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More on Future X-Box Capabilities
rtphokie writes "The oft - rumored expansion of Microsoft's Xbox from a gaming console to a more full featured entertainment hub is taking a little more shape. A C|Net article tells of a HomeStation device which is claimed to be slated for a fall release. In addition to Xbox game compatibility and DVD functionality, it is reported to have TiVo/UltimateTV like PVR functionality as well as WebTV like email and web surfing capabilities.
This "report" comes on the heels of the announcement of the Moxi Digital set-top MoxiMedia Center which was named "Best of Show" at the recent Consumer Electronics Show."
Where are the other developers? Why is X10 the only other company besides MS spending $$$ to educate the masses? I am sure there are better products out there, but just like DEC and Novell they don't have a marketing department.
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
I also hear that you can hook up the clapper to it.
Clap off, clap on....Ever claped a BSOD?
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
I still don't see a compelling reason to give Microsoft any of my money...
Shift happens. Fire it up.
Be sure to read the prognostication from Microsoft, then heed and obey so that other developers are frozen out of the market while we wait for Microsoft to deliver. Keep The System Alive!
I don't think I'd trust Microsoft to record any television I thought important enough to try to record. I'd get to the good part watching it later, and it would crash my TV. Then their help desk would tell me I needed to upgrade my television or something. No, I'll just stick to VHS tapes and my DVD player, thank you.
It's easy to stand out when the general level of competence is so low.
There seems to be a whole lotta rumors and assumptions in this article. They don't even agree on when it would happen. It might make sense but they might as well be guessing that Microsoft will launch porn site - I mean they have the resources to do it.
Anyone rememember many years back the Beatrice commercials? You'd see commercials for everyday brand name products and that last second of the commercial was a little jingle and the words 'We're Beatrice'.
Remember how fast thost commercials went away? People start freaking out when they realizes that 65-75% of the products they use where produced by a single company. Beatrice quickly dropped the 'look how freaking large we are' strategy and went back to just promoting the single brand names on their own.
I can't help but think the same thing is going to happen to microsoft. People are going to suddenly wake up and realize the the MS logo is on their computer, tv's, vcr's/dvr's, video games, toddler toys, kitchen appliances, car electroncs, etc...
The media port on the back of the Xbox is labelled Video Input/Output. If it had a method of storing PVR info on a network share, it might have everything it needs now.
Golly, this is the first pro Xbox message in this article...hope it doesn't get modded into oblivion!
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
What is that supposed to mean? Why the quote marks? Are you claiming the article is not, in fact, a report? Or are you just injecting cynical sarcasm to boost your /. reputation as a Microsoft-hater?
Perhaps you really have a reason, I don't know, but some description of why you would characterize this as a "report" instead of a report would at least provide some clarity as to your thoughts on the matter.
I think I'll stop here.
Why won't /. report on the Solaris security bug EVERYONE else is bringing up today? Or do we only discuss Microsoft exploits here?
someone actually came out and called that "Modified Pentium 3" what it really is...
Mosesmann said the HomeStation will be based on the Xbox design, which is similar to a PC and uses standard PC components such as an Intel Celeron processor and USB ports.
Homestation. If you listen real close, you can hear Sony's lawyers suiting up...
Shift happens. Fire it up.
Well as we all know, open source is unamerican so you can't, in good conscience, use open source software. So Linux, BSD, etc, are right out.
You could use a proprietary Unix but that's 70's era technology. You don't want to be using something that out of date.
There's a couple little oddities like BeOS out there but those don't have any software for them and they are doomed so why waste your money.
You could go with MacOS, but as we all know Steve Jobs isn't a techie and is therefor unqualified to be the figurehead for any product worth buying.
So your only reasonable choice is to go with Windows.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Personally, I don't like the idea of turning on my television to watch TechTV and getting the Blue Screen of Death.
python >>>
reduce(lambda x,y:x+y,map(lambda x:chr(ord(x)^42),tuple('zS^BED\nX_FOY\x0b')))
is that Microsoft actually has all of their stuff written already, while the MoxiBoxi is currently vapor-tastic. Unless, of course, Moxi is just planning on rolling out a slightly tweaked WinXP embedded box, which would create nothing more than a Homestation minus XBOX game compatability. Personally, I think Microsoft release WinXP embedded for no other reason than to make corporations feel silly about writing their own STB software. Then, when the suits decide to just use the XP Embedded softwares, they'll have a hard time distinguishing themselves from a superior (XBOX compatible) Homestation.
Xbox will have WebTV like capability?
Just when you thought the cursed thing had died.
Has anyone ever tried to make a webpage work with it? By far the most cryptic errors ever.
"This page is too large to display" on a TINY page.
Tivo? How big is the HD on the Xbox anyway.
Now I've been dreaming of this for years.
Why not instead of trying to make a PC out of an Xbox make an Xbox out of a PC?
Why not release a $150 card or even $300 one that you stick and your PC and tada you can play Xbox games on your nice non blury monitor?
Same with PS2 etc.
Staying on topic, M$ trying to make something do everything is typical. So expect the Xbox to try to do many things and fail at all of them.
In Soviet Russia, the television watches YOU!
Coming soon: No longer will you have to suffer from out awesome green graphic of death! It will become customisable! How about orange! Yellow? Avaliable in a week, the classics! Pure blue screen of death(tm). Now doesn't that bring back memories! Try to resist your nostalgic impulses, because we also have the newer WinNT Screen of Blue and While letters! (tm) Oh, those were the days, when you could try to decipher those cryptic codes and such. You are worried about costs! Don't be! With our new "WeAreWatchingYou24HoursADayEvenWhileYouCrap" technology youi can rent these on an hourly basis, and we will even have a hired goon come to your house and remove them after you have stopped payments! Did we say hired goon? We meant Nice Friendly Mr Happy Guy! Yay!
I think Mr. Gates put the hurt on that little venture
This was first brought up several months ago in an article on The Register, but everyone widely dismissed it as a hoax.
PC Format also covered it a few weeks ago, and people still dismissed it as a hoax.
Now its on C|Net, is it still consired a hoax??? Or is it now a definite sign of things to come?
Microsoft Germany spokesman Boris Schneider-Johne has denied (apologies for the german link) to Heise that Microsoft is working on such a thing.
michael at slashdot.org: The real answer is that a couple of the slashdot authors are sick.
In addition to Xbox game compatibility and DVD functionality, it is reported to have TiVo/UltimateTV like PVR functionality as well as WebTV like email and web surfing capabilities.
What about the rumored mind control capabilities? ... oh, TV ... never mind.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
"Old man yells at systemd"
I just can't help thinking thinking that if I want the capabilities of a TIVO, DVD player, game console, etc. then I would just go to the manufactures would DO this stuff well and buy a TIVO, etc. etc.
The XBox might be a fantastic piece of tech, but MS doesn't have a particularly good record in the consumer electronics market.
CrazyLegs
"Pork!!" said the Fish, and we all laughed.
That aside, show me another game console that can pull this off. Microsoft or not, this is a few years ahead of what Sony or Nintendo is going to be doing.
With the release of the Xbox as it is, it was a retarded move. They released a mediocre PC masquerading as a game console with mediocre games.
