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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
I own a PS2 and am quite happy with it. However, I plan on keeping an open mind about the Xbox and the GameCube. Anyone else remember the damning the SNES got when it first came out? And how popular did it get?
"All mankind is at the mercy of a handful of neurotics". - Norman Douglas
the register is also carrying a story about this. it talks about the uk release date as well as containing links to sites with more info on where to buy it and where you can test them out.
...take a look at C|Net's review of Microsoft's strategies with the Xbox. Bottom line of their article is that Microsoft has had to put on a completely different face to court developers for their game console, switching from monopolistic tyrant to play-nice we-want-to-help-you-succeed hardware investor. According to the quotes cited, it's worked, too. So far.
I have it. I've played it. The bottom line at the moment is: *shrug*. It's extremely difficult to see how this is any different than a PlayStation 2. If you're expecting something miles beyond the PS2, then you'll be disappointed. From my point of view it's a PS2 with different games.
Halo is Yet Another First Person Shooter. I was expecting something revolutionary. Don't get me wrong, it's fun just like Half-Life and friends are fun, but it's simply other game of that style. It isn't a great leap forward. Arguably it isn't any leap forward.
The problem here is that people instantly lambash the box without thinking of the ramifications. Basically:
- It's a strong PC with great graphics. In the living room. The centerpiece of the family community.
- It is a console to actually push competition and strengthen games. Other consoles from here on out are going to have to consider putting an ethernet card on board. Or a hard drive. Competition is always good (even non-franchise reliant Sony is getting stale at this point).
- It's just another system. It's not the antichrist. Bill Gates personally doesn't take a cut on each box (in fact, cuts are probably taken out of HIM).
Let's think about that first one a good deal. A real PC. In the living room of thousands of people -- people, additionally, who wouldn't have thought of putting a PC in their living room. Why doesn't this get more people excited? It does for me. Naysayers like to tout X-Filish conspiracy theories about MS owning the world. It's not going to happen. Other companies are going to expand, reject, and strengthen parts of the box with 3rd party peripherals and software. The dream of having some kind of decent server in everyone's house will finally be realized.
Even if you completely reject the box and all it's strong points, you've got to admit THE CONVERSATION IS GOOD. Unfortunately, even with a thousand comments, Slashdot editors won't learn that this is one of the things we want to talk about. And quite frankly, I still like to follow the average Slashdotter's opinion over hype.
Is this my imagination, or does slashdot take its anti-microsoft bias into everything they do?
I mean really, linking the xbox release with one totally negative article, while other sites have given it a much better outlook.
Please try to be fair here slashdot.
But it is essentially.. at least, according to Cringley, it's the expansion into new areas like gaming consoles that Microsoft desperately needs in order to keep growing at the necessary rate to avoid going bankrupt.
Look at it from a positive consumer viewpoint -- as previous slashdoters have mentioned, Microsoft are essentially selling a half-decent PC at below cost. Get yerself an X-Box, get Linux running on it, and have a good laugh at them.
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?
But if you like FUD, let it flow...
Check this picture
Or this other one
More on The Register
Kindly get your facts straight.
is the hardware itself..
:)
:)
The launch titles suck.. Rehashed fighting/racing/whatever games.. extreme sports, extreme driving, extreme first person shooters with a console controller..blech..
But what we've got is a pc.. Fast as hell nvidia chipset, hardrive, network card, dvd drive..
Tell me someone isn't going to turn that into some cool as hell hardware.. slap a bigger hardrive into, make an mp3 box.. slap an even bigger hardrive into it, turn it into a pvr..
Take it even further.. turn it into the convergence device people have been talking about for the past 10 years.. Except instead of paying 999.99 for it, buy it for 299 (or less when the price drops)..
I think as a piece of hardware its got great potential...
As a console.. well its motsos.. (More of the same old s..t)
lastly.. for your truly rabid anti-ms people..
The XBOX represents the only true way you can DIRECTLY damage microsoft through buying things.. Every unit they sell is sold at a loss.. Buy one.. Hack the hardware.. make it do stuff its not supposed to do.. And don't buy any software for it
Okay maybe the logic's a little spurious.. But it sounds good on paper
Sony seems to think the xbox is going to force them to abandon PS2 sooner than they anticipated....and roll out the PS3...check it out here.
