Look at the computer in the photos... that box sure looks quite nice. Is it part of some sort of special dev-kit, or how does one get a chassis like that? I want one..:-)
The one on the right is an Alpha XBox devkit. Pretty old, and probably should be shipped back to Microsoft, if it hasn't been already.
The nice looking one is the one on the left... A PS2 "Tool" DevKit. They don't half make a racket, though. It's when you turn them off and you can suddenly hear people talking again...
...and we *still* can't get our hands on either the PS2 port *or* the XBox port. This kind of tease is just plain cruel.
Re:For reference...
by
sam@caveman.org
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
probably because at least for the XBox port, the guy had access to a dev kit, and releasing his work to us would cost him thousands of dollars in licensing.
the alternative, having done the work without the dev kit, would probably put him in prison if he were to release it.
it is quite muddy waters just showing pictures and claiming that it can be done.
I don't understand what Hemos meant by many levels of irony. The only piece of irony I can see is that you're using an XBox (really beefy fast graphics hardware, etc) to play old arcade games. What are the other levels of I irony? I'm not seeing this obviously.
--
---------
Fuck you, motherfucker. Fuck yous to: Rob "Taco-Snotter" Malda, Homos, Kowboi Kneel, and RMS.
The irony is that you're using a "bad" (Microsoft) machine to do cool (Mame, open source) stuff. Now if only we could play this without a development kit/box, which I think you will need.
I agree totally. Getting MAME to run on the X-Box was a pretty logical step. It was a matter of time. To be ironic there would need to be an incongruity between what is happening now and what one would have expected to happen. But since pretty much everybody would have expected this it is not ironic. At all.
But it is cool.
Re:Wild stab
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Also, it's the fact that microsoft is losing countless dollars on every x-box purchased so they can get them to gamers, and now people are just porting everyday PC code to them. The ultimate ripp off, I bet windows would be just fine with the machine if you got a motherboard driver.
Only running on the XDK
by
bparrish
·
· Score: 2, Informative
This has been on Slashdot before, http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/08/22/144622 4&mode=nested
It's pretty old news. This is only running on the XBox developers kit. Even if it was running on an actual XBox, I don't think they'd be allowed to release it.
Re:Only running on the XDK
by
muffen
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I don't think they'd be allowed to release it.
Intresting...
What do you think will stop "them" from releasing it? Personally I don't see any problem at all with releasing it. Even the amazingly stupid DMCA that stops all fun things can't stop this one. I don't understand how it is any different to release a MAME port for the XBox than it is to release it for the PC or the DreamCast.
Re:Only running on the XDK
by
MrFredBloggs
·
· Score: 1
"I don't think they'd be allowed to release it."
I dont think anyone cares. If theres a demand for it, it`ll exist. The roms are out there, source code is free speech, what are they going to do about it exactly?
Re:Only running on the XDK
by
sam@caveman.org
·
· Score: 2, Informative
source code is free speech
hahahaha. yup, that's been proven time and time again in the courts, hasn't it. if you've developed for a game console before, you'd know that for each game you ship, you get to pay the console a nice royalty. i doubt the MAME port author wants to be responsible for thousands of dollars in licensing costs.
-sam
-- burn the computers. go back to the abacus.
Re:Only running on the XDK
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
you probably haven't read any of the XDK licenses...
Re:Only running on the XDK
by
jgerman
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· Score: 2
Uhhh, only if you charge for it, you can give the MAME emulator away and MS gets nothing.
again, have you read the microsoft XDK licensing? i know i have NOT, but i would seriously doubt that you would be allowed to redistribute XDK code or IP (which a MAME emulator release would certainly do) without paying a license fee back to MS. if you could, i would hope MS would fire their lawyers and get ones with a clue, because that is what their business model with the XBox is centered upon, game licenses. i seriously doubt the MAME emulator author received his XDK under any kind of free license (again, MS shareholders would demand the MS lawyers be fired if this were not the case).
-sam
-- burn the computers. go back to the abacus.
Re:Only running on the XDK
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Living in California, what our state's Court of Appeals says is good enough for me, even if it's not legal dogma as you prefer: source code has the protections of free speech.
Re:Only running on the XDK
by
geomcbay
·
· Score: 1
First, there's the technical issue. The XBOX is designed to only run game discs which are in DVD-9 (9 gb) format..There aren't consumer-level burners that can write that format.
Not only that, but the discs are encrypted, using a secret key that only Microsoft has, not even third party developers have access to it. This is a dual problem..First, technically, someone has to work around the encryption or break it. Of course, I wouldn't bet against this as history has shown that these things almost always have a weakness which someone will eventually exploit, but it opens up a legal issue..breaking the encryption is a DMCA violation, and thus Microsoft could in theory sue as the MPAA/etc did in the DeCSS case.
Re:Only running on the XDK
by
jgerman
·
· Score: 2
Never hold up in court, we've allready been through this years ago with Nintendo trying to sue some company that was releasing games for their machine with no license,... they lost.
-- I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Check the last time this link was posted
by
iainl
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Does anyone have anything to add now the final machine is available? This link is the one given the last time the story ran here.
It would be nice to know someone has got this going on a final release machine, not just a devbox.
-- "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Cabinet Choice
by
alister667
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Looking at this story I have to agree with Otaku - the XBox would be an ideal choice for a MAME cabinet, as it uses a standard TV out, has a HD, comes with controllers etc. Now how can we get the ported application? Can MAME be ported to the XBox without using the MS developers bundle? Will this allow XBox MAME to be released? Anyone have any ideas?
It's noticable that about 1 year after the same guy ported MAME to the PS2, there is still no way (I'm aware of) I can get MAME on my PS2 at home.
I disagree, the new shuttle "PC Cube" Model SV24 is probably the best cabinet for the mame emulator. It is small, light and very quiet. It also has a TV out and network port as well as USB AND Firewire. Granted it doesn't have a normal gameport, but with USB you can get just about any controller for it, or just get a HotRod controller that uses the keyboard port. At $250 USD it is hard to find anything better, especially since it has an Aluminum Case.
Re:Cabinet Choice
by
gatesh8r
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
Well and there's the l33t factor of customizing your own gaming system, and this little bugger is perfect for that... if you wanna go on the cheap, a simple Celeron can be had with some PC133 RAM so later you could fit in a 733 MHz or so P3 if you wanted. I like the idea, and if I had mod points I'd mod you up. Though what is annoying is only one PCI slot for expansion... blech. Can't complain when it's so compact as it is.
-- Karma whorin' since 1999
I'm too slow, -1 redundant time.
by
iainl
·
· Score: 1
Oh well, I see others can look up the story faster than I can. Still, my question does stand - can someone get this running on the standard shop-bought hardware, rather than on a dev-box where the issues of bootdiscs etc aren't present?
-- "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Who can run it?
by
andylaurence
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I suppose it's a pity we can't run this legally on our retail X-Boxes. I won't be buying an X-Box, but I would consider it if it coould make a decent MAME cabinet...
mame? how about bleem?
by
sewagemaster
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
on the same note, i think it would be more interesting to run bleem. mame games dont really take advantage of the hardware components of the xbox... and now that bleam is dead there's really no one who could get sued in case anything happens...
I`d consider it if i were satisfied it was being sold at a loss. Running a Linux version of Mame on the xbox would amuse me no end. Perhaps when the xbox is cheaper - its way too expensive at the mo. I`ve just bought a GBA, so it`ll be some time before i get another console - and that`ll probably be the PS2 anyway.
PS2 is evil, your only helping Sony... don't buy it...
Are there any wholesome consoles out there?
Re:X-Box is evil
by
Weavus
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
This isnt helping Microsoft at all. By buying the Xbox but not getting any games for it and just using it to play old arcade games you are hurting them on a number of levels.
1) Microsoft lose money on the hardware and make it back on the software. Just buying the machine to play old arcade games makes MS loose money.
2) If lots of people buy Xbox's and dont buy any games it looks real bad to publishers who look at stats like games sold/machines sold. If this figure is real bad publishers wont want to release games on this system and will just produce games for other systems.
The trouble with Xbox homebrew is that the DVD's the Xbox use arnt completly standard and cant be burnt at home at the moment. I have not seen any reports of the machine being able to boot off anything but these disks so getting this type of software on the machine if you dont have a development station is going to be hard.
Weavus
Re:X-Box is evil
by
sam@caveman.org
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
well the gamecube (nintendo) runs an IBM chip, IBM donates tons of money to linux marketing (1 billion) and lots of other open source software stuff. of course the proprietary DVD makes it a bit unwholesome and it's probably the least 'hackable' console, but if you want a console to use to play games without having to fund Microsoft or Sony, probably the best choice.
-sam
-- burn the computers. go back to the abacus.
Re:X-Box is evil
by
sam@caveman.org
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
i think your argument is good, but can you see the microsoft spin to their shareholders?
"we sold 2 million units, more than any other console in 4Q 2001, making us clearly the market leader."
no, what needs to happen is for as close to ZERO XBox consoles to be sold, it is very had for even very talented/evil marketroids to spin THAT. if they sell a lot of consoles, nevermind the games, because the shareholders will see value and marketshare because they are listening to the market, not to the game companies.
i agree, if no one is buying XBox games eventually it will get back to MS, but probably not for a good while because any first gen console is looking for marketshare and market penetration more than game sales.
Ahh but you have to remember that without strong software sales MS is going to take a serious hit on the hardware. Let them claim that they have sold 2 million, MS shareholders can jump for joy but without big 3rd party support the box aint going anywhere.
Another thing you have to remember is that if you buy an xbox and now and shove it in the drawer until you can hack it you are stopping someone buying one and purchasing games for it (and MS making any money);)
Publishers are much more likely to look at the absolute installed base rather than the spindle ratio. An unsold Xbox on the shelf is useless to MS and to game developers. and maximally expensive for MS, whereas an Xbox sold, even for hacking, has the potential to make money on game sales and has already offset some of MS' costs. How naive is it to think Xbox hackers won't buy the odd game anyway, or indeed that there will ever be enough of them to make a significant difference?
A hardware hack a-la modchip may be required to get the xbox to read other media... but if they're actually using that HD in there for the OS, then it may just need a software hack once the fs is deciphered.
--
"Where shall the word be found, where will the word resound? Not here, there is not enough silence." -T.S. Eliot
Re:X-Box is evil
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
That's incorrect. It would be illegal price dumping if Microsoft sold their XBoxes for less than their marginal cost. What they are doing is selling for less than average cost, but above marginal; the total sum of money they are losing is at most the initial fix costs they incurred to start producing XBoxes. What this means is the more XBoxes people buy, the sooner Microsoft will be able to get *out* of the hole, *not* the deeper they get in it.
at least those who haven't kept up with all the latest games and skills needed to play them can get something usefull out of that Xbox other than the dvd ad on.
Re:300$ pac man machine
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
some of us gave up on games and got into booze and women. its a different skill set, check it out some day. much more fun then even the latest games...
Re:300$ pac man machine
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
You've never had your dick sucked while smoking a joint and playing Bubble Bobble. It's fuckin' great.
Now the question is: could it be possible to play XBox games on a PC. After all, the if the XBox is basically a PC, why would someone buy a XBox if games could be played on a regular PC, assuming that one already has a powerful PC?
Is there any intrisical problem that would prevent to do this or not?
Re:The other way round
by
Weavus
·
· Score: 4, Informative
There seems to be a common misconception that the Xbox is just a pc console. Every slashdot story about the Xbox has numerous posts abotu this. The Xbox may have some standard pc components inside it (x86 cpu, hard disk, geforce etc) but there is a lot that is different.
The biggest difference between the two is that the Xbox uses unified memory. This means the cpu/graphics/sound all use the same memory and dont have to contend with the pc memory bottleneck of getting stuff to the graphics card. Emulating that is going to take a lot of time/effort and cpu power.
Apart from that, i'm sure Microsoft have put in plenty of other measures to stop people emulating the Xbox on a PC. BIOS checks, DirectX differences, Stripped OS etc...
Dont expect a game playing xbox emulator for a long time.
> The biggest difference between the two is that
> the Xbox uses unified memory. This means the
> cpu/graphics/sound all use the same memory and
> dont have to contend with the pc memory
> bottleneck of getting stuff to the graphics
> card. Emulating that is going to take a lot of
> time/effort and cpu power.
The Amiga also has this (and a load of other differances) and UAE emulates this. Although emulation is pretty slow.
But anyway you won't have to emulate that much. Something similar to vmware or plex86 would be enough.
Unified memory architecture actually aggravates memory bottleneck issues as now there's only one memory available for all devices to talk to. That bottleneck of getting information to a PC's graphics card isn't much of a bottleneck at all. It has the full AGP bus to itself and doesn't have to compete with the cpu or other devices for main memory bandwidth.
Unified memory is about cost. By having a common pool of memory, you need fewer electronics and you don't have to mirror sections of memory to other memory-bearing devices like video cards. You can also grow&shrink each device's usage depending on need to make more memory available for other uses.
Other consoles get emulated rather quickly, and they aren't nearly as similar to a standard PC as the xbox. The unified memory is probably the easiest thing to emulate; just remap memory accesses to the proper locations. I'd expect that it's DirectX doing all the actual work of handling the memory, though. In that case you'd need only remap the game's xbox DX API calls to the appropriate Windows DX APIs.
I wouldn't expect an xbox emulator to take long to surface.
--
"Where shall the word be found, where will the word resound? Not here, there is not enough silence." -T.S. Eliot
Re:The other way round
by
dasunt
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Weavus writes:
Apart from that, i'm sure Microsoft have put in plenty of other measures to stop people emulating the Xbox on a PC. BIOS checks, DirectX differences, Stripped OS etc...
Sorry. There is only one console that I know of that's a bitch to emulate on the PC, and that's the lowly NES. Not the N64, not the SNES, but the original 8 bit NES, and that was due to mapper support. No NES emulator that I know of has full mapper support, bioNES, fwNES, and NESticle were the best when I was in the emulation scene. Arcade games also tend to be a pain, due to anti-piracy measures implimented in a few of the games, and the relative scarcity of arcade games when compared to most console games. The Atari Jaguar has also been slow to be emulated, although I don't know if this was due to technical difficulties or a lack of interest.
That being said, the following have been successfully emulated on the lowly PC (running DOS/Win for the most part): Arcade (which is technically many different platforms, even if the systems are JAMMA compliant, they have different hardware. MAME roms alone list over 3000 games (including clones, and there are other multi-arcade emulators out there). The NeoGeo (some games that have been successfully emulated by MAME) adds a hundred or two more. Looking at old school stuff, the C64, Amiga, and Apple II have all been emulated, according to Zophar, as well as the Trash-80's and Tandy's. For consoles, we have Atari, ColecoVision, Dreamcast, SMS/Gamegear, Intellivision, NES, SNES, N64, Dreamcast, Playstation, Saturn, Turbo Grafix 16, and the Vectrex, among others. The Gameboy, and the NeoGeo pocket has also been emulated (as well as the aforementioned Game Gear, which is really a SMS with better graphics). We also have both HP and TI calculators emulated.
With all of this emulated, I don't suspect that Xbox will be that much of a problem, especially with the demand for an emulator that we will see.
Re:The other way round
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
"The biggest difference between the two is that the Xbox uses unified memory."
I have three letters for you: A, G and P.
Seriously, this is not a big deal, you simply allocate things in AGP memory and munge addresses appropriately. I believe the x-box runs on a 100MHz bus, so AGP4x will be faster than the interface between the xbox CPU and the xbox RAM anyway!
Huh? There are plenty of PC motherboards that use a unified memory architecture. There have been for 5+ years.
Because of memory bandwidth bottlenecks the performance always sucked & were limited to low end machines. The Nvidia nForce chipset greatly improves the memory access bandwidth, to the point that it make a good performing video solution.
Re:The other way round
by
Phork
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
No, no PCs use a unified address space. THough i thank some mainframes do.
It runs fast on a modern PC. But i't certainly not 100 times faster than the latest Amiga (Those have power pc processors).