The only extras were the DVD (Sony beat them here) and the MP3 ripping/playing.
This isn't MS.
Microsoft strategy is to bundle several mediocre implementations in one box, undercut the competition, and establish a monopoly.
See MS Word vs. Wordperfect, Word got clobbered.
Excel vs. 1-2-3, Excel got clobbered.
Solution, sell "Office" for less than Wordperfect was individually? Boom, market yours.
Look at the 3 consoles. PS2 wins if you want a quantity of games, period. If you are into renting new games all the time with lots of variety, you need a PS2.
Gamecube has an amazing controller, tremendous graphics, and the best hardware in the business. (Blah, blah, blah, Mhz, blah, blah, blah, the Xbox processor is going to be slow compared to a customized PPC G3 with a game-taillored vector unit... think Altivec on crack in Photoshop shootouts... Intel only looks good in integer math... games don't do integer math...) Also it brings Nintendo's franchises, which are the best in the business.
What does Xbox have? Hype? Newness?
Microsoft needs to leverage more than their cash (willingness to lose $3 billion over three years to establish a presence is stupid... Atari, Nintendo, and Sony each dominated the market their first time out the door). There is no market openning now as there was Sony entered (3rd party hatred of Nintendo and Sega). The market loves Sony and the 25m-30m Nintendo fans love Nintendo.
Microsoft needs to bundle:
a mediocre DVD player
a mediocre video game player
a mediocre MP3 jukebox
a mediocre PVR (VCR Replacement)
and price them all at $300. I don't care about the specs, but they need to force families to think, "Sure the PS2 plays DVDs and games, but the MS Homestation does all this for the same price!"
Unfortunately as the linux industry comes down from its 2001 high, sites like this are devolving into raw, unreasoned advocacy. check out comp.os.os2.advocacy circa about 1996 to see where /. is heading.
Who here started to read the article:
"Prudential Securities analyst Hans Mosesmann, who covers graphics chip..."
And thought, "huh?...Hans Moleman?"
I can't wait to leave an XBox on 24/7 while it buffers my TV input through some add-on. I'm wondering how quick these units will die then.
... but there just seems to be a lot of hype about the abilities of these new machines. I'd wager that when released they'll have about 1/3 the proposed functionality. And that goes for anyone trying to produce these boxes, not just MS.
Remember a few years ago when Sony claimed the PS2 would be a digital hub with all of these same capabilities? Funny how its now been pushed back to the PS3.
It looks as if the bulk of what will make the MS unit work is going to rely on MS servers on the backend. Considering that they can't even deliver the software for their cable boxes on time I'd be real surprised if they can get this out in the next few years.
Again, not a MS bash. If Sony, Sega, Panasonic, Scientific Atlanta, et al were making such huge claims I'd be bashing as well.
This analyst, Mosesmann, that the article uses as its source is rather suspect as an impartial source of information here. The first sentence says he works for Prudential and covers Nvidia chips. He then says that this Homestation is true and that it will most likely use an Nvidia chip. As someone else said, this sounds a lot like he's just boosting Nvidia stock.
If so, will we be seeing the same security holes on the console that we see on the PC?
The irony here being that Beatrice was later bought out by a bigger company (ConAgra).
Other companies have changed their names as they grow (First Union bought out Wachovia, and took its name to boot).
So yeah that Microsoft strategy is a good idea. I mean can you imagine if people knew there was a single company controlling something like: AOL, AOL Instant Messenger, AOL TV, Asiaweek, Atlanta Braves, Atlanta Hawks, Atlanta Thrashers, Atlantic Records, Baby Talk, Book-of-the-Month Club, Capitol Records, Cartoon Network, Castle Rock Entertainment, Cinemax, CNN, CNNfn, Coastal Living, Columbia House, Comedy Central, CompuServe, Cooking Light, Court TV, DC Comics, Digital City, eCompany Now, Elektra, EMI, Entertaindom.com, Entertainment Weekly, ESPN, Family Life, Fortune Magazine, Goodwill Games, Hanna-Barbera, HBO, Headline News, Health Magazine, ICQ, InStyle, Life Magazine, Little Brown, Looney Tunes, Mad Magazine, Money Magazine, MovieFone, Netscape, New Line Cinema, NY1 News, the Open Directory Project, People Magazine, Progressive Farmer, Qwest, Real Simple, Rhino, Road Runner, Southern Accents, Southern Living, Spinner, Sports Illustrated Magazines, Sunset, TBS, Teen People, Telepictures Productions, This Old House, Time Magazines, Time Warner Cable, TNT, Tommy Boy Music, Turner Classic Movies, Virgin Records, Warner Brothers Companies (Movies, Television Network, Video, Music, Stores), Winamp, and World Championship Wrestling. I mean really, that would be crazy.
All anti-ms feelings aside, It only makes sense for them to do so.. basically it is ultimatetv+xbox... they will need to add larger hard drive to it and maybe more CPU and ram but they will be able to charge more for it as well... and believe it or not, if they keep the price under 500$-600$, it will even be to the benefit of consumers... why pay for 700$ replaytv, when you can get similar features plus gaming console... only makes sense for them... hell, even I might considered getting one as long as pvr features are good
I can't help but picture the futuristic house: a .net passport to access your house, then you use MS voice recognition to start your X-box controlled blender ("start blender") and it opens the start menu on your tivo. You go to the bathroom and realise that the toilet paper was used up by the MS house maid when the washing machine crashed because some idiot DOSed it. No problem, the X-Box terminal in the bathroom has already sent a message through MSN to MS toilet HQ, and the delivery is on the way.
Then some script kiddie uses a widely-known-but-little-repaired-exploit (TM) and bluescreens your house. You have to go down to the basement (again!), unplug the internet cable, unplug the power cable, short the solders on your Microsoft House BIOS, reinstall House XP 2005...
wazoo....
Imperium et libertas
Autocracy and freedom
The next step is a "business xBox", with Office, upgradeable via .NET; license fees paid annually to Microsoft; and no ability whatsoever to allow the installation or use of other applications on the machine. Rather like the dedicated word-processing machines in the 1980s.
Businesses that do not want to give the full power of PCs to employees would welcome that kind of device, if it was cheap enough and if they could be reassured that Microsoft was not accessing their confidential information (that last one is a big if to us, but remember how popular Gates is outside the tech industry).
Personally, I like this movement for several reasons.
If this trend is for real and the drive is more than just fad, it bodes well for computer users. Not only will this mean better stability, but lower prices.
On the otherhand, microsoft could hit a huge wall and realize how hard it is to build a truly reliable operating system and decide to back out. I doubt that will happen for a couple reasons. Microsoft's goals are to maximize share holder value and please the analysts. In order to do that, they have to diversify and expand the markets to minimize the impact of PC consumer demands. Considering the resources Microsoft has at its' disposal, it just might pull it off.
