Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft to Introduce GBA-competitor?
An anonymous reader writes "It seems that Nintendo will have a competition in the handheld market soon. ZDnet has an article that says Microsoft's plan to introduce a 'Media Pad' which includes among other things 'serve as a portable game player in conjunction with Microsoft's Xbox video game console.' So I guess the news I heard regarding their interest in the portable industry will soon come true, the question is, can they take the crown from Nintendo?"
They get Mario Kart Advance. Damn, that game is just too good.
This is just a brainstorm-produced idea, not based in reality, but imagine if Microsoft found some way to interface their portable not only with the Xbox, but also with PS2 and GCN? I think the best thing about the GBA is that if you go to a friend's house who has a GCN, you can just plug in as another controller with your portable. Imagine if MS's new device could plug into them all... it's not like the consoles don't already have 3rd party controllers...
~ now you know
Based on the information in the article, i doubt that this will be actual competition for the GBA. The device seems to be more of a next-generation PDA than a portable game system. It is likely that it will be far more expensive than the GBA and will cater to an entirely different market.
Still, it is encouraging to see renewed interest in the handheld gaming industry, which has been so long dormant.
lysergically yours
Intel got exclusive rights to StrongARM
since GBA is just a ARM7 + custom sound off the APB then it would not be hard to do the same sort of thing
differant enough that nitendo cant sue and developers have to recompile
but easy enought that you could have a compiler switch do all the work (except the sound and that could be redone easy enough)
really its just a way for intel to push StrongARM and StronARM2 aka Xscale
regards
john jones
So I guess the news I heard regarding their interest in the portable industry will soon come true, the question is can they take the crown from Nintendo.
Nintendo fought off both Sega and Sony, two big companies. Sony forced Sega to go software only, but we still see nintendoes everywhere. The GB audience is little kids. They know "Game Boy" better than anything MS puts out.
This article is just a slashdot crack at MS, though. "Lets point out the monopoly" article! The way the slashdot community fights with Microsoft is funny, and has quite a pattern. 'Do whatever it takes' is generally the big picture. It isn't about crappy software lately, because the government saw some monopoly qualities, that's what slashdot looks into heavily. The truth is, most people that use linux exclusively hasn't even tried Win2K, which has yet to crash or bluescreen on me. Netscape on linux, and mozilla on linux crashes more than anything on win2k for me. But I'm talking to closed minds here.
Its going to be funny when the monopoly talks die down and people start attacking MS's quality to find its stronger than the last time they used it, so their arguements are moot. Sure, XP has bugs (all new OS's do. Try and tell me that Linux 1.0 didn't crash or have bugs.), and X-Box has its share, but it is the first console released under MS's name. But by the time the monopoly craze goes away, I think you'll be surprised at where MS will be.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
While Nintendo currently have the hand-held crown it stopped accepting developers for the GBA a long time ago claiming that 400 was enough. From the handful of decent titles I'd guess it isn't.
Microsoft will at least get those developers wanting to do handheld games but blocked-out by Nintendo.
Like the GBA it would almost certainly use an ARM chip as that's the only supported processor for Windows 'CE' 2002.
[)amien
I recokon this will have less and less of an impact here in Europe.
Handheld "consoles" are going out of fassion in favour of mobile phones that are incresingly having better games built in. Some already offer basic multi-player 'online' games. Unless M$ gets into the movile phone market, I won't predict too much.
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
Microsoft entering Gameboy's territory. This seems so crazy to me. Sure the XBox can get the older gamers, but I don't see a lot of them playing with GBAs. I saw three little kids in carts this weekend playing their GBAs and I think that shows that the GBA is really for younger kids. The XBox is really geared to an older audience, wherease the GBA and the Gamecube have offerings for a younger audience.
I haven't seen a viable comepetitor to the Gameboy in long time. Last I saw was the Sega Game thingy and maybe that Playstation portable some guy hacked together. Now Gameboy has a huge library of established hits to really provide a barrier to new entries. Any new entrants to the portable game console market are in for a rough time.
I guess this is what you do with a $36 Billion dollar war chest. They're gonna need it.
To me it looks more like a Universal Remote / Terminal / Control Every God Damn Thing In The House than a dedicated game machine. Somehow I doubt Nintindo has much to worry about. It sounds like the form factor is going to be more tablet like, and that's not the most ergonomic thing to play portable games on (not to mention its going to be huge compared to GBA... Etch-a-sketch huge). And its not like you're going to be able to drop $100 for one for each of the kids. Plus, how happy are you going to be when you lose some functionality of your MS TV Thingy when the nipper's taken its remote control to school to play a little Halo during his lunch hour?
The DC memory cartridges that you can stick in the controller to hold save games can also hold mini-games downloaded from the DC console (which some DC games had right on the disc). Then you can play these little games on a little monochrome screen with a Gameboy like unit (direction + button A + button B). Really, it was kind of pathetic, but cool in a weird way.