Full Story
--GuntherAEPi
"
you claim things are good (such as having a PC in the living room or having an ethernet or a harddrive on a console) but you don't explain why these things are good.
i'll tell you my take; both of those things are not good in and of themselves.
i don't have my PC in my living room, it's in my bedroom. the console is in the living room with the TV. i play different games on them, completely different (RTS, RPG on the computer, Gran Turismo, Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy (which are not RPG IMHO) on the console.)
an ethernet connection on a console isn't some gaming messiah. there are currently no games which i could see benefitting from this on any console, nor any in the future. same with having a hard drive. great, it'd lead to faster and more saved games. dandy. personally i don't run out of space on my memory cards, but that's me. this by itself is not a reason to buy a console.
as this salon article says (and i hate salon), it's the games, stupid. great games sell consoles, mediocre games sell a few as will the flood of adverts that MS has put out.
but in the end, there are no interesting games for the console, thus it is uninteresting and will ultimately fail.
personally, i'm spending $700 on a new computer which has more than twice the power (and 5 times the storage space, and that's nothing) of the X-box. there are actually interesting games for this computer i'm buying; civ3, dark ages of camelot, max payne (which i still haven't played), et cetera.
anyway, this is a dead horse i'll stop beating it.
...dave
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
They are really cheap on on eBay.
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
being a big cross-breed between RTS and FPS.. but MS required bungie to orient it more toward the X-Box. :P yet another possibly great thing MS managed to stomp into the ground.
oh well
I'm not convinced. Fanboys deified Bungie and Halo years before anyone had ever seen the game. I think this is just yet another case of too much hype and people willingly buying into it. (And everyone ignoring that it is much, much easier for a game developer to *claim* they will do something than to actually deliver.)
Halo has been used a rallying cry by various factions, and those factions have changed dramatically over the course of its development. At first the Mac owners were screaming about Halo, because Bungie started as a Mac company. Then Windows users were using it as an example of game that you needed a PC for, that just couldn't be done on a console. Then Xbox fans were using it as a way of putting down the PS2. Of course none of these groups ever played the game, and in the end it turned out to be much less than everyone had built it up to be.
I am giving the domain xboxlinux.com to the first person to successfully port/install Linux to the X-Box. No cost, no strings except you must be willing to continue work on it and release it to the public in some form.
Hammer of Truth
NOT!
Slashdot editors are really scraping the bottom of the barrel in their overt attempts to bash Microsoft. They do so at any cost, and by that I mean regardless if it makes them look like biased buffoons or not.
Salon is the last place I go for anything remotely to unbiased reporting. Seems Slashdot wants to follow suit.
The X-Box should be judged for what it is, and that is an attempt to offer flexibility to developers to make the games they could only wish to create for the PC. Microsoft or not, I would love to see some real creativity in the market that didn't involve a regular game company.
Can Ms provide that? I don't know, but I won't slight them based upon a Salon review, in fact if Salon bashes them at all I see it as more of a reason to look at the product.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Salon is overlooking something very critical. They run down the list of X-Box titles and call them boring and pedestrian, then detail FUTURE Sony titles that will be innovative...
But they don't mention any future X-Box titles which will innovate, other than a dismissive mention of the 2002 lineup which claims to have 'nothing ambitious'.
Are they forgetting that Sega has close ties with Microsoft? Jet Set Radio Future, the first franchise to effectively work cel shading into the game's stylistic approach, is due out for X-Box. In addition, Shenmue, the series which redefined how adventure games and peristent worlds work on Dreamcast, will be an X-box franchise from now on. US gamers will be getting Shenmue 2 on X-box alone.
If you're going to hold one console above another, at least consider all aspects of both, rather than forgetting a key area. That's just good journalism, whatever your preference for gaming platforms or your like/dislike of Microsoft may be.
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.
hmm yeah - I played GTA3 a couple of times on a friends PS2 and whilst it was very very beatiful, inclusing reflections of the secnery in the gleaming paintwork (and I could elect to drive my actual real life car which was kinda wierd)at the end of the graphical amazement, it left me cold - basically - it is *nothing* like driving a car. It may have been a different story with a wheel to steer with rather than that funny joystick thing, but I I'm not prepared to spend the £250 to find out :)
:)
We played some other PS2 titles (which I forget the name of, although one was a Sar Wars title) and I came away thinking "hmm so basically, scenery of one type or another scrolls towards you, and you steer" This seemed the basic premise of most of the games. In some you could shoot things as well, whilst others you just avoided obstacles (snowboarding was one excuse). The annoying thing that all these games had in common, is that you are never *really* in control of your ship/board/car/shopping trolley etc as the game will just not let you move outside of the "approved" area of the scenery. For example, I couldn't fly out of the canyon in the SW game. But there was no apparent reason for this, it was just arbitrary.
The only other basic type involved 2 psuedo 3d avatarsviewed in 3rd person who face off in some osrt of kickboxing fight. The game appeared to be won by pressing everything on the controller at the same time rapidly.
Apparentley, GT3 is hailed as one of the best if not the best console game. Hmm well if a very pretty version of "horace goes skiing" is the state of the art, I'll stick to me PC this time around. With games like Star Wars Galaxies and Planetside from Sony coing next year, it's gonna be a blast.
Before I get flamed by all the console lovers, I should state that I fully recognise that the console has a place - it's damm sight cheaper than a PC for start (My video card cost more than a PS/2), and is more easily accesible by non "hardcore" gamers who just want a bit of a laff with their mates round the TV with the aforementioned beer and pizza, and not to have to spend the first few days of playing any new game, writing macros and message binds, and downloading the essential addons and extra maps you need to play in the "big league" - in many ways, the very flexibility offered by the PC as a games platform provides many more potential ways to cheat. And cheating is what ruins many an online multiplayer gaming experience - just ask any Counterstrike player. These games are effectivley being driven onto the private LAN tournament scene where inspections of the players kit whilst in play are possible leaving just the casual games on the 'net. Serious tournaments are almost impossible on the Internet because of the cheating opportunities available by simply hacking the models or game client. These client mods are undetectable by the server. So, with the "closed" nature of console games (ie you can't write your own config scripts or alter the models, sounds and textures ) perhaps there will be a resurgence of serious Internet based multiplayer play. That is, until the consoles start to look so much like a PC that they suffer the same fate...
OK the ramble factor has reached the "shut up now scoot" stage so I'll not bore oyu any more
Um, why has an unqualified picture of an XBox Development Kit* message box been promoted to front page news? All we can glean from this is that the "oct" in the URL implies that it was posted to HardOCP in October. There's no evidence that this is from a unit sold to a consumer. Nor is there evidence that this is from a crashing in-store demo kiosk.**
Michael, this is neither funny nor professional. You're doing more to reinforce Slashdot's reputation as a childish, "M$ sux0rs linux 0wnz j00" site than any hundred Anonymous Cowards.
I've almost never agreed with Jon Katz's editorials. But I've always felt that squelching his opinion by banning him from my front page was wrong. You, Michael, have crossed that line. I'm banning you from my front page. I know that will cut my story count in half, but at least I can read the front page with the resonable expectation that I won't have my intelligence insulted.
*: That's the XDK in "XDK Launcher".
**: Sorry 'bout the annoying pop-unders, but that's the only crashing demo reference I could find through HardOCP on short notice.
This sig intentionally left blank.
Here's a few links to other and may be more objective reviews
Zdnet
Gamespy
Gamespot
FiringSquad
TeamXBox
Yahoo 2 3
--
"Can I run a linux cluster of those?"
!
^_^
This may be a stupid question, but how does it play DVD movies? I mean, obviously it has a DVD-ROM, but where does the software to play it come from? Do you need a boot CD to load up the OS/player, then you swap in the DVD? Or is there a small Windows OS on the hard disk itself that contains a player? If there's a Windows OS on the HD, what's stopping the natural corruption of some DLL's and the player breaking?
I have always liked the editors at Salon and this time is no exception.
What Xbox has going for it...
1 - PS2 is known as a more adult gaming platform. I just bought a PS2 and finding games for my 9 year old daughter is interesting. Maby MS can capitalize it if they are smart.
2 - Should be easy to port PC games to it. Something lacking in PS2/Nintindo worlds.
What Xbox has going against it....
1 - Sony rules the console market right now. Hands down. Nintendo has some a good new platform and more kiddy friendly games. Xbox has to compete with this
2 - Microsoft is used to being able to do what they want because they have a Monopoly. How will management react to situations when they are the small guy. It's like General Moters starting to offer blenders. They are not experts and the people the people who have been making them know a lot more about it and actually listen to there customers.
3 - Lack of vision. Ties into #2. Where's the killer app? Do you really think Gates and Balmer can envision great new games.
4 - Game makers won't produce for a console that hasn't got a proven track record. Why spend millions developing a game for a potential 50 people when I can do it for tens of millions across the world (PS2).
5 - Blue/Green screen of death will put off gamers. I bought a PS2 so I could get away from computer gaming and costant error messages and rebooting. When has anyone ever seen an error message on a Playstation or a Nintendo? I want drop in a game and play it never seeing an error message. PC users are use to getting them and can live with it. Console games don't and won't tolerate it. I gave up PC gaming because I got sick of upgrading video cards, getting more hard drive space, better processors. I just want to drop that disc in and play the game.