Then go somewhere else you pretentious jackass. This site is free, and you complain about it as if you're paying a monthly subscription. If you don't like the way things are discussed here, go elsewhere. I'm getting more than a little sick of seeing the 'holier than thou' posts that have sprung up more and more frequently over the last year or so. You act like you are owed something from the editors of this site. Or perhaps you have nothing better to do than troll around the weblogs all day.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
I call it a "report" because It appears to me to be more Microsoft leak than an independent report. Many ./'ers take on Microsoft hatred as their pet peave, for me, it's bad journalism.
The timing of it is what leads me to beleive this. This is why I included the information about Moxi. Bill and company probably wern't very happy about all the ink Moxi got from CES especially since the founder also created WebTV before Microsoft bought them. Moxi was very secretive about their products before pulling back the curtain on them at CES. They even set up their company Rearden Steel to keep things as hush hush as possible.
I'm no Microsoft hater (or Mac or Linux or whatever for that matter). I prefer to be technologically agnostic, something often sadly missing from ./
Combine this with their announced Mira and Freestyle technologies, and I could digitally record every episode of whatever, store it on my PC then spool it wirelessly to a flatpanel touchscreen. Who needs to pause TV when you can just carry it to the toilet with you?
All the above are correct except World Championship Wrestling. The WWF bought the WCW trademark and their tape library.
i remember back in the days of the 286 this same idea being bandied around. Look at Web-TV (cough sucks). Microsoft has been pushing this forever and if we decide that we want e-mail, surfing on our TV then it will happen. I'm of the opinion that it will not.
And I don't want a $1000 PC in each room.
When is someone going to create a credible web terminal with a small keyboard and an LCD screen that I can hookup to my DSL or Cablemodem and not have to pay MS or Compaq monthly fees for connecting to their network?
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
Why not look at this like a opportunity to make the linux-killer-application: LinuxTV
:-)
Nokia is working on something called Nokia MediaTerminal which is based on Linux.
(Sorry, only found this link in Swedish, but then again this is good time to learn and "Linux" is the same in Swedish
How could a woman be "better qualified" in keeping your pointer in tip-top condition than another human being equipped with a similar pointer?
It will also run MS new voice recongition software and crash on words like linux or sony... Hmm even better it will start playing a locally stored MS commercial over top fo the other one explaining why it is much better then anything else on the market
"People are going to suddenly wake up and realize the the MS logo is on their computer, tv's, vcr's/dvr's, video games, toddler toys, kitchen appliances, car electroncs, etc
but people havent woken up to Sony yet , Sony are just about the only company that can complete the circle from not only producing the Artists that make the media (and the equipment they use to create it) to delivering it to the consumers eyes/ears on their Sony stereo/TV/computer/etc yet people still shower them with praise and dont feel they are a monopoly, even microsoft are not in Sonys exclusive position
But it's an easy mistake to make.
Microsoft has already established itself as the vendor of consumer software. The media seems to be the next logical step. Think about it. What companies are successful (successful==profitable most of the time)? The companies that market directly to consumers (Wal-Mart, Coca Cola, Disney, et. al).
I've been saying it for the last 18 months to my colleagues: Microsoft will change itself into a media giant. Why? So they can beat out AOL/Time Warner and be the mega corporation. The Xbox and UltimateTV are only the first steps. .NET will find its way into our televisions before too long and before we know it, we won't be paying any more mind to it as some people do the Timex logo on their wristwatch.
So you don't think you need to pay for things? Good luck with that.
Who do I have to kill to get one of these? Anyone know what OS it runs?
a single company controlling something like: AOL ... Time Warner ... ESPN
No. ESPN is Disney, the other company we love to hate thanks in no small part to the late Sonny Bono, and ESPN.go.com is Disney and Microsoft.
Will I retire or break 10K?
well lets turn it right around at you...why don't you bugger off you yes-man, group-think twit? yes, all you are doing is hiding in the group-think of slashdot. how brave of you.
Sony was the first to try such a thing with it's PS1. It saw that a video game machine with additional functionality might be appeal to the "mass market", mostly adults without children who hadn'y been interested in a home console until that point. The PS1 played audio CD's and was thought of by sony as a component of the Sony "Home entertainment" vision and not as a dedicated game machine.
With that approach, the PS1 conquered the mass market. It took less than two years for the ps1 to penetrate 10% of American homes. By comparison, it took color TV 13 years, 11 for the VCR and 6 for audio CDs.
Now Microsoft is trying to do the same thing with a different set of functionality. Seems like a good idea, but it's a very different world now.
Game consoles are no longer just a niche. 32% of US homes have one sort of console or another. Sony is by far the market leader, and the PS2 is backwards compatable with a huge PS1 base. Whats more, it also plays DVDs. Microsoft will have to price their homestation offering well over the PS2 (or suffer huge losses). It will be interesting to see if consumers are interested in the functionality for the price.
Meanwhile, Nintendo has stayed true to it's fmaily oriented niche and remains by far the most profitable of the players from a pure video game approach. And while all activity is happening in the "Home Entertainment" world, Nintendo is virtually unchallnged on the handheld side with its gameboy and gameboy advance. GBA is projected to become a 500 million dollar business this year!
If I had to choose right now, I'd rather be Nintendo...
-rg
In another announcement,
Microsoft has recruited as a new Research Associate, Edward Nigma, of Gotham City.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
IMHO, if you want a computer, buy a computer, if you want a dvd player, buy a dvd player, and if you want a game console, buy a game console. If you try and put them all together into one box, you are going to lose quality.
So they're introducing an all-in-one device that will allow you to:
1. Play games
2. Play DVDs
3. Watch TV
4. Surf the web
5. Write email
Gee, that sounds an awful lot like my computer!
So why do they bother? First and foremost, because this is their opportunity to control the one thing they've been unable to get so far: the hardware. Now they will finally be able to implement their digital rights infringement, etc, without fear of pushing the user away (after all, who in their right mind would give up using a piece of hardware after they paid $1000+ for it).
There's more to this scheme, however. Take a closer look at the list of activities shown above. Notice the absence of any kind of development, programming, hacking, etc. The long term goal of this strategy is to "phase out" these kinds of activities, because they are dangerous to the Microsoft monopoly. Eventually, they want everyone's recreational activities to be limited to the 5 items listed above (give or take a few).
Impossible, you say? Not with a little careful manipulation of the market. I'd estimate that 90% of the PC market these days are our beloved Joe Sixpacks, who simply want to do items 1-5, nothing more. Instead of trying to sell general purpose hardware and then customize it with the software (OS), they will start selling customized hardware, which will have only 10% less market share than PCs. With a "good" marketing campaign (which we know MS is capable of), they can strike a huge blow to the general purpose PC business, which will either drive it out of existence, or drive prices way up. Either of these outcomes will make PCs virtually inaccessible to consumers. Over the long term, consumers will lose interest in hacking/development. It might take an entire generation, but it will happen.
Thanks for tuning in.
I agree with you about the amount of people posting that /. is crap, etc. They don't have to read the site.
/., I'm just pointing out that complaining about bias has nothing to do with whether you personally choose to look at the site or not.
But he does have a valid concern about bias. The site may be free, but it does have influence. A lot of people read the site, and (I suspect) are swayed by content on it. If the people running the site decide to present biased news, then this could have a significant effect on opinions within the IT community. In the same way, I complain about the biased news presented on TV and in the newspapers. I'm not complaining that I have wasted my money on a newspaper with junk news in (that's my option to buy/not but it), but I do complain when the media's spin on news controls public opinion.