To properly emulate an Amiga 500 you'll need at least a 500 MHz PC. and considering the Amiga 500 was only running at 7.5 MHz that's pretty slow. The FPU might in that case run 100 times faster than the amiga 500 FPU but the sound won't sound good if you have a slower PC.
/Erik
-- Erik Dalén
Re:The other way round
by
Score+Whore
·
· Score: 1
Machines based on certain variants of the intel 810 family use UMA.
Re:The other way round
by
Chris+Johnson
·
· Score: 2
You've got it backwards. Think about it for a second: you need X much bandwidth to send textures to the screen (for instance, this is where PS2 has a 128-bit bus, much harder to emulate), Y much bandwidth to handle sound, and Z much bandwidth to run the actual game off system memory.
Now, some of the time, you gotta copy textures from Z to X, which of course is the big win you think you're getting with UMA. But... how often are you doing this? And meanwhile- on the XBox you have to deal with XYZ all at once over the same bus. You don't get to offload video stuff onto its own memory subsystem- everything is fighting for the same RAM. That's not a win- that's a lose.
My hunch is that very likely state-of-the-art gamer PCs can ALREADY completely handle anything that's happening on XBox- the only reason you're not seeing the same games as PC games is because (a) they were never developed for general PC use and wouldn't work on a wide spectrum of PCs and 3D cards, and (b) Microsoft won't let you have them on PC, because then it would be obvious that the PC is already a superset of XBox.
And I'm a Mac dude, not given to blathering on about how wonderful PCs are- but seriously, it's the XBox that has the bottlenecks, and that is shown by frame rates as poor as a tenth or twentieth of what PC gamers are used to seeing. I'm hearing that XBox drops to 10 fps routinely in demanding games like DOA and Halo, when the scene complexity gets heavy. It's already hitting its performance limits- it's NOT like people don't know how to program for DirectX, and future years will see wonders as the programmers figure out the mysterious new machine. It's dead familiar, that's how something like DOA was possible at all. But it's also hitting absolute peak right out of the box with DOA and Halo- there will not be future games that are more impressive, unless they are impressive in an artistic sense, which is of course possible. Like if 'Thief' was done for the XBox... but of course that developer is dead.
Pretty much anything with on-board video and/or sound is using UMA. Hell, any PC with a SoundBlaster Live card is using at least partially UMA.
That sucker is such a cheap buy because it runs off your main memory and CPU.
--
"Where shall the word be found, where will the word resound? Not here, there is not enough silence." -T.S. Eliot
How about Win32 api emulation. Not that easy uh!
Yes I know it won't be probably necessary for an X-box emulator but I mean that if the designers want it to be difficult to emulate, it will be.
Take a look at the guts of a Saturn some time, dude.
Re:The other way round
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
i think so... after all, the Pentium III in the XBox is a Pentium III Derivative, not a regular CPU... i am not sure to what extent that would affect what you're saying, but it will.
Unfortunately, jus tlike his PS2 port....
by
AugstWest
·
· Score: 2
....we won't ever get to see it. It's nice and all to know that this guy can sit in his living room and play MAME, but it's not much use to the rest of the world if it's never released.
Gnutella and other p2p networks is the answer...
by
CptnHarlock
·
· Score: 1
If someone with access to a DevKit can pull the same stunt and is NOT a meta-karma-whore looking for recognition, then he/she can release the result anonymously as let's say an ISO image on a p2p network and then it's for the rest of us lamers to just keep shareing it and enjoying it..:)..
Cheers...
-- $HOME is where the.*shrc is -- silver_p
Re:Gnutella and other p2p networks is the answer..
by
sam@caveman.org
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
that is a band-aid (TM) on the problem - i agree it will work in the short term, but the obvious solution is to not buy into their licensing and proprietary crap to begin with. you can probably build a better/good-enough MAME machine for less, or even slightly more, which has been said many times over the threads on the XBox, and then be able to simply release openly your kits so everyone can improve them and benefit from them.
kids across America see this, complain about the xbox's crappy graphics, and buy a gamecube.
-- daed si luap
-1 Redundant, I KNOW...
by
DarkEdgeX
·
· Score: 2, Informative
But this REALLY HAS been posted before. Not even over 4 months ago at that... [shake] You know you read/. too much when you can remember articles and point out repeats...
-- All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
Plus the fact that every ex-box you buy stabs MS for a 100 bucks if you only use MAME on it, using it to play only games that do not support MS.
Er, yeah, but it also stabs you for 400 bucks (or whatever it is) so if you use it to run something you can already run on a P60 this is a bit of a cutting off your nose to spite your face situation. But if that's how you get your kicks - 'YAY, I'm, like, TOTALLY screwing a billion dollar organisation by 100 bucks'. Spank away, boys.
--
Mod parent up! [a] by Anonymous Coward (Score:5) Thurs, June 31, @13:37
Plus the fact that every ex-box you buy stabs MS for a 100 bucks if you only use MAME on it, using it to play only games that do not support MS.
Where is your proof of this? I see no reason to believe that the hardware Sony/Nintendo or M$ loose money on hardware... its slashbot assumption. I think you VASTLY underestimage the power of volume pricing/manufacturing and what a device like this costs to make in the MILLIONS of units.
Re:Other Irony
by
joshsisk
·
· Score: 2, Informative
That's standard operating procedure for consoles.
It's a well-documented fact that Sony does this:
"However, the market leader Sony are set to cut the price of their Playstations to £69 in response. This would be a loss leader, but the bulk of Playstation profits come from software." - full story
For a more historical perspective:
"The NES introduced three very important concepts to the video game system industry:
Using a pad controller instead of a joystick
Creating authentic reproductions of arcade video games for the home system
Using the hardware as a loss leader by aggressively pricing it, then making a profit on the games themselves" - full article
It's the way the industry works. Do a little research.
The NES introduced three very important concepts to the video game system industry:
Using a pad controller instead of a joystick
Well, they got this wrong. Intellivision had a pad controller before Nintendo. Of course the disc thing on the controller was used for movement in most games, but the keypad was used directly in some.
-- Preventive War is like committing suicide for fear of death. - Otto Von Bismarck
If using the 'hurt Microsoft by buying an X-Box and no games' is the way you get your kicks, why not just buy the $30-worth of cables to use it as a DVD player; its much simpler, and doesn't involve fancy hacking routines.
-- "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Re:Other Irony
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
That's incorrect. It would be illegal price dumping if Microsoft sold their XBoxes for
less than their marginal cost. What they are doing is selling for less than average cost, but
above marginal; they total sum of money they are losing is at most the initial fix costs they
incurred to start producing XBoxes. What this means is the more XBoxes people buy, the
sooner Microsoft will be able to get *out* of the hole, *not* the deeper they get in it.
Re:Other Irony
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
That's incorrect. It would be illegal price dumping if Microsoft sold their XBoxes for
less than their marginal cost. What they are doing is selling for less than average cost, but
above marginal; they total sum of money they are losing is at most the initial fix costs they
incurred to start producing XBoxes. What this means is the more XBoxes people buy, the
sooner Microsoft will be able to get *out* of the hole, *not* the deeper they get in it.
Where is your proof of this? I see no reason to believe that the hardware Sony/Nintendo or M$ loose money on hardware
It's commonly known that game hardware loses money for the first 2-3 years, but in M$'s case it's much worse than the usual models.
If you don't trust financial news on Slashdot how about "Reuters"? This article quotes Wall Street tech analysts as saying that M$ stands to lose about US$1,000,000,000 (yes Billion) with a break even date somewhere in 2004 if it's "moderately" successful.
Heck they're spending >$5,000,000 just to advertise it - for that much money they could just give away 1.5million units as a promotion!
Why would M$ do this? Because this box is their attempt to get into livingrooms - and heck MSN has lost over 2Billion and will probably NEVER turn a profit - so why worry about another billion?
It's commonly known that game hardware loses money for the first 2-3 years, but in M$'s case it's much worse than the usual models.
How's it worse in Microsoft's case? They're losing roughly $100 per Box. That's also around the same that the PS2 lost. The Gamecube will likely lose less, but then it's less hardware (or, perhaps they're losing the same amount, which lets them underprice Microsoft and Sony by $100. Or, maybe they're losing twice as much).
Heck they're spending >$5,000,000 just to advertise it - for that much money they could just give away 1.5million units as a promotion!
You missed a couple zeros. That's $500million, not $5million ($5million will barely buy you a couple super bowl TV spots, these days, and that money has to last Microsoft through two Super Bowls). Of course, that's $500million over 18 months, but nobody ever pays attention to that "18 months" part (works out to "only" $300million per year, give or take a couple ten millions).
Why would M$ do this? Because this box is their attempt to get into livingrooms - and heck MSN has lost over 2Billion and will probably NEVER turn a profit - so why worry about another billion?
XBox is not Microsoft's push to get a PC in your living room. It's their push to be the gaming console you have in your living room. That's why you'll not see an official keyboard or mouse, nor web browser or e-mail software, or anything of the like. Conspiracy theorists may howl all they want, but Microsoft seems sincere about being only about the games with the XBox.
How's it worse in Microsoft's case? They're losing roughly $100 per Box. That's also around the same that the PS2 lost.
I think M$ is losing more than Sony did - with added harddrive and custom components - and will benefit less from VSLI etc that brings down cost for Sony et al in the long run. I also think that Sony's position as a consumer hardware producer (plus with original PS experience) would give then significantly less investment/start-up cost for launching the product.
That being said, maybe I'm wrong... I have a lot of friends who work on PS2 in and out of Sony so I have pretty good PS2 lowdown - but my M$ scoop isn't nearly as good. But I also think M$ has ulterior motives that they feel justifies the extra expense... see below...
XBox is not Microsoft's push to get a PC in your living room. It's their push to be the gaming console you have in your living room.
I didn't say they're trying to get a PC into the livingroom - I just said that they're trying to get into the livingroom. Isn't M$ a heavy investor in ulimateTV and webTV? You don't think M$ has designs on being your digital dispensor of entertainment - with a game playing, digital cable box capable of HD recording and interactive TV web surfing and purchasing via MSN.com?
I think they are... (whether that qualifies as a conspiracy theory is left up to the reader as an exercise.;)
They are still selling them at a loss, though. Which is all anyone said. Just like Sony did with the original PSX. It wasn't profitable until after a few million had been sold, they had their factories optimized, etc.
And, of course, MS would NEVER resort to dumping or unfair competition- I wouldn't even think to imply that!
Re:Other Irony
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
There is no law that says you can't sell a product for less then what it costs you to make it!
You people are astonishing. You are going to spend $300 of your money to play old games that already work with your pc with no trouble only to take a stab at MS? Pathetic.
Riddle me this, slashdotters: is it profit that is evil, or MS? All this griping about closed source, proprietary game systems. OF COURSE THEY ARE PROPRIETARY! THAT'S HOW THIS WORKS.
Carmack said something to the effect of Microsoft is a better console evil overlord that Sony or Nintendo and he is spot on correct. Read your console history, then come and be l33t and condescending.
--
"My God, this must be a truly remarkable corn chip, to be so widely and confidently touted."
Yeah, but try buying an XBox without at least an extra $150 worth of nearly zero manufacturing cost games included.
See, they're not losing anything.
Oh, the possibilities!
by
Forager
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· Score: 5, Informative
This is dated July 20th, 2001; it was, needless to say, done on a development box. Anyone know the difficulties between running it on a dev box vs running it on the actual consumer box?
Thought this paragraph was interesting:
So I've found the computer I want to put in the M.A.M.E. cabinet I am still trying to find time to construct, it's going to be an XBox, it's got a built-in hard drive, Ethernet connection, and supports analogue & digital controlllers, and only costs a few hundred American dollars, plus it already supports a standard TV signal so I can wire up any decent TV instead of an expensive Wells Gardner monitor.
What I'm curious to know is how many other people will find applications like this? Hook up a USB keyboard and mouse, you could have a $300 linux box, or a $300 quake server, or a $300 mail server, or a $300 SETI@home bean counter. Point is, the potential for the XBOX BEYOND its original purpose is pretty big, if only people can get around Microsoft's software.
IIRC, the binaries need to be certified and encrypted, and then pressed into final CD form for them to run. AFAIK, XBox doesn't run CDRs (yet).
Re:Oh, the possibilities!
by
Ryan+Amos
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· Score: 2
Yeah, you could... if the XBox had USB. As is, you've gotta use their controllers. Not a big deal for MAME (just take it apart and rewire the button contacts to some arcade buttons) but it obviously wouldn't work on a keyboard.
And contrary to popular opinion, the XBox is NOT standard x86 architecture. Yes, it does run off an x86 CPU, but the memory bus is WAAAAY different than your run of the mill PC. It's sorta like the difference between an old Macintosh and an old Amiga. They both used the same CPU (M68000, which, incidentally, is used in a lot of other stuff too, including microwaves, SCSI cards, and many, many others) but obviously didn't run the same software (it was years before NetBSD would work on both of them.) XBox does support DirectX and Windows, but only because Microsoft has ported them to this new platform. For Linux to work, it would have to be ported as well.
The xbox does indeed have USB. All the controller ports are USB, but they've been physically altered so you can't hook up standard PC peripherals. An adapter would make short work of that problem.
As for the memory bus, it's not different at all. It's normal x86 DDR architecture. Some of it is just mapped as the framebuffer or used by devices.
The challenge would be in the drivers for the video/sound/network/etc subsystems using UMA, but it's not like it hasn't been done before (eg: Creative Labs emu10k, VIA ProSavage, 3Com VT8233C).
--
"Where shall the word be found, where will the word resound? Not here, there is not enough silence." -T.S. Eliot
From the pictures...
by
Spackler
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· Score: 3, Funny
If you notice in the pictures, he only has one cup of Starbucks on the desk. If he was truly 1337, he would have had one for each hand. Then we could have seen this running on a normal Xbox!
Re:From the pictures...
by
SubtleNuance
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· Score: 1, Troll
he only has one cup of Starbucks on the desk.
You mean none. Anyone who is *TRUELY* 1337 dosnt drink Starbucks *anything*. Starbucks is consum-o-drone level trash. Anyone who is 1337 will understand that Starbucks is a homoginized-vanilla reproduction of a vibrant coffee shop. Starbucks carpet-marketing-bombs the "vibrant coffee shop" industry, making diversity in the marketplace impossible - and thus DESTROYS the coffee-shop industry.. you know, the independant "my neighbour owns this store and employees intelligent/interesting people based on their value not on their ability to wear a uniform well and act 'bubbly' (read: starbucks-ish and predictable)"
People who are 1337 are also above being snookered-in by the thinly veiled facade of anything remotely starbuck-ish.
Re:From the pictures...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Insightful
You forget a few things:
1) The coffee is excellent; usually much better than the neighborhood hole;
2) I don't WANT flaky pseudo-intellectuals engaging me with their boring crap, I want a uniform wearing drone to just serve the damn coffee, take the money, and get the hell out of my way.
I'll never understand some people fascination with "coffee shops" with their little teeny tables and their little chess boards and little open air area where artiste types sit on their skinny ass, with their cigarette hanging daintily from their fingers, and a three day growth of beard, with a hollow-eyed (probably drug induced) look in their eyes.
Coffee shops sucks. The sooner we put them out of business, the better. Heck, just getting rid of places with crappy poetry readings in reason enough to get rid of them.
Re:From the pictures...
by
armb
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· Score: 1, Redundant
> Anyone who is *TRUELY* 1337 dosnt drink Starbucks *anything*.
Why isn't there an "off-topic but informative enough to be worthwhile" option?
Re:From the pictures...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
>> Anyone who is *TRUELY* 1337 dosnt drink Starbucks *anything*.
>Why isn't there an "off-topic but informative enough to be worthwhile" option?
Because that post isn't informative. I don't need a troll telling me whether I'm 1337 or not based on the fucking coffee I do, or do not, drink.
Re:From the pictures...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
..the use of '1337' was a joke..
Re:From the pictures...
by
AJWM
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
If you're talking about Starbucks, the coffee is over-roasted crap that tastes like it's been on the burner about an hour too long.