;)
I hope this isn't what they have in mind.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
the question is can they take the crown from Nintendo
I seriously doubt it. Nintendo is particularly GOOD at what they do, especially when it comes to handhelds. Just look at the staying power of the original gameboy. Even to this day, they're still selling, pretty much the original gameboy (with much improved battery life, size, screen, etc)..
Competition is always good, but MS' product will need to completely blow away the GBA (and then some) to compete -- let's not forget that the original 4 colour gameboy sompletely outsold Sega's technologically superior (at the time)Gamegear.
...handheld emulation. I've got some of that on my Jornada 720, but not much.
I'd love to see Nintendo/Sony/Microsquish/Whatever come out with a hand-held unit that runs a version of Mame, and the company goes out and buys licenses to all those old arcade games I love. Package'em half-a-dozen to a cartridge (yeah, you'll get one popular one [Pac-Man], a couple of so-so, then three scrubs, but it'll get the cash revenue going). Think: zero development costs, small license/media costs, and profits all around.
That would be sweet. Now throw in GB/GBA/NES/SNES emulation as well - hoody hoo! (Ok, why should Nintendo license their old games to MS? Because they aren't selling many of the old ones nowadays, are they?)
Anyone think this has a chance?
Hmmm...
.NET in the article. It occurs to me that this device could well be made to provide Office Suite functions in a proprietary way only through the use of .NET. I just can't help but think of Microsoft's recent forays into hardware as a grand scheme to enforce use of their software...
on a second read-through i noticed a somewhat sinister mentioning of
buyers beware.
lysergically yours
I remember ten years ago working at a Babbages, playing California Games on an Atari Lynx. Backlit, 4096 colors, and a hell of alot of fun.
I'd be willing to pump more batteries in the damn thing if it meant I could see the screen.
The GBA is completely unusable (including with the aftermarket add on front lights) in anything but very bright conditions, which is something that I think they should be a little more truthful about (i.e. in the commercial where the guy is playing in a church: Fat chance).
I don't know about other people's connectivity, but my cable modem connection is a bit flaky at times. Reguardless of how valuable or useful it may be, is Microsoft going to solve the problem bad ISP's? How is the average consumer going to know the cause is the ISP and not the device?
The idea of a mobile computing device that acts as a game, computer and universal remote is pretty cool. High end audio, video, entertainment systems are similar though very expensive.
Are people willing to reboot their DSL/Cable modem to get their universal remote to work, or will they pick up the other remote?
And join the rest of us here in the real world. Microsoft will never produce anything to take the "crown" away from Nintendo in the portable market. Also, GameCube, given 1 or maybe even 2 years to mature, will prove itself as the dominant game console. Anyone who's played the consoles knows this. Oh and no, playing PIKIMIN or whatever in a Wal-Mart doesn't count. I'm talking about comparing comparable games, like Madden or Crazy Taxi, both released on several systems.
~ now you know
Nintendo owns the handheld market. The Game Boy has more games than any other system currently out (PS2 included), and has all of Nintendo's mascots. The GBA is cheap and has great games. (Nintendo made the most money of any video game publisher in 2000, too, even with the release of the PS2 and Dreamcast, all because of the Game Boy Color).
I think the XBOX has a shot at taking the older gamers, but the handhend will remain Nintendo's for a long time.
I wonder if these people will change their focuse when this is released. :)
Everywhere you look MSFT decide to make something for that arena, from handhelds to of course desktops.
Only exception is Linux...
Matt
Given the size of the X-Box controller, will this be another controller that only works for people with hands the size of Andre the Giant's hands?
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
Bill
The GBA has a beautiful (if dim) display, fantastic graphic capabilities for its size, runs on 2 AA batteries, and cost me $90. This vaporware device from MS isn't even close, and I don't think it's intended to be.
:-( And profit margins can't be too great with Visor units nearing the $100 mark. Then again, we know MS isn't always interested in short term profitability--not that they should be. If taking a loss for a couple years rewards them with 75% market share 3 or 4 years down the line, it's worth it. Witness IE--they provided it for free simply to blow the (admittedly poor) competition into oblivion. They've been >80% successful in this endeavor.
I have to agree that it looks like an attempt to get into the PDA market. Honestly, I'm surprised it's taken MS this long to make a push for it. A device like this would be convenient, popular, and completely proprietary. One has to wonder if they're a bit late getting into the market, though. Most people who want a PDA already have one--except me.
Wait and see, wait and see, I s'pose...
One of the reasons that I became a lawyer was to avoid ever having to hire one. -SPYvSPY
By the Sega Portable, I assume you are referring to the "Game Gear."
It wasn't ahead of its time in the least, seeing that it was almost the exact same thing as the Sega Master System, only smaller.
The handheld system, IMO, that was ahead of its time was the Atari Lynx, as it was a 16-Bit handheld in the era of 16-Bit home consoles.
Game Gear and Game Boy were both 8-Bit systems.