On the other hand, however, I don't think there IS that much bias in
It could be a long shot, but any chance that they're trying to make Xbox the center of home entertainment as soon after Apple announced their new iMac the center of their digital devices?
Dateline 2005:
Joe Sixpak was found dead in his home today, of dehydration. Apparently in the process of reinstalling his HomeStation after it had been cracked, he passed away awaiting new activation codes from User Support. Without the activation codes, faucets.Net wouldn't deliver water, refrigerator.Net wouldn't open to provide fluids, and lock.Net wouldn't let him out of the house.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Linus signed my X-Box! ^_^
In Canada on CNN, AOL Time Warner runs a "aren't we great" ad that basically does just that. It lists: AOL, CNN, CNN Headline News, TSB, TNN, Tuner Classic Movies, Time, Warner Brothers, New Line Cinema, Netscape and maybe others. I think it should be Exhibit A in any Microsoft defense any against the charge that they are attacking, Netscape - the little guy.
Moxi says that they will be using Linux which is interesting for a company founded by the man behind MS's WebTV.
I might be missing something here but why would you want one box that does all this?
Modern games require vast amounts of processor time for the graphics and AI's that gamers demand and on the other side video encoding codexs are pretty processor intensive as well. Taking all this into account what happens when your mid game and the PVR function deciedes that your missing you favourty program and kicks in to record it? It finds it's got no RAM to use as a buffer and no CPU time as little billy is busy beating up the end of level boss in this months top of the game chart?
If all this has been separated out then you don't get these conflicts and you can upgrade/replace each part as and when needed.
Just my 2p
Look at the 3 consoles. PS2 wins if you want a quantity of games, period.
Four.
Nintendo currently sells two consoles: the GameCube, and the 32-bit Game Boy Advance. (Yes, the GBA is a console. It has twice the power of Super NES, and a third party makes a TV adapter.) The GBA can play over a thousand official games, including games designed for Game Boy and Game Boy Color. (Are there more Game Boy games or more PS1 games?) That doesn't even count the demos and mini-games that any C programmer can develop and run on the system with a flash card or $50 link cable.
Gamecube has an amazing controller
I agree, but a fellow has to admit that it's a copy of PlayStation's with the L1 button removed, the L2 and R2 buttons made analog (like Dreamcast), and the left pad and stick interchanged.
Intel only looks good in integer math... games don't do integer math
Yes, 3D games are mostly floating-point, but 2D games (such as ports of some arcade fighting games) use integer math, and game AI uses heavy integer math.
Microsoft needs to bundle: a mediocre DVD player, a mediocre video game player
Microsoft currently sells this for $330 (XBox + DVD dongle).
a mediocre MP3 jukebox
Well within the XBox's capability, but Microsoft would rather use the WMA format than what some journalists have termed "Music Piracy 3".
a mediocre PVR (VCR Replacement)
So you're proposing an XBox + Ultimate TV combo deck. It'll be a while before Microsoft can get costs down to put the price below $300.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Oh, boy. I can't wait to be in the middle of my favorite video game while recording my favorite TV show when the crappy thing hangs up. Maybe MS can create a colorful error screen that informs the user that they "get" to start their game at his/her last save point (you did save recently, didn't you) and that they will need to catch the remainder of the show you were recording in three weeks when they repeat it.
NO Way :P
Macintosh will live and continue giving me the chance of having a computer that works @ home.
I "use Sun" @ work (big telecomunications company), so no worries there, MS and Intel don't stand a chance in the "professional market", where reboot's have other costs besides getting you bored.
Migx
Hey, maybe this time they can make some good controllers that fit the human hand.
If it is running a web browsing feature, chances are that Microsoft will want to run Internet Explorer on it. If so, will we be seeing the same security holes of the console that we see on the PC?
This might be how some reverse engineer cracks a future version of the XBox and runs its own code on the system, opening the floodgates to independent software development. Microsoft does not want this to happen. Ever.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Wow, Disney owns Disney Vacation club? Noooo.
Personally, I like this movement for several reasons ... for the consumer, the PC-ness of computers will begin to disappear and become transparent
Yes, but what if Microsoft releases a closed system that developers have to pay big bucks to get into? (They already have: XBox.) Say goodbye to free software if PCs begin to head in that direction.
Will I retire or break 10K?
A PC has been more than capable of "TiVo", and every other functionality that this box is planned to do for years. I've always wondered why no OEM ever decided to sell systems with capture cards or All-in-Wonder type setups. But, I'm pretty sure I already know the answer to that question.
Every PC maker yearns for a killer app, which as anyone who has ever done so knows, MPEG-2 capture+encoding is a processor, memory, and HDD performance hog. Video editing and encoding is probably the only thing that sells >80GB HDDs.
Yet, there aren't many, if any, OEMs pushing this application for fear of making the Movie/TV cartel angry. But hey, on a X-Box that is secure against users using it, I'm sure this will just explode.
--
Special note for trolls: If such PC setups are "difficult to setup" or some other nonsense, then maybe you should notice that I'm talking about OEMs. Joe Twelvepack isn't an OEM.
Is it just me, or does it seem that (in general) technology companies want to convey the image that they are huge, while more traditional companies prefer to obscure their size by hiding behind dozens of different brand names? AOLTW is interesting because they're a mix of both worlds... AOL seems to like putting their logo on everything.
Absolutely brilliant trolling. I haven't had such a good laugh in a long time.
So Microsoft is taking their XBox (which has yet to come up with a really compelling out-of-box selling point), their Ultimate TV ("we're better than TiVo, but we're not sure how"), and WebTV (ha ha ha) and put them all in one box and expect it to be successful?
Heck, if my ATI All-In-Wonder recorder actually worked with XP, we'd already *have* this. Without that high-pitched whine that TVs give off, too... (not to mention the least compatibility-tested web browser in the world.)
i think your asp problems are probably due to the fact that intBrwID is treated as a local variable in the process sub.
update comments set karma=-1, reason='offtopic' where sid=26315
Bill Gates himself announced and described this in his keynote address at CES a week ago. It's all part of the Microsoft hegemony for world domination, which de rigeur must include control of all devices in the home. Soon you won't be able to take a crap in your own networked toilet without a toilet network service license from Microsoft entitling you to do so. And don't even think of taking an unlicensed crap, or the BSA will come after you.
Don't know about you, but I can't wait!
YHBT, YHL, HAND.
Have you noticed the proclivity of mom and pop type operations to excessively use quotation marks in bizarre and confusing ways? i.e. In a laundromat you'll see `"NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR LOST OR STOLEN CLOTHING"' '"MANAGEMENT"': What does that mean???? As you mentioned, quotes either imply sarcasm, or the author's doubt about the voracity of a statement, so when you see quotations used around basic, obvious claims it really is perplexing.
DOWN WITH QUOTATION MARKS!
I can't help thinking about Jon Katz's artice about iMacs yesterday. I think his point was that Apple should abandon their strategy of trying to create a digital hub for entertainment, and instead be more like Microsoft? Hmmmmm....