I suppose some folks think its cool or macho or 1337 to drink charcoal'n'water. I think they're idiots.
I'll agree on the rest of it, though. But there are plenty of places that meet those criteria that actually know how to make coffee.
-- -- Alastair
specs and pricing for a linux game machine
by
sam@caveman.org
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· Score: 2, Informative
i'd like to back up what i said about being able to build a good-enough DVD Player/MAME machine for slightly more than the XBox:
motherboard (ECS K7VZA), processor (Duron 750), case, fans. 3D sound, ATA-100 disk controller): $150
256 MB Ram: $30
64 MB AGP 4x video card with composite TV-Out (Abit Siluro GeForce 2): $70
20 GB ATA-100 Hard Disk (Maxtor): $60
12x IDE DVD-ROM drive (LGE): $50
USB gamepad (Logitech WingPad Precision): $10
PCI 10/100 Ethernet card (Netgear): $15
Your favorite GNU/Linux system: $0
TOTAL: $385
borrow your keyboard and mouse from an existing machine for installation/setup, otherwise these are all brand new components. you have sound, TV-out, DVD, ethernet, and even a gamepad. i know i'm forgetting something, but hey, it's close. the machine could handle being an MP3/Ogg jukebox as well.
-sam
-- burn the computers. go back to the abacus.
Re:specs and pricing for a linux game machine
by
tubs
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· Score: 1
A Box to put it all in?
I wonder if it would work as a home entertainment system?
DVD player, MP3 Ripper/Player, MAME Game box. I suppose you could write some sort of "Menu" interface so you an control everything via a game pad.
I wonder how much it would cost to make, and how much you could get away with selling it for.
--
try to make ends meet, you're a slave to money, then you die
Re:specs and pricing for a linux game machine
by
sam@caveman.org
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· Score: 1
A Box to put it all in?
well line item 1 included a case - unless you mean a nice black cool looking box or a cabinet box i think that'll do.
with a simple Tcl/Tk interface, you could use the game pad or even hook up an IR port for a remote control to the thing.
it would be about a half hour of hardware setup per box, and about a half hour of software setup per box (of course you could be doing the software side many at a time). even basic monkey wage like $10/hr would find you many college students who would love the job, so you're looking at around $10 per box in labor costs.
feasibly you could build the box for $399 very, very easily, including labor and shipping. now you need some marketing and an internet presence and a store. again, do this in a college town, check your zoning laws and if possible run it out of your house or garage for very low cost. otherwise you're looking at mall space ($1000 a month on the very very low end of crappy mall space) or office space.
your marketing could be very, very simple in the early stages. get involved with the local LUG and gaming/anime groups, hopefully with your student monkeys (er... employees) chosen well. you could probably drum up 10-20 box sales fairly easily that way - and then 'hope it spreads' or get some CHEAP ads on local alternative radio - go for your audience, don't waste time on soft rock or '80s' music stations. if you've chosen your monkeys well (darn it, i meant to say employees) one of them is a DJ at the campus radio station and will shamelessly plug it for you.
anyway, you won't be making any money on this thing unless you get a lot more marketing than you can probably afford. you'd be looking at BEST at 10 or so boxes per month per city - you'd better enjoy running the shop as a hobby, and an expensive one at that. your best bet would probably be to also sell hard to get anime/underground/cult DVDs and import games, which you could cut a small profit with. it would be possible to fund your tuition at a state school with the work, and it would be both your job and a very interesting line on your resume.
serious business people (Read: adults) probably would not want to touch this kind of business. profit margins are tiny and variable, and your market is very, very small. but for the young or interested party (Read: local LUG) this would be an interesting way to fund your group's activities. have LAN parties with the boxes and raffle one off. run a small shop with repair/upgrade services and your little LUG would be learning a LOT and bringing in a little money for future outings/projects/guest speakers.
-sam
-- burn the computers. go back to the abacus.
Re:specs and pricing for a linux game machine
by
tubs
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· Score: 1
I suppose if you were starting a business the you would need much more than the fuzzy stuff here.
1. Its a DVD player, that plugs into your TV.
2. Its a MP3 Ripper and Player that can plug into your sound system - Hmmm, maybe a "pro" version that allows burning .
3. You also get to play all old MAME games.
(4 if you really wanted too, you could turn it into a computer with a Kboard+Mouse+Printer etc)
Costwise would you need so much power?
Distribution, well I suppose you would have to look at independant games/electronics retailers, or maybe the "Gadget Shop" type places.
Target demographic? Probably 23+ (people who remember Hypersports & have a bit of spare cash).
--
try to make ends meet, you're a slave to money, then you die
Re:specs and pricing for a linux game machine
by
El+Prebso
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· Score: 1
You could call it the "GNUBox":-)
-- I didn't say it was your fault. I said I was going to blame it on you.
Re:specs and pricing for a linux game machine
by
JimPooley
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· Score: 3, Funny
Re:specs and pricing for a linux game machine
by
gid
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· Score: 1
For a slick looking, small case try this one. $250 for a aluminim toaster sized case with mobo/power supply/fan. All it needs is ram, cpu, hd and dvd drive. On board everything, usb, firewire, s4 savage video (not the best for fps games, but it'll do for everything else), ethernet, sound, ide. I just ordered one today, I just pray they actually have them in stock.:)
It's a little more, but probably a lot more attractive. I plan on putting a tv tuner card and use it for a dvd player/tv/mp3/ogg/mame/etc player for my bedroom. Running linux of course.:)
Thinking about putting a VIA C3 (passivly cooled x86 chip, mmm quiet) in it, but I can't find the 800/866 models for sale anywhere.
Re:specs and pricing for a linux game machine
by
sam@caveman.org
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· Score: 1
your mwave link is broken this morning - any other place you know of to look at the case? sounds very interesting.
-sam
-- burn the computers. go back to the abacus.
Re:specs and pricing for a linux game machine
by
gid
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· Score: 1
link works for me, try just going to direct.mwave.com and search for SV24.
www.shuttleonline.com for the people who make it and some links to reviews
www.pricewatch.com for other people who sell it (search for SV24)
www.google.com for everything else.:)
SV24 is the case/mobo combo, FV24 is the mobo itself, Shuttle makes it, it's called the "Spacewalker" I believe.
Ugh... I'm starting to warm up to the X-Box
by
Nijika
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· Score: 1
I'm going to admit something here. I've always had a soft spot for Microsoft games and thier re-branded hardware... Now I'm slowly swaying away from the PS-2 towards the X-Box. Some of the games look truly cool (of course, no GTA3 yet).
--
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
Re:Ugh... I'm starting to warm up to the X-Box
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
We create our keyboards and mice inhouse, we don't rebrand them. Not sure which hardware you're referring to.
just you wait hemos...
by
mickeyreznor
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· Score: 1
until they get linux on the x-box. i'm sure you that'll give you a fucking heart attack.
My own Xbox notes
by
Dark+Paladin
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· Score: 5, Informative
For those who don't have an Xbox, here's my own notes on this system. I want to apologize, as this is very long, but it's everything I've discovered about it after playing with it since Thursday night.
First, there's no USB ports. The Ethernet controller doesn't work yet (more on that in a second).
Now, let me get to the meat of the Xbox.
The Xbox is like a hobbled warhorse. You can see how big, how powerful it is, the sleek, black muscles with the power to crush anything else around it. You can feel its energy, its need to break out and use that power.
But the creators, fearing its power to much, fearing those that rode it might use it for what they wanted instead of what the creators wanted, have attached thick, iron chains to its back legs, so matter how fast or how powerful it is, it will never reach that ability - unless the creators finally see that its power is not something to be feared, but something to be celebrated in, and to let the rider use that power for what they see fit would be the greatest use of this powerful animal.
The Xbox is truly one big box. It's made to stand up one way - with it's bottom on the surface. You're not going to stand it on its side at all, and to do so would be folly.
It feels powerful, solid. Everything about it says its solid and strong, from the weight (almost 10 pounds), to the hard, black plastic on the outside, and even the wires. The RCA plugs are thick and meaty, and the ends are covered in thick, black plastic except for the colored ends. On top is the gigantic black X with the rounded circle stating that this is the Xbox.
It's also brutally simple. On the back there are three slots - one for power, one for media output, and the Ethernet port. Let's leave the Ethernet port alone for now - we'll come to that in a moment.
In the front we've got 4 input controller slots, the eject button, and the off button. That's it. No USB, FireWire, or otherwise. I can understand why there's no USB, and it's going to be a recurring theme. With USB, Microsoft might have given keyboard/mouse access to the Xbox, and above all that, they can't have that happening, because that would encourage hacking, and above all else, Microsoft cannot allow that to happen.
Why no hacking? Well, because this is as close to a computer that plugs
into your TV as most people will get without building their own - and for $300 dollars, the idea is temping. It has an Intel 733 processor. An
Nvidia graphics/chipset controller. 64 MB RAM. A 8 MB Seagate HDD (Hard Disk Drive). After finding the screws so I could get the pictures inside, I want to find the tools to dig deeper, to unplug the hard drive and find out how its partitioned, how to make it do what I want it to do.
But we'll get to that in a little bit.
When I first turn it on, I can hear the hard drive crunch for a moment,
and it's obvious as I move around the settings and listen close that the
operating system is probably stores on the HDD. (Again, if somebody
figures out how to hack this thing open and start messing around, we
might see something like LILO or Partition Magic in the works for dual-booting).
The menu system is very green, not "Daikatana annoying green" but more
cool and high tech green. Looks very nice and I could find what I
wanted in a few moments. The text was clear - perhaps the clearest text I've seen from a computer anything on screen.
First, let's hit the settings. Sound (mono, stereo, Dolby), video
(normal, wide, etc) - then the DVD and Game rating section. You can use
a parental lockout for both the movies or games, which for parents can
at least offer some help to make sure they aren't going to find their
copy of La Blue Girl in the machine while they're away for the night.
But there is one thing that absolutely kills me. I refer to Page 15 of
the Xbox Instruction Manual:
Do not connect a telephone line to the Ethernet connector on the back
of the Xbox console.
Broadband compatibility is scheduled to go live in
the summer of 2002." (Emphasis added.)
That's right, the Ethernet controller is like my gall bladder - it's
useless. It does nothing. There is no reason for its existence. I was
actually interested in plugging this into my home network (I use DSL and
have a Linux box providing NAT) and going online for...well, some reason. After all the crowing the Xbox guys did at E3, I was expecting to do something on the Internet with the damned thing.
Now I know that's not going to happen until - when? Summer 2002?
What's the problem here? Last I checked, Microsoft had a TCP/IP stack.
They couldn't put some simple FTP/Telnet/SMB protocols on the box?
DHCP can't be that hard - let me get this guy doing something. Multiplayer for Halo? Not over the Internet - which, at least in my head, was going to be one of the cool things about the game. How about Metal Gear Solid 2 X and finding out how well I did online instantly? Nope - not gonna happen.
But I know the reason why, and it comes down to hacking. Once they open
this thing on a network, it's going to become a mini-PC, and down goes
the $$$ from game selling. Folks are already working on MAME (an arcade game emulator) and SNES (Super Nintendo) emulators for the Xbox. If that becomes a reality, you've got yourself
a $300 PC that runs all the games you want, and with a Ethernet IP
connection - well, you can put the pieces together. For those who can't, that means that Microsoft could be losing money every time they sell an Xbox.
Personally, I think they can capitalize on that. I think they should say to themselves "It's going to happen, one way or the other. So we'll hope that people do buy the Xbox for reasons we don't want them to - because they're also going to want to play the games that are coming for it, and if they've already got an Xbox, no matter what the reason, they'll come around to the games - and we'll make out money once we get that Killer Application, the one game nobody can live without. And from that one game we can make more, and eventually win."
For now, I'm wondering about that Ethernet port. How is the broadband going to look come Summer 2002? Are we going to be forced to
play MSN (Microsoft Network), or are we going to be allowed to use our own local systems for
Internet capacity? We'll just have to wait and see what happens, but
for now, I'm disappointed. After all the hype about the 100 MB Ethernet port - and it turns out its as useful to me as my gall bladder. You could take it from my body, and everything would work just the same.
The music system alone is almost worth the purchase. A good MP3 player
is around $300, and the Xbox could compete with them, thanks to Mr. Hard
Drive.
When you stick in a music CD, you can listen like normal. Or...you can
copy it to the hard drive. I tried Phantom of the Opera out. Waited
about 23 minutes and 20 seconds before it was done. It took long enough that the screen saver kicked in (well, it just turned the screen blank), but it was about as long as converting the CD to MP3 would have been.
Any bets that its in WMA (Windows Media Audio) format instead of MP3? (Someone at Xbox tech support said it was, but since they weren't an official company rep, I'm holding out on that one.) But once again, just as I start thinking something about the Xbox is cool, something else gets in my way. Remember that useless Ethernet controller? Well, already this could have been useful. By plugging it into the Internet, I could have used a CDDB (CD Database) to pull the CD's name, the name of all of the tracks, and had the Xbox store that automatically.
As it is, I'm forced to do it with the controller. Now, I might not have minded that, except that if we're talking, say, Phantom of the Opera, we've got 4 CD's with 15-17 tracks apiece, and I'm going to t-y-p-e-i-n-e-a-c-h-l-e-t-t-e-r-o-n-e-b-y-o-n-e - well, you can already see how annoying that is.
The first CD I used was Disk 1 of "The Phantom of the Opera". The disk contains 475 MB of musical data, and by the time it was done, the Xbox reported that it used up 3209 blocks. If you figure that each block is 16.3 kilobytes (calculated by the 8 MB memory module being 503 blocks), then it's been reduced down to 53 MB.
Sound difference? I played Phantom of the Opera through the same
speakers on my computer (a pair of flat-screens with a sub-woofer), one
with the PC, one with the Xbox copied. Sounded the same.
So I decided to take the test an extra step further, and plug it into
the stereo system. speakers are 3" infinity. I still couldn't hear the difference, and I've had 7 years of band, so I'm pretty sure I know what I'm hearing.
Once on the hard drive, you can make up your own playlists, copy tracks around, and so on. It's still clunky with just the controller instead of using a mouse, but the capacity is there. Of course, you can't just copy the MP3's you've already got on your hard drive, unless you converted them back into WAV format, copied them into a CD-RW (seems the Xbox doesn't accept CDR's, but CD-RW is fair game), then had then re-encoded on the Xbox.
Still, the potential for having a great digital music player, with all of your CD's on the Xbox plugged into your stereo system is a temping one. I'm already considering it as I look over all of my Final Fantasy Music Collections on CD.
You know the whole thing about having to purchase a DVD remote
controller to watch DVD movies on the Xbox? It's true. I stuck in a DVD movie to see what happens, as
was politely told "Nope - you need that DVD remote controller". I'm
assuming that MS is making folks buy the remote to pay for the DVD
license, and to avoid Sony's initial problem (folks in Japan buying the
PS2 for a DVD player rather than a game system).
I don't get this part. Maybe they can claim that since folks can't
watch movies they don't need to pay the DVD license, and by making
people buy the remote (then using that money to pay the DVD licensing)
they can make sure they don't pay for it - but it's still annoying. I know it's another $20 Microsoft would have to pay out, but, dang, it's still annoying.
Like the box itself, the controllers feels like you could take a hammer to it, and it
would come back for more. The cord is interesting. First, it looks
like a FireWire cord, which if it is would mean you put put a lot of
bandwidth down the pipe. Then the controller can have the end plugged in - perhaps the idea is that you leave one part plugged into the Xbox, and if you want to plug in a new controller or a different one (keyboard, mouse, steering wheel) you don't have to pull the jack from the Xbox itself.
The controls are obviously inspired by the Dreamcast line. The memory
cards go in there (not that you really need them, which now that I know I could have saved myself $35 at Toys R Us, unless you want to
copy things to the memory card and from there to someone else's Xbox
system).
And yes, damn it, the controllers are too big. The controller runs like this:
Two finger triggers
Two analog sticks
1 Dpad
8 buttons - a, b, x, y, black, white, Start and Back.