Really, both the Game Gear and Lynx were superior
to the original Game Boy in just about everything
but battery life, but I'd say that only the Lynx
was "ahead of its time."
There was also a portable version of the Turbo
Grafx 16, IMO... but I don't know much about it.
I don't remember if it did have a backlit screen.
Sega later did release the "Nomad," which was essentially the same as the Genesis and also the "Genesis CD-X" which was a console that combined
the Genesis and Sega CD into one unit that was
about the size of a portable music CD player for the day, only about twice as thick.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
You mention the Game Gear as an example of something that was more advanced than the Gameboy, and it very much failed, as did the Atari Lynx, Nomad, NeoGeo Pocket, and many other handheld systems, against the horrendously outdated Gameboy and Gameboy Color. Nintendo's tech may be behind the times, but in terms of games/battery life, they know what they are doing, and can easily push the units even if the units themselves are mostly pieces of crap. Judging by the X-Box standards of production, I doubt any handheld produced by MS will be efficient in terms of size nor power consumption. Though any offering they make may be mostly tecnologically superior, in all the ways that matter it will probably fall short.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
What could Microsofts weakness be? What do SONY and Microsoft have in common that Nintendo does not?
Their first priority is to DRM and content control. Microsoft is betting on BIG deals with the RIAA and MPAA member companies. Put simply they can't piss them off.
So what should Nintendo do? Simple. Modify the gamecube to play DVDs from any region. Make sure the DVD decoding is totally controled by one EASILY removable chip that is accessable by simply lifting a simple panel.
Won't the MPAA sue? You bet they will and it will be great for Nintendo. When the MPAA sues Nintendo they should convert to region based chips to signify cooperation.
This is a quadrupal win for Nintendo.
- They get free advertising as the "hackers" console
- They have an easily upgradable (to region free) chip
- They have a referance chip to reverse engineer. If Nintendo does it right there will be a half dozen aftermarket upgrades in a month.
- They have plausable deniability.
Now the DVD argument is moot. And the vaster game base from Xbox is countered by a hassle free, region free, dvd player built into Game Cube. Kick in the name recognition and Nintendo can relax and watch Microsoft DRM itself out of existance.I'd buy a GameCube DVD, wouldn't you?
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
I dropped my $30 or so for Super Mario Advanced, which is a graphically improved Mario Brothers (yeah, the OLD arcade game that got rereleased on the NES later), and a slightly tweaked Super Mario Brothers 2.
Super Mario Advanced is the same Mario Brothers game for multiplayer, with Super Mario World as the mario game.
Mario Kart Advanced is a rerelease of the SNES Super Mario Kart.
I bought Dragon Warrior I & II for the Game Boy Color (to play on my GBA), rereleases of the old NES games.
The NES/SNES games are being rereleased for the GBC/GBA. Some GB (pre-color) are still on the market. I almost grabbed my first generation ones when visiting my folks, but figured I'd rather not sour their memory by replaying them. (Some NES/SNES games have had their memory ruinned for me by emulation)...
Unlike other companys, Nintendo doesn't truly abandon software... they rerelease it for handhelds later on. I'm sure that the Game Boy Super Advanced will be 3D and have N64 ports, and the Game Boy Super Duper Advanced will have some Game Cube ports.
Regardless, as another post set, the GBA is a great handheld for older gamers. It has 2D side-scrollers, RPGs, etc. All the games (and STYLE of games) that you loved on a NES/SNES are being released here, while the gaming market has moved on.
My parents loved the Atari, and would play my NES while I was asleep and found it frustrating. They couldn't handle the finger twitching of the NES.
I find that my Gamecube pushes my reflexes, and I doubt that I'll be able to keep up for much longer. When my kids are playing their systems 2 generations from now, I'm going to feel over the hill, while I did really well on my NES/SNES/SMS/S-Genny... N64 I was average, and now I'm over the hill.
Oh well,
Alex
P.S. If you live in a city and commute on a subway... GBA is great.
How will microsoft ever top the famous ding of the gameboy starting up? I mean, I've heard it so many times, it's music to my ears.
Ding... Ahh.. I've had my fix for the day.
=================
Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
Is this really any different than sony though? I mean sony first owned half the music industry, then the portable audio market and a good chunk of the home audio and video markets, Pc sales, and the playstation...and they have their own software developers too....sony is actually much bigger than MS but I never hear anyone screaming monopoly or unfair practice about them. Instead of whining why dont people just not buy the product and stop worrying about it, thats what I did no X-Box in my home...in fact after my dreamcast dies it will most likely be Game Over for the consoles in my life anyway.
I see no evidence that Nintendo is interested in anything other than TV and handheld game machines. They are not interested in DVD's, MP3's, the web or other multimedia/general computing unlike Microsoft. Granted, Microsoft has dipped it's feet in the game industry with the X-Box, but everyone who's reviewed it has something negative to say and with good reason.