"I am a cipher, a cipher, wrapped in an enigma, smothered in secret sauce" -Jimmy James
I love my GBA. It isn't a substitute. It's awesome, has a monopoly on the handheld market, but it isn't in the same competition as the others. You don't see people deciding between a GBA and GCN, or a GBA and PS2. If you want a handheld, you get a GBA.
The games rock, its a money-maker for Nintendo, etc. However, it isn't competition for home systems.
I won't grant that the Gamecube controller is a rip-off of the Playstation's controller.
To me it is a natural evolution.
The Playstation's controller was a rip-off of the SNES controller that got extra shoulder pads and LATER analog sticks (after they ripped the idea off Nintendo).
The Gamecube controller is very clearly derivative of the N64's controller. The left hand options before (D-pad + L, or Analog + Z) have been merged into (D-pad OR Analog) + L with the added bonus of the D-pad and Analog both being usable with an easy switch.
The button layout on the right is the SNES layout reoriented around the reality of a primary button (A), secondary button (B) and optional extra buttons (X, Y).
The SNES had four equal buttons, but they were rarely uses as such.
The Z-button? It's a hack tacked on at the last minute for people worried about losing a button. There it is, developers, please don't use it much.
Analog shoulder pads, brilliant new invention (like N64's analog stick, SNES's shoulder pads, and NES's D-pad) that everyone will copy.
C-stick, it's neat. An adaption of the C-buttons into a stick. The C-buttons had the advantage of letting the N64 ACT like a 6-button controller (for things like Street Fighter).
Nintendo's N64 controller was large and unwieldy but REALLY flexible.
Games didn't use the flexibilty.
Gamecube keeps the controls and options and tweaks the layout to be more useful.
No it isn't 3-controllers in one (theoretically, N64 = Dpad + buttons, Dpad + analog, Analog + buttons), but 1 awesome controller with everything in a clsoe distance.
Yes the Playstation dual-shock is a nice controller (once you get past the shock of not grabbing the left side and having the primary controller there... drove me crazy on the N64 and hit me again now), but the GCN isn't a ripoff of Sony.
Oh well. I suppose all's well that ends well. I just wanted it to be said that I didn't call that until the very end.
I'm the tasty treat nobody can resist!
IM Me! AOL IM:Tasty Beef Jerky
Tivo and saved games on the same hard drive? I can see it now:
"You recorded over my Halo saved games with... TRL?!? AAARGH!"
*sigh*
Learn to Play Go
Down with Microsoft,
and
Down With Xbox
Help! I've fallen in a karma hole and I can't get up!
And MS is about to fail in EMEA and asia .... maybe US will still be a "niche" market.... but they are loosing shares since their early launch !
Doesn't anyone think this might be reaching too far? Would this thing be able to record while someone wanted to play games? If Microsoft's already losing tons of money on the X-Box alone, it doesn't make sense that they would cram even more crap in there and then either lose more money on the combo, without even the guarantee that people will buy games to make up for the loss. Their only hope would be to destroy the competition, and then jack up the tv listings subscriptions prices.
If the device announced was running LINUX you'd all be lining up saying "WOW!!! THIS IS THE COOLEST THING EVER!!!!".
/.'s credibility was shot about a year ago when Linux stopped being an alternate OS and became a religion. Now you people don't even think, which is sad.
Secondly, this is NOT an XBOX EXPANSION, it's an ENTIRELY NEW PRODUCT. MS already owns WebTV and some other "consumer" type products, so why is a melding of these things so OUTRAGEOUS to you?
Finally, my XBox has never had a blue screen of death. It runs great, VERY fast, very stable, so what are you complaining about?
When you people stopped taking things on their own merits and started ONLY looking at who makes it you lost all credibility.
Armand28
"-LINUX was a good OS, before it became a religion."
Well, before MS attacked Netscape, who owned Netscape? Ooops.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Ohmigod, that is HILARIOUS. The fact that you changed MS to M$ has to be one of the funniest and original things anyone has ever done on Slashdot. Being the 10 millionth person to put something like this into a post is the height of comic genius and shows true independent thinking. I once heard this one about WinDOZE...
The DC controller was horrible. I blocked it from my memory...
Let's START with the fact that the cord comes out of the controller in the wrong part... With a notch to run it back through?
This thins is huge and hideous... I feel like hitting the shoulder pads makes me lose balance.
How many fucking adapters does a controller need spaces for? How many adapaters does each adapater need?
The N64 was bad enough when the rumble pack came out, the dreamcast controller sucks ass, competitive with the Xbox controller.
Alex
The scary part is that there are only 5 other huge media corporations in the world, each with a list that's just as impressive. The pdf above doesn't go into the same kind of detail, but still gives a good idea.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
WebTV had its own OS; Perlman complained that after MS bought WebTV, they were only interested in cramming WinCE into WebTV, rather than improving the existing service and providing better customer satisfaction. Using Linux in Moxi is a commentary on MS's way of doing business.
Subject says it all. Has anyone ever managed to get a crash out of an Xbox? If so, what happened, and how did the box respond? Hopefully not with a BSOD.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
If nothing else, MS trying to "strike a huge blow to the general purpose PC business, which will either drive it out of existence, or drive prices way up will sure increase sales of apple machines. And they know this.
Over the long term, consumers will lose interest in hacking/development. It might take an entire generation, but it will happen.
If MS's monolopy was absolute, you'd be right. But it isn't. They know this. They will not introduce features that virtually hand market share to thier competitors.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Microsoft has already made the previous copyright owner of the name XBox rich, and now it looks like they are going to make some guy in China that owns homestation.com domain rich. Unless, of course, they pay off the WIPO folks to get it for them.
But that is silly, because Microsoft would NEVER do anything mean, nasty, immoral, or illegal. Like fake videotape evidence in court or a ZDNet poll, or tell you that Internet Explorer is inseperable from the OS even when www.98lite.com tells you how to do it, or even use it's monopoly power to squash potential competition.
James
http://james.nontrivial.org
If you want only a gaming machine, you buy the Xbox. If you want to buy an entertainment machine you buy Homestation. Whats the big deal?
/. and a lot of people here are either uneducated (xbox emulator) or just outright blind.
The problem is with
Sony wants to do the same thing, but I don't see you bitch about it. Sony has far more products than Microsoft. They have watches, alarm clocks, radios, cd players, movies, Televisions, ect. I don't see you bitching about it.
If Homestation was a linux box, you all would be masterbating about it. How pathetic is that?
Just FYI, World Championship Wrestling was bought by the World Wrestling Federation from Time Warner/AOL.
- Arcadio
Winamp isn't a company. You mean Nullsoft. ;)
I'd like a peripheral that plugs into the X-Box and serves up a piping hot loaf after a hard game of Halo. If Microsoft can make a paperclip talk, they can certainly make a game box that produces fresh baked goods.
No, it has a better controller
/painful/, but I can't imagine a kid using that thing without feeling some pain.
Wow. That is (seriously) the first time I've heard that.
It seems the universal bitch about the Xbox is the gigantic, unweildly controller.
I have both a GC and an XB controller, and IMO, the GC controller beats the XB one easy.