At this moment, I'm looking at the controller for the GameCube, and it's almost the same - 2 analog sticks, one D pad, 4 buttons, and three finger triggers along the back - but I can get to every single button without having to stretch.
The black and white are too far from the analog sticks (assuming you've got
both thumb on an analog stick) to be able to reach without physically
moving my hands. My hands can span 1.5 octaves on a computer, so I'm
no small dandy man - but I would have preferred either two more thumb
controllers for black/white, or they be moved to the left instead of up.
And...the big green X on the controller. Get rid of it! I know it's an
Xbox, and the useless, gigantic center spot does nothing but take up
real estate. Make it a tiny little green X if you must, but then you'll
have room on the controller for something important, like...my thumbs.
Here's a short gut level review of the 3 games I've been playing with the system. The scores are not
final, may change, but these are my "gut" feelings after spending some time with them.
First, each game takes a long time to load. Some games, like Dead or
Alive 3, mask this by having cut scenes/messages, and by the time that's done, the game is done loading up. (The initial "copy this software and we'll break your head" message is just perfect for this). Others just say
"loading" as you wait, and wait, then get up, walk to the bathroom, "take care of business", and by then it's ready. Then again, once it's done loading, you usually don't see any delays until the next time it has to load. What's going on here?
Well, that hard drive is what's going on, which is both a crutch and a blessing. DVD seek
times (the amount of time it takes the DVD to find a specific area of
memory on the disk and read from it) is around 150-200 milliseconds.
Hard Drive seeks are around 10. So if you copy the information to the
HDD (that's Hard Disk Drive), you can quickly access it during gameplay
for better performance.
But that means you're spent waiting for the game to start as the developers have decided to copy all that information to the hard drive instead of jumping right to the game. Compare this
to Metal Gear Solid 2 - looks great, and I wait 3 seconds for a scene
change, and there's no hard drive. Or Soul Reaver, which even on a simpler system (like the Dreamcast) had practically no load times at all. So I can't say the HDD is really giving any benefit, except in the fact that you don't have to shell out for memory cards all the time.
So, without any further ado, here's the games:
Dead or Alive 3:
It's Dead or Alive 2...with better graphics. Same
controls (different controller), same gameplay, same nonsensical "stories" that are really
characters saying things to each other for some reason - but it always leads to somebody's ass getting kicked. But let's face it - the
women are incredibly hot, and that reason alone makes me keep them in the ring.
Except the last boss. For some reason, they felt the need to change the
camera angle for some dumb ass reason, so it was harder to figure out
what I was trying to do. Then again, I usually don't like fighting games except for Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore, so I'll have to keep playing and see if it grabs me.
Gut score: 7-8
Halo
First person action that reminds of Half-Life, looks like
Half-Life after the high resolution pack. Actually, it looks pretty damn good. Until you reach the planets surface, then I was truly impressed by how beautiful this game could be. Surrounded by the hills, the waterfalls, looking at the sky above me - granted, a rather static one with the Halo running up into the sky - but still, for the first time I've placed my hands on the Xbox, all I could say was "Damn! That's just pretty.".
I have that "new babe"
feeling in the beginning - here you are, dropped into the middle of a
situation, learning on the fly what's happening as fast as you can while
learning the controls (but it's in a good way, since it gets that fear
feeling from the start without actually putting you in risk). The
controls are interesting. Left analog stick moves you
forward/backwards/left shift/right shift. Right analog button "looks"
about. Thumb triggers fire weapons.
The game itself feels like it's going to be pretty cool and fun, with
Bungie's own sense of style working for it. But I still find myself
reaching for the keyboard/mouse to get that precision that I need. (Note to game makers for consoles: if the console allows you to use a keyboard/mouse with the system, and you don't program your game to take advantage of that, I will come over and teabag your keyboard.
Teabagging a keyboard: (verb). Describes going to an opposing geeks computer system, lowering one's pants, and (assuming the teabagger is mail) dropping their scrotum upon the keyboard. Usually used a sign of disdain, or can be used for flirting (see Romero/Killcreek).
Gut Score: 8-9
Munch's Oddysee:
Munch's Oddysee: I've spent the least time with this one, and that's something I plan to fix. First, the humor is already there (the Almighty Raisin got lots of kicks from my co-workers). Abe and his world are rendered smoothly, and it looks good.
Then again, I'm wondering if this is just the previous Abe games in 3D. Oddworld has time to prove otherwise, and I'm willing to give them that chance.
Gut Score: 8-9.
So far? I have to say that based on the games, the system, and
everything else, I'm underwhelmed. The graphics are good, but the only
thing that impresses me is the lack of jaggies and the clearness of the
text. Maybe its because I don't think visually (ask me about that sometime and I'll explain it to you), but I'm not impressed by the graphics.
It's like looking at a good Dreamcast game, or worse, like a game I'd
play on the PC. The music thing is cool, but the games themselves are -
well, like anything else I'd see, and even worse, like anything else I'd
play once on the PC and move on to something else. I'm not feeling the
"Must-Keep-Playing" I get with Metal Gear Solid (1 or 2), or the "My
god!" of Devil May Cry, or even the "Damn!" from playing Rogue Squadron.
I played Halo - and could put it down. I played Metal Gear Solid 2 - and I couldn't put it down. I got finished playing Super Monkey Ball, and I'm already wanting to go back.
Microsoft needs to get those killer apps - and fast. Right now they're
playing catch up, and while history has proven that MS can play catch up
as well as anyone by throwing money at it, they have to remember that
they're up against opponents with brand names, exclusive deals (Pokemon,
Final Fantasy, etc), and, in the case of Sony, a company with more than
enough cash to take the long haul - and enough at stake that they'll
fight tooth, claw and nail to keep it.
So here's the ultimate deal. If someone were to ask me, right now, if I'd recommend they buy an Xbox for Christmas, I'd say no. Between the 3 systems, it's in last place, and unless we see something impossibly cool (like Panzer Dragon Saga II, Sakura Taisen, or something we'd all have to buy), it'll stay there.
Of course, this is all my opinion - I could be wrong.
Re:My own Xbox notes
by
gazbo
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
The Xbox is like a hobbled warhorse. You can see how big, how powerful it is, the sleek, black muscles with the power to crush anything else around it. You can feel its energy, its need to break out and use that power.
But the creators, fearing its power <snip> ad nauseum
Enough with the similes! It started to get a bit surreal there. (Americans: A simile is what you would call a metaphor - incorrectly. Please learn the difference and use the appropriate word)
As useless as my gall bladder? Personally I wouldn't like to live without my gall bladder. I'd happily lose my appendix, but I'd have to be pretty ill before I'd want my gall bladder removed - it stores my bile.
Otherwise, thanks for your observations.
Re:My own Xbox notes
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
This reads a lot like someone exploring their navel on acid which, incidentally, would probably have been more interesting.
For those who don't have a navel, here's my own notes on this system. I want to apologize, as this is very long, but it's everything I've discovered about it after playing with it since Thursday night.
When you stick in a music CD, you can listen like normal. Or...you can copy it to the hard drive.
Just as a matter of interest, will the XBox play "copy protected" CD's? If not it's pretty lame.
-- return 0;
}
Re:My own Xbox notes
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Informative
You mention the second jack in the middle of the controller cord being used to quickly interchange controllers. Last I heard, the reason they added this second jack was that if you accidently trip over the wire for the controller, that jack will release and the console wont go flying to its doom. You'll notice it doesn't take much to cause it to unplug. Great idea, and so far every game I've played quickly pauses if it detects the controller yanked and waits for you to plug it back in.
According to the manual, the control plug seperates in the middle so that if/when you yank your controller, the whole system doesn't come crashing down. It's says the Xbox could hurt small children. So it's a sort of quick release. At 10 pounds, I'd say it could kill small children.
Halo is lots of fun, but after getting Metal Gear Solid 2, I really wonder why I got this box...
Its not that the Ethernet Jack doesn't work. There just isn't any online service provided for it yet. You can still use it for a LAN game with friends. I believe MS is going to offer something along the lines of MSN, or fantasy star for teh Xbox, begining in the summer of 2002, but the plug is fully functional for now assuming games are written to use it.
That's right, the Ethernet controller is like my gall bladder - it's useless. It does nothing.
The networking works but it is just the local subnet. The only game I know that uses it right now is halo, and it works great. I'm intrested to know if anyone has tried bridging across a dsl connection, and how playable it is.
About halo - once I got into it I couldn't put it down - spent all weekend playing around with it. I haven't been able to find a copy of mgs 2 yet - but I liked the original one.
Also - I can't even hear the HDD for the most part. I had to put my ear right up against the xbox just to hear it whine a bit.
Personally I found MGS2 a bit of a letdown. 10 hrs of game, most of which was cutscenes. Amazingly polished, incredible production values, not enough gameplay, and an anticlimactic ending.
Re:My own Xbox notes
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Ok, well we are all entitled to our opinions but at what point did this moron realize this is a Video Game Console, and for what it is, it is pretty amazing. Sure you dont have to like all of the specs on it, but You are comparing this to a PC not the other systems out there. If I remember correctly, dreamcast took a year and so did PS2 before they truly got online, where as the X is looking for a bit over a half a year. Chill out and give your Xbox to someone who will be grateful for it.
Now that I think about it, get a Gamecube you have so much more going on that system.
Just as a comparison, I hooked my PS2 up to my local network using a USB ethernet adapter (2 USB ports built into the PS2). It finds my DHCP server, obtains an IP address, and gateway, and I'm able to play multi-player Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 thru my existing broadband connection.
Re:My own Xbox notes
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
All's I have to say to this peep is PLEASE stop the toture with this long winded and mostly I would say retarded article(IMHO). Just go buy a GameCube or a PS2 but please do us all a favor and SHUT THE HELL UP. What I luv about this peepa is that he is bitching about features that are offered on the X-box as is that are only available on other systems for additional costs. Also the X-Box has done things in the games out now that have never been seen on the other systems nor would they even be capable of such feats. Man I could go on and on about this lil wanna be hacker/techy/pc guru... but it would only get me more worked up, LOL.
Halo actually uses the ethernet port. I was just playing 4 player (2 consoles) last night.
only deathmatch, and not the cooperative play (halo's best feature IMHO)
It supports up to 4 x-box's with up to 4 people per box.
Re:My own Xbox notes
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
Uhhm, the controllers are USB. MS used a proprietary connector, nominally for easy disconnection, but actually to prevent unauthorized (read unlicensed- $$$) controllers from being plugged in.
I give HK 1 month before a XBOX->USB kb adapter happens. Of course, this will be of limited use if the software doesn't support it.:(
Re:My own Xbox notes
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
MS decided on this because the XBox would be especially threatened if it took a tumble due to the hard drive within the case. It amazes me that nobody thought of breakaway cords before them. Hard drive or no, it's a great idea and works very well. It's already worked once for me.
In the front we've got 4 input controller slots, the eject button, and the off button. That's it. No USB, FireWire, or otherwise. I can understand why there's no USB, and it's going to be a recurring theme.
Partially true. The controller ports are actually USB ports, only with resized connectors so you have to plug in XBox-specific (and licensed) controllers. A very reasonable thing to do, since you need standardized controllers on a game platform, but it means they didn't have to rip out or rewrite too much USB code from DirectX 8.
This, in theory, means someone could come up with a USB->XBox adapter... and then have to write the software to support it.
Re:My own Xbox notes
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I recently saw an article that mentioned the networking capabilities of the Xbox. If I remember correctly, someone from Microsoft said that you will be able to share files between the Xbox and a PC.
I can't find the original article, but a Google pulled up the following quote from Bill Gates at msxbox.com:
"You've got the familiarity of the Windows API set, the DirectX extensions where we build off of DirectX 8. The familiarity of the X-86 type CPU. So you'll be able to share work between the PC and the Xbox"
... which makes me wonder if that quote was interpreted in completely the wrong way. hmm...
Is this really that interesting? While I admit it would be cool to have a MAME machine for a TV, I'm not sure I see the difference between this, and finding an old laptop running DOS with a special controller. (Note that I referr to a laptop for the size comparability.)
Re:mame? how about bleem? - Huh?
by
The_Pey
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· Score: 1
Why anyone would want to run bleem! on a PS2 is beyond me. Why would I want to spend $300 on a PS2 to run a buggy, emulated PS1 game when I can do that ALREADY, natively on a PS2?
The lure of enhanced graphics are not worth the hassle and aggravation of dealing with bleem!
-- Hmmm...
My $0.02 to MAME users...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Get a life. When you've got one, live in the NOW!
Re:My $0.02 to MAME users...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Would I be correct in assuming that you think games today are better than the games of the past?I beg to differ. Games back then were inspired. Games nowadays are stepping over each other to try to be the better version of the one that sold millions of copies.
*misses his cel phone that had the game Worm on it*
for a little more dough you can get a comparable box - see my comment in another thread. DVD/CD player, MP3 jukebox, MAME, games, etc, plugs into your TV and the ethernet works NOW, not in summer 2002:)
-sam
-- burn the computers. go back to the abacus.
Re:mame? how about bleem? - Huh?
by
christooley
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· Score: 1
because the point is to run it on an XBOX, read the article.
>Unfortunately, only registered XBox developers can >legitimately obtain this software (okay, apart from >the fact that only registered XBox developers >actually have an XBox that can run the software).
And I'm pretty sure you've got a legal copy of every rom you're running on there to right?
If the interfaces work nicely--now we're talking killer app! Now that's irony.
--
nohup rm -rf ~/. >& zen &
Ack! the "screenshots"...
by
S.Lemmon
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· Score: 1
After reading the article, It would be nice to see what MAME actually looked like on the X-Box, but egads - the glare! Just who the heck uses a FLASH to take pictures of a TV screen!? Does he think he'll light up the electrons as they hit the picture tube?
besides that it was wayyy off topic and pretty long i enjoyed the read. It gave me the clearest view of the X-Box so far...still wondering when we will see this thing around here in germany.
I actually think i still prefer the PS2 over the X-Box but its a shame that this Cool Game will only come out for the X-Box...
XBox in Germany in March. Hopefully with JSRF at launch.
x
That metaphor if freedom
by
StrawberryFrog
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· Score: 4, Informative
unless the creators finally see that its power is not something to be feared, but something to be celebrated in, and to let the rider use that power for what they see fit would be the greatest use of this powerful animal.
It's business, not fear - if you could do anything with it, MS would have to stop selling the hardware at a loss to subsidise the software that they want you to buy for it.
I'm sure that there'll be a linux port, filesystem decoders and all kinds of hardware hacks anyway.
Can anyone explain this? Now if only Microsoft would let me legally distribute this software I'd be a happy person. Unfortunately, only registered XBox developers can legitimately obtain this software (okay, apart from the fact that only registered XBox developers actually have an XBox that can run the software).
I understand if only the XBox dev kit would run this software, but where does the law come in? Is it the licensing of the dev kit? Does this mean that you're required to pay MS to write software for this platform?
Of course that's beside the fact that MS had to pay game companies to write games in the first place.
I understand if only the XBox dev kit would run this software, but where does the law come in? Is it the licensing of the dev kit? Does this mean that you're required to pay MS to write software for this platform?
The law comes in, and I absolutely shit you not when I say this, in this capacity:
If you release software for the X-Box without Microsoft's approval, they will come after you with the DMCA, whether or not it will legitimately hold up in court, and they will appeal any rulings against them endlessly until they either win or deplete your assets with court fees until you are bankrupt.
That's exactly what it comes down to. Some states in the DOJ case actually settled just to recoup their legal assets from the multi-year battle against Microsoft. If Joe Average tries to release unapproved software for the X-Box, Microsoft will use the DMCA to either intimidate them into shutting down their software distribution or, barring that, go into a court case with them that could last almost infinitely (because Microsoft has an almost infinite amount of money), and definitely bankrupt the person that released the software. Most likely, though, intimidation would work pretty well, because after all, these guys outlasted the US government. Joe Average doesn't stand a chance.
(I am not anti-Microsoft, but their intention to use the DMCA against people that relese unapproved software for the X-Box and their unbelievably large cash flow are FACTS, not the usual Slashdot visitor anti-MS bias.)
