, and many discs play like crap: such as the sceens don't go in chronological order, while they do on a standard DVD player and a computer. Now I know your automatic explanation is that there must be a conspiracy of "incompetent" Microsoft programmers that hacked into Sony and infected their systems with the the Redmond strain of the horrible BG(stands-for-Bill-Gates)-virus, but I think if you give yourself a good hearty slap on the face you will discover that you're being a sagacious jackass, and that your mind, formerly considered to be too infinitessimal for the revelation of objectivity, is now open to the real wonder of the world.
I'd tell you what that is, but you have to slap yourself first...
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
is this the first public spotting of a console crashing in the public eye?
i've yet to play a console game that has crashed on me but on the other hand i'm not a die-hard console gamer. it would be interesting to know if anyone has had such a console experience.
would be great, though, if MS replaced the BSOD with something a little more entertaining like a customisable BSOD.
Ever play Metroid on a Playstation? Or Gran Turismo on a Dreamcast? Or Sonic on a Nintendo?
.nes ROM circulating called "Somari" that's essentially Sonic the Hedgehog but with Mario's graphic instead of Sonic.
Well yeah, actually, that last one. There's a
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
Seriously though, this is really, really weak. Yeah, you could do a "Ha-ha" towards them, but this is really just purely immature. Wanna watch my Linux box crash if I tell the kernel it has 256MB of memory and only have 128MB (and then try and run Mozilla :-P)? Making fun of a pre-release verison crashing because it's not the same hardware is really foolish and immature.
I suppose the Nelson reference is appropriate - this article is about as mature as Nelson.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Give me an f'ing break. The xbox won't be released for months, all the software is beta or earlier, the hardware is alpha and you people are taking shots at microsoft for one of the games crashing durring a demo?! I've seen games crash on almost every platform at E3. Can we all say it together? - puh-leez. You're all a bunch of flag waving retards.
Holy shit...I cannot and will not ever understand that. Sitting in front of a TV for three hours playing a video slot machine. IT WILL NEVER PAY OFF.
And I know people who do this every other day or so. AGh...
I wasn't there for the (in)famous crash, but the games & graphics I saw in the demo and around the show kicked some pretty serious butt. Graphically, Dead or Alive 3 on the XBox stole the show (in the console games category, anyhow).
It should be kept in mind, however, that none of the XBox demos were running at anything even remotely resembling NTSC video. All of the screens there HDTV. Not that this should be held against XBox, since the specs say it will output at all HDTV resolutions up to 1920x1080 (drool!), but it should be kept in mind when comparing it to other systems.
Oh, and about the crash - c'mon guys, it's beta software running on alpha hardware. If this crap happens when it ships, let loose with both barrels. Until then, give them a break (and yes, I dislike Microsoft as much as most people here).
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
Here are reasons I think the X-Box won't live up to the hype, and may inevitably fail:
;)
* Microsoft has no experience in the console gaming world, where it can be even more cutthroat than what the company is used to. Sure, they have lots of money and lots of influence, but their influence has mainly been used in PR campaigns to sway IT folks into using Windows. You can't "sway" Joe Gamer that way. He doesn't care about the technical merits like Microsoft usually pushes, he just wants to have a nice game to play without any hardware/software problems.
* Reliability is essential for a console system, and considering this box is powered by PC hardware and PC software... The stability of the X-Box is questionable. Not only that, this is the company that brought us such fine products as Windows ME, which we all know to be 100% stable.
* Companies like Nintendo and Sony have been at this for years, with Nintendo's experience going back 20 years or so. Microsoft is coming to this arena with new software, new hardware, and no experience. They're relying on their name and massive amounts of cash to carry them, which just may not be enough.
* If a company like Sega, with decades of experience in arcades and consoles, can't make it work, could Microsoft? Sega had an established name, a significant following, and lots of experience in this market, but they couldn't cut it.
* The console gaming world is about raking in the dough on software, not hardware. Suzy Console Gamer isn't going to upgrade her console system every three months like PC gamers do, and she's not going to pay twice as much for a new PC-esque gaming system when she could get something from an established name like the Playstation. If Microsoft tries to get their money from the hardware side of it, they may end up losing.
I'm sure all of these points could be countered to some degree, but you have to admit there's a lot of things that Microsoft could mess up with the X-Box, and they've got a lot riding on it. Windows/MS-bashing aside, the X-Box has its merits... But honestly I don't think it will be nearly as successful as Microsoft is betting. Then again, it's another system we could port Linux to....