I have large hands so the XB controller wasn't
Yes, the GC controller is similar to a PS controller, but the PS controller design is a good one that works equally well with all sizes of hands.
It seems like MS decided to randomly mix together design concepts from like 5 different controllers, and got, well, just that - a big, mutated frankenstein of a controller.
C-X C-S
the peecee users are the 'content consumers'. they will watch, be marketed to, and be controlled. (they have already proven they dont mind- see passport)
/firewire board, then add software, then struggle to integrate it, etc. the best solution on the market going forward into the 'digital video' era, is the mac, plain and simple.
the mac users among us are the 'content CREATORS'.
where do you suppose the better jobs will be? with the creators, of course.
where do you suppose the better 'eXPerience' will be? on the platform that has been creating content for years.
iMovie is YEARS ahead of any peecee editing program, is free, and is the lead-in to more expensive (and mac-exclusive) programs like final cut pro. Can you do FCP things on peecees? sure- if you want to spend more than FCP ($999) for just a hardware encoding
You guys all just keep puttering along with windows/linux/lindows/etc. in a few years you will be where i was last year, because of the integration/ease/power of the macintosh.
good luck xbox suckers.
The Xbox has dollar bill slot like you find on ATMs.
Except this one only takes dollars in.
In this way MS can dispense with all the hoopla about
supporting this or that capability and get to the point
of what the Xbox is really about!
In college, my roommate brought home a sheet of paper that listed the relationships and hierarchies of all the American entertainment giants. That was probably 3 years ago, it might be interesting to compare that to todays.
Frogs are primitive animals - so the occasional extra toe is not that unusual. But this is very unusual.
I disagree with you on an assessment of computer hardware so I'm a moron?
I'm not a huge Halo fan. It looks good, but I don't like FPS games. However, I really enjoy Luigi's Mansion. It's a fun game, not particularly deep, but fun and silly.
However, I think that picking two arbitrary games (one system's flagship with 5 years of development, the other a technical demo that morphed into a short game) and comparing the systems is a little silly.
The hardware is different.
The GPUs are really hard to tell. I THINK that the Xbox GPU is stronger, but I don't know enough about the Gamecube's to know for sure.
The CPUs are night and day. The Xbox has all the legacy garbage of the Intel Celeron, compared to the sleak Gamecube CPU. The Gamecube CPU is a more intelligent design, better at floating point, and overall should kick its butt.
Xbox has more memory, point Xbox. Given the use of standard computer RAM, it should have 128MB, not 64MB. Stupid decision. As a result, this advantage become more minor than it should.
GCN has faster RAM. There is RAM everywhere, with highspeed interconnects.
This lends itself towards not having slowdowns. This should allow the GCN to sit closer to 100% utilization all the time.
The game development environment is more condusive to building games with depth? What the fuck are you talking about. The Nintendo style of not having FMV lends itself to games that you PLAY more.
The Xbox is a crappy PC thrown in a black box on the theory that games will be better because the hardware is fixed. However, if you lock all the hardware behind an abstraction layer, you don't really have much room to optimize.
The advantage to the Xbox is that you can release games NOW that require its hardware, while PC games normally have to target PCs 2-3 years old. Given that everything save the GPU is 2-3 years old in the Xbox, this isn't a REAL advantage.
Xbox has the hard drive and larger memory areas, this lends itself towards these deeper games that you discuss. However, having a GPU that shares the memory really knocks down that memory advantage.
The Xbox is a sloppy system, justified entirely on hype based upon numbers that aren't that good when you analyze them.
Two years and the Xbox is toast.
Microsoft's strategy may be based upon the fact that they can crank out PC-based systems with near zero R&D. This means that they can rev the hardware every 3 years. Shrink the lifespan of the consoles, and you cramp Sony and Nintendo's abilities to do R&D. Take all the money out of the industry and Sony pulls out, and Nintendo gets hurt. Then you can leave crap out there and sell games.
With Windows, MS needs to force you to WANT to upgrade. With an X-box monopoly, they just need you to WANT a new game, no need to put out new hardware or anything.
What a sad, sad, sad possible future.
Ummm... What do you call NeXT?
Man, are you ignorant.
And everyone wondered why the XBox came with such a big hard drive that supposedly was only used for save game files...
User logging on... 300 baud... 300 BAUD?!? (Click!) NO CARRIER
When I finish reading these posts I feel like singing: "Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me..."
The technology behind a PVR isn't that complicated- a hard drive, a tuner, and MPEG encoder / decoder, video out, channel listings, etc... But getting one that really works well for the user requires quite a bit of subtle work -- if you've ever used a Tivo, you can appreciate the amount of thought and work that went into the software in the unit.
Fact is, a lot of "convergence" vendors are going to be coming out with these boxes (like the MoxieMedia Center) that not only are a PVR but are going to try to do a bunch of things. I'm not bashing Moxie in particular (I've never used one) but I have a hard time believing that a company without MS's resources is going to be able to spend much time getting the user experience right for each of the functions.
I hope Tivo and / or SonicBlue are smart and licensing their software technologies all over the place, because otherwise, we're going to be subjected to a bunch of exciting sounding boxes that really disappoint when you turn them on and try to use them.
However, [a portable system] isn't competition for home systems.
If you only have one TV and multiple children, it is. The kids will fight over who gets to play on the TV and who has to sit out and play on the GBA.
I won't grant that the Gamecube controller is a rip-off of the Playstation's controller. To me it is a natural evolution.
Granted.
with the added bonus of the D-pad and Analog both being usable with an easy switch.
This is going to make Tetris Worlds hellish. It'll be quite difficult to make the pieces do what you want because the digital pad is so far away from the palm of the hand that the thumb must be twisted from the normal 45-degree orientation to reach the pad. You may get similar problems to what happens when trying to play Tetris with a SideWinder USB joypad (SWPNP or SW GamePad Pro), such that it's next to impossible to push straight down without also pushing to the side.
The button layout on the right is the SNES layout reoriented around the reality of a primary button (A), secondary button (B) and optional extra buttons (X, Y).
Two problems: 1. It's confusing for Super NES veterans, who associate the primary button with the letter B and the upward direction with the letter X and see the Cube's buttons as rotated 90 degrees clockwise, and 2. it's nearly impossible to press B and Y with one thumb on the Cube's controller.
The SNES had four equal buttons
According to nintendo developer guidelines (which have been partially leaked over the years), the Super NES had two main buttons (A B) and two secondary buttons (Y X).
However, the hardware interface treated B and Y as primary and A and X as secondary. The interface was based on the NES Four Score interface, which concatenated the data of players 1 and 3 (each in A B Sel St Up Dn Lt Rt order) onto player 1's port and players 2 and 4 onto player 2's port. Super NES, on the other hand, uses B Y Sel St Up Dn Lt Rt A X L R 0 0 0 0 order, where the 0's apparently have something to do with mouse quadrature (the mouse buttons are sent on A and X; try plugging a mouse into port 2 and using the pad test in kirby's avalanche).
but they were rarely uses as such.
