Microsoft HomeStation - Son Of XBox Revealed

An unnamed reader contributes this link: "PC Formathave story about Microsoft's follow up to the XBox. Rumor is it's a home entertainment centre called HomeStation. It'll offer video and TV on demand, and act as an internet gateway for internet appliances. Profiling is mentioned. The story makes an interesting point about how the XBox's true purpose is to pave the way for Microsoft as a home entertainment brand."

Comments

I don't understand

[Ubi_UK]

I haven't seen any Xboxes in the store yet. What is the point of advertising an upgrade to a product that hasn't been sold yet? Why would people buy the Xbox when they can apparently wait a few monts to get a much better version?

A little early perhaps?

[NTSwerver]

I haven't even seen an XBox in the flesh yet. Surely advertising it's predecessor won't do XBox sales any good. There are bound to be people who'll be thinking "Hmmmm......I don't think I'll but that XBox now, I'll wait for the next one."

On a side note: What is going on with /.? This is the first time I've been able to log in for the last 24 hours. Why doesn't someone just post an article explaining the problem instead of seemingly pretending that nothing is wrong?

Another reason they want to keep this secret

[sopuli]

Games-wise, it's anticipated HomeStation will play both PC and Xbox titles.

If the above statement is true, it becomes much less atractive to develop games specifically for Xbox. By building a PC version you would already cover PC and HomeStation users.

Must be a hoax

[costas]

This has to be a hoax. The picture on the site is terrible, and the details don't make much sense (will be able to play PC games? what PC games? how, if it's a locked down 2nd generation XBox?)

And "HomeStation"? I mean, com'on, you mean to tell me that MS will spend millions promoting the XBox brand and they will not use it for this (call it XBox TV or something?). I don't buy it.

Re:MS Toys

[dimator]

I'll get me an x-box and one of these too I'm sure.

You've stated the problem with your attitude right there in that sentence. You're already planning to buy one of these HomeStations, just because of the brand attached to it. All you've seen is a one page article, the picture could be phony, the quotes could be phony, but it seems you don't care.

That's the real problem with Microsoft being "tied into just about everything." People are willing to buy, buy, buy, based solely on brand-name and not quality or comparison. Name one other industry (if you can still call Microsoft a one-industry company) where you can get away with that? Will Ford ever make microwaves? Will AT&T ever make vacuums?

Re:DivX ;-)

[hrm]

Don't count on MS and the MPAA fighting in the streets anytime soon. Sure, it'll probably be possible to upgrade an xbox (is it a xbox or an xbox? help!) to play divx ;-) encoded movies, but don't expect MS to help you do it. Instead, expect undocumented-except-under-NDA interfaces and a default multimedia player system that is quite biased against playing local non-streaming content.

In fact, Microsoft's goal will be quite in line with the MPAA; a pay-per-view scheme using broadband internet or possibly, lacking broadband access, a return of the original Divx scheme, with local movie content that needs to be activated. The only thing MS and the MPAA might disagree on is how large a cut of the transaction goes to MS.

So, in short, based on it's heritage, an xbox is likely to be more hackable than, say, a dreamcast or playstation. But that's about it. We will see Divx on the xbox, but I'm not sure which will get there first: the rotten old circuit city scheme or the rogue codec.