As tasty as your FUD is to eat, I must remind everyone that most of the world is not covered by US DMCA law. I'm sure MS would love to sue the SAMBA guys, too.
But what about the sega vs. accolade case? This is the one where Accolade reverse engineered the sega genisis so they could make games without paying license fee's. Accolade won eventually - the judge as I recall basically said a company couldn't legally bar another company from figuring this out.
If you release software for the X-Box without Microsoft's approval, they will come after you with the DMCA, whether or not it will legitimately hold up in court, and they will appeal any rulings against them endlessly until they either win or deplete your assets with court fees until you are bankrupt.
I guess you've never heard of homebrew gaming communities. The Jaguar, Playstation (1 & 2), and especially the Dreamcast have a sizeable amount of software written for them that didn't come from licensed developers. Are there lawyers running after the person who ported MAME to Dreamcast? Or the NetBSD team? Don't be a moron.
Maybe this is a different case because the guy is using an X Box developer kit and he must have signed licensing agreements with Microsoft. But for everyone else, homebrew developing is on the right side of the law.
As long as they aren't pirating games, I doubt very much if Microsoft cares if people are running MAME on the X Box. They don't care about profits at this stage; they just want you to buy it.
-- (-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Re:Legality
by
Score+Whore
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· Score: 2, Informative
Assuming that MS did the same as everybody else in securing their consoles, Microsoft has a public-key crypto algorithm on the boot blocks of the xbox. If you don't have the private key, you can't create media that will load on the unit. You can't put out functional media without it. Short of a fubar on MS's part, without MS cooperation nobody will be releasing software for an unmodified xbox.
The Levels of Irony.. I'm suprised you youg pups still remember that classic RPG for VSX/48 back when logic gates...<fadeout>
</fart>
Wow! I'm underwhelmed.
by
Erris
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· Score: 2, Flamebait
And for $400 you could build a 900 MHz Athlon. $100 for mobo and slot A processor, $25 for 256M RAM, $100 for HD, $10 for ethernet, $50 for case. You could spend the rest on nice video and sound or be cheap and limit yourself to a $300 budget. Get yourself a Debian install and put what you want on it. Look ma! a general purpose computer. Why torture yourself to figure out M$ hardware?
-- DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
!!!!!!DMCA!!!!! CAREFUL!!!!!!!
by
jsimon12
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· Score: 1
Whoa, someone is really asking to get sued for DMCA by good old Microsoft. Though I would be happy to mirror all the data for this site should that be the case, namely cause Microsoft sucks.
Unbeliver! Infidel!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
(waiting for...)Amiga forever!!!
Suggestion regarding mappers
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
but the original 8 bit NES, and that was due to mapper support. No NES emulator that I know of has full mapper support, bioNES, fwNES, and NESticle were the best when I was in the emulation scene.
I've been following "the scene" for a few years now and can attest to this. I've also felt it was strange the various authors for the various NES emulators never considered using a modular design allowing mappers to be supported. This could have saved so much time for the authors away from having to code directly into their emulators.
I was wondering what this meant: Now if only Microsoft would let me legally distribute this software I'd be a happy person.
This was posted to his site before the Xbox release, can he still not distribute it?
Display adaptability
by
smileyy
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· Score: 3, Insightful
If you need caffeine, and the closest source of caffeine is a Starbucks, then the reasonable course of action is to display some adaptability, and buy from the damn Starbucks.
No way. Real geeks would never take the easy way out on caffeine-- they'd rather use AOL. Besides, who drinks coffee? That's like drinking Jolt or Mt. Dew, but where you have to add the sugar by hand!
-- I do not have a signature
Re:Display adaptability
by
dorix
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
Who said anything about sugar?
Re:Display adaptability
by
Pyrosz
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
Adding to an offtopic post...
As a Canadian who doesnt live near the border, I can not get Mt. Dew with cafeine in it... Some silly thing about a fruit (in this case lemony or lime type flavor) drink can not have cafeine in it. Its the law. Like wtf? So we no choice and must drink no cafeine Mt. Dew in order to enjoy its sweet sweet taste. (well at least in Ontario as I have no knowledge abot the other provinces)
--
An optimist believes we live in the best world possible; a pessimist fears this is true.
Provide a ref please! I smell FUD
by
BLKMGK
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· Score: 2
That's a pretty bold statement. Care to provide a reference to back it up? WHY would they come after him for releasing a game that help sell their boxes and fills their coffers? Yeah, they may come after you for having used an XBox dev kit and not paying royalty fees (if you didn't pay the fee) but that's NOT a DMCA violation! That's a licensing issue and perfectly legal even though it sux. Hell, sell the software, pay MSFT their fee, make money. He may not have the XBox license but he obviously has a good friend that does...
As for his statement about no one being able to play these games without an XBox dev kit check out the date that it was posted. At that time no one HAD an XBox unless they were devleoping for it. (duh) Now that the XBox has been released perhaps this has changed and it could now be played by others IF it could be released?
I have to wonder what sort of trouble he'd get into releasing MAME like this though. Sure, MAME itself isn't illegal but the RIPped ROMs can be. What sort of license is MAME devleoped under?
To date not many people have been persecuted for having ROMs but releasing code like this might just be enough to wake them from their slumber - especially if money were being made from the sale of the software. No way could they release with ROMs so folks would HAVE to go to the 'net to get them. Not quite the same as Bleem! (RIP) but close enough in what might happen after the release. He would probably win in court but those who hosted ROMs might not find the climate quite so nice afterwards. Just a guess though....
Anyway, you seem awful sure MSFT would go after them with the DMCA - show me something that proves this. A press statement to that effect would be nice but don't ASSume they would do this and state it as if it were fact please. If someone has a legal license to the dev kit and pays royalties what control exactly does MSFT have? And why exactly wouldn't they "approve" of this?
-- Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Re:Provide a ref please! I smell FUD
by
DarkZero
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· Score: 2
Microsoft makes money by providing the dev kits, selling their own software, and licensing third party software for use on the X-Box from vendors that submit their software to Microsoft for approval. Because of this, unlicensed software has only rarely appeared on consoles. There was only one unlicensed game for the SNES, I don't believe there were any for Genesis, and I can't think of any for the PlayStation, Dreamcast, or N64. If someone were to try to release an unlicensed program for direct use on the X-Box, Microsoft would not be happy. It would be a threat to their business model and their profit margin.
I had heard that Microsoft had direct intentions to use the DMCA to stop the dissemination of unlicensed software on the X-Box. I actually remembered reading an article about it, as well. But so far, Google has turned up nothing. If anyone has more information on that side of the story, I'd actually like to hear it, because I remember it rather clearly, but the proof seems to be gone.
Either way, however... doesn't it seem logical? I don't foresee Microsoft shying away from legal action when someone releases a program for the X-Box that's basically dedicated to the use of illegal ROMs. I wouldn't foresee Microsoft shying away from legal action toward ANY sort of unlicensed software, for that matter.
Re:Provide a ref please! I smell FUD
by
Gratis
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· Score: 1
Microsoft loses money on each xbox console and they only make money on the games and accessories. If you were to only buy xboxs with no extra equipment to use with your own software, Microsoft keeps losing money. That is one thing that they don't want to do is keep losing money.
Re:Provide a ref please! I smell FUD
by
danield
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· Score: 1
*snip*I don't believe there were any for Genesis*snip*
there were a bunch. EA didn't want to pay sega the licensing fees and produced many of the first EA games unlicensed. if you look at the back of any of the orginal carts you'll notice no license on the back (granted this was only for the first 2 years) this was also the reason for the EA carts being different sizes than normal sega carts.
-daniel
http://supa-fly.org/
Ethernet does work, for some
by
Len
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· Score: 1, Troll
That's right, the Ethernet controller is like my gall bladder - it's useless. It does nothing. There is no reason for its existence.
For now, the "broadband in the Internet" is out - maybe unless some enterprising developer puts the code directly into their game (which still raises the possibility of a Linux port that uses the Ethernet port).
Re:Ethernet does work, for some
by
cpt+kangarooski
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
Eh, the gall bladder's not _that_ useless. It stores bile so that it needn't be produced on demand. This aids in the efficient digestion of fats.
I had to have mine out, and while there's not a significant difference in my day to day life, it was somewhat more important than say, the appendix, or the lobe of the brain that allows men to watch the Lifetime channel.
-- --
This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Re:Ethernet does work, for some
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
If you can play on a Lan, why can't you do some kind of VPN/WAN type deal to play online. Isn't this what Kali did years back to play dos games?
uh... 8 keys in an octave, or 12 if u count the black ones, so i'm guessin' one hand can type about 12 letters, without moving, which is about standard... maybe? yeah, definitely he didn't get specific so he could be "cute"... typical band geek....
rhy
(yeah, yeah, i know... takes one to know one.)
-- I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
When I can do this without a dedicated "DevKit" from Microsoft. (Last time I checked there were no devkits next to the big ass extra controllers, DVD Kits and $50 dollar games on the shelves at best buy.) Plus with no Keyboard port, it would be kind of hard to hook my encoder board and arcade controls up to this bad boy....)
P.S. -- Is it just me or have all the Kiosks that are hooked up to X-box's gone belly up since the release date. (I would be a bit hesitant to purchase a system when the demo machines can't stay in the fight so to speak.....)
What's disturbing about this article are the pictures of the Xbox standing upright next to a mid-tower PC... The two machines are damn near the same size!
I'd heard that the Xbox was an unsightly beast, but I had no idea it was *that* big. It'd be like hooking a desktop PC up to your TV. Oh, hang on, that's because it *is* a desktop PC.
Re:DMCA - err, what has he done?
by
iainl
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· Score: 1
To get sued under the DMCA he needs to have broken some sort of protection system; certainly he needs to have done something against his Devkit license agreement to get in any trouble. Compiling an open-source piece of software and then not releasing his changes anywhere might upset people who think MAME should be GPLed, but as a legitimate devkit owner he can compile what he likes for his own development purposes.
This should be moderated up.
For the people that still not know that the xbox isn't cheap!
For the same money you can get a real pc, which is still upgradeable!
I just want to know how...
by
DaoudaW
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· Score: 1
I went to the site and was bummed. A bit of talk about a free weekend and bunches of screenshots of Donkey Kong taken last summer.
If he hasn't written the HOWTO yet, it ain't ready for slashdot!
Theft of software
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I would like to know if the guy playing Metal Slug on the X-Box actually owns a copy of the game on cart or CD? If not, then he is commiting THEFT.
Fine, space invaders, phoenix, galaga.... they no longer earn their manufacturers any revenue. SNK however, was still around and producing those NeoGeo games you are playing with MAME until a month or two ago.
It is people like that that have caused the recent downfall of SNK. The last titles released were subject to almost immediate ripping and distribution across the net. That means SNK stopped making home releases of the game, and produced fewer numbers of the arcade cart version.
You can give yourselves a big pat on the back that you've helped one of the true greats in the console and arcade world to dissappear.
There'll not be any more Metal Slug's of Last Blades.
I hope you are proud of yourselves.
Re:That metaphor if freedom, LOL
by
Erris
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· Score: 1
The metaphor was appropriate for the Steven Barktoo style brochure description of a M$ product:
Now, let me get to the meat of the Xbox.
The Xbox is like a hobbled warhorse. You can see how big, how powerful it is, the sleek, black muscles with the power to crush anything else around it. You can feel its energy, its need to break out and use that power.
But the creators, fearing its power to much, fearing those that rode it might use it for what they wanted instead of what the creators wanted, have attached thick, iron chains to its back legs...
The Xbox is truly one big box. It's made to stand up one way - with it's bottom on the surface.
...the hard, black plastic on the outside, and even the wires. The RCA plugs are thick and meaty, and the ends are covered in thick, black plastic...
...It's also brutally simple...
A big black thing that can't get it up. Black (8 uses), meat, power, Oh my! The chains hint at other pervosities that should be left uspoken.
What makes you think M$ is taking a loss on this mighty gimped Celery?
-- DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
There are plenty of PCs out there that cost less then $300. When I moved out of the house my mom got a $266 PC to replace the one I'd be taking with me. It's not that big a deal
Why put all this money in the hands of microsoft, waste all this time dicking around with hardware, when you can already do those things and more without defeating microsofts 'hacks'?
Don't forget that ALL consoles are sold at a loss! The console makers hope to make money on the software (and royalties therein) that is sold. So, by creating various hacks for the XBOX, we're not only having fun, but stealing money from Microsoft!! How can you go wrong!?!
If I was rich and perverted enough, I'd just go buy a bunch of XBOXen and drop them all off a cliff, and when anyone asked me what I was doing, I'd start laughing hysterically!
Oh, I see. So is the PS2 as large as that in real life, or is this because it's the development kit? And does M$ mind the fact that there are pics in the public domain that prove that the Xbox is 'just' a PC?
Almost every console's dev kit looks (in size and in shape) more or less like a PC. This has nothing to do with the contents inside the actual console units.
Further, why would Microsoft care if people knew the XBOX was pretty much a PC? That's been one of their main selling points to developers. They haven't tried to make it a secret.
Why do you keep spouting off on things you seem to know nothing about?
Why would Microsoft care: well, why, as a consumer, would I buy a PC in a black box when I already have one in a beige box? I understand that to developers they're saying "its just like a PC", but that ain't the tag line on their TV ads.
Why do I "spout off" (or just ask questions) about subjects I know nothing about: well, why would I ask a question about something to which I already knew the answer? Unless, of course, I wanted my ego massaged. Oh, hang on a sec, I'm reading slashdot. My bad.
That's incorrect.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
That's incorrect. It would be illegal price dumping if Microsoft sold their XBoxes for less than their marginal cost. What they are doing is selling for less than average cost, but above marginal; the total sum of money they are losing is at most the initial fix costs they incurred to start producing XBoxes. What this means is the more XBoxes people buy, the sooner Microsoft will be able to get *out* of the hole, *not* the deeper they get in it..
Why this article is a waste
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
"Now if only Microsoft would let me legally distribute this software I'd be a happy person. Unfortunately, only registered XBox developers can legitimately obtain this software (okay, apart from the fact that only registered XBox developers actually have an XBox that can run the software)."
He's not even going to release the software. Big deal he used the Xbox Dev kit to port it. MS will enforce via DMCA anyone who does this.
If you really want to screw microsoft...
by
donglekey
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· Score: 2
Make an.iso of a CD with every nintendo, super NES, genesis, Neo Geo, N64, and arcade game you can find on it. Make something that will be just a matter of burning, and sticking in the xbox, and make some instructions for the alterations that need to be done to it, with well documented images every step of the way. Not only does it cost to sell Xboxes, but it will also substitue for games (where the money is made). If this became common Microsoft would be really screwed.
If enough people jumped on board, it might just give MS more market penetration and be good for them in the long run. Who knows? But I want 4 player retro nintendo games!
I am already addicted to Super Monkey Ball for gamecube. It rocks my monkey balls.
Re:If you really want to screw microsoft...
by
geomcbay
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· Score: 1
XBOX won't read CD-Rs at all, the laser isn't capable. While it will technically read some CD-RWs, it won't boot them. It will only boot 9 GB format DVDs, with Microsoft's special encryption.
So burning such a CD is about 1000000 times more effort than you are assuming.
Yes, the ethernet port does work.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
First, I pruchased 3 xboxs [1 to keep 2 for ebay].
1. Plug the Xbox into a hub, the link light goes on.
2. If you have DHCP watch the lease server, the xbox obtains an ip address.
3. If you have a firewall watch the traffic while loading Halo.
4. We played 8 player halo with 2 xboxes on the lan, was awsome. Played for 6+ hours.
So yes the ethernet controller works. My guess is that MS doesn't have the "GamesZone" complete, and will wait till 2002 to turn on the internet site that the Xbox checks at boot.
XBOX controllers are USB, but the physical connectors have been changed from the USB spec.
So while you could, in theory, plug in your own keyboard, gamepads, mice, whatever, you'd have to seriously hack them to make them work.