6 - The goofy Balmer/Monkey/music crap that the Salon article talked about. If you have to dance around on stage and talk like a motivational speaker your not selling stuff in the console market. When Grand Theft III is released or the next version of Final Fantasy they don't even need to air a commercial. They could send it to the stores and put it on the shelf without a word and it will sell out. Microsoft ain't cool. Sony is, Nintendo is some what.
I could go on and on. I can't see Xbox being anything but a niche market. Microsoft bit off more than they can chew with this one.
Also part of that investor group was Wasserstein Perella Group, Inc., which has done M&A transactions for AOL (http://www.wassersteinperella.com/about/transacti ons.htm).
It's a stretch, but not a BIG stretch. AND this is off 10 minutes of research.
sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
...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.
I think this line from the article says it best:
So for the first time, I actually dared to entertain warm thoughts toward Microsoft.
Yeah, no kidding that he doesn't normally like Microsoft. I would never have guessed it from the consistently cynical tone of his article.
I'm no big fan of MS either, but jeez. Would a little unbiased journalistic integrity be appropriate? Hmm.
As it is, I don't think that I know anything more about how good the XBox is after reading the article than I did beforehand -- because I don't even begin to trust the opinions of the journalist with his obvious baggage of preconceptions.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
While we're at it, it would be nice if it would let me browse the web, or perhaps run some online games that are playable at some distance from a relatively large, low-resolution (640x480) screen (though I have an HD-ready high-resolution set, most don't). And you know, all these entertainment devices with their complex controls, some of which have a video output for interactive menus are getting a pain to control. Why can't they provide a web server interface to a device with a browser and appropriate plugins, and just be hubbed into the local room 'net?
The ability to run local entertainment software (i.e. games), networked or not, is a feature that comes for free if we're going to have enough "oomph" to do MPEG2 decoding. While you might want to use it for non-entertainment duties (i.e. checking one's bank acount, or ordering a pizza on-line), work isn't it's primary purpose.
THAT is what the XBox could be. Architecture should be open, so third parties can develop apps/add on hardware for it. Still, it should be useful enough on it's own to justify it's price. Whether the hard disk (if present) and or CD/DVD-ROM is integrated, or outboard (firewire?) is more of a stylistic issue -- today we have A/V receivers as well as separates.
In my search I have come across some neat tech by Sigma Designs (http://www.sigmadesigns.com, http://www.sigmadesigns.com/products/netstream_con sole.htm (watch the damn inserted space), and particularly the iDVD3036). So decent convergence products are coming (say 2002).
But, if PC history tells us anything, the ones that succeed will be more open than the one's that don't. Unless Microsoft opens the XBox up architecturally and makes it easy for third party hacker developers, they will be among the convergence also-rans.
You could've hired me.
The thing is, your statements could almost apply just as well to the PS2 as the XBox. Sure, with the PS2 you have to obtain a seperate solution for ethernet or a HD (which is not totally nessicary as you could consider the memory card enough storage to make things interesting).
However, you also have to consider that MS had said repeatedly they are NOT making a home PC, they are making a pure game console. To help drive that point home they have made the USB ports non-standard.
If you look at it from a point of connectivity, the XBox has ethernet but as far as the larger device market goes nothing else. The PS2 has both standard Firewire and USB ports, and also a SUPPORTED version of Linux (and Java in the works). You can use USB keyboards and mice you have sittig around from computers, or go to lots of stores and have keyboards to choose from as well as being able to hook up digital cameras with included cables.
Which one sounds more like a home PC hub to you? Remember, just because it doesn't have an Intel processor does not mean it can't be a computing device...
One last point - though I have a cable modem and DSL line (not for long though - thanks a lot Sprint!), people are still going to be using modems for a long time. Sony has realized this and is including a modem with thier ethernet/HD extension. MS has only ethernet which is great for some but not all users. I can't remember exactly what Nintendo was planning, but I think they had a combo modem/ethernet solution as well.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Let's say I'm developing Spankman III: Out of Tissue and I've got some cross-promotional stuff going on with Kleenex and I have to ship by December 12th. It's November 15 and I'm not done.
Without a hard drive, I have to wait to ship until I'm done.
With a hard drive I can ship, even if the thing is still in beta because I can ask you - the player - to download patches later.
The Xbox means one thing to me: PC developers' bad habits can now follow them over to the console environment.
Bad idea.