--
The reason so few games make use of it is because as soon as microsoft decided they wanted to buy into the console market they quickly crippled the Dreamcast windows CE SDK and then went off on their own plans.
--aiee
System Shock 1994
Betrayal At Krondor 1993
Zork 1981 (OK, everything, not just PC)
Wing Commander (dammit, can't find my copy to find the year. WC3 is 1994)
Full Throttle 1994
Notepad has a 32K limit, and only on 9x.
There is no (effective) limit on NT/2K.
Hell, all notepad is is a GUI around an edit control.
And if MS shipped something useful with Windows, everybody would be screaming bloody murder (bundling)
Computer owners have the will and ability to pursue problems and correct them.
Try telling that to my mom when her machine crashes while she's checking her email.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"A fatal exception 0E has occured in module NTKERN.DLL
Press any key to terminate this program. You will lose all unsaved information.
Press CTRL+ALT+DELETE to restart this computer. You will lose all unsaved information."
This is why I'd wait for Nokia ;-)
Karma whorin' since 1999
Years ago at a Comdex keynote, I seem to recall something crashing as it was being introduced to the public. Bill Gates was there, Ted Turner to and I seem to recall Oracle. It was something about some Online Service partnership between them. It crashed! Anyone else there that can verify what happened?
3 S.E.A.S - Virtual Interaction Configuration (VIC) - VISION OF VISIONS!
So, was anyone other than me pissed off when they heard that Lucasarts decided to scrap production of Obi-Wan for the PC? They said that they were planning a release for an upcoming next-generation game platform. Well, guess what platform that is... Yep, they're making it for the XBox now. And, they seem to be planning to make a few other games for it as well (and probably not for PC). In other words, they're one of the companies that'll help the XBox get the last laugh... And, if Obi-Wan turns out to be a cool enough game, I may just have to get an XBox myself...it's just like when they stopped making Commodore 64 games and forced me to get an IBM compatible PC back in 1989 or so--just so I could play the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade graphic adventure. Stupid technology... :-)
Unfortunatly this article was not that infromative. Darn it, the total reporting of the incident is "There were also indications that the hardware is not entirely stable yet - a crash during Nightcaster revealed a familiar looking PC boot screen, and a Microsoft representative explained that the memory configuration on the floor models was different than that of the final version."
This makes me interested in what they mean by "familiar looking PC boot screen"? Did they see an award bios memory count and bios boot? or a blue screen, or even a windows 95 splash screen?
the reason for figurring this out is that we may be seeing a scam here developing, could it be the X-box is not actually a "real" console but a stripped down standered PC running software? The newer legacy free PCs on the market look a lot like a X-box...If this is the case does that mean that I will be able to run X-box games on my PC without an emulator?
{evil conspiracy mode} could this all be a plot by microsoft to bridge the PC/console gap in order to slide all the console users over to PCs and of course onto their operating systems. Get them using the X-box then reveal that they are actually using a PC and ask them to join the dark side...{/evil conspiracy mode}
Papa Legba come and open the gate
And you are in violation of speaking the biggest load of equine exhaust I've ever heard.
First of all, much of windows instability is caused by third party developersIE 5.x has been known to crash and take down the whole system. I suppose that this is due to faulty web pages, though.
again this is due, at least in part, to some choices made by microsoft in the design of their OSThat pretty much sums it up, yeah.
That said the 'programming' practices of many companies aren't what one might hope for, much of the available software contain memory leaks.Like IE 5.x?
So crashes are to a degree inevitableNo software is perfect on any platform, but Microsoft products take the cake on instability.
(I'm starting to like VB much simpler and faster than MFC)You should give Python a try. www.python.org
Oh and another thing. Microsoft has been pushing a crappy OS in the consol market for a while now, and yeah my Dreamcast does crash from time to time, coincidence? Ce/Me/NT. Yeah, and Evian is just naive spelled backwards...oh wait. M$ sux! Now I'm sure to get karma from heaven.Doesn't look like I'm the one with the substance abuse problem. Oh, and the rest of your post was mostly comprised of pure equine exhaust.
Cedric Balthazar Rotherwood
Sun Certified Programmer for the Java Platform +
System Admin. for Solaris
That's one example. There are others. Illegal operations and GPFs are common. I doubt that even the most diehard MS fan would claim otherwise.