Microsoft focused on the fastest processor, most amount of memory, lots of storage (for caching and game saves) which is important in the computer market but not necessarily in the game market. Console Game players are interested in the playability/funness factor of a game over the graphics/specs of the game. Take Halo (Xbox) for example, it's nice looking and could be lots of fun, but it just screams for a mouse and keyboard. It needs lots of buttons (all the time) and it needs a FPS movement that only a mouse in "mouselook" mode can really deliver on. Where as if you look at Luigi's Mansion (GameCube) you use very few controls (all the time) and it's movement is very natural for a "gamepad" controller, it would not be natural for a keyboard and mouse. Microsoft's mistake is taking what they know about computers and trying to apply that to a console, whereas Nintendo has been in business since 1951 and started selling video games in 1971, in that tine they have learned a thing or two about making a fun, playable game. This is one market Microsoft will NOT dominate in.
Nothing for end users? Used XP? It's great and very stable. It runs on my Thinkpad T23 I use for work that hasn't been turned off in 3 months. It finally blue screened the other day when Shockwave had a fight with the video driver (bad vid driver..way old driver). Try again. Not everyone still runs Win95.
40% defunct rate on XBox? WTF?! There was a story the other day where less than 1% were defective. That's about right. They only shipped like 1.5 million of them. Bet you couldn't get them all perfect either.
The idea of a company is to make money. That's it. It's not to make the world a happy place. If you don't like what they sell, don't buy. Sorry Slashdot, but people need money to pay bills and get food. I'd like to honestly know how many Slashdot posters are living on their parent's dime at college.
I bought a Cube the day they came out and love it. I didn't buy an XBox because I didn't think they'd do well. Well, my wife got me one for Christmas and I LOVE IT. It just seems to be a better overall system than the Cube. I love Nintendo, remember many days playing my NES. I collect consoles and have almost every one ever made....
But, the XBox is good. It does DVD. Almost every game supports widescreen. It has Dolby Digital sound. Why oh why does the Cube not do Dolby Digital? You haven't lived until you've played Halo with DD5.1. It uses it better than almost any movie....
Think about who plays the GBA right now. I see them mostly in the hands of kids between 7 and 12 years old. These kids are not going to care enough about the extra features Microsoft wants to have in this device. If Microsoft sells them at huge losses to compete with the $90 price of a GBA, they can do that. But even then, they will have to recover the cost somehow, which means game costs will be higher than the $20-40 for GBA games. Sure, some spoiled brats can afford that or whine enough to get their parents to buy it. But most parents are going to put their foot down. Older kids might steel some market share from Nintendo, but as it stands right now, Microsoft isn't likely to steal the portable audience from Nintendo.
Of course the collarilary to their "wins" would be that they would never be allowed to sell such a device (could never get the DVD licenses for a device with easily removable regioning), they would defeat their copy-protections measures which depends partly on only having those little disks, and people would contiunally break the panel and the easily removable chips pushing or fry the whole system with untrusted third party mod-chips which would push their support costs sky high. Yea great move. Nintendo has better things to do then completely tank the Gamecube. Besides who says the market cannot support three similar systems. None of the companies are bad finically like Sega was and all are determined to stay in the market. It may not of worked in the past but past performance of the market is no indication of future results. Or so says the SEC.
I think the big problem with this idea is that anyone who thinks of portable gaming will immediately think "Gameboy", even the old folks, because that's been the standard since 1985 and it's still going today. Market recognition is a huge factor in this.
As a little anecdote, I walked into a Future Shop yesterday with a buddy to buy his PS2. This guy doesn't follow the news much, but still he loves games and rents stuff all the time. Well this 'buddy' thought the XBox was compatible with both PS2 and GCN software.. why ? because that's what he heard from his idiot coworkers and friends, and there was little or no media coverage to bring light on the new console.
We see PS2 ads all over the place : TV, movie theatres, and they have large displays in most stores. The Gamecube might not need that much publicity, since Nintendo is an established household name wherever kids are to be found, going hand-in-hand with Pokemon. But Microsoft ? We know M$, but does my mother-in-law know M$ ? Hell no, she probably thinks Windows _IS_ the computer, and that it's made by Dell or Compaq. Why does she not understand this ? Because you don't see many Microsoft products at Mallwart, Costco or any other non-PC store. Gates' company may very well be a cornerstone of modern computing, but outside that realm they are the new kid on the block for every other market segment.
That's why they have no chance of dethroning Nintendo, not today.. perhaps in ten or fifteen years.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
This doesn't sound like the XBOY, of which there have been some rumors circulating for about a year now. This sounds bigger.. But the way the Slashdot article puts it "GBA competitor".. I don't know. The original ZDNet article makes it sound more like a super powered remote control or PDA - not a handheld game console..
At this rate, we'll need another dozen years or so before appropriate legislation is forthcoming. Bill Gates as the Rockerfeller of the Desktop is not a pleasant a picture as some would like. And yet there are many who are sentimental and nostalgic for those times, which were not bad if you were upperclass.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
If they give it a backlit screen.... yes
Yes, that was funny. Yes, IE is dominant, but Netscape is still around. No, that was not relevant, in any way, to the discussion about game consoles.
