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XBox Released
Gallowglass writes: "Salon has written a review of the Xbox which damns with extremely faint praise." There was a big hoopla in Times Square last night, but apparently no one pied Bill Gates. So, for all you poor souls who lined up to give money to the borg: does it work? Any blue-screens yet? :) Update: 11/15 15:23 GMT by M : Okay, I'm sorry. That's green screen of death, not blue screen.
Can I play pong on it? If Not why not?
The movie with the Riddler? Where he creates these boxes that sit on your TV and take over your thoughts? Are we sure that was Jim Carrey and not Bill Gates in that costume? :)
Microsoft: "What do you want to think today?"
Nosce te Ipsum
What's next, Ars Technica's take on national health care?? Tom's Hardware celebrity gossip? If you're going to post a hardware review, you should aim a little higher than the online version of "The Nation". Surely someone that knows what they're talking about has reviewed this product?
Check this picture
Or this other one
More on The Register
(Redmond, WA) - Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, today announced a launch date for a second edition of the X-Box. At a press conference today, Mr. Gates described the intentions of his company in developing the Second Edition of X-Box. "The system, nicknamed 'Box the Second', or 'BS', will carry console gaming into new heights, and continue to develop the synergy that grows between computing and consoles." When pressed for specs, Mr. Gates gave a list of specifications that almost exactly matched that of the original X-Box. Except for one difference: "This one is purple."
"You're never ready, just less unprepared."
Where he creates these boxes that sit on your TV and take over your thoughts?
That neon green Xbox logo sends out microwave pulsations to your brain to the beat of the Madonna song played on the WinXP commercials. Mysteriously, on our next visit to Best Buy, you pick up a copy of WinXP:
Wife: Honey, I thought you only ran Linux?
You: Microsoft for life, babe.
They are really cheap on on eBay.
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
Nomatter how good or bad, it will still be a great alternative for parents with no technical expertise to give to their children come X-mas.
After all, who didn't get their first kick on computers on a VIC-20 or simular boxes...
A couple auctions of interest. This one sold a link to where you can preorder the Xbox for a final bid of $407. Funny, considering the link is in the description and the seller says "If you decide to place a bid, then I will only resend you this website. So if you bid, you will not receive the xbox system, just a link to where you can purchase a x-box".
The other auction of note is here, where the winner gets the box that the Xbox came in. The seller is very clear about the person only getting the box that it came in, yet the winning bid was still $366.
Was a crime committed here? Nope. They were just helping the fool part from his money sooner.
Xbox has a green interface, thus has a green screen of death.
:)
How can you do Ctrl-Alt-Del with a Xbox's controller?
Gimme a break.
Repeat after me: "The whole point of a gaming console is to play games."
Most people don't buy consoles to double as a bloody servers. Sure, it can be done, and there's a lot of hack value there, but dude...get a clue! "The dream of having some kind of decent server in everyone's house" is NOT going to happen with an Xbox. Maybe with a good PC with a good OS, but NOT some mediocre gaming console. Compared to real PCs made in the last year or so, the xbox is by no means "a strong PC".
Lemme turn your argument around a little bit. Hey guys! I'm really excited. My furnace and air conditioner contain a Hitachi H8/3292 microcontroller, which is really a pretty hefty little CPU. I'm gonna hack the thing and run a server on my airconditioner! It keeps me cool in the summer, warm in the winter, it serves mp3s, and is now running Apache! Finally! The dream of running a server can be realized by the masses. w00t!
Bah.
...when it comes to error messages. That green-on-black look alone is "hip" and "trendy," but the attention to detail shows that Microsoft has put a lot of effort into making the user's error message experience an enjoyable one. In the future, I'm sure we can look forward to more "dynamic" and "interactive" error message paradigms from this "innovative" company.
You say this like it's some kind of big secret that the Slashdot crowd's feelings about Microsoft range from mild antipathy to deep loathing. Are you the same guy who visits Macintosh advocacy sites and wonders why there's no positive press on Gateway and Dell?
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
GSOD (G'S'O'D)
GSOD: A acronym for defining the Green Screen Of Death. Invented by Microsoft Corp, in 2001.
This is what is displayed when the XBox(R) crashes, and fails to load media. Mostly requiring a power cycle.
Also See Evil Empire
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Is this a sig?
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I tried to play Halo on my new X-Box but when it boots up it ask me for a 25 digit activation code.
Lemme turn your argument around a little bit. Hey guys! I'm really excited. My furnace and air conditioner contain a Hitachi H8/3292 microcontroller, which is really a pretty hefty little CPU. I'm gonna hack the thing and run a server on my airconditioner! It keeps me cool in the summer, warm in the winter, it serves mp3s, and is now running Apache! Finally! The dream of running a server can be realized by the masses. w00t!
Let me turn that around a bit.
Hey geys! Check this out! I have an MP3 and web server with the best case cooling on the planet. In fact, it not only cools itself, but the entire room. This is the ultimate solution for all your case cooling needs.
Thanks for playing though. :)
Is this post not nifty? Sluggy Freelance. Worshi
Now if they changed that to Master Chef - and had Lloyd Grossman flying around in a shiny suit - they might have a surefire hit.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Except that MS has to certify all titles before they can ship, so developers can't just put out shovelware without MS approval. And I can't see MS approving broken titles as it would damage the reputation of the console.