Several Super NES games used the buttons as a second directional pad, such as Smash TV, where B fired south, A+X fired northeast, etc. Many PlayStation games (such as Forsaken) also came configured this way. This was made explicit in the design of the Virtual Boy and Nintendo 64 controllers.
The C-buttons had the advantage of letting the N64 ACT like a 6-button controller
And the Wishtech Adaptoid (an N64 to USB/HID adapter) even returns button information to Windows as if it were a 6-button.
(for things like Street Fighter).
Or in real-time tactical sims such as Starcraft 64.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Also, as far as the analog shoulder buttons go, yes, the DC had those first, but but the GameCube's are so much more comfortable (besides, the N64 was the first to use a trigger
Nope, Super NES was the first. In the right-side playing position (left hand on center arm, right hand on right arm, which most games used), the N64's Z trigger corresponds to the Super NES's L trigger.
but I'm not sure if it was analog).
It was digital.
Will I retire or break 10K?
What is more likely is that Microsoft is trying to divide the pie into two segments and PC types: business and home.
The worry here is that "business" systems (that is, real PCs) will be available only to corporations and cost $5,000 for the base model, something that very few free software developers can afford.
Also, a closed system can be made more stable
Which will prompt Sun, HPaq, etc. to sell "integrated" (i.e. closed) business "solutions" instead of relatively open workstations and servers. Do you know of any large market (money-wise) for open systems?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Not really, he created webTv then it was bought by Microsoft. I remmeber reading somewhere that it originally ran on linux and mircosoft was hellbent on changing it over to theirown os.
.sigs suck, thus nothing here.
Who needs Dell, Compaq and IBM? Microsoft is about to cut them out of the deal completely. Why not just sell your own computer?
The question is, how far will MS take their 'hardware lust'? how close to being Apple will they get before the afore mentioned giants turn on them?
Rule #1 in business: Dont compete with your own customers.
Grabbing the mpeg-2 stream from a satellite box is a great idea. Something like 5C encryption on the stream piped over USB would keep the MPAA happier.
The TiVo uses a hardware real-time encoder because the main CPU is wimpy. A Pentium 4 @ 2.2GHz is probably getting close to doing MPEG-2 @ 720x480x60 in real time with some quality. Creative's requirements (Video Blaster Movie Maker) for 352x240 MPEG-1 or 2 (at probably reduced quality as well as resolution) is a 350MHz PIII.
Instead of compromising on quality, though, you could add an external MPEG encoder, connected via USB like the ADS Tech. Instant DVD (under $200). That's expensive now (compared with $300 for the Xbox), but give it time.
{Yes, full-speed USB is capable of carrying video. 12 megabits/sec > 5-6 mbps of DVD. USB won't carry lightly compressed video like DV (3.6 megaBYTES/sec). For that you do need firewire or high-speed USB.}
The Xbox's hard drives are little small for PVR, though. An external USB connected drive with encryption would be a good idea.
If we're putting the hard drive & possibly video encoder in an external box, the need for the xbox is diminished, though. If we're doing analog PVR from any source, the xbox can provide UI & control. If we're doing PVR from satellite, though, might as well run the UI on the satellite box & make the add-on just a USB hard drive with CPRM.
I am almost crying from laughter. Why are you all so worried about the XBox? I love Linux, have used it for the past 5 years on every server/workstation I can. I own systems from Sony, Nintendo and now Microsoft. To date, I have to say despite my inital hesitations I love the XBox. No I haven't had any 'blue screens' and I don't expect I will. I preffer games on my councle because I don't want to fork over another 400 to NVidia every 4 months and then buy games that only use the system to about 60-70% of what they could because the developer had to code for however many hardware types there are, councle hardware is both cheaper and has a much longer life in use, period. Use your computer for work and
The PS2 and GameCube are both great too, I like the XBox because I didn't want to go spend another 300 on a DVD Player and I wanted the DD5.1. PS2 doesn't really have either worth a damn. Although they have the better games (as would be expected from a system out for 12+ months ahead of time). GameCube won't ever get the more mature games I am looking to play (only so many times I can play a Mario game)...but its a nice system none the less.
The only truely scary thing is you people who are freaking out about MS 'running your house' and crap. Get over it, build your own house, don't buy one with such features, something.
I'll bet it includes a M$ dumbed down Office version, and some more internet tools (M$ Messenger, M$ irc client, M$ Outlook-a-like etc.) because there's a huge marked out there that doesn't *need* a general purpose computer. You've seen it already with games. Now the choice is OpenGL and PC marked or DirectX and PC *and* Xbox marked. It's the new idea of embrace and extend. If you want to embrace our Xbox marked, you need to follow our extensions (and our rules).
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
In due fairness, Comedy Central is jointly owned by Viacom (yeah, that other mega-entertainment company) and HBO (which is an "AOL/TW Property", of course).
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
how far will MS take their 'hardware lust'? how close to being Apple will they get before the afore mentioned giants turn on them?
Whoa!
Good fscking point!
However, an Xbox2++ might eat away at the home market for PCs which doesn't seem that profitable anyway. Microsoft doesn't seem interested in going after the higher margin powerdesktop/workstation/server market. Might Dell & Co. just let 'em have a bit of home & concentrate on business?
It's Tarkin, damnit!, not Vader.
Anybody for Viacom? Let's see, Infinity (radio + billboards), CBS, Paramount, MTV, VH1, Nick...
I'm sure Bertelsmann is similar?
Is there an easy way to find this info? The last time I searched, I tried "company hierarchies", "company trees", and some others, but none of my searches turned up anything useful.
Though I'd be very interested in finding such a list, I find that -- in lieu of such a list -- it can be helpful to just check on the websites of the MegaCorps themselves (as they seem to be more than eager to list their subsidiary companies).
For instance, I've been boycotting Pillsbury ever since they sent cease-and-desist letters to universities and Sun Microsystems (among others) for using the term "bake off" to describe their protocol evaluation sessions.
But, it doesn't just end there. With a little checking, you can find out that General Mills owns Pillsbury. And, for a boycott to be effective, that meant that I needed to also boycott the rest of General Mills. So, for instance, that means no Yoplait, no Cheerios or Chex, no Betty Crocker or Bisquick, and no Jolly Green Giant, Old El Paso, or Progressive (among other brands). And, you know what? I've stuck with it -- to this day, I don't buy from Pillsbury, General Mills, or any of its subsidiaries.
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
s/Progressive/Progresso (doh)
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
Time Warner sold World Championship Wrestling off to WWF Entertainment, Inc. almost a year ago.
Please check your facts before posting lies to Slashdot. I always do!
Future HomeStation error: "Error: A newer version of Microsoft Word is required for you to listen to this CD."
it's a pretty simple thing to do. there could be four usb ports on the front. controllers, hubs, keyboards (useful for typing in name), etc. can be plugged in. and controllers can be used on computers and maybe even other consoles.
Qwest is a company all its own. You make a good point, but come on, ESPN and Qwest are obvious. How many more mistakes are there?
sulli
RTFJ.
It seems taht everything is going to merge into one super-device. Which can play games, get on the internet, watch DVD's, watch TV--the list goes on. It's kind of like FM radio cards in PC's. Most people don't have them, and those who have them don't usually use them. I can't speak for everybody, but the one I was foolish enough to buy I've hardly used. It just shows that rolling everything into one device, doesn't always make things better. There's a healthy medium between complete integration and total sepereation.