~ now you know
Nintendo has already sold several million gamecubes both in the USA and Asia, the launch sales alone have ensures that Nintendo will do well from the cube.
Why on earth would nintendo redo the cube from the start to include DVD playback (everything from a new box up), bringing with it the rampant piracy problems the ps1 did suffer from the and ps2 is starting to have.
Nintendo need only one thing to carry on doing well for years to come - games, and they make great ones at nice profit margins for them.
Microsoft are spending $500Million at marketing the X-Box? Sony are still out-selling them today with the 18month old PS2 selling at the same pricepoint as X-box, and the Gamecube is outselling it worldwide too im sure since Nintendo successfully carried out a launch in both Asia and the USA when Microsoft obviously hasn't heard of other continents yet.
People forget the largest computer games market in the world is Japan, and there the X-box hasn't made a scratch yet. It will be 2 years or more before anyone knows the real winners in this round of the console wars, but right now the winner is Sony - profitable with PS2, everything from this point onwards is just extra cash for them. Whether Microsoft managed to scrape back the initial outlay they have done is probable, but not a certainty.
"After seeing their latest offerings (the N64 and Gamecube) lose money hand over fist,"
N64, perhaps (but keep in mind even then they were able to hold their own even with no real third-party developers). But GameCube?
"Nintendo finally learned that their core competency was in creating mediocre handheld gaming systems,"
"Finally?" Nintendo has known since at least the early N64 era that Game Boy is its bread and butter and has gone after intrusions into the market with a vengeance. Towards the end of the N64's life-cycle in Japan, we saw all sorts of accessories to connect the Game Boy Color to the N64, from the Transfer Pak that came out with Pokemon Stadium in the US to the cable that connects the game link port on the GBC to a controller port on the N64 (attatching the GBA to the GameCube isn't a new idea).
And also note that the GBA is their first backwards-compatible anything. Again, trying to tap into their bread-and-butter.
"and blaming a dearth of features on the "compromises" they needed to make in order to accomodate the handheld form factor."
It's not just the form factor they were trying to fit into, but the price factor as well. iPaqs are real nice and have all sorts of bells and whistles, but they also cost over five times as much. It's enough to make you want to play it but not so much you're afraid of breaking it.
And these "compromises" has given us a 32-bit system that does 2-D graphics better even than a Sega Saturn (let alone a PSX). It fits in the palm of my hand and it costs less than a PS One. Not too shabby in my book.
"Unfortunately, Nintendo's poor business sense and lack of R&D has finally caught up to them. They are fighting an 800-lb gorilla that has billion$ of dollars to spend on dominating every area of the market that it enters. And it looks like Microsoft is about to release a very versatile, multipurpose handheld device that will blow all of Nintendo's offerings right out of the water."
If Microsoft is an 800# gorilla, then when it comes to handhelds Nintendo must me a man with a machine gun. This isn't the console market, where the dominant player rotates every generation. We're talking about Game Boy, the Ali of the gaming world. I can think of no less than seven handheld systems offered by six different companies with all sorts of advantages (both real an imagined) that got smacked down by Game Boy and smacked down HARD! The closest thing to a second place I've seen in the field is Sega's Game Gear, and half the people that have posted here don't even remember its name.
And even before anybody thought of a hand-held video game system (where "anybody" means Gumpei Yokoi), guess who dominated the hand-held electronic games market? That's right, still Nintendo and their Game & Watch line. They've been around so long that the associated patent on a plus-shaped directional pad terminated only shortly before Sega made their Dreacast controller.
In today's world, when was the last time you saw a dominant anything that's been on the throne for over a decade? If you ask me, Microsoft would have a better chance of breaking into the CPU business. At least we've seen that there's room for competition there.
Second, win2000 does crash. My wife crashed it last night with just a single instance of realplayer running. Granted it didn't 'blue screen' but accepting no input and just plain freezing is not quite the advancement in stability you talk about. I will concede that MS has done better with 2000 and I assume with XP as well. But guess what? So has linux. Linux bashers used it 1-2 years ago and they still cry 'no-user-friendly-apps'. Guess what? Linux has evolved faster than anything out there including windows. You talked about Netscape and Mozilla... Ever tried Galeon? Konqueror (in it's new incarnation) ? Just as windows has evolved to be more 'stable' (as you say), Linux has just gotten better. Try evolution..., galeon..., staroffice...
And yes I dual boot to win2000. Actually, I have it on my laptop. The last time I used it was quite a while ago. Why? well, I can't get a lot of features in IE that i get in galeon. Tabbed-view. Bookmark-management..
You are right, Linux proponents can't always use "it's more stable" arguement to the same affect as before. But Linux is still a lot more stable. Windows is just catching up. And on the flip side, Windows-proponents can't use the "It's non use-friendly" arguement anymore. In fact, everytime i boot to windows, i feel boxed-in with the lack of tools and options that i boot right back to linux. you should give a recent distribution a try. you'll be surprized.