Why if I were to use YOUR logic, because a verson of LILO doesn't work with hard drives beyond UDMA 33, linux must suckI don't use LILO, I use XOSL.
The people have spokenNo, Microsoft has decided to speak to the OEMs and let them decide what's best for the people. Now thanks to the OEM lockin, people have little choice whether or not OEMs are a factor because of the application barrier. A few years ago this could've been prevented, but MS marketing proved too powerful.
Lemme leave off with VB. Hell it's not even programming. It's like painting, or legos. It's ridiculous, and sometimes that's more than enough, it's cool.This is pure equine exhaust. Python is easier than VB.
Cedric Balthazar Rotherwood
Sun Certified Programmer for the Java Platform +
System Admin. for Solaris
Every new MS release is the same. Windows 95 promised to be the "end" of MS-DOS instability. So the die-hards claimed it was, until a year later when they realized that the millions of people claiming otherwise were looking at them strangely. So they started blaming driver manufacturers, ISVs, etc. Repeat cycle for Windows NT and Windows 98, and Windows 2000, and bet your bottom dollar that Windows XP and X-box OS will have fans with similar sentiments.
SoA lot of people will buy the box to play the first version of the Matrix(tm)The game(tm), but a few months after that, at the most a year after that, X-box will be in a worse position than Dreamcast. The best thing for them to do would be to stop wasting time with their WinBox OS and port FreeBSD to the machine, then at least their will be some chance of stability.
Cedric Balthazar Rotherwood
Sun Certified Programmer for the Java Platform +
System Admin. for Solaris
A more accurate story about the crash...
// allthough my linux box has never crashed) - i'm just saying that you are calling people anti-MS bigots but then posting a pro MS article from a MS site - hardly impartial either are you!
More accurate? Er.. it says "©2000-2001 Microsoft Corporation. " at the bottom of the page.
I'm not commenting on stability (to be honest my windows 2000 box has only crashed twice, both due to driver problems
no sig.
Normally it would fix after a few on/off cycles: I thought of it as 'warming it up' ;-) The game I had the most trouble with was 'Sonic 2' which is from Sega itself. Perhaps it was a hardware defect, I'll never know.
Too bad it sucked so many batteries...well I still have my memories playing "Lemmings" for hours on it :-)
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Wow, Microsoft seems to transition pretty smoothly to hardware.
Kurdt
Kurdt
I'm not anti-social. Just pro-technology.
...demoing Soul Reaver 2 frozen showing the text "Memory allocation error 20030561. Memory could not be allocated." at the top of the screen?
What's a sig?
Every Metorid can be played on the Dreamcast through emulation. SNES9X and Gleem have been ported to the console. If you want to be absolutely amazed, pick up the Gran Turismo 2 Bleem!pack from ebgames.com. This will allow you to play Gran Turismo 2 on your Dreamcast with antialiasing, bilinear filtering, and a 640x480 resolution, as opposed the the Playstation's paltry 320x240.
nintendo is very well known for doing that. They almost killed sega early on, holding the SMS far behind in software and really managed to prevent the genesis from taking off as quickly as it could have.
---
"The handles are angled outwards, eliminating the need for the user to bend their [sic] hands inward"
Got friends?
So, the theory then is that one of these days, I'll be playing my favorite videogame (on the XBox 3, since all the other companines went under due to 'accidents' happening to their CEOs), and I'll be nearing the high score, when all of a sudden, I'll get a GPF? I know it's been said, but it's a good thing Microsoft doesn't make cars. I'd be afraid to go on the road what with all the crashes.
----------
"Remember, your friends will stab you in the back for the price of an Extra Value Meal."
"For success, it is essential you have Thunderball Fists." "I can have such a thing?" "That's right. Thunderball Fists."
Some friends and i went to the AMC20 a couple miles down highway 101 from here, to see Shrek friday nite, and we were kinda early so we went to the arcade, and lo and behold, one of the games (Metal Gear Solid i think) had a Windows crashed program screen (not the blue screen of death, just the Illegal Operation panel). After laughing hysterically for about 5 minutes and wanting like mad to take picture of it, we unplugged it to reset it... and it stayed on... we joked about it being possessed, but really, it had a UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) inside, and that took about 10 minutes to wear down... then after it finally died, we plugged it back in and watched it run thru ScanDisk and all that crap, and after about 7 or 8 minutes it finally booted the game :P
----
One world. One internet. One root. (ICANN policy)
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
Say it with me now... "XBox 3.1.1"
You'd think with a fixed hardware configuration they could avoid a BSOD. Bwahaha and all that.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Anyone who buys a computer or console expecting it not to crash even once is full of themselves.