I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist - but there's something bugging me...
When the Dreamcast was released, one of the big points they tried to make (to the point of putting the emblem on the console itself) was that it would run WinCE. Obviously, MS had a part in this, and it was the first time we'd really seen them step into the console market (aside from the sublicensing of some games).
Most developers, however, used Sega's proprietary OS instead of WinCE. There were only a handful of games that used WinCE, and not many were really high-profile.
So MS lost out - their plan to license their OS into the console market failed.
Then Sega makes the announcement - they're out of the console business - the Dreamcast is dead (long live the Dreamcast!).
On top of that, MS announces they are entering the console market, and Sega announces most of their signature games will be on the XBox.
It just seems a little too convenient, how Sega (who had at least some business relations with MS for their console) falls out of the way just before MS comes in.
I think too much.
I had a look at the Xbox at a Future Shop. They are charging $600Cdn($377US). One of the store clerks was trying to set up a demo machine but it was too big to fit in the kiosk case they had for it. I asked him about playing DVDs on it and he said you could but you had to spend another $50 for the DVD controler and $25 for the cable to connect it to the TV. It comes with one game controler and to add extras would be another $50 each. So now I'm looking at shelling out $825 + $120 in taxes. I said no thanks and walked on which is what I suspect is most Canadians will say.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
Mod the man up. I just pointed out the mistake to Michael (the poster of the story) now.
That's an XDK tossing up an error several months ago. And it's not a crash: it's looking for the media.
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
Heh... yeah, I've always loved hearing people call the Mac "a toy, because it has no good games."
My guess has always been that playing the Monotonous-FPS-of-the Month on a Windows box rots the part of the brain that allows irony to be detected.
As for the XBox, I'm not buying it, or the GameCube, or the PS2. Got enough classic consoles to keep me happy, the ones that were made back when gameplay mattered... not just the same three lame styles of games with purtier and purtier pixchurs every year.
~Philly
In spite of the fact that I already think that people are incredibly stupid, and in spite of seeing decades of evidence of the incredible stupidity of people on probably at least a weekly basis, stories like this (these eBay auctions) still somehow manage to boggle my mind and make me shake my head in wonder and disbelief. I find myself searching for possible rational explanations. So far the only explanation I can come up with that makes sense to me is that perhaps the bidders on these auctions were mostly foreigners with very poor English skills (possibly having recently moved e.g. to the US), who would not only easily have misunderstood the descriptions (understanding probably mostly just the main keywords), but would themselves (in a sort of naive trusting of people, and in good faith) never have believed or even considered that anyone would attempt such ridiculous auctions. If that was the case, I wonder if there would be any legal implications. Probably not, but still, if somebody deliberately and knowingly conned a naive immigrant with poor English skills, it seems a bit on the shady side.
Bullshit. Customer buys a computer, it comes with a browser RIGHT NOW: Microsoft Internet Explorer. Netscape 3/4 is 5-6 hours away on a 14.4k modem, IF the customer can stay connected that long, IF they understand how to save files and find what they've saved afterward, and IF they're comfortable launching an installer.
I personally dealt with this problem on the phone with multiple individuals who wanted Netscape between '95 and '98 but just didn't have the means to get it, and their OEM couldn't install it for them because of Microsoft's tactics. In the end, they all throw up their hands and just use IE 3/4 because that's what they had available and they've got better things to do for a week than try to figure out how to satisfy their browser preference.
Then '98 comes out and even people with 32MB memory who had managed to download Netscape under '95 find that they can't "unload" IE, meaning that on their 32MB low-proc slow-disk machines with W'98 Netscape is DOG-SLOW while IE is still usable. End of game.
Not every guy on earth was a techie with a T1 back in '95 through '98 when the switch was happening. Most of the people in the marketplace at the time are CONSUMERS without the knowledge or the technical means to download and install Netscape alongside IE, much less figure out how to change registry entries, etc. to make Netscape the default browser even if sufficient hardware/bandwidth/install skill are available.
I'm not arguing about whether MSIE's win was "fair" or not, but it certainly was not purely on the basis of technical browser merit.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
I work at a Best Buy, and our Xbox display unit freezes at least once every two hours, and we have to reset it. ( I usually leave it froze until a customer asks me to reset it, so more people can see that this thing freezes, heh heh). So far our gamecube has not froze once, we can leave it on all day with no problems. The only difference between the display units and the consumer ones is the demo units don't have the hard drive.
Even Microsoft knows that you must first get the rope around their neck, before pulling the noose tight.
Edith Keeler Must Die