(This is so off-topic it's silly. But I'm posting it anyway.)
The simple fact is, however, that Microsoft is not only a monopoly, but a maker of horrid products.
I agree that their products are pretty unpleasant-- ugly, clumsy, tasteless-- but I think the quality argument is getting weaker and weaker across the board.
I've been using a Windows 2000 system on my desk at work for over a year. The OS has never crashed in that time.
I own an iBook that I've had since September. I've been running OS X on it since that time, and it hasn't crashed on me, either.
I also have a dual-processor G4 at work. It's never crashed, either.
It's not all that hard to find a Windows or a Mac OS computer these days that has never crashed. The classic argument for Linux-- it doesn't crash-- isn't a very strong one these days.
In fact, in my world, Linux is less reliable than Windows 2000 or OS X. I spent several hours last week debugging a USB problem on one of my coworker's workstations. Whenever he plugged in his USB-serial adapter, the machine would kernel panic. Turns out some driver modules were loading in the wrong order. Yes, it's good that I had everything I needed to fix it myself. But it's bad that I had to.
I'm not trashing Linux in particular; I'm just saying that PC-class software quality overall has improved dramatically in the past two years. I think Linux advocates are going to need a new killer argument.
"Xbox has two things that Game cube dosn't. DVD playback capability,"
Customers that want DVD playback capability as well as GameCube games can get the Panasonic Q. And like the PS2 (and UNLIKE the XBox), it will play DVDs out of the box.
"and an easy, low effort revenue stream for successful Win PC game makers."
As has been repeated ad nauseum, there is no such thing as an easy way to transition from PC to console game writing. No patches, no add-ons, no expansion packs, not even a real operating system. Making a dent in the console world requires a different philosophy than in the PC world. Once a game is released, it had better be self-contained and done.
Besides, how many PC gamers do you know of that, if given the chance, would buy an Xbox and however many games instead of a shiny new PC?
What does BSOD look like on a 2" LCD?
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
Isn't that a monopoly?
Think about what you wish for...
No, that isn't what *I* wish for. Neither do I want M$ on every desktop. I simply want a software market free of underhanded manipulation. I want to buy a PC with either (or neither) OS without wondering what signed-in-blood contracts MS may have or had with the OEM's
I want a market where the competition truly is on quality, not who can throw the largest bribes around.
I've said before in many posts I happen to like Microsoft's products. Just not their practices.
GTRacer
- Think you're in shape? Try DDR on Catastrophic...
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
And don't forget me, a 40-something. My comparison of GB and PC/Windows gaming:
GB: Plop in cartridge, hit ON switch, and start playing about 3 seconds later.
PC/Win98: Plop in CD. Wait 10 seconds. Click PLAY; wait another 30 seconds. Play 10 minutes; wait another 60 seconds while machine crashes and reboots.
I am not saying that a Palm could be competion to a GBA, but they could have easily given a nod to the gaming market and it wouldn't have hurt it in any way that I can see.
Yes I know that you can use the other buttons, but that is really a sloppy solution to a simple problem.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Though this device appears to be more of a PDA than a game machine, it makes sense from MS's pov to come out with sich a thing.
I'm betting a version of this, configured more as a game handheld will follow.
Microsoft's domination of the software industry depends on their being able to cut off the "air supply" of compeditors. Leaving the handheld market to Nintendo gives them revenue that they can use to fund their competition (game cube) to the MS X Box.
It's just an application of MS's playbook in the PC industry. This is why MS makes Mac apps, since people DO use Macs, they MUST have them using MS Office, not another app that might end up ported to `Doze and compete.
This is why MS is fighting Linux tooth and nail. They can't afford it getting too large, so that it's a big enough market to fund non-MS app software development.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
I wonder if the device will sport a version of the Microsoft eBook reader. The REB-1100 is nice for portability, but the .rb format is not common. It would be nice to have a portable device that could read eBooks in a more common (though microsoft) format.
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
Personally, I'm fed up of random lusers from the interent....
Coming from an AC, that statement seems to lack a certain credibility....
Intel got exclusive rights to StrongARM
Nintendo got exclusive rights to Atlantis
since GBA is just a ARM7 + custom sound off the APB
Wrong. The GBA programming model includes a 16.78 MHz ARM7TDMI, plus custom chips that do DMA (that is, hardware-accelerated memcpy()), legacy tone generation, sound FIFOing, pulse-width modulation, and background and sprite scrolling, scaling, and rotation. (Read More...)
different enough that nitendo cant sue and developers have to recompile but easy enought that you could have a compiler switch do all the work
Sorry, it's not as easy as a recompile of a program that uses the Allegro library. The graphics subsystems may be too different. AFAIK, Windows CE devices use only a dumb frame buffer; GBA has six modes, three character graphics modes (some include affine mapping) with up to 128 sprites on top, and three framebuffer modes with up to 128 sprites on top.