--
Adobe's anti-counterfeiting softw
This Linuxhead you slammed is an MCSE. I kicked Linux out of my server room a while ago. We run OpenBSD for almost all our Unix needs (I run Linux database servers far from the Internet because of OpenBSD performance problems).
Look at the Xbox hardware. It is a Celeron processor with OTS components that are found in PCs. The Gamecube uses a custom processor that was based on IBM's desktop CPU, but with a custom GPU and unusual memory configurations.
The system, componentwise, is a PC, with a custom OS (using kernel code from Win2K, but a completely custom Ring-0 OS). The kicker to me is the inclusion of DirectX. DirectX means that applications for WinXbox are source compatible with Win32.
All the yelling in the world that this is a custom system built for gaming doesn't make it so. It is a PC with a good gaming sound card AND a special chip that converts PC resolutions -> HDTV resolutions (taking up to 1024x768 resolutions).
It burns cash for MS because the component costs are expensive. However, their R&D costs are really low. It's a tradeoff.
However, if you rev the system regularly, there is less time to recoup R&D costs. The Sony, Sega (Saturn and later), and MS strategy is to burn money early on and make money late in the console's life. A R&D light approach let's MS put everyone out of business.
The engineer in me HATES x86. I understand why it was a good solution in the late 70s and early-mid 80s. It became an ugly hack in the early 90s, and is now a legacy solution.
Including support for "legacy" assembly code in Microsoft's first generation video game console is stupid.
The Gamecube has horrible software for the crucial 16-24 segment, but find outside of that. At 22, I'm unusual in LIKING Nintendo's offerings. We'll see what happens, because my peers were kids for the NES days, in college during the N64 days, and now out starting to earn a living. We'll see what happens, but I think that Gamecube has a shot.
I REALLY like Luigi's mansion. Pikmin is awesome. I don't like DOA3 or Halo.
I have Rogue Leader II, it's fun to show off my Gamecube in surround sound and 480p. However, I don't really care for the game.
I'm a 22 year old college graduate, and I like the game cube.
Alex
AOL-TW doesn't own World Championship Wrestling... their steroid-driven competition, the WWF does.
;-)
But I get the point
I read that the xbox dvd player spins backwards so that the games can't be read on a pc (presumably to stop copying and emuation). Yet it can play normal movie dvds can't it ?. So does it spin both directions ?. How does it know which way to spin ?.
Can MS function without its fearless leader?
Can the Linux movement?
I'm sorry, the GNU/Linux movement. For now. Statistically, RMS will probably die first. Then we can circumcise the name.
--saint
The reality is that though years and years of extending there monopoly and crashing any real threat they have to the desktop, M$ have missed the whole point of what computers are about. Computer are about Personal empowerment, The first PC's were created, not to really fill any great need, but rather because some geek got sick and tired of having to rent time on the University mainframe. M$ success has been because of the personal empowerment that computers provide, namly a cheap platform to write your essay's on, or spreadsheets, or whatever.
With the Xbox come homestation, and .net &c &c. M$ seem intent on turning computers into a platform just to run M$ content, A passive platform not unlike TV and redunent in comparison to it.
Going back to the bandits example, they have left the well, to set up government in the village. However, The well still exists and people still need the water, no doubt newer bader bandit will move in, but perhaps people might learn to carry the water for themselves for once.
Pianist : Some jerk whos taught themselves how to type in rhythm
Has anyone got Linux running on the XBox hardware yet? Since M$ sells tham at a loss, all we gotta do is get Linux running, then buy as many as we can and eventully bankrupt M$. They'll effectively be subsidizing the spread of Linux via cheap assed hardware.
I wonder how Wolfenstein would look under Linux on Xbox hardware?
AOL TimeWarner do not (yet) own EMI and since EMI owns Capitol and Virgin records. Of course EMI is looking for a buyer, but the EU quashed attempts of both Warner Music and BMG to merge with EMI.
There's no reason the X-box can't be fitted to be a "poor man's Tivo" or better yet a "poor teenager/student's Tivo." MS could use the intel processor to do a small mpeg-2 compression and then zoom it out to fill the screen. It may sound crappy, but if the dongle/adapter/whatever is priced at a fraction of what a VCR costs then you've just saved a whole lot of money. It could even look a lot better than your typical EP/LP VCR recordings. You can market it as the DVD player that records too.
The fact that MS didn't market this box as an all-in-one game/tv/tivo/web/email solution probably means this is just speculation or that they didn't want to press to pick up on the magic word "Bundle." Bundle would turn off a lot of people who are ambivalent towards MS but don't want to pay extra for stuff they don't need or turn off people who already have an OS monopolist gripe with them.
Its a PC disguised as a game machine, it can be a lot of other things if there's a market and most importantly if MS can compete in that market.
Heya, all complaints about MS being a "monopoly' would be eliminated if instead of selling PCs they just sold these babies. After all no-one can bitch at you if it is your OS and your browser running on your 'gaming console'. Hehe. Yah right. ^_^
/. reported on last week or so that was MS's idea? Imagine that implemented into this next system;
/GLAD/ to pay them.
/. itself. Hell a good part of the rest of the net is decidedly pro-ms, bleh.
Remember that 'hardware interface standad' thingy that
I am sure that it will come out on the PC too.
Heck add some Mac support and. . . . ah, you see where I am going with this? MS would dominate THREE platforms minimum and it would THEN have the power to leverage OTHER platform manufacturers into making their systems complient with Microsofts systems(sounds like a good thing? Finaly some game support in *nix? Hold on. . . ) ;
Which would likely also include some sort of software that has to be licenced from Microsoft on some sort of per computer (or user, heh) basis.
Imagine M$ collecting royalites from _ALL_ computer users!
Oh yah, and imagine the PR campaign that would make you all
Don't believe me? Just look how far the anti-ms stance has changed even within
The beast shall have you yet!
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from what I've heard the xbox is bunch o pc hardware bundled togheter as a console (or a low end pc), sold at a price lower than the actuall price of the components because they except the money to come from games, considering that there is a linux version even for segas dreamcast hasn't anyone started working already on getting linux to run on the xbox ;) ?
xbox to linuXbox oh the irony....
If you really want to know how much "choice" you have in the marketplace, look for foods / supplies in the supermarket that involve patents. You can usually trace which brands are identical products by the same company if you follow which patents are on the products you buy. Detergent, for example, is a marketplace rife with colors and boxes, but trace the patents and everything is being made by Dow and one other company.
It's a lot of legwork, I know, but it is something that you can do in your own life.
The ______ Agenda
Thank god. Cartoon Network and Comedy Central are practically the only channels I watch on TV. I didn't want AOL owning both of them.
no problem, i can't stand to see a troll in difficulty. that bit in simon the sorceror damn near broke my heart.
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maybe this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.
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Linux; A maker of a brand of Linux made Open Cola..
Oh, and Microsoft DID make something for the TV. The Microsoft version of the TiVo thing. That, and the TiVo works on an NT kernel..