This is gonna get modded down as a troll, but it's true -- my Linux box (an iMac Rev. B with Debian 2.2r3 and Linux 2.4.3-pre6-ppc) has crashed once since I put Linux on it. And that was when I was hacking a USB driver. So the point is that systems are getting stable. (Then again, some applications crash, but that doesn't count).
My other car is first.
OK, you say, providing an unreliable product is ALWAYS undesirable; well I maintain that it is more of a problem here because the target market is less technically inclided that that for a computer. Computer owners have the will and ability to pursue problems and correct them. Game Console customers are generally less inclined tward this way of thinking. For this reason, Microsoft will have to adopt the Apple MAC OS support strategy 'If it doesn't work, re-install it'.
Over the past 20 years we have been conditioned to accept bugs in software. In fact the software industry in the only industry where companies are not pushed out of the marketplace for providing defective products. As the adverage level of technical expertise of computer owners declines, this becomes more prevelent, because new users again, just accept this situation as the status quo.
On occasions too numerous to count I've had to tell new computer owners something along the lines of:I should Never EVER have to tell someone that. Game Console users should certainly not have to deal with that.
TO be perfectly fair, Over 15 years of using Nintendo Game Consoles, I have seen them crash. Perhaps 25 times in 15 years. As compared to any (windows based) computer, that record is pretty good.
In the spirit of complete fairness, lets close by looking t it from Microsoft's perspective:That's all I've got folks. I can accept computers crashing occasionally, buy Game consoles? Give me break!
--CTH
--
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
A console that requires rebooting....holy shit...
...All I can say is that my life is pretty strange...
"They'll get the last laugh in 24 months when MS forces software vendors to release games for that system (XBox) only."
AC comments get piped to
Yes we all hate Microsoft and we want to see the XBox fail. Ooh, their prototype crashed, big woop. I was just thinking about the XBox and I realized something. Everyone talks about it having a GeForce 3 and all kinds of other neat goodies in it. Even though it's an evil microsoft product, and I'm putting my money on the GameCube. ( Because it has special stuff with the GameBoy Advance, which I've played, and the GameBoy Advance is AMAZING). It's a whole computer! A whole computer complete with hard drive, memory, processor, video card, sound card, the whole thing. And it's really really cheap. So I'll probably buy one, take everything out, put it into a new case, and install linux. Think about it, you're getting a GeForce3 and some other stuff for the price of the card and a little more. Thanks Bill, I always love a hardware discount.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
--
--
Roll on Gamecube.
Preferences > Homepage > Customize stories on homepage > Authors > Zonk > Uncheck
As people with eyes will attest, the Gamecube stole the show. While MS showed nothing new (and certainly nothing that couldn't be had elsewhere), Nintendo had jaws hitting the floor from the press conference onward. Even the (comparatively low specced) PS2 put on a better display. Check http://e3.nintendo.com.
The only card MS have to play is graphics (and that's going to be a non-issue by the time the machine is out). Judging by their site, that's all they care about. They sure as hell know nothing about games. They should stick to what they're good at (as soon as they work out what that is of course :)
Xbox == next gen 3do
Preferences > Homepage > Customize stories on homepage > Authors > Zonk > Uncheck
Check out this story from a little while back, it states that the X-Box hardware has gone gold. Now all they have left is testing, etc...
http://www.msxbox.com/php/full_post.php3?id=1138
Funny, though, the link from that site used to work. I wonder if MS removed their "Gone Gold" announcement, perhaps making it "not-gold" afterall.
Mr-Pope
"The only way to learn a new programming language is by writing programs in it." - Brian Kernighan
Did someone throw a pie at it to make it crash?
Yes, that was bad, I admit it...
No one is threatening anyone. Xbox attracts developers by demonstrating an incredible lack of spine and kissing their own hiney. I'm not knocking MS for this, mind you; it's drawn a lot of developers into the fold. The idea of a developer-friendly platform is attractive both to old console developers and PC developers tired of the inhomogeniety of their computing base.
I'm sure Bill will not do public demo for XBus as he has already learn his lesson last time
Lemme leave off with VB. Hell it's not even programming. It's like painting, or legos. It's ridiculous, and sometimes that's more than enough, it's cool.