(except the sound and that could be redone easy enough)
Heck, Nintendo even calls the GBA's FIFO-based sound system "Direct Sound," no relation to Microsoft's DirectSound.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I'd buy a plain old GameCube too, and already have. A surprising number of people don't give a rat's ass about DVD on a game console. Nintendo is still doing what it has always done, build a solid gaming console. Nintendo knows their market and caters to them.
While Nintendo currently have the hand-held crown it stopped accepting developers for the GBA a long time ago claiming that 400 was enough. From the handful of decent titles I'd guess it isn't.
Just because you can't sign up for Wario World (Nintendo's official developer support program) doesn't mean you can't develop GBA games and get published with one of the Tier-B publishers. If you want to get into GBA development, get yourself VisualBoyAdvance and GCC targeted for ARM7TDMI and start hacking. Then you can try your games on hardware with an MBV2 cable or Flash Advance Linker from Lik-Sang
Like the GBA it would almost certainly use an ARM chip as that's the only supported processor for Windows 'CE' 2002.
ARM or MIPS or PowerPC or x86 makes little difference compared to the graphics chip. Nintendo's GBA supports up to 128 sprites on top of four layers of scrolling, two layers of scrolling and one layer of rotation, two layers of rotation, or a bitmap. IIRC, Windows CE devices have only a bitmap and no hardware sprites, not even one for a mouse pointer because most of them are pen-based.
Will I retire or break 10K?
How do you go from:
serve as a portable game player in conjunction with Microsoft's Xbox video game console.
to:
Nintendo will have a competition in the handheld market soon.
Even when you read the article, it is pretty clear that this device is more a tablet PC than a portable gaming system. Comparing the media pad to the GBA is like comparing my desktop PC to my PS2, it just doesn't make sense. And they don't compete with each other either.
The media pad will have to be coupled with the Xbox in order to function as a gaming system, and even that won't be its intended target. They plan to use it to provide some PDA functions and add functionality to interactive TV apps and other weird things.
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
Microsoft will demonstrate on Monday a tablet-shaped device that will serve as a bridge between the TV, the PC and the company's .Net services, according to sources familiar with the plans. These sources also say that no one will care, as everyone is watching theMacworld Keynote after Sunday's press leak of the new iMac.
--Dan
the console crown. I really really hope the MS comes out on top in this war. Since the nintendo 8 bit gamers have been forced to watch in envy as japan is ALLWAYS first to get the NEWEST GAMES and systems. How many times did you read a gamepro, EGM or other similiar magazine, seen a game that looked totally awesome but it was going to be released japan first? It really pisses me off to the point WHERE I GOT TO TYPE IN CAPS.
I miss the good ol days when an american company was king of the console hill (i.e. atari) and i'm not very paticular who is trying to become the next american console king, even if it is LUCIFER in the eyes of the slash crew.
The XBox is already a region free DVD player. Good idea, though.
Nintendo has been in business since 1891. They originally made playing cards. ( and yes I'm picking nits).
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
This article was completely misrepresented by the slasdot summary. After reading the device, it sounds nothing like a GBA, or a GBA competitor. Maybe slashdot users don't know what Terminal Services is.
The device is based on Terminal Services. For all you linux users out there, it means its just a DISPLAY for processes running on another device. Think of it as a dumb X-Windows display.
Sure, it might show incredible graphics that are rendered on the XBOX 6 feet away from you, because its just painting the pixels, it doesn't need the fancy 3D hardware, etc. But my point is, the XBOX will have to be 6 feet away! This isn't a device you would take to school, take on a plane, take everywhere that you take a gameboy.
From the article:
"Microsoft's Terminal Server software shifts many computing functions off the device and onto other computers--owned either by the individual or by a service provider. Consumers can't really use a Mira device without a persistent connection to a more powerful computer."
The only way it could come close to competing with the portability of the GBA (which is the whole reason you use a GBA), is if it uses a constant connection to a nationwide wireless network. Then you are talking monthly fees.
Not a competitor in my book.
If and when I need a PDA, I'll get a Palm. Right now, my Blackberry's PDA capabilities are sufficient. The GBA is fun. I enjoy playing Golden Sun, an amazing game. I don't expect to do work on my GBA... I have a laptop, I may get the Samsung Cell Phone/Palm IIIc combo, but who knows.
Not everything in life needs to do work. Sometimes I want to relax, and IR Chess seems less fun and relaxing than Golden Sun.
To each their own...
Alex
The PS2 will always be #1 this round, it's got such a head start and massive game library it'd be impossible to say otherwise.
Very true the US numbers don't look as good. I am more concerned with my US options as a US person.
Thanks everyone for responding. I said what I said with some scepticism myself.
A few things from the comments so far....
Yes what I said was speculation, if it wasn't it would be history.
