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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.
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
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
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.
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.
From what I understand you have to buy an extra DVD remote control to unlock the DVD feature. I think all the firmware is built into the base unit, but it needs the IR dongle to be plugged into a controler port to make it function. I guess the Remote is only $30 so its not that bad. Kinda crappy to make you buy one thought (admittedly the DVD on the PS2 is better with a remote.. no wires hanging around. But at least you can use it without one)
...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.
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.
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.
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