But the best part is. It's all true, and not seeing this makes you the plebian that you like to pretend others are. It's that irony which gives me that warm fuzzy giggly feeling. So thanks, just for being you.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
As I mentioned in the first post, I'm not a Microsoft fan. There's a hell of a lot they could do better. Some of the choices they made early on, I'm sure they wish they hadn't made. But many of windows failings come from a time long long ago, and to pretend that in some way the new version of windows was made in entirty just last year is naive. Hindsight is 20/20, but its hindsight. And to intone that because in the far flung past some bad design choices (that looked fine at the time) somehow absolves all developers who come to the OS of most, if not all responsability, is, quite frankly, retarded. Limitations of the Windows family are no different than any other complex set of design constraints. I wish steel was only 2.5 g/cm^3 and tensile strength of 2000 GPa. It doesn't. And if I build you a bridge you better damn well hope I don't behave as if it does.
My personal view is Microsoft is the Jolly Roger and Bill is its pirate captain and they just go around raping and pillaging. The true genius of it is that he foresaw quality didn't matter a lick. Only ease of use, and getting as large a proportion of the population as possible to buy into it did. He took advantage of the nearly universal, and quite compelling, desire to share information. It's evil genius, but genius none the less.
I'm all for rebellion and bucking the system. Why hell, the Star Spangled Banner is about a period in our history where we basically mooned the cops. And I certainly find a great deal of charm in a society that pretty much says it's ok to have an extended adolescence. But at some point isn't it nice to have a little bit of honesty? The very fact that people pay for this stuff, let alone grossly overpay, should clearly articulate that as flawed as microsofts products are they do have value. But none of this, nor much that has come before in anyway diminishes the truth that Windows 95 will, at least for some users, crash less than once a month. It's not like I'm not running anything either. I'm asking more of Windows 95 than even Microsoft thinks I should (they don't recommend Visual Studio 6 for use with 95.) Oddly, MSVC doesn't seem to crash on my machine, although I've seen in make unscheduled pitstops under 98. My whole problem with the orginal post is basically, if you're going to bash MS at least do it for the things they really *do* wrong, there's more than enough of that to go around. Making gross and false generallizations diminishes ones credibility even if, on some other occasion, one happens to be right. Like anything, and everything else in life, the truth is somewhere in between.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
I used to really look down on VB. But I went in for a beta test of Mechwarrior 4, and I picked the most expensive thing off the shelf, more because I knew C, under unix and borland windows api, and what the hell. Started fiddling with the widgets, and VB intrigued me. So I go pick up a book, inside of week and 150 lines of code later I have a little toy program, that's fun, useful, and customizable. Imagine my shock. Just try. Some of VB's conventions were certainly close enough to C++. But what a difference. MFC is almost night and day for ease of use against the API, but Visual basic was like another planet.
Certainly the way you talk up Delphi my curiosity is piqued. How could one not be at least intrigued? I'll certainly look into that, currently I'm trying to figure out how to program a screen saver (eventually I hope to get to a 3d screen saver with my own, ugly, 3d models). (Some people watch TV, I whistfully remember my youth when TV was worth watching and only had 5 channels.)
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
All Microsoft products are Beta. Always Beta.
The main concern is "Is this too buggy to ship?" If Bill says no, the crap is flung out the door with a shovel into the prospective customer's lap.
After all these DECADES can Microsoft explain why it still has the weak NOTEPAD, WORDPAD, & PAINT in place of something really useful. One could argue that these programs are stable and do the job and Frontpage comes free and does the rest, but Notepad still has a 20K limit and PAINT cannot handle any graphics format over BMP. Once the program is surpassed by a sellable version, they just leave weak software for the Windows system.
I will never buy WINDOWS XP.
"Face it, a nation that maintains a 72% approval rating on George W. Bush is a nation with a very loose grip on reality.
But my Dreamcast runs BSD!
I don't really see Microsoft getting a market because the hype behind PS and PS2. I think the Dreamcast rocks, the apps for it aren't bad - and it's the first system where I said the graphics 100% rule.
I know that is somewhat up to developers to use 100% of what a system has, but MS as usual is going to either charge an arm in a leg for simple source, or nothing will really come out from them.
Everywhere I look I see PS games or PS2 adds - and only small dreamcast stuff. FUNCO Land, a crappy store which buys games for $4 and sells them for $40 has walls of PSone games and not much for DC. Infact they have a 'limited' supply of new games.
Sega got pushed out of market by the 1000 games which a lot are crap that sony people tossed out.
Red Alert 2 for DC that would rock, but I'm sure we'll see the likes on the X-Box. Which will crash a lot, it shutsdown my windows box when it closes!
In one year - Xbox will give way to Xbox2 and PS2 will run the market.
Get your Unix fortune now!
Well, er...In reality, game consoles running BETA code on BETA hardware can crash. Even if the hardware and its OS were final, its not hard to write code that will crash any console, they certainly aren't designed to be crash proof. Demos crash. Happens all the time, and I've seen it happen on other console systems. Sometimes even with released games on final systems there are repeatable bugs that will lock a game up.
The perceived stability of consoles comes from the fact that software titles are painstakingly QAed both in-house by the developer and quality control for the console maker who OKs the publishing (Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, previously Sega, etc).
It would be nice if Slashdot would get off the crazy MS bashing thing a bit. I don't say this because I am a huge fan of Microsoft -- they certainly do plenty of things worth snickering at or calling them out on. But they also do some things very well.. Giving them no credit and pointing out every mistake or gaff that Microsoft makes (and blowing them out of proportion) just weakens your voice when you are discussing issues with REAL merit.
Kind of like the boy who cried wolf the Slashdot editors sound like a bunch of whiny little bitches and people who aren't blind anti-Microsoft zealots begin to assume everything Slashdot posts about Microsoft should be taken with a huge truckload of salt.
they looose 150$ for every Xbox selled so if you build an farm of xBoxes and put linux on that thing you have an advantage coze if you buy 300 xboxes you steal 300x150 =45000$ directly from M$ house If you happen to render some movies for a film you need 3d power horses like nVidia have yet another steal. Xbox is a good thing cozze you could build cheaper an cluster. Let's do something nasty for M$$ Corp.;)
developer http://flamerobin.org
Did this ever happen to Sony when they were demoing on the pre-final hardware - which they did? I don't seem to recall that.
As for people saying its ok for console games to crash - bullsh*t... if your console game crashes, you have no penis, and your probably listen to Yanni. As an industry, we have no use for you. ;)
I've owned a Sega Genesis, Sega GameGear, Atari Lynx, Nintendo Gameboy & Snes, and Sony PSX and PS2 and neved saw any of those crash.
And sometimes I've kept them running on for days. Maybe you had faulty hardware.
---
Ever play Metroid on a Playstation? Or Gran Turismo on a Dreamcast? Or Sonic on a Nintendo?
Sounds like the X-Box runs as well as the XFL. Coincidence?
-nd
Maybe it would be a good idea for Microsoft to go back to DOS, crank out DOS 10 (DOX X hehe) and put that on the Xbox.
This way they can blame the *application* creators.
DOS was and is a great strategy.
Too busy staying alive... ~ R.A.
I'm seeing a lot of assumptions here that this was an X-box "emulator". Because X-box hardware doesn't exist yet, all development has to be to the Dx8 API rather than to the silicon (which frankly I wouldn't risk anyway, given M$'s propensity for last minute changes of mind). What we're most likely seeing are games written for Dx8 on a PC, running on a Dx8 P4 GeForce3 PC. M$ need to get real hardware shipping to developers now if they want optimised, stable games on day 1.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Xbox launches on the 8th of November. That's five and a bit months, less the time to press and distribute it, less the time to test it on Xbox hardware, less the time to actually get the hardware to developers, less the time to actually make the damn hardware. To my mind, they're already cutting it close.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
The hardware might have been finalized, but NVidia isn't fabbing the chips yet.
And UMA is currently being emulated.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
When did you CD Player had to run external programs? What about your microwave?
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
Why wait for Sega? This is all you need (an easy-to-build cable and a cross-compiling version of gcc).
I haven't actually tried this myself (I don't own a Dreamcast), but it looks like fun.
Ryan T. Sammartino
Ryan T. Sammartino
"Ancora imparo"
how this is a story 'about' the X-Box crashing in public? All I could find is one sentence towards the end of the five-paragraph 'article'. If this was on the SATs and you said that the 'main point of this story' is that the X-Box crashed in public, you'd be wrong. The closest thing I could come up with is that it's about the controller, but even that's a stretch.
I read the article and didn't see what it said it was running pre-alpha code and that it was the first ever working prototype. It said it was the first prototype shown to a group of people where were not engineers. That is vastly different then saying it was the first ever working prototype.
I don't remember hearing about the first ever working PS2 shown to a group of people who were not engineers crashing. Do you? How about the N64? Dreamcast? Any of those crash during E3?
You have to remember, Microsoft put the best possible hardware in this box. How it performed is directly related to how well received it will be among programmers. There will be plenty of gaming companies who think twice about writing software for the XBox now that it crashed.
Ask yourself this, when a game crashs on a typical game player, are they going to bitch to Microsoft about the OS or the gaming company about the game? That can be boiled down to which sounds more likely: "The OS on the XBox crashed." or "This @#!$y game crashed my XBox." I'll bet most people choose option 2.
As long as tbere are human beings involved in the process, there is the potential for error.
-----------------
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
More FUD from someone who didn't read the article. The X-box in question crashed at a meeting of Microsoft's X-box development team. The meeting was NOT open to the public. I'd hardly call that showing it "to the world". You can't just make things up and magically have them become true.
A more accurate story about the crash is here The link is on Microsoft's front page, and the machine that crashed was the first ever working prototype. The machine was running pre-alpha code. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a few crashes during the development phase of a system, do you? I'm sure your code always compiles perfectly the first time you run it, with no bugs whatsoever. I'm sure Linus never had a kernel panic either when Linux was in the prototype phase of development.
If you're going to bash Microsoft, at least come up with some legitimate gripes, otherwise, you come off sounding like a bunch of raving lunatics.
The idea that no one will want to develop for other systems in 24 months is laughable, especially after the Xbox's poor showing at E3. With the strong support PS2 has gained along with Nintendo's strong E3 showing and large fan base, MS's chances are looking worse and worse. Ofcourse many would say MS doesn't really plan to dominate but merely want a foothold into the gamine market or into peoples living rooms. What I find odd is that MS seems to already have Xbox "loyalists" or as some would call them "fan boys." What's really strange is that some of these people seem to be associated with the anti-MS movement. I guess they are assuming the Xbox will just be a cheap, fast gaming PC but I personally doubt it. The system surely won't be as open as the PC is and as far as I know they have no plans for a mouse or keyboard. As far as the system crash, I don't see it as a big deal. It was running on early hardware, as far as I know, and obviously we can't expect games to be bugless months before their release. Ofcourse MS does seem to have problems at many of their demonstrations. I guess we'll find out soon enough. Did anyone else find it odd that Mr Gates wasn't at E3(at least I didn't see him)? Sure he is a busy man but he's been to all of the big Xbox events from it's announcement and unveiling to even the Japanese unveiling. This E3 was arguably the console's most important outing.
Well, in fact, I don't take my first ever working prototype running pre-alpha code and show it to the world end expect people to 'ooh' and 'aah' at the innovative ways I manage to make my product crash.
-----------------------------
kaaaameeeeeeehaaaaaameeeeeha!
-----------------------------
-----------------------------
kaaaameeeeeeehaaaaaameeeeeha!
-----------------------------
I've heard reports that the Game Cube crashed a couple of times as well.
Guess it is easier to jump all over Microsoft.
This story must be a hoax. Imagine, a Microsoft product crashing!
Tyler
Um, no. This may be "OK" for desktop computers, but this is wholly unacceptable for a box where you aren't supposed to have any more interaction with the OS of the box beyond putting in a game and turning the thing on. And this is ESPECIALLY not acceptable for a box that's supposed to have several million manufactured in time for their November release date in the US.
What could this box possibly have been doing at the time of the crash?
For comparison purposes, when was the last time any other console crashed at a show?
In case you haven't looked at your calendar, it's May going on June. Release is in November, at which time they have to have several million of these puppies manufactured to put on store shelves. Why are they still using "pre-alpha" code? For all the time they've had to work on this and the little time they have left, they had better be "mostly finished" by now. If not, they run the risk of having game publishers putting out games that don't run in the current software environment.
If they have anything more than a few inconsitancies to tweak out, they're setting themselves up to get smacked around so much they'll make Virtual Boy look as popular as the NES. Us console gamers don't take kindly to software patches.
What? Your copy of The Matrix keeps on crashing your system? That's too bad. Metroid, anyone?
However, we have Microsoft now trying to get into an industry that is extremely well-established. Of their two major competitors, one has been in the business for over a decade, and the other for about half a decade. Beyond that, this isn't just a software endeavor any more; this also involves hardware, something that Microsoft has historically left alone. The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that the Xbox is just an example of Microsoft's ego and cockiness running away with them. "We're Microsoft, and we can take over any industry we want." They might as well be trying to make movies or gasoline.
You can't really compare Microsoft to Sony when they were first starting to work on the PlayStation because Sony had two advantages that Microsoft didn't: Some previous console experience (the PSX was supposed to be a CD add-on to the SNES) and experience in the consumer electronics area (hardware). Hell, even Phillips and Panasonic were better prepared to enter this field than Microsoft.
The Xbox so far has no killer apps (nothing worth looking at in light of Final Fantasy and Zelda), has no serious hardware advantage to distinguish itself from its competition, and generally has no direction (even compared to PS2. "I'm a game console! No, wait, I'm a cheap PC! Nope, um, maybe a DVD player with extras?"). It's this kind of wishy-washiness that has allowed Nintendo to deflate Microsoft's months of hype in a single weekend.
There's just no way the nightmare scenarioes I'm seeing in these posts can come about. Microsoft is not going to dominate the console industry because, unlike IE, they have about 20 years of catching up to do, and they seem to be allergic to hard work.
Or is it because when they attempt to copy or buyout something it comes out poorly. Some examples: their GUI versus Apples'; early Netscape versus early IE; Hotmail server problems and slow access; MSNs failure to take market share; and of course the failure to create an more open operating system to make it easier for product developers. Then after they get their market share they change the rules. Some examples: Visual Basic 7 will be totally incompatible with earlier versions so pre-VB7 programs will have to be rewritten to compile on it. And of course, Microsofts plan to charge subscription or leases for software upgrades. Those are some of the reasons we need to say HAHA. We hope XBox fails. We don't want Microsoft to take over another part of this amazing technology.
Oh, for the days of Nintendo and Sega...
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Unfortunately for Microsoft, historically every port from console to PC or vice versa has been a complete failure without exception
Actually, the Dreamcast has some pretty impressive PC ports, with Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament. You won't mistake them for the PC versions, but they are incredibly fun, and you'll only be out $150 if you buy the DC and a game. Make that $200 if you play with the broadband adapter. Plus, you can program your own stuff on the DC.
And now that I think of it, the SNES version of SimCity beats the original PC version any day of the week...
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
...Bill Gates will show a demo by sitting in a car that drives itself, being controlled by WITT (Windows IntelliDrive Two Thousand). When Windows crashes...
Just like the X's at the top of windows apps, When you click 'X' the thing shuts down.
"The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotations."
Smith&Wesson - The orignal point and click interfac
Consoles crash all the time, they always have and always will. Whats the big deal? Its gotta be a software problem, they will fix it. Especially since the Xbox just has the kernel and DX, what else could it be?
Something that everyone here needs to keep in mind is that he XBox demos at E3 were not running on actual XBox hardware. All of the demos at the show, including 3rd party booths like Activision, Konami, Etc. were running on the XBox Development Kit - Alpha II.
The Alpha II version of the XBox Development Kit is basically a PC. It's a big ugly silver mid-tower case, with a P!!! 733, 128MB, Alpha XBox GPU(GeForce3), 20GB HDD, DVD-ROM, and a PCI card with the XBox controller ports on it. And it runs the XBox System Software, which is basically the embedded NT (XP) Kernal with a integrated DirectX layer, and an ugly green & black UI. And Microsoft charges a ridiculous price for it (~$10k) .
The games were running off of the hard drive, with an Applied Microsystems DVD Emulator. There are no production XBox's out there. Microsoft couldn't show the real XBox in action if they wanted to.
If you would like more info on the XBox Development Kit check out this link:
http://www.coremagazine.com/news/3995.php3
One might think that MS would perfect their current operating systems before moving on to new challenges. And perhaps they should also perfect the X Box before demonstrating it in public, because this type of news will have negative effects on many potential buyers. Many of which will jump to conclusions having not heard the full story.
Think about it, its a micro crap product, what do you expect? I think that the only thing that XBox has going for it is Bill's ability of talking other companys into porting their games onto it, he has enough money to do anything he wants. Look how fast Halo went. Only thing we have to save the world from micro crap is that Ps2 is getting a port of Deusex and Max Payne, without that all is lost. Gamecube is a joke, you cant even play Audio Cds on it, let alone DVDs.
Maybe, if we all pray really hard Xbox will only get like 2 sales...