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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."
While I do often bash MS's software, their hardware is normaly top-notch. They've got good engineers, and with the nFORCE (and with it, most likely an AMD CPU) and all the nice stuff the nFORCE has (AC3 encoding, nVidia graphics, AMD, lack of intel) this box will probly be fairly nice tech-wise. Combine that with the Microsoft name, probly one of the most known corp. on the planet, and you have a big seller right here. The one thing I dont love is the fact it runs XP (however, besides being windows, one if it's biggest faults is product activation, something that wont matter in this case, due to the fact you wont be upgrading it) I personaly think this is something MS should have kept hidden to boost sales on the xbox.
If this thing runs windows and can run PC and xbox games, does that mean my copy of XP (no I dont have one, nor am I planing on it) will run xbox games? or does this copy of XP have some magic DDLs that will run them? (how long till those find their way to the net to become the ULTIMATE emu.)
as much as I hate to say it, I do have some respect for MS's R&D team. Dont bash it till you've seen it, guys.
The opinions in this post are ficticious. Any similarity to actual opinions, real or imagined, is purely coincidental.
I wonder who's really got the domain. Network Solutions shows it expired in May, 2000.
Registrant: Sue Almand (HOMESTATION-DOM)
51 Ocean Breeze Drive
Atlantic Beach, FL 32233
US
Domain Name: HOMESTATION.COM
Administrative Contact, Billing Contact:
Almand, Sue (SA4428) scalmand@EARTHLINK.NET
51 Ocean Breeze Drive
Atlantic Beach,, FL 32233
904-246-0131
Technical Contact:
Eclipse Communications Hostmaster (EC136-ORG) hostmaster@ECLIPSE-COMM.COM
Eclipse Communications
701 W. 4th St.
South Pittsburg, TN 37380
US
423-837-4955
Fax- - 423-629-6121
Record last updated on 26-Jul-2001.
Record expires on 23-May-2000.
Record created on 23-May-1998.
Database last updated on 6-Sep-2001 18:26:00 EDT.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.ECLIPSE-COMM.COM 209.75.67.159
NS2.ECLIPSE-COMM.COM 209.75.67.160
However, with the X-box and the HomeStation (?) this will change. Here's a device with large storage capabilites and easily upgraded with the right DLL to become a DivX player.
Nice work MS, but will the MPAA like this?
it's in my head
Any company which has gone it head-to-head against Microsoft has lost (Novell, Borland/Inprise, Corel, Lotus etc. etc.). If MS is going into the home entertainment area, then it's time for Sony etc. to get worried. Don't think Microsoft won't destroy you.
Novell used to think that supporting DOS was a good idea... then came NT.
Borland used to think writing compilers for DOS/Windows was a good idea. Then came Visual Studio.
WordPerfect used to think that writing a word processor for DOS/Windows was a good idea, then came Word (for Windows).
Lotus used to think that writing a spreadsheet for DOS/Windows was a good idea, then came Excel.
Sony use to think that making stereos/playstations/etc. was a good idea, then came HomeStation.
How can we stop this?
We can't. AfxMessageBox("You're Screwed!")
return 0; }
Games-wise, it's anticipated HomeStation will play both PC and Xbox titles.
MS is entering some interesting territory, they are COMPETING with their own customers. Compaq, Dell, IBM *also* sell PCs for this purpose... I wonder how they will feel when the XBox v2.0 starts to serve the same functions, in the home setting, as their product.
One of the cardinal rules of business: Never take a product 'direct' to market, and compete with your customers with the product that they BUY FROM YOU. It will leave a bad taste in the mouths of the people who *used* to be your customers.. there will be desire, on their part, to collectively THUMP you.
The Xbox is the single-handedly most astonishingly brash thing MS is doing right now - they are really looking at taking over the Home-PC market. Will XBox v4.0 be a Proprietary Computer? Will MS start selling full featured PC work-a-likes, sure they might call them appliances... but if it smells like a monopoly, and acts like a monopoly....
"Non-expandable"? Ha! Maybe until we get it home. How many Xboxes will have their warantees invalidated as new users buy them for $199 and hack them up? I suspect to see an article about one week after the initial rollout where somebody has hacked this, and reverse-engineered that and has Linux/FreeBSD/BEOS/Aethos running on the thing. Then everyone will run out and buy one and stick an extra 80-GB hard drive or two into it and hack video4linux into it. We will remake it in our own image and feel all the more smug about it.
/.
It will happen. This community will co-opt *anything* and use it for our own purposes. Moreover, this treads in a technology domain that the community knows all too well. Once the nut is cracked, everyone will flock to buy up Xboxes/Homestations and use them for non-MS-endorsed purposes. Then we will all sit around and pat each other on the back and marvel at how great it is to be ruining Microsoft's profitability.
No matter what, MS will be "stupid" in our book.
So this is a bit cynical, but I think it is realistic. MS will profit by this. Our niche will hack something "better" from it. We will be self congratulatory and derisive. The great cycle of life continues on
Sure glad it's Friday.
Burry this story back in the dungheap it came from and get on with the world of only slightly distorted reality.
I'll get back to developing a game for the Xbox. (I look at the Xbox on my desk and laugh at this story, folks... LAUGH I tell you.)
The Xbox may be hackable, but the Home Station will likely be set up so that you have to subscribe, i.e., give MS your credit card number and agree to 1 or more years worth of monthly payments, with a substantial penalty for early termination, the way that cell phone companies do when you get a "free" phone when you sign up for service, so that the combined cost will make it uneconomical to buy the HS just for the hardware, and they'll probably do their very best to make the HS hardware unusable for anything except a doorstop without the Microsoft sold content. I'm sure that MS has taken notice of what's happened to other companies that took a loss on hardware that they expected to make up on subscriptions or whatever, only to discover that they shouldn't have sold the razor without getting a signed contract for a year or two worth of blades.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Not surprising and a perfectly logical move for Bill Gates & team. A PC is still, despite all attempts of MS to the contrary, an open and general-purpose machine. MS will probably never have 100% control of it and will always have a cloud of legal storms surrounding its attempts to shut everyone else out.
Enter the XBox. It's a closed platform. There's absolutely no reason or pretense it needs to be open. They control 100% from hardware, OS, software, etc. It seems clear they find value in a strategy to expand the "point solution" platform to encompas more and more of what general-purpose PCs do today. Once locked into anti-competive platforms (and to be sure the services that will accompany them), MS can achieve the kind of mindshare domination they've always wanted. By that point maybe they won't even care if there are still a few geeks running around loose who still use PCs with Linux!
Interesting, eh? When they finally produce their suite of digi-appliances any attempt to use or modify them in some non-MS-approved manner will at least void the warrantee and be unsupported and at worst be criminal. (Oh... you thought you owned that appliance? Terribly sorry, sir, you only licenced it and your modification constitutes actionable breach of your license agreement!)
This story sure makes this article much more understandable.