Re:Yeah..
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
For one thing, they run at a higher voltage, which is apparantly necessary to run the force feedback and whatever else they have planned in the future.
So if you were to modify the connector to physically accept your peripherals, you'd want to watch out for explosions, smoke, fire, and the like.
Halo Online over ethernet..someone hacked it!
by
ShaggusMacHaggis
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· Score: 2, Interesting
First of course, you have to have broadband at home (dsl, cable, ethernet connect). Then you get a HUB. anyway, connect your xbox to the Hub, along with your computer, basically your computer and Xbox will be sharing your broadband connect now.
Now the xbox can play against any other xbox that it detects on the same subnet, i.e. I can play against anyone whose connected their xbox to my university ethernet connect.
Now, using a program that makes a VPN (virtual private network) like this one
and you use your computer to make a LAN with someone you know (you have to know their ip) and BAM! You have a what looks like a LAN to anything connected to your HUB, with anyone over the net.
Since there are tons of boards and irc channels devoted to Xbox, it shouldn't be hard to find ip addresses to make VPNs over the net.
Supposedly xbox developers have been doing this for a while to play with eachother over the net, and when you think about it there's not reason it shouldn't work, the Virtual network is indistinguishible from a real LAN, your computer can't tell the difference, and neither should the xbox.
Re:Halo Online over ethernet..someone hacked it!
by
Score+Whore
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· Score: 1
the Virtual network is indistinguishible from a real LAN
Except for that little thing called LATENCY.
Slashdot on XBOX
by
donutello
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· Score: 1, Offtopic
Slashdot posted yet another story on the XBOX. The levels of irony in this amuse me greatly.
This story appeared five months ago and if you pay attention that's an XDK (a development Xbox kit). To get MAME running on a normal Xbox you'll have to crack the protection that prevents you from running unsigned discs which from what I've read won't be easy at all.
Please put down the crack pipe.
It's like rain...
by
desideria
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
... on your wedding day.
Old news.. but the possibilities?
by
HaloMan
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· Score: 1
Perhaps the fact that MAME was very quickly converted to the XBox is a good sign. Maybe home-developing tools (Based on semi-legitimate real tools) are going to appear quicker than we originally thought...
Re:DMCA - err, what has he done?
by
jsimon12
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· Score: 1
Just saying, good old Micro$oft likes to throw its wait around, even if he did everything completely on the UP and UP, they may come back. Also, is it a typical Micro$oft license for the devkit, wonder if there is some legal mumbo-jumbo that doesn't allow its use for opensource.
On another note, look at the past, hasn't Micro$oft always tried to stop use of any of its products with opensource/gpl, look at what they have done, said against, linux, samba etc etc.
Does this make the Xbox illegal?
by
drew_kime
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· Score: 2
I mean, if software can be deemed illegal because it can be used to do things that are illegal, doesn't this also apply to hardware? If the Xbox can be used to play "stolen" games, doesn't that make it illegal?
(Yes, this assumes that MAME is "stealing" old games. See DMCA for references.)
-- Nope, no sig
NESten uses DLLs for mappers
by
yerricde
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· Score: 2
I've also felt it was strange the various authors for the various NES emulators never considered using a modular design allowing mappers to be supported.
The Win32 emulator NESten uses DLLs for its cartridge board emulation support. Or you can contribute a mapper to a free software emulator such as nesterj (Win32) or TuxNES (freebsd/linux86).
Why not just burn a bootable CD with MAME on it, won't that run on the Xbox or does it use some special bootup code? Even if it does, I'm sure it's already been hacked, yes?
can't distribute it without licensing
by
Recolada
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· Score: 0
XBoxes boot off the DVD, so if this guy wants to distribute MAME he has to have a copy of the XBox OS (Win2k hacked up) on every DVD. By distributing this, he would be violating god knows how many copyrights.
I wish they could get the guy who was programming for the ill-fated Jaguar console to do some X-Box titles. He did the awesome "Tempest 2000" version, and was working on a version of "Major Havoc 2000" and "Defender 2000" before the console went belly up.
I'd LOVE to see a Major Havoc 2000...!
--
- Spryguy There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
Do not connect Ethernet port to phone line
by
erico
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· Score: 1
This really sounds like a quite reasonable restriction.
It prevents people from trying to have their Ethernet port behave like a modem.
I am eager to see if the 2002 broadband upgrade will be hardware or software.
Bumping threshold to 4. Wonder how long before it'll have to be 5?
Re:Well, this one did it.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
First of all, nice going adding more bullshit to the discussion. If you want to be all smug about how high your threshold is, why don't raise it and shut up about it.
Second of all, since you're posting at default Score 0, that means you have moderated down quite a bit in the past, which means you're probably a troll and full of shit anyway.
Digital Signatures on XBOX Cds
by
cyphersteve
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· Score: 1
I am curious, has MS incorporated Digital Signatures or some other mechansim to control the creation of software to run onthe XBOX.
Thanks
cyphersteve
These five mappers get you most NES games
by
yerricde
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· Score: 2
Not the N64, not the SNES, but the original 8 bit NES, and that was due to mapper support. No NES emulator that I know of has full mapper support
It's possible for 20 different cartridges to contain 20 different mappers. In order for an emulator to support every single mapper made, every ROM image would need a complete description of the logical structure of the circuit board and all parts on that board in some machine-readable language such as Verilog.
That said, the vast majority of games released in North America used one of these five well-supported mappers: NROM, CNROM, UNROM, MMC1, or MMC3. Some other mappers exist such as MMC2 for Punch-Out!!, Sunsoft 4 for Return of the Joker, MMC5 for Castlevania 3, etc. Most games that use obscure mappers (90, etc.) were released only in Japan or in Hong Kong for the Japanese Famicom console.
Anything with a copyrighted BIOS (such as Apple II, Mac, Amiga, or GBA) that came from a single source (unlike PC BIOS) is harder to emulate, as software often relies on undocumented behavior (hard to reimplement), exact timing behavior (really hard to reimplement), and even patented behavior (impossible to reimplement in software libre) of a BIOS.
But then you wouldn't be able to stick it to Microsoft for subsidizing your box as a loss leader.
Thanks, but that's not the reason I build PCs. I don't make them to stick it to anyone. I don't make them to increase anyone's "market share", whatever that is. I make them for a purpose, and adapt them to others as the need arises. I have no more need for a 700 MHz Celeron than I do for M$ Word.
-- DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
You're all missing one obvious opportunity
by
Kris_J
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· Score: 2
The actual owners of all these arcade ROMs -- the companies that hold the oft passed-on copyright for all these classic games -- could simply clean up MAME and release their old games with little or no further effort. $19.95 for a set of a dozen old arcade games would be 90% profit.
If they wanted to be particularly nice they could dig up some old photos, scan promotional literature, etc and build a museum like Namco's.
Re:Wow! I'm underwhelmed.
by
Darth_Burrito
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· Score: 1
But what about a dvd drive and a GeForce3. That's another $250... and your figures already add up to about $300. And let's not forget about the ability to play XBox games. I think the point here is you can get a kick ass gaming system/dvd player that can also do about 11 billion other things with a little tinkering.
Re:Please pray for my anus!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Maybe you should see a doctor. Could be cancer. Is there bleeding?
Release it allready!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I wish this guy would do something constructive and share his work with people instead of jacking off about how he has done it. FFS all he has to do is use some anonimity service to post some info on how to do it to a newsgroup. Not many people have access to dev kits and his experience would save huge amounts of time. But since he never intends to share anything with us I wish I had never heard about this port.
Re:That metaphor if freedom, LOL
by
StrawberryFrog
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· Score: 1
What makes you think M$ is taking a loss on this mighty gimped Celery?
I read it in articles. Like on salon:
The company is taking a substantial loss on every Xbox sale, apparently hoping that the superior hardware inside will be its best future asset
--
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Re:DMCA - err, what has he done?
by
iainl
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· Score: 1
I'm not saying that if this became a major news story for some reason that Microsoft's well-documented attitude to open source wouldn't lead to them being in a bad mood at him, but right now all he has effectively done is set up a website saying "Look, I've ported this popular game (which isn't GPL, but I can get the source to) to the devkit, and it was much easier to work with as a developer than Sony's PS2 devkit is." Can you see them getting that upset about it?
In any case, the source for Quake is also available, and thats even under a GPL variant, but I can't see Microsoft telling Carmack and co. where to stick it if id want to do a version of Doom 3 for the XBox.
-- "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Never mind DMCA, what about copyright law
by
Ralferoo
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· Score: 1
If Microsoft were smart about this, there's any easy solution to make sure that people don't produce games without buying a licence.
All you need to do is check that there is a unique key at the start of the disc, along the lines of "This game uses code licensed from Micro$oft, (c) 2001 Micro$oft and can only be used by paying large $ums of money". If the disc doesn't have exactly that text then the OS can easily refuse to run it.
No need for digital signing, encryption, etc... If someone produces a disc containing that text, the Microsoft can argue that as it contains a copyright message assigning copyright of some portion of it to them, that they have right to a licence fee for the use of that. It doesn't matter that it's just a piece of text, it would still be covered under copyright.
The only way I see around this is someone producing a patch for the OS to remove such a check.
Ralf.
-- Ralf
Generous M$ wants give gift?
by
Erris
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· Score: 1
I read it in articles. Like on salon:
I read it too, it must be true? Who am I going to believe, Salon or my lying eyes? If Tiger Direct can offer equivalent or better systems for $400, this PC in a plastic garbage can has got to at least break even at $300. When has M$ ever lost money on a deal? Never. If people buy this junk, they will make money. Not tomorow, today.
What did you want to do yesterday?
-- DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
For fuck's sake
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I submitted this about 2 months ago! This site really does suck!
I suppose sun et.al could buy a ton of 'em and throw them away. But they'd have to publicize it and let everyone know what they were doing, otherwise the numbers would initially just show up as extra marketing data points.
Also, there has to be a huge number of people doing this, like more then 10%, and I doubt that that would happen...
Slashdot Mirror
..begin....
:-D
will NetBSD be next
Look at the computer in the photos... that box sure looks quite nice. Is it part of some sort of special dev-kit, or how does one get a chassis like that? I want one.. :-)
take a look at X box, box not your store bought model.
The last time this page was reported on slashdot was back in August. The story is here
Paranoia isn't an infectious condition, it's a way of life
I don't understand what Hemos meant by many levels of irony. The only piece of irony I can see is that you're using an XBox (really beefy fast graphics hardware, etc) to play old arcade games. What are the other levels of I irony? I'm not seeing this obviously.
---------
Fuck you, motherfucker. Fuck yous to: Rob "Taco-Snotter" Malda, Homos, Kowboi Kneel, and RMS.
This has been on Slashdot before, http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/08/22/144622 4&mode=nested
It's pretty old news. This is only running on the XBox developers kit. Even if it was running on an actual XBox, I don't think they'd be allowed to release it.
Does anyone have anything to add now the final machine is available? This link is the one given the last time the story ran here.
It would be nice to know someone has got this going on a final release machine, not just a devbox.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Looking at this story I have to agree with Otaku - the XBox would be an ideal choice for a MAME cabinet, as it uses a standard TV out, has a HD, comes with controllers etc. Now how can we get the ported application? Can MAME be ported to the XBox without using the MS developers bundle? Will this allow XBox MAME to be released? Anyone have any ideas?
It's noticable that about 1 year after the same guy ported MAME to the PS2, there is still no way (I'm aware of) I can get MAME on my PS2 at home.
We ARE the peat bog soldiers.
Oh well, I see others can look up the story faster than I can. Still, my question does stand - can someone get this running on the standard shop-bought hardware, rather than on a dev-box where the issues of bootdiscs etc aren't present?
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
I suppose it's a pity we can't run this legally on our retail X-Boxes. I won't be buying an X-Box, but I would consider it if it coould make a decent MAME cabinet...
Wireless Bristol
on the same note, i think it would be more interesting to run bleem. mame games dont really take advantage of the hardware components of the xbox... and now that bleam is dead
there's really no one who could get sued in case anything happens...
my blog
X-Box is evil, your only helping microsoft... don't buy it... It's microsoft's way to extend it's monopoly to the gaming industry...
at least those who haven't kept up with all the latest games and skills needed to play them can get something usefull out of that Xbox other than the dvd ad on.
Now the question is: could it be possible to play XBox games on a PC. After all, the if the XBox is basically a PC, why would someone buy a XBox if games could be played on a regular PC, assuming that one already has a powerful PC?
Is there any intrisical problem that would prevent to do this or not?
....we won't ever get to see it. It's nice and all to know that this guy can sit in his living room and play MAME, but it's not much use to the rest of the world if it's never released.
Cheers...
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
that is a band-aid (TM) on the problem - i agree it will work in the short term, but the obvious solution is to not buy into their licensing and proprietary crap to begin with. you can probably build a better/good-enough MAME machine for less, or even slightly more, which has been said many times over the threads on the XBox, and then be able to simply release openly your kits so everyone can improve them and benefit from them.
-sam
burn the computers. go back to the abacus.
kids across America see this, complain about the xbox's crappy graphics, and buy a gamecube.
daed si luap
But this REALLY HAS been posted before. Not even over 4 months ago at that... [shake] You know you read /. too much when you can remember articles and point out repeats...
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
I am sure there are other levels as well, depending on you sense of humor.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
This is dated July 20th, 2001; it was, needless to say, done on a development box. Anyone know the difficulties between running it on a dev box vs running it on the actual consumer box?
Thought this paragraph was interesting:
So I've found the computer I want to put in the M.A.M.E. cabinet I am still trying to find time to construct, it's going to be an XBox, it's got a built-in hard drive, Ethernet connection, and supports analogue & digital controlllers, and only costs a few hundred American dollars, plus it already supports a standard TV signal so I can wire up any decent TV instead of an expensive Wells Gardner monitor.
What I'm curious to know is how many other people will find applications like this? Hook up a USB keyboard and mouse, you could have a $300 linux box, or a $300 quake server, or a $300 mail server, or a $300 SETI@home bean counter. Point is, the potential for the XBOX BEYOND its original purpose is pretty big, if only people can get around Microsoft's software.
~Aaron.
student of animation and the fine arts
If you notice in the pictures, he only has one cup of Starbucks on the desk. If he was truly 1337, he would have had one for each hand. Then we could have seen this running on a normal Xbox!
i'd like to back up what i said about being able to build a good-enough DVD Player/MAME machine for slightly more than the XBox:
motherboard (ECS K7VZA), processor (Duron 750), case, fans. 3D sound, ATA-100 disk controller): $150
256 MB Ram: $30
64 MB AGP 4x video card with composite TV-Out (Abit Siluro GeForce 2): $70
20 GB ATA-100 Hard Disk (Maxtor): $60
12x IDE DVD-ROM drive (LGE): $50
USB gamepad (Logitech WingPad Precision): $10
PCI 10/100 Ethernet card (Netgear): $15
Your favorite GNU/Linux system: $0
TOTAL: $385
borrow your keyboard and mouse from an existing machine for installation/setup, otherwise these are all brand new components. you have sound, TV-out, DVD, ethernet, and even a gamepad. i know i'm forgetting something, but hey, it's close. the machine could handle being an MP3/Ogg jukebox as well.
-sam
burn the computers. go back to the abacus.
I'm going to admit something here. I've always had a soft spot for Microsoft games and thier re-branded hardware... Now I'm slowly swaying away from the PS-2 towards the X-Box. Some of the games look truly cool (of course, no GTA3 yet).
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
until they get linux on the x-box. i'm sure you that'll give you a fucking heart attack.
Got Freedom?
Thinking?
For those who don't have an Xbox, here's my own notes on this system. I want to apologize, as this is very long, but it's everything I've discovered about it after playing with it since Thursday night.
First, there's no USB ports. The Ethernet controller doesn't work yet (more on that in a second).
Now, let me get to the meat of the Xbox.
The Xbox is like a hobbled warhorse. You can see how big, how powerful it is, the sleek, black muscles with the power to crush anything else around it. You can feel its energy, its need to break out and use that power.
But the creators, fearing its power to much, fearing those that rode it might use it for what they wanted instead of what the creators wanted, have attached thick, iron chains to its back legs, so matter how fast or how powerful it is, it will never reach that ability - unless the creators finally see that its power is not something to be feared, but something to be celebrated in, and to let the rider use that power for what they see fit would be the greatest use of this powerful animal.
The Xbox is truly one big box. It's made to stand up one way - with it's bottom on the surface. You're not going to stand it on its side at all, and to do so would be folly.
It feels powerful, solid. Everything about it says its solid and strong, from the weight (almost 10 pounds), to the hard, black plastic on the outside, and even the wires. The RCA plugs are thick and meaty, and the ends are covered in thick, black plastic except for the colored ends. On top is the gigantic black X with the rounded circle stating that this is the Xbox.
It's also brutally simple. On the back there are three slots - one for power, one for media output, and the Ethernet port. Let's leave the Ethernet port alone for now - we'll come to that in a moment.
In the front we've got 4 input controller slots, the eject button, and the off button. That's it. No USB, FireWire, or otherwise. I can understand why there's no USB, and it's going to be a recurring theme. With USB, Microsoft might have given keyboard/mouse access to the Xbox, and above all that, they can't have that happening, because that would encourage hacking, and above all else, Microsoft cannot allow that to happen.
Why no hacking? Well, because this is as close to a computer that plugs into your TV as most people will get without building their own - and for $300 dollars, the idea is temping. It has an Intel 733 processor. An Nvidia graphics/chipset controller. 64 MB RAM. A 8 MB Seagate HDD (Hard Disk Drive). After finding the screws so I could get the pictures inside, I want to find the tools to dig deeper, to unplug the hard drive and find out how its partitioned, how to make it do what I want it to do.
But we'll get to that in a little bit.
When I first turn it on, I can hear the hard drive crunch for a moment, and it's obvious as I move around the settings and listen close that the operating system is probably stores on the HDD. (Again, if somebody figures out how to hack this thing open and start messing around, we might see something like LILO or Partition Magic in the works for dual-booting).
The menu system is very green, not "Daikatana annoying green" but more cool and high tech green. Looks very nice and I could find what I wanted in a few moments. The text was clear - perhaps the clearest text I've seen from a computer anything on screen.
First, let's hit the settings. Sound (mono, stereo, Dolby), video (normal, wide, etc) - then the DVD and Game rating section. You can use a parental lockout for both the movies or games, which for parents can at least offer some help to make sure they aren't going to find their copy of La Blue Girl in the machine while they're away for the night.
But there is one thing that absolutely kills me. I refer to Page 15 of the Xbox Instruction Manual:
That's right, the Ethernet controller is like my gall bladder - it's useless. It does nothing. There is no reason for its existence. I was actually interested in plugging this into my home network (I use DSL and have a Linux box providing NAT) and going online for...well, some reason. After all the crowing the Xbox guys did at E3, I was expecting to do something on the Internet with the damned thing.
Now I know that's not going to happen until - when? Summer 2002? What's the problem here? Last I checked, Microsoft had a TCP/IP stack. They couldn't put some simple FTP/Telnet/SMB protocols on the box? DHCP can't be that hard - let me get this guy doing something. Multiplayer for Halo? Not over the Internet - which, at least in my head, was going to be one of the cool things about the game. How about Metal Gear Solid 2 X and finding out how well I did online instantly? Nope - not gonna happen.
But I know the reason why, and it comes down to hacking. Once they open this thing on a network, it's going to become a mini-PC, and down goes the $$$ from game selling. Folks are already working on MAME (an arcade game emulator) and SNES (Super Nintendo) emulators for the Xbox. If that becomes a reality, you've got yourself a $300 PC that runs all the games you want, and with a Ethernet IP connection - well, you can put the pieces together. For those who can't, that means that Microsoft could be losing money every time they sell an Xbox.
Personally, I think they can capitalize on that. I think they should say to themselves "It's going to happen, one way or the other. So we'll hope that people do buy the Xbox for reasons we don't want them to - because they're also going to want to play the games that are coming for it, and if they've already got an Xbox, no matter what the reason, they'll come around to the games - and we'll make out money once we get that Killer Application, the one game nobody can live without. And from that one game we can make more, and eventually win."
For now, I'm wondering about that Ethernet port. How is the broadband going to look come Summer 2002? Are we going to be forced to play MSN (Microsoft Network), or are we going to be allowed to use our own local systems for Internet capacity? We'll just have to wait and see what happens, but for now, I'm disappointed. After all the hype about the 100 MB Ethernet port - and it turns out its as useful to me as my gall bladder. You could take it from my body, and everything would work just the same.
The music system alone is almost worth the purchase. A good MP3 player is around $300, and the Xbox could compete with them, thanks to Mr. Hard Drive.
When you stick in a music CD, you can listen like normal. Or...you can copy it to the hard drive. I tried Phantom of the Opera out. Waited about 23 minutes and 20 seconds before it was done. It took long enough that the screen saver kicked in (well, it just turned the screen blank), but it was about as long as converting the CD to MP3 would have been.
Any bets that its in WMA (Windows Media Audio) format instead of MP3? (Someone at Xbox tech support said it was, but since they weren't an official company rep, I'm holding out on that one.) But once again, just as I start thinking something about the Xbox is cool, something else gets in my way. Remember that useless Ethernet controller? Well, already this could have been useful. By plugging it into the Internet, I could have used a CDDB (CD Database) to pull the CD's name, the name of all of the tracks, and had the Xbox store that automatically.
As it is, I'm forced to do it with the controller. Now, I might not have minded that, except that if we're talking, say, Phantom of the Opera, we've got 4 CD's with 15-17 tracks apiece, and I'm going to t-y-p-e-i-n-e-a-c-h-l-e-t-t-e-r-o-n-e-b-y-o-n-e - well, you can already see how annoying that is.
The first CD I used was Disk 1 of "The Phantom of the Opera". The disk contains 475 MB of musical data, and by the time it was done, the Xbox reported that it used up 3209 blocks. If you figure that each block is 16.3 kilobytes (calculated by the 8 MB memory module being 503 blocks), then it's been reduced down to 53 MB.
Sound difference? I played Phantom of the Opera through the same speakers on my computer (a pair of flat-screens with a sub-woofer), one with the PC, one with the Xbox copied. Sounded the same.
So I decided to take the test an extra step further, and plug it into the stereo system. speakers are 3" infinity. I still couldn't hear the difference, and I've had 7 years of band, so I'm pretty sure I know what I'm hearing.
Once on the hard drive, you can make up your own playlists, copy tracks around, and so on. It's still clunky with just the controller instead of using a mouse, but the capacity is there. Of course, you can't just copy the MP3's you've already got on your hard drive, unless you converted them back into WAV format, copied them into a CD-RW (seems the Xbox doesn't accept CDR's, but CD-RW is fair game), then had then re-encoded on the Xbox.
Still, the potential for having a great digital music player, with all of your CD's on the Xbox plugged into your stereo system is a temping one. I'm already considering it as I look over all of my Final Fantasy Music Collections on CD.
You know the whole thing about having to purchase a DVD remote controller to watch DVD movies on the Xbox? It's true. I stuck in a DVD movie to see what happens, as was politely told "Nope - you need that DVD remote controller". I'm assuming that MS is making folks buy the remote to pay for the DVD license, and to avoid Sony's initial problem (folks in Japan buying the PS2 for a DVD player rather than a game system).
I don't get this part. Maybe they can claim that since folks can't watch movies they don't need to pay the DVD license, and by making people buy the remote (then using that money to pay the DVD licensing) they can make sure they don't pay for it - but it's still annoying. I know it's another $20 Microsoft would have to pay out, but, dang, it's still annoying.
Like the box itself, the controllers feels like you could take a hammer to it, and it would come back for more. The cord is interesting. First, it looks like a FireWire cord, which if it is would mean you put put a lot of bandwidth down the pipe. Then the controller can have the end plugged in - perhaps the idea is that you leave one part plugged into the Xbox, and if you want to plug in a new controller or a different one (keyboard, mouse, steering wheel) you don't have to pull the jack from the Xbox itself.
The controls are obviously inspired by the Dreamcast line. The memory cards go in there (not that you really need them, which now that I know I could have saved myself $35 at Toys R Us, unless you want to copy things to the memory card and from there to someone else's Xbox system).
And yes, damn it, the controllers are too big. The controller runs like this:
At this moment, I'm looking at the controller for the GameCube, and it's almost the same - 2 analog sticks, one D pad, 4 buttons, and three finger triggers along the back - but I can get to every single button without having to stretch.
The black and white are too far from the analog sticks (assuming you've got both thumb on an analog stick) to be able to reach without physically moving my hands. My hands can span 1.5 octaves on a computer, so I'm no small dandy man - but I would have preferred either two more thumb controllers for black/white, or they be moved to the left instead of up.
And...the big green X on the controller. Get rid of it! I know it's an Xbox, and the useless, gigantic center spot does nothing but take up real estate. Make it a tiny little green X if you must, but then you'll have room on the controller for something important, like...my thumbs.
Here's a short gut level review of the 3 games I've been playing with the system. The scores are not final, may change, but these are my "gut" feelings after spending some time with them.
First, each game takes a long time to load. Some games, like Dead or Alive 3, mask this by having cut scenes/messages, and by the time that's done, the game is done loading up. (The initial "copy this software and we'll break your head" message is just perfect for this). Others just say "loading" as you wait, and wait, then get up, walk to the bathroom, "take care of business", and by then it's ready. Then again, once it's done loading, you usually don't see any delays until the next time it has to load. What's going on here?
Well, that hard drive is what's going on, which is both a crutch and a blessing. DVD seek times (the amount of time it takes the DVD to find a specific area of memory on the disk and read from it) is around 150-200 milliseconds. Hard Drive seeks are around 10. So if you copy the information to the HDD (that's Hard Disk Drive), you can quickly access it during gameplay for better performance.
But that means you're spent waiting for the game to start as the developers have decided to copy all that information to the hard drive instead of jumping right to the game. Compare this to Metal Gear Solid 2 - looks great, and I wait 3 seconds for a scene change, and there's no hard drive. Or Soul Reaver, which even on a simpler system (like the Dreamcast) had practically no load times at all. So I can't say the HDD is really giving any benefit, except in the fact that you don't have to shell out for memory cards all the time.
So, without any further ado, here's the games:
Dead or Alive 3:
It's Dead or Alive 2...with better graphics. Same controls (different controller), same gameplay, same nonsensical "stories" that are really characters saying things to each other for some reason - but it always leads to somebody's ass getting kicked. But let's face it - the women are incredibly hot, and that reason alone makes me keep them in the ring.
Except the last boss. For some reason, they felt the need to change the camera angle for some dumb ass reason, so it was harder to figure out what I was trying to do. Then again, I usually don't like fighting games except for Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore, so I'll have to keep playing and see if it grabs me.
Gut score: 7-8
Halo
First person action that reminds of Half-Life, looks like Half-Life after the high resolution pack. Actually, it looks pretty damn good. Until you reach the planets surface, then I was truly impressed by how beautiful this game could be. Surrounded by the hills, the waterfalls, looking at the sky above me - granted, a rather static one with the Halo running up into the sky - but still, for the first time I've placed my hands on the Xbox, all I could say was "Damn! That's just pretty.".
I have that "new babe" feeling in the beginning - here you are, dropped into the middle of a situation, learning on the fly what's happening as fast as you can while learning the controls (but it's in a good way, since it gets that fear feeling from the start without actually putting you in risk). The controls are interesting. Left analog stick moves you forward/backwards/left shift/right shift. Right analog button "looks" about. Thumb triggers fire weapons.
The game itself feels like it's going to be pretty cool and fun, with Bungie's own sense of style working for it. But I still find myself reaching for the keyboard/mouse to get that precision that I need. (Note to game makers for consoles: if the console allows you to use a keyboard/mouse with the system, and you don't program your game to take advantage of that, I will come over and teabag your keyboard.
Gut Score: 8-9
Munch's Oddysee:
Munch's Oddysee: I've spent the least time with this one, and that's something I plan to fix. First, the humor is already there (the Almighty Raisin got lots of kicks from my co-workers). Abe and his world are rendered smoothly, and it looks good.
Then again, I'm wondering if this is just the previous Abe games in 3D. Oddworld has time to prove otherwise, and I'm willing to give them that chance.
Gut Score: 8-9.
So far? I have to say that based on the games, the system, and everything else, I'm underwhelmed. The graphics are good, but the only thing that impresses me is the lack of jaggies and the clearness of the text. Maybe its because I don't think visually (ask me about that sometime and I'll explain it to you), but I'm not impressed by the graphics.
It's like looking at a good Dreamcast game, or worse, like a game I'd play on the PC. The music thing is cool, but the games themselves are - well, like anything else I'd see, and even worse, like anything else I'd play once on the PC and move on to something else. I'm not feeling the "Must-Keep-Playing" I get with Metal Gear Solid (1 or 2), or the "My god!" of Devil May Cry, or even the "Damn!" from playing Rogue Squadron.
I played Halo - and could put it down. I played Metal Gear Solid 2 - and I couldn't put it down. I got finished playing Super Monkey Ball, and I'm already wanting to go back.
Microsoft needs to get those killer apps - and fast. Right now they're playing catch up, and while history has proven that MS can play catch up as well as anyone by throwing money at it, they have to remember that they're up against opponents with brand names, exclusive deals (Pokemon, Final Fantasy, etc), and, in the case of Sony, a company with more than enough cash to take the long haul - and enough at stake that they'll fight tooth, claw and nail to keep it.
So here's the ultimate deal. If someone were to ask me, right now, if I'd recommend they buy an Xbox for Christmas, I'd say no. Between the 3 systems, it's in last place, and unless we see something impossibly cool (like Panzer Dragon Saga II, Sakura Taisen, or something we'd all have to buy), it'll stay there.
Of course, this is all my opinion - I could be wrong.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Is this really that interesting? While I admit it would be cool to have a MAME machine for a TV, I'm not sure I see the difference between this, and finding an old laptop running DOS with a special controller. (Note that I referr to a laptop for the size comparability.)
Why anyone would want to run bleem! on a PS2 is beyond me. Why would I want to spend $300 on a PS2 to run a buggy, emulated PS1 game when I can do that ALREADY, natively on a PS2?
The lure of enhanced graphics are not worth the hassle and aggravation of dealing with bleem!
Hmmm...
Get a life. When you've got one, live in the NOW!
for a little more dough you can get a comparable box - see my comment in another thread. DVD/CD player, MP3 jukebox, MAME, games, etc, plugs into your TV and the ethernet works NOW, not in summer 2002 :)
-sam
burn the computers. go back to the abacus.
because the point is to run it on an XBOX, read the article.
>Unfortunately, only registered XBox developers can >legitimately obtain this software (okay, apart from >the fact that only registered XBox developers >actually have an XBox that can run the software).
And I'm pretty sure you've got a legal copy of every rom you're running on there to right?
Well, long winded yeah - but flamebait? Boy, somebody doesn't like me :).
(Shrugs - not really worth the effort of worrying, so I removed the +1 bonus).
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
If the interfaces work nicely--now we're talking killer app! Now that's irony.
nohup rm -rf ~/. >& zen &
After reading the article, It would be nice to see what MAME actually looked like on the X-Box, but egads - the glare! Just who the heck uses a FLASH to take pictures of a TV screen!? Does he think he'll light up the electrons as they hit the picture tube?
A reason to buy an xbox!
-m
http://www.invisik.com
besides that it was wayyy off topic and pretty long i enjoyed the read. It gave me the clearest view of the X-Box so far...still wondering when we will see this thing around here in germany.
I actually think i still prefer the PS2 over the X-Box but its a shame that this Cool Game will only come out for the X-Box...
c u,
Lispy
It's business, not fear - if you could do anything with it, MS would have to stop selling the hardware at a loss to subsidise the software that they want you to buy for it.
I'm sure that there'll be a linux port, filesystem decoders and all kinds of hardware hacks anyway.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Can anyone explain this?
Now if only Microsoft would let me legally distribute this software I'd be a happy person. Unfortunately, only registered XBox developers can legitimately obtain this software (okay, apart from the fact that only registered XBox developers actually have an XBox that can run the software).
I understand if only the XBox dev kit would run this software, but where does the law come in? Is it the licensing of the dev kit? Does this mean that you're required to pay MS to write software for this platform?
Of course that's beside the fact that MS had to pay game companies to write games in the first place.
Developers: We can use your help.
and, BTW, how easy is this to remove the DVD region lockout from the XBox? How easy is this to run standard PC software on it?
What kind?
Trolling using another account since 2005.
The Levels of Irony.. I'm suprised you youg pups still remember that classic RPG for VSX/48 back when logic gates...<fadeout>
</fart>
And for $400 you could build a 900 MHz Athlon. $100 for mobo and slot A processor, $25 for 256M RAM, $100 for HD, $10 for ethernet, $50 for case. You could spend the rest on nice video and sound or be cheap and limit yourself to a $300 budget. Get yourself a Debian install and put what you want on it. Look ma! a general purpose computer. Why torture yourself to figure out M$ hardware?
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Whoa, someone is really asking to get sued for DMCA by good old Microsoft. Though I would be happy to mirror all the data for this site should that be the case, namely cause Microsoft sucks.
(waiting for...) Amiga forever!!!
I've been following "the scene" for a few years now and can attest to this. I've also felt it was strange the various authors for the various NES emulators never considered using a modular design allowing mappers to be supported. This could have saved so much time for the authors away from having to code directly into their emulators.
I was wondering what this meant:
Now if only Microsoft would let me legally distribute this software I'd be a happy person.
This was posted to his site before the Xbox release, can he still not distribute it?
If you need caffeine, and the closest source of caffeine is a Starbucks, then the reasonable course of action is to display some adaptability, and buy from the damn Starbucks.
pooptruck
That's a pretty bold statement. Care to provide a reference to back it up? WHY would they come after him for releasing a game that help sell their boxes and fills their coffers? Yeah, they may come after you for having used an XBox dev kit and not paying royalty fees (if you didn't pay the fee) but that's NOT a DMCA violation! That's a licensing issue and perfectly legal even though it sux. Hell, sell the software, pay MSFT their fee, make money. He may not have the XBox license but he obviously has a good friend that does...
As for his statement about no one being able to play these games without an XBox dev kit check out the date that it was posted. At that time no one HAD an XBox unless they were devleoping for it. (duh) Now that the XBox has been released perhaps this has changed and it could now be played by others IF it could be released?
I have to wonder what sort of trouble he'd get into releasing MAME like this though. Sure, MAME itself isn't illegal but the RIPped ROMs can be. What sort of license is MAME devleoped under?
To date not many people have been persecuted for having ROMs but releasing code like this might just be enough to wake them from their slumber - especially if money were being made from the sale of the software. No way could they release with ROMs so folks would HAVE to go to the 'net to get them. Not quite the same as Bleem! (RIP) but close enough in what might happen after the release. He would probably win in court but those who hosted ROMs might not find the climate quite so nice afterwards. Just a guess though....
Anyway, you seem awful sure MSFT would go after them with the DMCA - show me something that proves this. A press statement to that effect would be nice but don't ASSume they would do this and state it as if it were fact please. If someone has a legal license to the dev kit and pays royalties what control exactly does MSFT have? And why exactly wouldn't they "approve" of this?
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
But some people claim to have played Halo deathmatch on a LAN.
My hands can span 1.5 octaves on a computer...
/. message?
You must have one interesting computer keyboard!
What song were you performing as you typed your
"And like that
When I can do this without a dedicated "DevKit" from Microsoft. (Last time I checked there were no devkits next to the big ass extra controllers, DVD Kits and $50 dollar games on the shelves at best buy.) Plus with no Keyboard port, it would be kind of hard to hook my encoder board and arcade controls up to this bad boy....)
P.S. -- Is it just me or have all the Kiosks that are hooked up to X-box's gone belly up since the release date. (I would be a bit hesitant to purchase a system when the demo machines can't stay in the fight so to speak.....)
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
I'd heard that the Xbox was an unsightly beast, but I had no idea it was *that* big. It'd be like hooking a desktop PC up to your TV. Oh, hang on, that's because it *is* a desktop PC.
To get sued under the DMCA he needs to have broken some sort of protection system; certainly he needs to have done something against his Devkit license agreement to get in any trouble. Compiling an open-source piece of software and then not releasing his changes anywhere might upset people who think MAME should be GPLed, but as a legitimate devkit owner he can compile what he likes for his own development purposes.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
This should be moderated up. For the people that still not know that the xbox isn't cheap! For the same money you can get a real pc, which is still upgradeable!
I went to the site and was bummed. A bit of talk about a free weekend and bunches of screenshots of Donkey Kong taken last summer.
If he hasn't written the HOWTO yet, it ain't ready for slashdot!
I would like to know if the guy playing Metal Slug on the X-Box actually owns a copy of the game on cart or CD? If not, then he is commiting THEFT.
Fine, space invaders, phoenix, galaga.... they no longer earn their manufacturers any revenue. SNK however, was still around and producing those NeoGeo games you are playing with MAME until a month or two ago.
It is people like that that have caused the recent downfall of SNK. The last titles released were subject to almost immediate ripping and distribution across the net. That means SNK stopped making home releases of the game, and produced fewer numbers of the arcade cart version.
You can give yourselves a big pat on the back that you've helped one of the true greats in the console and arcade world to dissappear.
There'll not be any more Metal Slug's of Last Blades.
I hope you are proud of yourselves.
Now, let me get to the meat of the Xbox.
The Xbox is like a hobbled warhorse. You can see how big, how powerful it is, the sleek, black muscles with the power to crush anything else around it. You can feel its energy, its need to break out and use that power.
But the creators, fearing its power to much, fearing those that rode it might use it for what they wanted instead of what the creators wanted, have attached thick, iron chains to its back legs...
The Xbox is truly one big box. It's made to stand up one way - with it's bottom on the surface.
...the hard, black plastic on the outside, and even the wires. The RCA plugs are thick and meaty, and the ends are covered in thick, black plastic...
...It's also brutally simple...
A big black thing that can't get it up. Black (8 uses), meat, power, Oh my! The chains hint at other pervosities that should be left uspoken.
What makes you think M$ is taking a loss on this mighty gimped Celery?
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
There are plenty of PCs out there that cost less then $300. When I moved out of the house my mom got a $266 PC to replace the one I'd be taking with me. It's not that big a deal
Why put all this money in the hands of microsoft, waste all this time dicking around with hardware, when you can already do those things and more without defeating microsofts 'hacks'?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
There are two machines there, A playstation 2 dev kit, and an Xbox dev kit. The Xbox dev kit is the one that looks like a PC.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
That's incorrect. It would be illegal price dumping if Microsoft sold their XBoxes for less than their marginal cost. What they are doing is selling for less than average cost, but above marginal; the total sum of money they are losing is at most the initial fix costs they incurred to start producing XBoxes. What this means is the more XBoxes people buy, the sooner Microsoft will be able to get *out* of the hole, *not* the deeper they get in it..
"Now if only Microsoft would let me legally distribute this software I'd be a happy person. Unfortunately, only registered XBox developers can legitimately obtain this software (okay, apart from the fact that only registered XBox developers actually have an XBox that can run the software)."
He's not even going to release the software. Big deal he used the Xbox Dev kit to port it. MS will enforce via DMCA anyone who does this.
Make an .iso of a CD with every nintendo, super NES, genesis, Neo Geo, N64, and arcade game you can find on it. Make something that will be just a matter of burning, and sticking in the xbox, and make some instructions for the alterations that need to be done to it, with well documented images every step of the way. Not only does it cost to sell Xboxes, but it will also substitue for games (where the money is made). If this became common Microsoft would be really screwed.
If enough people jumped on board, it might just give MS more market penetration and be good for them in the long run. Who knows? But I want 4 player retro nintendo games!
I am already addicted to Super Monkey Ball for gamecube. It rocks my monkey balls.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
First, I pruchased 3 xboxs [1 to keep 2 for ebay].
1. Plug the Xbox into a hub, the link light goes on.
2. If you have DHCP watch the lease server, the xbox obtains an ip address.
3. If you have a firewall watch the traffic while loading Halo.
4. We played 8 player halo with 2 xboxes on the lan, was awsome. Played for 6+ hours.
So yes the ethernet controller works. My guess is that MS doesn't have the "GamesZone" complete, and will wait till 2002 to turn on the internet site that the Xbox checks at boot.
Xbox controllers ARE USB, actually. I'm sure you could plug in your own stuff.
from IGN
First of course, you have to have broadband at home (dsl, cable, ethernet connect). Then you get a HUB. anyway, connect your xbox to the Hub, along with your computer, basically your computer and Xbox will be sharing your broadband connect now.
Now the xbox can play against any other xbox that it detects on the same subnet, i.e. I can play against anyone whose connected their xbox to my university ethernet connect.
Now, using a program that makes a VPN (virtual private network) like this one
and you use your computer to make a LAN with someone you know (you have to know their ip) and BAM! You have a what looks like a LAN to anything connected to your HUB, with anyone over the net.
Since there are tons of boards and irc channels devoted to Xbox, it shouldn't be hard to find ip addresses to make VPNs over the net.
Supposedly xbox developers have been doing this for a while to play with eachother over the net, and when you think about it there's not reason it shouldn't work, the Virtual network is indistinguishible from a real LAN, your computer can't tell the difference, and neither should the xbox.
Slashdot posted yet another story on the XBOX. The levels of irony in this amuse me greatly.
Mmmm.. Donuts
This story appeared five months ago and if you pay attention that's an XDK (a development Xbox kit). To get MAME running on a normal Xbox you'll have to crack the protection that prevents you from running unsigned discs which from what I've read won't be easy at all.
Please put down the crack pipe.
... on your wedding day.
Perhaps the fact that MAME was very quickly converted to the XBox is a good sign. Maybe home-developing tools (Based on semi-legitimate real tools) are going to appear quicker than we originally thought...
Just saying, good old Micro$oft likes to throw its wait around, even if he did everything completely on the UP and UP, they may come back. Also, is it a typical Micro$oft license for the devkit, wonder if there is some legal mumbo-jumbo that doesn't allow its use for opensource.
On another note, look at the past, hasn't Micro$oft always tried to stop use of any of its products with opensource/gpl, look at what they have done, said against, linux, samba etc etc.
I mean, if software can be deemed illegal because it can be used to do things that are illegal, doesn't this also apply to hardware? If the Xbox can be used to play "stolen" games, doesn't that make it illegal?
(Yes, this assumes that MAME is "stealing" old games. See DMCA for references.)
Nope, no sig
I've also felt it was strange the various authors for the various NES emulators never considered using a modular design allowing mappers to be supported.
The Win32 emulator NESten uses DLLs for its cartridge board emulation support. Or you can contribute a mapper to a free software emulator such as nesterj (Win32) or TuxNES (freebsd/linux86).
Will I retire or break 10K?
Why not just burn a bootable CD with MAME on it, won't that run on the Xbox or does it use some special bootup code? Even if it does, I'm sure it's already been hacked, yes?
XBoxes boot off the DVD, so if this guy wants to distribute MAME he has to have a copy of the XBox OS (Win2k hacked up) on every DVD. By distributing this, he would be violating god knows how many copyrights.
I wish they could get the guy who was programming for the ill-fated Jaguar console to do some X-Box titles. He did the awesome "Tempest 2000" version, and was working on a version of "Major Havoc 2000" and "Defender 2000" before the console went belly up.
I'd LOVE to see a Major Havoc 2000...!
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
It prevents people from trying to have their Ethernet port behave like a modem.
I am eager to see if the 2002 broadband upgrade will be hardware or software.
But then you wouldn't be able to stick it to Microsoft for subsidizing your box as a loss leader.
Bumping threshold to 4. Wonder how long before it'll have to be 5?
I am curious, has MS incorporated Digital Signatures or some other mechansim to control the creation of software to run onthe XBOX.
Thanks
cyphersteve
Not the N64, not the SNES, but the original 8 bit NES, and that was due to mapper support. No NES emulator that I know of has full mapper support
It's possible for 20 different cartridges to contain 20 different mappers. In order for an emulator to support every single mapper made, every ROM image would need a complete description of the logical structure of the circuit board and all parts on that board in some machine-readable language such as Verilog.
That said, the vast majority of games released in North America used one of these five well-supported mappers: NROM, CNROM, UNROM, MMC1, or MMC3. Some other mappers exist such as MMC2 for Punch-Out!!, Sunsoft 4 for Return of the Joker, MMC5 for Castlevania 3, etc. Most games that use obscure mappers (90, etc.) were released only in Japan or in Hong Kong for the Japanese Famicom console.
Anything with a copyrighted BIOS (such as Apple II, Mac, Amiga, or GBA) that came from a single source (unlike PC BIOS) is harder to emulate, as software often relies on undocumented behavior (hard to reimplement), exact timing behavior (really hard to reimplement), and even patented behavior (impossible to reimplement in software libre) of a BIOS.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Thanks, but that's not the reason I build PCs. I don't make them to stick it to anyone. I don't make them to increase anyone's "market share", whatever that is. I make them for a purpose, and adapt them to others as the need arises. I have no more need for a 700 MHz Celeron than I do for M$ Word.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
If they wanted to be particularly nice they could dig up some old photos, scan promotional literature, etc and build a museum like Namco's.
But what about a dvd drive and a GeForce3. That's another $250... and your figures already add up to about $300. And let's not forget about the ability to play XBox games. I think the point here is you can get a kick ass gaming system/dvd player that can also do about 11 billion other things with a little tinkering.
Maybe you should see a doctor. Could be cancer. Is there bleeding?
I wish this guy would do something constructive and share his work with people instead of jacking off about how he has done it. FFS all he has to do is use some anonimity service to post some info on how to do it to a newsgroup. Not many people have access to dev kits and his experience would save huge amounts of time. But since he never intends to share anything with us I wish I had never heard about this port.
I read it in articles. Like on salon:
The company is taking a substantial loss on every Xbox sale, apparently hoping that the superior hardware inside will be its best future asset
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
I'm not saying that if this became a major news story for some reason that Microsoft's well-documented attitude to open source wouldn't lead to them being in a bad mood at him, but right now all he has effectively done is set up a website saying "Look, I've ported this popular game (which isn't GPL, but I can get the source to) to the devkit, and it was much easier to work with as a developer than Sony's PS2 devkit is." Can you see them getting that upset about it?
In any case, the source for Quake is also available, and thats even under a GPL variant, but I can't see Microsoft telling Carmack and co. where to stick it if id want to do a version of Doom 3 for the XBox.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
All you need to do is check that there is a unique key at the start of the disc, along the lines of "This game uses code licensed from Micro$oft, (c) 2001 Micro$oft and can only be used by paying large $ums of money". If the disc doesn't have exactly that text then the OS can easily refuse to run it.
No need for digital signing, encryption, etc... If someone produces a disc containing that text, the Microsoft can argue that as it contains a copyright message assigning copyright of some portion of it to them, that they have right to a licence fee for the use of that. It doesn't matter that it's just a piece of text, it would still be covered under copyright.
The only way I see around this is someone producing a patch for the OS to remove such a check.
Ralf.
Ralf
I read it too, it must be true? Who am I going to believe, Salon or my lying eyes? If Tiger Direct can offer equivalent or better systems for $400, this PC in a plastic garbage can has got to at least break even at $300. When has M$ ever lost money on a deal? Never. If people buy this junk, they will make money. Not tomorow, today.
What did you want to do yesterday?
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I submitted this about 2 months ago! This site really does suck!
I suppose sun et.al could buy a ton of 'em and throw them away. But they'd have to publicize it and let everyone know what they were doing, otherwise the numbers would initially just show up as extra marketing data points.
Also, there has to be a huge number of people doing this, like more then 10%, and I doubt that that would happen...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.