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Probing the Guts Of the Consoles
Max Entropy writes "Finally, an in-depth article of the technologies within the GameCube, PS2, and Xbox. The article covers architectures, processor/memory silicon, I/O, expandability, and storage among a host of other topics." If you are wondering what makes each system distinctive (Besides
the fact that one has about a hundred times as many games, one overheats,
and another has Luigi) this might be worth a read.
is that the Xbox also has an X-10 compatible home automation controller built into the power supply. If you notice, a small serial data cable leads from the motherboard to an area of the supply (the part of the supply farthest from the large capacitors). No software is known to control this yet, though. IIRC the IC that they used will only send signals, not receive them.
The Gamecube CPU doesn't quite have Altivec like a G4, but it does have something pretty useful for racing through matrix multiplies; data prefetching and paired single operations. Paired Single operations simply use the FPU to work on two singles instead of a double. For graphics and physics and most math intensive operations this essentially doubles the performance.
Looking at the specs it doesn't seem that special. But when you develop for it you'll be impressed. In many ways it is clearly the best console.
Of course that can be said about any of them...
"The shoot-'em-up game genre, popular in the past, is losing its appeal as television viewers behold the horror of real-life war on the evening news. What game genres will replace it is less clear"
HUH!?! I beg to differ. Too many people have asked me about playing Q3, Half-Life, and UT online in the last few weeks. Since the prices of pc's have dropped and broadband availibility growing in my city, more and more people are wanting to "shoot'em up" online. (Oops, forgot to mention that the price of those games have dropped recently.)
"At first they were simple gaming machines, now they focus on email, broadband, DVD playing, web browsing, etc etc"
:) There have been consoles before with laser disk support though.
Bah.. Yes, at first in 1972 they were just that. But hey, the Odessy only had 40 transistors/resistors/diodes and the "computer" world was a bit different then.
Current gen:PS2 has planned NIC/HD and can play online (check the back of the PS2 version of Tony Hawk 3 next time you're in a software store!). GC has broadband/56K support on Nintendo's page. The Xfl-box has a built in NIC. DC has 56K support.
Previous: Saturn had an official modem and all that email, web, stuff, just not the DVD
Previous to that: the 3DO was going to be a multimedia box every household needed. Before that in the late 80s/early 90s Commodore tried the CDTV for multimedia stuff and had Nolen Bushnell promoting it.
Previous: SNES and Genesis had the Xband modem for games and "email". Again there was planned modems, etc that never shipped. Still Nintendo etc always have those expansion slots-just incase. There was a CD-ROM add on for many of these era consoles so you didn't need to buy a seperate cd player to listen to the new music format..
During the NES era Nintendo partnered with AT&T to allow users to do banking/stock trading online through their NES! 10,000 homes were hooked up for a test in Minnesota and for $10 a month they could play the state's lotteries online.
In 1983 there was the CVC Gameline (used a catridge with a 1200baud modem with 8K of ram) for the Atari 2600 that offered news, stocks, "electronic mail", and banking services to 2600 owners. And you could download games for $1 each and keep them until you turned your system off.
Game consoles have always been "simply gaming machines" until there is enough of them people's homes to be something else. What MS is doing is nothing different than what has been going on for the last few decades.
I left my XBox on over the weekend (shame on me, but I was out drinking) and came back and played my game with no problems for many more hours.
:)
The only problem I have with the XBox, aside from the expensive low quality DVD remote that you must have (and is somewhat hard to find), is its rather large area. It's the only console that won't fit on my mammoth 1985 VCR
Bullet-Time (TM) rocks.
You're right, games domatter. However, I disagree with your suggestion for Gamespot as a useful source of information. They are very much biased towards the Playstation 2, to the detriment of both the Gamecube and the XBox. Yes, I know that pretty much any site is going to be biased, but Gamespot takes it to an extreme, to the point where their XBox reviews consistently rate 1.5-3 points lower than reviews on other web sites. Maybe they're just "telling it how it is", but when the reader reviews on Gamespot actually line up well with the editorial reviews of other web sites, you get a little suspicious ...
Sadly, I can't really recommend any better place, as most of the major gaming networks have gone the way of the dodo, or at least made most of their content subscription-only. What I do is keep my eye on Blue's News, which is mainly PC gaming but covers console gaming as well. Typically, you'll find links to better reviews than Gamespot reviews at Blue's. Otherwise, go to your local Blockbuster, rent a console and a couple games. Give it a spin for a week for $20 (console and a couple games), see if it's worth spending $300+.
A friend of mine toured local retailers before Christmas - and he was told by them that they were seeing a 37% approx failure rate on XBoxes.
This may have been BS to cover for them having no stock but it seems like a bad way to sell something to me.
I just got an Xbox and I am quite happy with it.. except for one thing: It does over heat. While playing a great game of Project Gotham after finishing a one on one with a Skyline (with my Ford Focus lol) it just froze on the loading screen... I havent had this problem with other games I have but its quite annoying...
"The fact is that, sadly, the XBox is, by far, the better of the two"
That is completely silly. None of the systems are by far better than the others.
I'd say the GC and PS2 are tied for being best with the Xbox left trying to figure out a reason for people to own it.
"GC is a misstep for Nintendo and the XBox seems to kick ass all around"
Actually the GC is by far better for Nintendo:
-$199 vs $299 makes it more accessable. Watch the sales after christmas reflect this.
-I've read the estimated costs are $180 for Nintendo to manufacture each console and $340 for MS. Use google for the links to the Myrl-Lynch reports. Nintendo only loses $20 on each system $199 system while MS loses $100 on each $299 system.
-GC doesn't play DVDs. When you watch a DVD you aren't playing a game that Nintendo makes profit off of.
-GC doesn't fit full size CDs/DVDs. Piracy does cost companies money, this will make causual piracy (renting a PS1 game and burning a copy for your system with a modchip) slightly more difficult. More money to be made = more support.
-GC controller is awesome. It screams "look, this is your main button and here is a second button. You can use the other two in some rare situations" This results hearding developers into making reasonable control schemes instead of thinking they need to make every button equally important.
-GC has no hd. Like it or not a console will get bumped. The less moving parts the less broken systems.
-G3 based CPU. Less heat. Watch for the GC to be the first silent console, which again means less breakage. I know fans are pretty reliable, but if you sell 10million units and 0.1% fail that's a lot more than 0 failing!
-G3 instead of PentiumIII. Look at the benchmarks. The PentiumIII is bigger, takes more power, is more espensive, and produces the lowest spec scores out of the possible choices. The only reason you'd want a P3 is to be compatible with all your windows software. Yuck!
-portable. The GC is light and has a handle. The Xbox is huge and is more fragile with the hd. Kids are more likely to drop a xbox than GC and a fall is more likely to break something.
-No NIC. As cool as internet gaming is when you put a bunch of friends together ANYTHING is fun. Watch some 90 year old duffers play golf horribly in florida. They aren't having fun playing golf, they're having fun inspite of playing golf. Even if the game isn't as good putting people together will make them have fun which will make others want to buy the affordable GC. For the Xbox people need to have one in the first place to play networked and then generally won't have as much fun because they are seperated.
-Equal power to a PC/Xbox. There are a bunch of advnatages/disadvantages for each of the three systems. The GC is not really any less powerful than the xbox/ps2. There is not going to be a single game that can't be done on any system. The only difference in a game released on all three systems at the same time will be the effort/time the developer choose to spend on that platform.
Some of those points you may not like, but if you are Nintendo you'll sure like those points. The GC is a great system for Nintendo and it kicks the xbox's ass all around. And IMHO the PS2 too.