I am assuming the 2 console rule. Which means PS2 has one of the slots down cold. The other is up for grabs. Since Xbox is going after grownups and Game Cube for kids, they are not competing heavily yet. They will start competing eventually though, it's just a matter of time before somebody starts that fight. This will go to round two.
When they do start competing heavily, it will be to late for Nintendo to start this moving.
If Nintendo's lawyers say they can't do an inital release region free they can still make the chip physically very modular and use a commonly understood unencrypted flash protocol to program it. Then the aftermarket will take care of the last step. Voltage/burnout problems are not unworkable. Don't underestimate the virute of customizability even for customers who don't understand what the good part of customization is. The key here is plausible denyability. The current lack of DVD ability is the perfect guise for reconstruction.
DVDs are exploding. In the past two months Blockbuster dumped half it's VHS section and balanced out DVD's and VHS for floorspace. In another year some things will be dvd only. People without geek budgets will need players.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
It's not unfair in that the previous post stated that Nintendo had no chance and we're about to lose everything.
For that to happen, Microsoft will have to break Nintendos hold on the Japanese market, something they haven't even dared enter yet.
Many reasons which include but are not limited to:
1) GBA is $90
Microsoft can't produce anything decent at the price.
2) GBA batteries last a _long_ time.
MS's will most likely be backlit and that will eat the batteries.
3) What does MS know about portable gaming? Nintendo's got the track record.
4) Who doesn't know what a game boy is?
Its got name recognition equal to nintendo. Both are sysnonimous with gaming.
5) Nintendo's got way to far a head start, as there will be a sequel to GBA and it will also be revolutionary.
Care to disagree/agree?
ok wise ass... my windows xp just rebooted itself for no reason because I selected the desktop properties... and continues to do so everytime I try to select the desktop properties.
No patches, no add-ons, no expansion packs, not even a real operating system. Making a dent in the console world requires a different philosophy than in the PC world. Once a game is released, it had better be self-contained and done.
And why did MS include a harddrive with the system. Probably just for these things that the PC developers would want to do. I really think that the harddrive is the end of the nice,easy and rarely crashing consoles.
The question is, can MSFT deliver the functionality of the Game Boy Advance?
They can crank out a box that specs out as a GBA competitor. But it won't BE a GBA competitor, because they don't grok kids gaming.
This is why Nintendo does well. They do grok kids gaming. You may hate Pokemon, you may not like Pimkin, but kids love them. The buttons are where they need to be - you don't get tired - the carts work easily.
The people who brought you xBox are giving you a PC solution for Game playing. And that's why it's a distant third in the game title sales. And why it will stay that way. They don't grok gamers. They never have.
And they lose money each box they sell. Nintendo makes money on every box they sell, which means they can sell games cheap. Cause the games are where the bucks are - so kids can buy more games. You may think it's nuts to buy the Pikachu Yellow version of Pokemon, the Red, the Blue, the Crystal, the Silver, the Gold - but it means they make money on each sale at Nintendo.
Microsoft thinks they'll get it all in one (flawed) release. And fix the bugs later. Nintendo thinks they'll make sure it works first, and save the extra things for future releases.
So, in short, MSFT will fail at this one too.
Of course, what do I know, I hold stock in both MSFT and Nintendo, among other companies. MSFT makes money due to dominance, holdings, and cash flow - the game business is not profitable, except with pro forma (fake) accounting methods. Nintendo makes money with this.
-
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
You don't GET a STOP error by default in XP... at least so I've been told by an XP user.
Good!
Even blowing away the original NES and Gameboy sales quarters. They are MAKING MONEY off each HARDWARE unit of the GameCube which MS and Sony are NOT.
I did not know that Nintendo is making money on the consoles.
They are LOSING money in hopes to sell more systems and the games will rake the lost revune back. This is what a lot of console makers do .. The system is not their money maker, it's the games. Well, Nintendo has BOTH money makers with the Gamecube. DVD playerback was never an option.
If you look at the PS2 and XBox they have so many compatability issues it's not even funny. Who would want a DVD player that doesn't play hardly any movies? Akira doesnt work on ANY of them. Even after Sonys 4 software ROM revisions for their DVD player Akira STILL hangs.
That sucks.
If you look at the lists for both systems there are countless awesome movies that just dont work. THATS why Nintendo didnt chose DVD playback. Trying to keep a console compatable for movies (Which isnt even the point of a console!) is a frustrating business.
I imagine that would be very expensive for them to maintain. That doesn't mean it would be too expensive to make it worth their while though.
Nintendo has already claimed the crown, IMO. I have 1 friend with an XBox, and know 3 others with a Gamecube, and 2 with PS2s. The fact that my friends are asking me to bring my Gamecube to their apts to play Super Smash Bro's tells me something: Sony and MS have no hope when Zelda/Mario/Metroid are out within the year.
As long as GTA3 is out for PS2 only there will be buyers. As for Microsoft...
I agree almost everything you said except I don't understand one thing...
With such insightful comments why are you an AC?
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath