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Tom's Hardware Reviews the Xbox
steddyj writes: "Tom's Hardware released this article which looks deep into the Xbox, its peripherals, and just about everything from every angle, and compares it to the PS. Incredibly detailed article."
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I wonder how long it will take for someone to port xbill (which would be more popular than Quake according to the xbill homepage) to the XBox... there is a port for Win32 available, so it shouldn't be too impossible.
feh
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
from the outside its different
from the inside its different
from every angles its different
it is a little different. having said that what difference does it make???
Voltaire: God is dead.
God: Voltaire is dead!
"and compares it to the PS." They actually compare the Xbox to the PS and the PS2.
------
Random, useless fact: I type in startx entirely with my left hand.
It's been out for ages. Why no version of Linux for the box yet? I remember lots of little penguin people claiming it wouldn't take long to crack the box and get their favorite kernel running on it. So where is it? Or are Microsoft actually smarter than the smelly unwashed masses?
Why has there never been a story on slashdot about me taking something apart? After all, I do it all the time. It's just that some things kind of stop working afterwards... anyone got a spare laptop? :)
http://www.tomshardware.com/consumer/02q1/020204/i ndex.html
I wonder how long it will take for someone to port xbill [xbill.org] (which would be more popular than Quake according to the xbill homepage) to the XBox
For one thing, xbill is a heavily mouse-oriented clickfest similar to Hampsterdeath, and the Xbox doesn't come with a mouse.
For another, Microsoft must approve every piece of software that runs on a home XBox so that the company can make up the money it spent marketing the console. (Console makers make a slight profit on the console itself but take a loss in initial marketing that they make up with software sales.)
Will I retire or break 10K?
We always knew the xbox would be vastly superior to PS2 and probably GameCube as far as the technical bits and pieces are concerned, but like it says in the first paragraph of the article- the only thing that matters is the games.
Now I'm in the UK so I've not actually SEEN much in the way of the games over here so far but it doesn't look to great so far. Having said that the initial releases for any consoles usually (IMO) fail to capture the imagination so there's no telling yet, and the xbox sounds like it should be a lot easier to code for than PS2, it is just a standardized PC afterall, so it could really take off.
J-aims
--
Yo, whatever happened to peas? Join T( H)GS
There have been hacks already to try and change the HD (which is unrecognizable by any file system, even Linux) and assorted other things, (including a USB controller patch-in), but no need for a modchip.
Once the Xbox gets released in Japan or Europe, watch the rapid proliferation of modchips for the Xbox then.
Anyone can walk on water....think WINTERTIME.
forma3
Implied: Nintendo is not a player in the console market.
"Nintendo... attacked the market with the GameCube. This console, based on an ATI graphics chip, surprised the whole world with its capacity. However, it targets a younger audience that remains faithful to the Nintendo tradition with its Mario Kart-inspired key titles."
Implied: Nintendo is only for Pokemon and Barney loving children.
Good God - it seems like any time anyone mentions a Nintendo system, they need to put in an aside about it being for kids. You never even see a shred of a veiled compliment suggesting that Nintendo might focus on gameplay, and not on making the most "mature" game. The mass media seems intent on further pigeonholing Nintendo every chance they get, is it any wonder that they are perceived as "kiddie" and that it's tough for them to shake the image. Photorealism and gore have their place in games, as do style and gameplay. When it comes down to it, the latter two have the bigger influence on my enjoyment of a game. Even on a Nintendo system, I'd rather play the latest Mario game than Turok 12, because while one has the wow/blood factor, the other is much more polished all-around.
I'd like to see media writers focus on the enjoyability of the games, for just once, instead of leaning on the tired-but-apparently-mandatory "Nintendo is for kids" appositive.
Seen any BadMarketing lately?
As the article says, the controllers are NOT USB, which is a really bad thing.
I wonder how long would it take for fellow electrical geeks to hack up an XBOX2USB adapter...
But to the point, I find the standard controller to be not big at all, if you forget how ugly it is (I know, I have BIG hands =) )
The Thrustmaster, OTOH, is maybe a little bit small, but it's ergonomically (and aesthetically) much nicer!
I think I'll have to wait for the ultimate controller to be released (the Coleco dual controllers ([pic here] ruled, you could put your hand INTO the controller and use all your fingers and your palms too... but those were the days).
Txurlo
The only problem
with Tom's hardware is
the ammount of information
that they display
per page, in order
to get as many
advertisment
views as possible
.
sig?
- It has two fully programmable 300mhz T&L coprocessors, of which 1 is really usable, the other just supports the main CPU (but can run independently).
:)
- They wonder what people are doing with the 16 pixel pipelines, as if implying that it renders 16 layers or something. The PS2 fills 16 individual textured alpha blended pixels per cycle at 150mhz. In single texture mode the PS2 has far more fillrate than the XB, but scales linearly with extra passes.
- He complains about the 4mb video RAM. After framebuffers and Z buffer, you're left with about 1.5mb, at which point you realize they didn't intend it for actual storage, it's a streaming buffer. The bus bandwidth to transfer 18mb textures/frame at 60hz also helps make that a possibility.
I think people should take a look at the games and decide which platform they would rather play, and quit bickering over meaningless specs. They're both graphics monsters
-Wade
I knew we'd have this problem, and Tom's doesn't mention it...
Performance sucks on Xbox after a while as it starts to swap on the HD. It looks like stuff becomes fragmented.
Anyone want to comment on how we can correct this?
Games are what matters on a console, not how many polygons it can push. The Japanese launch lineup for the Xbox is pathetic. There are 4 snowboarding games, DoA3 (a practical port of DoA2, a launch game for PS2 a year ago), and Genma Onimusha, when Onimusha has been out for more than 6 months on the PS2.
When the Japanese launch of the Xbox flops, the Japanese developers will jump ship. When the Japanese developers jump ship, the Xbox will lose about 60% of its title lineup. When 60% of the titles go to other platforms, people will stop buying the Xbox. When people stop buying the Xbox, the other 40% will jump ship to either the PS2 or the Gamecube.
To be a big player in the console industry, you have to have both countries. As a corollary, just because something does well in one country does not automatically spell success in the other country.
In 2 years, nobody will remember the Xbox. It will have entered the Gaming Lore books right along side the 3DO, Atari Jaguar, Atari Lynx, Tubro Grafix 16, and dozens of other systems that went obsolete because they had no games.
I'm at a loss. Why on earth would someone cover this review? There's no new information, and the whole article reads like an advertisement for the X-Box. WTF? Am I the only one not enamoured with this gigantic POS?
at the end of the day Games Sell Consoles. Microsoft has made a solid first attempt, but untill the games for the system begun to mature (mature as in quality, not as in pokemon) I can remain comofrtable in my choice to purchase the PS2. What is more interesting is thet the timing in the industry is now off. The game cube & XBOX were released a full year after the ps2, which means
1. The PS2 has more variety of stable, entertaining, and visually stunning games than any other console and
2. The PS2 is significantly behind when it comes to console tech. There is already talk of SONY shortening the PS2's life cycle to come out with a more davanced box earlier to compet with the other consoles that will be most likely coming of age at that time. A shortening of the console lifecycle from 5 years to, say, 3 years may have a detrimental effect ob the console market, much like it has to the pc market.
the article reads like pure marketing fluff. granted, there are the hardware bits, but everything wrapped around that is essentially sap without meaning. you know. . . stuff like their speculation on ms' product placement and strategy. what am i supposed to make of comments like 'To connect two consoles, a Link cable is all you need to get and you can get it anywhere Xbox accessories are sold'?
.) my opinion is obvious. . . and i'm a devoted nethack player.
(i'm not complaining about the grammar. i realise tomshardware is a german site, and i'm really impressed with their english. besides, i'm not perfect.) but still. . . 'anywhere Xbox accessories are sold.' how many commercials did they watch before typing that phrase?
tom's hardware also seems mired in the 'gaming' culture's perception that there is only one acceptable standard of immersive, featuring graphics and sound as close to reality as possible. (these are the people who ridiculed impressionism because it was unrealistic. .
their history seems a bit shaky. i'm surprised they didn't draw the analogy between ms using nvidia's graphics chip, and nintendo having sgi design the n64, especially since they mention nintendo's use of ati in the gamecube. they also are dead wrong about the mac having less cache (2mb l3 in the newest models.)
overall, the article seems poorly researched and ill-conceived, a discredit to the name of tomshardware. in fact, it reminds me very much of the thick binder of ps2 promotional materials i have, right down to the listing of available games and 1st and 3rd party peripherals.
It claims its a "consumer guide" so it can get away with pages and pages of pro xbox stuff yet still compares it to PS2 and says the Gamecube is for kids. Strange consumer guide :/
Disclaimer: I dont have an XBOX, Gamecube OR PS2, i'm not biased against the xbox - in fact i'll probably buy one.
no sig.
From the article:
J.M. Anti-aliasing can be adjusted on the PS2 with the motion blur option, but as soon as the camera moves too quickly, there are problems. We choose the technologies for their impact on the player's immersion. If the motion blur is an annoyance, we'll not use it.
There are at least 3 ways to do antialiasing on the PS2. Tekken 4 runs on PS2 hardware and has 2x supersampling. This can be done both by using the dual hardware raster combiner with blending and 2x rendering+stretchblit with bilinear filtering (which can subsample 4 texels into one by design).
This stuff is available with source code in the standard devkit samples directory. Sure documentation and examples are hard to understand and poorly written, but the options are there.
This guy J.M. guy is just another developer that gave up on doing real research on the hardware.
TomsHW has had some interesting articles in the past - but I can't help feeling that the reviews have somehow lost perspective.
Am I the only one that thinks that the XBox will not be the success that MS would like it to be?
Cheaper than Sony? For how long? Sony probably owns the facilities to manufacture most of the PS[2]. So their costs are mainly in R&D. Any actual sales are profit. MS has to buy chipset from nvidia, gfx processor from nvidia, gawd knows what else from who. Are those rumours of losing money on each XBox true? Ever wonder what happened with Sega V PS?
And how many games producers will really develop for the XBox exclusively? So the choice is: develop a game for XBox, port to PS, port to PC, maybe port to gamecube(?). Or maybe I'll just cut costs and develop a game which shares the main code base with XBox and PC. Just add the frilly bits to suit each machine specifically. (Well, they both share directX and the fundamental instruction set). So by this argument, how many games will actually be produced to exploit the mythical XBox performance?
Cheap game box.. PS2 has my vote. I can't see Sony voluntarily losing the price war. Especially when they can afford to drop the price if they want to. (IM-uninformed-O)
Indeed, condidering $1 = 1.15 at today's rate, that's $417. In the USA, the Xbox is $300, which is 345. This is a complete ripoff! The days electronics were over-overpriced compared to the US are gone, this is pure extorsion(sp?)! How do they justify the extra $117? Shipping fees? Let me laugh...
For this price I can build a complete PC with a Duron 1GHz and a good graphics card (GF2 ultra or so), so COME_ON! Who's gonna pay that price for just a game console? PC prices have crashed to a point the PS2 itself is now a mere $235 where I live (Switzerland, outside the EU, I know :) so it can be sold, but the XBox will be twice the price with a hundred times less games to start with... The PS2 is hugely popular whereas Microsoft is still unknown on that market... No doubt the Xbox is a lot more powerful than the ps2, has a HD, etc... But when for the same price you could get a real PC that'll play games even better, and with which you can do whatever you want, I think M$ is trying hard to rip-off markets on which it can (still) freely impose its monopolistic dirty hands.
/jabba
-- It's always darker before it goes pitch black.
I'm use to their sometimes poor reporting standards, but this one had way too many errors in it even for me to be bothered to finish reading it.
Also, has anyone else noticed that Tom's stuff really isn't up to snuff when compaired to his compeditors?
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
Vector units, not really T&L coprocessors. The difference is that vector units have no specific purpose other than to do lots of floating point math. On the PS2, each VU has 4 FMACs and 1 FDIV (one VU has one more of each), each operating on 4 pairs of 32-bit floating point values stored in 2 128-bit registers, and each capable of operating independently and simultaneously.
MMX and its successors pale in comparison.
"Luncheon meats make the sawdust in your stomach explode."
I surely hope your forecast is right... I'd love to see something from microsoft sinking.. they scare me.
-- The ballad of arrivederci
Just a suggestion: after the Xbox is hacked and people have Linux running on it, buy all the Xboxes you want, just don't get any games. You'll get the hardware at a price subsidized by Microsoft. Not so bad if you don't like MS. For spite, play Linux games on it :-)
"Luncheon meats make the sawdust in your stomach explode."
"A quick peak over to GameSpot to sneak a peak at the previews. After you remove the previews for games already out, you come up with the following:
0 1. html
.People buy console's for games not to boast about how powerfull there console is .The playstation 2 has
,because for one thing I do not think people are willing to spend money as freely as they once were due to the present economic climet and back when people were willing to spend more
GameCube has around 60 titles previewed.
Xbox was around 140 previewed.
PlayStation2 has more than 300 previewed."
taken from
http://www.actsofgord.com/Proclamations/chapter
I think this really says it all
the huge back library of ps1 games and the most new titels in the works. There are far far more playstation 2's siting in peoples house at the moment than xbox's, hence a far bigger market for
developers to sell to.
By the time the xbox is able to take full advantadge of its enhanced graphical abilities it will be to late and the ps3 will be here which
will raise the ante in terms of tech specs even more.
another point which is this also taken from the afore mentioned site,(actsofgord.com),:
"To date, Sony has sold nearly 100,000,000 PS1's. That's a lot. And for the
sake of the argument, we'll pretend Nintendo sold nearly 30 million N64's
(though sales data suggests between 20 to 24 million, but who cares). So,
assuming every N64 owner also bought a PS1, that means 70% of the market bought ONE console. One console. Just one.
Now, obviously this didn't happen. Somewhere near half of N64 owners bought a PS1. Now, so we have 15 million N64 owners who remained exclusive, and 15 million who were multi-console (and 15 of the 100 million PS1 owners).
So, you've got 85 million PS1's who belong to one system owners, and 15
million N64's who belong to one system owners. That's, well, 100 million.
Add in the 15 million owners who bought multi-systems, and there you are at a market peak of 115 million users.Basic math shows that 87% of owners owned one system."
I think this shows quite clearly that the majority of people will not buy a playstation2 and a xbox
,(ps1 v n64 days), they only bought one console.
Now back in the ps1 v n64 days a console cost alot less,(stating the obvious I know), NOW look at the price i.e back then ps1 + n64 = $200 maybe a little more , now ps2 + xbox = $650 or more and this without any games?
For that sort of money required to buy two consoles you may as well go the extra inch and just buy a gaming pc.What graphics power the xbox appears to have now has already been surpased by the pc (nvidia g4),and this gap will continue to grow as more and more 3d cards are developed by the hardware industry.The upgrade ability of the pc will mean that in the end it will surpass any console currently on the market in terms of graphics.The question I am trying to raise is is there room on the market for the xbox?The xbox will not be bought en mass by playstation2 users
as it does not offer enough NEW and signifigantly different games or features which would make the
averedge ps2 owner fork out the extra money.
I personaly think that the xbox will not gain enough of the market share to pose a serious treat to sonys domination of the console market.
_________________________________________________
I was repeatedly dissapointed on each and every repetitive page of prediction after prediction of what the XBox *WILL* be and what it *WILL* do, and how cool games *WILL* be. It all adds up: Xbox is SUPPOSED to be the coolest console ever, but even Tomshardware.com can only say that it's SUPPOSED to be the coolest console ever. There is precious little hard empirical truth to demonstrate any of the projections made in the pages. Here's what I mean. If these way-cool features are really available, where are the games that demonstrate them? How do we know it works as described? If a feature never appears in a single game you want to buy, then it doesn't add to the value of XBox does it?
Having read a good many well informed articles there, I kept clicking the next page links thinking Tomshardware was teasing me before he got to the meat of the article, but I wore through 2/3 of it before I gave up looking for the gritty pull-no-punches analysis. This is NOT journalism, it's advertisement, and it's wrong to print it without the "Sponsored by Microsoft" disclaimer. I will never feel the same about Tomshardware again.
I've read past Slashdot flames toward Tomshardware, but I had to reserve judgement for myself. Granted, I deserve it; you told me so., but please try to add something more if you reply to this.
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
it's almost as valuable as this popular science article (hint: not worth toilet paper.)
eventually the tomshardware.com article is a translation of one that was wroten for the french tomshardware. the french version was as badly written (it sounds like it was written by young teens..)
what about objectivity:
they like xbox controller
they like munch's odyssey
they have very uncommon tastes indeed
gamecube is a console for young kids : what means ? 3-6 ?
their are factual errors everywhere in the article, a lot in the claims of the developper who seem not to know PS2 and gamecube..
i guess in france will see more and more enthusiastic pro-xbox stuff like that, especially with the xbox launch approaching.. most mainstream magazines being sold to microsoft (like Science et Vie Micro)..
wtf?
And does it mention anything at all that hasn't been said before?
READY.
#
Network Gaming is *so* important: It didn't save the Dreamcast though, did it? The PC will always be the superior online gaming platform, unless the Xbox suddenly grows a keyboard, a dozen well-established MMORPGs, and a modding community. Also, bear in mind that Allard's "broadband vision" will exclude the vast majority of gamers especially in Europe (only 50% can get broadband in the UK, at a massively optimistic estimate).
Discounting Nintendo out of hand: The largest games publisher in the world, the only games company to make a consistent profit throughout the market 'downturn', a company shipping a console at half the price of the bloated Xbox. They're not aiming it at kids- no Nintendo console ever has been- they're aiming at *everyone*. If you think a game is 'kiddie' because of its graphics, you shouldn't be playing games, you should get a hobby you can easily understand.
None of the games covered were evaluated by any metric other than their 'dazzling' (640x480) graphics. No games were compared to the benchmark titles in their genres. (As always, DOA3 is taken on face value to be any good- which it might be if Tekken, VF, Soul Calibur didn't exist.) Blinkered, to say the least.
It really is Atari all over again. The pushing of gimmicks like the Game Voice is especially reminiscient of a company floundering for a new angle, while ignoring the fact that they need decent games and have priced themselves out of the market. Outclassed, outgunned, only selling to the most credulous of casual gamers. I'll be picking up a Gamecube, then a PS2 if I have any spare cash, then upgrading my PC, then picking up a DC with a dozen quality titles on ebay, before even considering an xbox.
Preferences > Homepage > Customize stories on homepage > Authors > Zonk > Uncheck
Sorry, but Japanese developers aren't going to jump ship because there aren't enough release games, DoA3 is a much bigger advance over DoA2 than DoA2 on PS2 was over Dreamcast DoA2, and how many games did PS2 launch with in Japan? Was it even 6? Sorry you bought a PS2 man.
"Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race." --Einstein
You live in Switzerland and have a hard time understanding why the European X-box might be priced higher than in the US? It's stupid to do currency conversions on the boxes for two simple reasons: cost-of-living and cost-of-doing business. Both are much higher on the European continent compared to the U.S. A simple currency conversion doesn't do justice to the extra costs Microsoft has to absorb to do business in Europe.
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
XBox = Microsoft = Bad, OK?
And to think Bill Gates is drawn as a Borg...
Personally I'm reserving judgement until it's been out for a while, there are more games available and I've actually seen one in action.
"Information wants to be paid"
Funny, that Tom's article sounds very much like MS marketing speak, with everything being "milestone", "extraordinary" or "unrivaled". It even goes as far as telling that there is no lack of good titles. As far as I know, that's the biggest problem of Xbox. It has only a very few exclusive titles that have been hailed as interesting. And yet, Tom couldn't even spell PS2 game names right.
This is my favourite: "the xbox is definitely a generation ahead, compared to the ps2 at least"
It *is* next generation! It's funny how people are still comparing *everything* to PS2. So, you're telling me Xbox or Nintendo GameCube has better technology and more processing power than almost TWO YEARS older PS2? Ooh, *gasp*, I'm shocked! Seems like PS2 really is technically pretty revolutionary, if it's still the comparison standard for new consoles. I'd be really, really worried if that much newer machine wasn't technically superior...
And in any case, it isn't technology that matters, it's the games. Original PSX was technically the weakest of its generation, Sega Saturn (released the same year) and Nintendo 64 (released about a year later) are both far superior, but PSX reigned because of the games. They still make games for PSX (and N64 as well, but in smaller scale), though it was released in 1994!
Also check out xbox-linux.org - It' run by h07 (h07.org) and aims at eventually getting apache to run on linux on the xbox. They already got apache to run on the xbox os (a stripped down win2k) using microsofts xbox sdk.
Had me grinning for a bit. Are you sure this isn't going via babelfish?
While I understand the usefulness as a buffer for read data, and the convenience for saving games, there's one thing I really worry about:
Patches.
Not system patches-- hell, even the PS2 has had to do that (DVD driver anyone?)-- but game patches. I worry that the presence of a multi-GB hard drive in the console will tempt developers into the "release early and patch" method so common with PC games.
One of the reasons I've traditionally preferred console games to PC games is that out of the box, they work far more often than not. The shoddy quality of the average initial release of a PC game astounds me. I've even bought games that had box inserts telling me to be sure to patch the game before playing it THE FIRST TIME. Hell, I've purchased PC games that WOULDN'T EVEN INSTALL without a patch first.
Since you couldn't do that with a console-- until Xbox-- it was less of a problem. Yes, I've bought buggy games for the PS in the past, but even the worst of them was at least playable. And it happened far far less often.
So I worry about that hard drive. I really do.
-- Cerebus
I couldn't help but wonder whether the name of the "Mad Katz Control Pad Pro" was a nod to the Slashdot community...
include $sig;
1;
I agree wholeheartedly, and would add that most games journalists (if you can call them that) are missing the dark underbelly of Nintendo. Sure, it all seems cute at first glance, but there is a sinister aspect to most Nintendo games. Just try a round of Super Smash Bros. Melee with Jigglypuff vs. Picachu, and you'll see what I mean!
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
Bill's bending over for you to kiss his ass some more. This "review" could be mistaken for a MS ad. BC
I'd really like some hard information on that - got a link - (not to the MS press release, please)?
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
At least as far as I can tell.
I came upon an XB controller last month, and did exactly what you said - hacked a USB connector
on to the cable.
On plugging it into my machine (WXP), it was detected, and two devices showed up:
1) Some sort of hub-type gadget (possibly for the "card slots" on the bottom of the controller?)
2) An "Unknown Device", which I'm assuming to be the actual control interface.
If I knew anything about writing USB device drivers,
I'd try to hack one up, but I don't, so I haven't.
I prolly should try plugging it into a Linsux box just for shits and giggles, might at least be able to get the device ID or something else interesting.
C-X C-S
(Posting with a text browser, so the formatting might be fucked up...)
Funny how, even after an article as well-researched as this, refuses to say anything good about the XBOX. All the comments are about how people over 12 really do like Nintendo and Tom's doesn't know what they're talking about. (Although if they had said the PS2 is better I"m sure everyone would be praising them as geniuses.) Why don't we all just take a moment and admit that the XBOX is pretty good? If you've seen Max Payne on both side by side (I have), you wouldn't be saying the PS2 is as good. Don't get me wrong, I like the PS2 and think it has, for now, better games (MGS:2, FFX, GTA3), but the XBOX is clearly a superior machine.
-- Hobbits suck!
the original language of the article was french (and french version is available on tomshardware.fr), and in french the sentence is:
"Pour mémoire, le processeur de la PS2 ne tourne qu'à 250 MHz, même si les deux ne sont pas comparables."
that should roughly translate to:
"As a matter of fact, the PS2 processor is only 250MHz, even if the two are not comparable. "
even the online translator reverso (http://www.reverso.net) gave a better translation.. ("Pour mémoire" => "For the record")..
Viva la revolucion!
Is your company running tools written by ma
The Dreamcast was actually already dead by the time the network adaptor came out. Hardly any were ever shipped and by then no one was buying the console anyway. The whole online gaming thing never had a chance to play out, which is sad because it'll discourage the current systems from doing too much with it.
;)
More generally, Sega at that point was where Atari was with the Jaguar - they knew it was their last chance at competing in the console market, they probably knew they were already doomed, and they actually couldn't afford the development and marketing costs to get out the peripheral they needed (network interface for DC, CD-ROM drive for Jaguar) before they faded into obscurity. Both were great systems and both have spawned fanatical homebrew and aftermarket communities.
It'll be interesting to see what happens with the PS2, XBox and Gamecube. Only once in history have there been three viable consoles in the US, and that was in Christmas 1982 -- just months before the whole gaming industry collapsed. Nowadays everything is so 3D oriented that I think anything capable of running a Quake 3 style engine will do all right, so success depends on who you cut deals with. But for players it still comes down to the games.
And on that note, Chu Chu Rocket can paste Metal Gear Solid any day of the week as far as I'm concerned
is how the backbone providers can charge the absolutely outrageous prices that they charge.
Correct my thinking here - once upfront costs for hardware and software are satisfied, aren't the costs of maintaining the network very small? Sure, maybe the routers are $100k each. But then you charge $35k a month for an OC3? At that point, after the network is built out, aren't the bits free forever (more or less)?
The upstream costs always blow me away, I'd like to know why they are so expensive, if there's anything more to it than the backbones are monopolized and they charge that because they can.
Flat5
I struggled half way through it before giving up, this article is riddled with factual innacuracies, grammatical gaffs (excusable if it came from Germany) and outright marketingspeak shite. Read at you peril, or go and look at anandtech's excellent appraisals of the machines in question instead.
That was classic intercourse!
AnandTech ran an article on the XBOX some time ago, and it was on slashdot too.
As you can see in the pics, they ARE really hacked USB ports tucked into a cable.
Txurlo
MS may have choosen a bad X-Box pricing scheme for their Euro market, but I'd be surprised if it was the rest of attempts to "rip-off markets on which it can (still) freely impose its monopolistic dirty hands."
...what with them having to compete with Sony and Nintindo in said market.
Huh!? Who makes NFL 2K2? NBA 2K2? Jet Set Radio Future?
and Nintendo has settled for Game Boy.
So N64 and GameCube are just figments of everyone's imagination?
But above all, [Microsoft] has the best programming kit in the world with DirectX.
*giggles*
As far as memory is concerned, the PS2 has a 250 MHz processor, even if the two are not comparable.
Um, what does internal processor speed have to do with memory in this context?
Technically, I think the Xbox is great console--Microsoft almost got everything right. But as we all know, it is not always the "best" technology that wins...
Schrödinger's cat is not amused—maybe.
That's why I bought a PC rather than a console
:)
...
That, and I like writing my own software, meaning that it'll be a cold day in hell before I can do what I want with my hardware if I go with an X-Box.
But then..........I'd buy a PS2, because all the cool games are made on that.
It's been a long time.
Is it totally inconceivable that the reason the XBox hasn't been hacked is because so far, the anti-hacking measures have been stronger than the hackers?
When it comes to Gaming consoles, looking at what has been done in the past would give you a fairly clear idea that they are all about "one-processor-for-each-medium".
Starting from the NES (or even Atari, for that matter), all these "computers" have different chips to process each element of a game, those being, graphics, physics/gameplay/backend work and sound.
Looking at the original playstation, and comparing it to a PC in the same era, let's see what you get. It had a 33 MHz core processor (CPU) for doing the I/O/Physics/backend work, a seperate GPU with its own memory for graphics, and a seperate SPU (Sound processing unit)for the audio. All well balanced, and each part doing its job individually, controlled and piped by the IO processor, are capable of beating the shit out of a P-200 with a Voodoo graphics accelarator (which was commonplace when the PS-1 came out).
The whole point being, "BALANCE"....
If you look at PS2, it has a very well balanced architecture. The CPU is capable enough to max out the GPU, and the sound engine supports what can usably be classified as "best in gaming audio". The DVD ROM has enough storage to pack in all hi-q cutscenes you would ever want, eliminating the need to have in-game rendering, which is both hard to make, and not so good looking.
XBOX, although flaunts so much high tech stuff, it isn't well balanced. The CPU - a 700 MHz intel P-III equivalent, is hardly capable of pushing the graphics unit to 60% of its usability, so even though the theoretical graphical fill rate/texel/pixel pipelines might be capable of a lot more, it will never actually deliver those rates because the CPU isn't capable enough to pump those bits to the GPU fast enough. Same for sound, XBOX supports "so many channels" of audio, but to put all that through the sound processor, you would need to dedicate a major chunk of CPU processing power to that thread, bringing down the available CPU power once again. Not to mention the overheads the XBOX carries as it has to address far more hardware devices than the PS2.
Well integrated design, balanced specs = cheap/decent performing architecture
high specs, no balance, bloatware = inconsistent performance, scalability issues
you decide....hack your XBOX, benchmark everything, and prove me wrong....i guarantee it doesn't even perform as much as 55% of the claims the specs make..
Is it totally inconceivable that the reason the XBox hasn't been hacked is because so far, the anti-hacking measures have been stronger than the hackers?
:)
Remember this statement...put it on your webpage or something...someday, when the X-box is good and hacked, you'll look at it and learn the following lesson:
"In the war between armor and warhead, the warhead will eventually win. Always."
The X-box has only been out since what, Nov. 15th? Not even three months...Linux on the Box is coming, and I'd bet sooner than later. Like I said, remember your statement when that day comes. You'll need it, just to season that crow.
But what does my opinion matter, I just vote here. It's not like I have any money or anything.
Yesterday I zapped through the German TV-Channels and then I just decided to watch NBC Giga. They wanted to show a game, tried to load it 3 times and only a black screen was there. Of cource it wasn't blue :-)
Another game needed 4 Minutes to load!! But when the intro was successfully loaded it was time for commercials.
Just have fun with that xbox *lol*
So how stupid do I have to be to tell the people that the xbox is a must?
So if they think the technology is good, you think they should actually dis it instead? They stated their opinion, and just because it was favourable you say they are biased.... Sigh. ;)
A lot of people care about Dolby 5.1 sound. Perhaps more would if they had content that used it properly. At a recent XBox developer conference we had a great presentation from a Dolby guy. It really pisses people off when you leave channels silent! So you don't have a nice speaker system. So what? It's a great feature of the XBox.
By the way, despite the fact that I just said "great", I am not a Microsoft employee
Surround sound has about as much to do with hi-fi sound as the NASCAR does with getting you to work in the morning. 5.1 is a marketing gimmick designed to seel crap to you that you don't need, and is merely the third pathetic attempt by the electronics industry to flog this useless surround concept. My father had a "Quad" system in the 70's, and it was pointless then too. There was once a hi-fi surround system called "ambisonics" or "UHJ" which could reproduce the most beautiful sound, I think the Soundfield microphone that was the heart of Ambisonics is still coveted today.
That was classic intercourse!
One point I found particularly hopeful (and hope it holds up) is if the system can really handle 1024x768 well in future games. One of the biggest problems with consoles have been claiming a high-resolution (for example, Nintendo 64's 640x480) then running a majority of games at a lower resolution because the system can't handle it (320x240). Graphically, many of the games are stunning on XBox right now, but I'd like to see them take advantage of HDTV setups to their full potential. If they can figure that out (and figure out how to easily set up online gaming so they don't have a Dreamcast-like bomb) they'll be able to take a signficant chunk out of Sony's market share.
Please don't patronise me, sonny. I've done my fair share of hacking.
Did you notice the words "so far" in my comment?
I was clearly responding to the parent's assertion that there was no hack due to lack of interest. There is plenty of interest, as you well know.
Also... I won't consider an "XBox Linux Hack" to be valid unless a non-hacker can install it on a standard retail unit, without a soldering iron, in one day.
I will not be munching any crow, because I never said never.
Please don't patronise me, sonny.
:)
Heh heh heh...
Did you notice the words "so far" in my comment?
Yeah, which was precisely the point of my "eventually, the warhead wins" statement. The whole point being, of course, it doesn't matter what "anti-hacking" provisions they've put in an X-box, they'll just get beaten someday.
I was clearly responding to the parent's assertion that there was no hack due to lack of interest. There is plenty of interest, as you well know.
Fine...I guess I was too far down the thread to pick up on that one. Mea culpa. But neither do I think that the lack of an X-box hack is due to anti-hack measures - I think it's just been too short a time for a home-grown hack to have been properly made up/bug-fixed/tested.
Also... I won't consider an "XBox Linux Hack" to be valid unless a non-hacker can install it on a standard retail unit, without a soldering iron, in one day.
OK, the whole world will pay attention to what you define as a valid hack. I personally won't consider it a valid "Linux hack" until my X-box can toast the perfect bagel using Open Source code and a nifty DVD-laser hack that projects a spinning Tux on my wall. But who cares about what we think...most people will be happy to have a Linux prompt on their TV, right?
But what does my opinion matter, I just vote here. It's not like I have any money or anything.
the poster forgot VAT(value added taxes)!
european taxes do account for a large price difference!
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
...and I was horrified by this comment:
"As far as the games, things look good as well. As of now, the choice is enormous and there is no lack of good titles."
25 games is enormous? Give me a break. I thought Tom's was generally not-biased, but they tiptoed over the edge on this one. Every other review of the XBox I've seen said the games are standard, and boring, with the exception of Halo. 100 games is good selection. 2000 games is enormous. MS will be lucky if their game selection reaches "good" by next X-mas.
OK -- I'd heard that Tom's has picked up some better writers...
I don't mean to be inflammatory, but that thing looked like it was written by a 15-year-old British high-school dropout.
Hey -- Tom's Hardware...there's plenty of out-of-work folks over here who will write for you (and they have college degrees too).
-Turkey
So Resident Evil is for kids, and no adults play Zelda.
Just because you say that Sony is selling PS2 below cost and Nintendo isn't, doesn't mean it is true.
I think it is the other way around.
Nice "thoughts". The fact that Sony sold the PSX as a loss leader is WELL documented. It paid off in the long run, too, as it lead to market domination. MS is following Sony's playbook there, or at least trying to.
I think Nintendo and Microsoft, who buy the console from other companies, sell at a loss; and Sony, who designed the entire PS2 themselves and invested 2 billion US dollars worth into production, make money on every console they sell.
You said it yourself, they invested $2B in production, not to mention whatever in R&D. All this must be recouped. That's why console sales don't generate a profit right away, usually. Costs fall. A PSX used to cost a lot to make. Now they are cheap. You set pricing based on complicated models that you think will end up making you the most profit in the long run. You lose money at first, but you have to get the system into people's hands so you can sell the games- where the REAL money is.
Now, I'll back my statement up with some comments from people more in the know than either of us.
From the Seattle Times:
"Hardware pricing is considered a loss leader for console makers, who make their money selling games."
From Red Herring:
"Driving down production costs will be a determining factor in profitability over the next five years. According to most estimates, Sony's PlayStation 2 cost the company $450 per unit upon initial production in early 2000. The company had first sold the machine as a loss leader for $360 in Japan and for $300 in the United States and Europe. The strategy paid off with the first Play Station because Sony was able to reduce the product's cost from $480 in 1994 to about $80 now (it was initially priced at $299 and is sold at about $99 today). Meanwhile, the company sold about nine games for every console. That model allowed Sony to make billions of dollars over the life of the PlayStation, even if it lost money at first."
Do a little homework before you shoot your mouth off, and have the courage to back your statements up with your name next time, AC.
Only as Tom's Hardware can deliver...
The Xbox is definitely a generation ahead, compared to the Playstation 2 at least.
Wow. PS2 initial release date was March 4, 2000. The Xbox initial release date was November 15, 2001. That's a full 20 month spread.
BTW, in related news, Intel plans to release the Pentium 5 (Pentium Squared) by Q1 2004. It will be 20% slower than the current P4. Tailor made for all of us who believe that newer hardware will be less powerful that our older workhorses. :P
The main anti-hacking protection is its price..
The argument, such as it is, is illustrated nicely here:0 2. html
http://www.actsofgord.com/Proclamations/chapter
Specific quote for you:
Unlike Sega and MS, Sony is an R&D hardware company. They make a lot of things. In designing up the PS2, they spent a lot of cash. Then they spent a hell of a lot more cash to build things like the chip foundries to
produce the chips for the PS2.
In the end before the first PS2 rolled off the production line for
consumers, Sony had spent $2 billion! TWO BILLION!
Then we look at Sony's stock report for Oct-Dec 2000, and there is an
interesting little blurb. It said that had Sony been able to meet demand
with another 1 million PS2 units, they would have pocketed $175 million in
profits. $175 million divided by one million consoles equals $175 per
console profit.
Now, that is a bit high. This assumed that average consumer continue to buy four games per console (so around $24 in royalties), and 2 accessories (about $30 in profit total). That reduces the $175 to about $120. Sony is making $120 profit per system.
Granted, they have to sell nearly 20 million PS2's to pay back the $2 billion
they already spent, but that shouldn't be a problem since they already
passed that.
I'd just like to reiterate that I did not say or imply anywhere in my previous comment that the XBox will never be hacked. So we're in agreement, OK? Chill! :-)
I don't agree with you about the inevitability of the hack. Personally I have an open mind about it... It may happen, it may not. But you or I do not have enough information to say confidently that the hack is possible.
For example, if I wrote this code on my old Oric or something...
10 PRINT "ANDREW IS GREAT"
20 GOTO 10
That is pretty secure. I guess you could Ctrl-C it but I know about that, and I can disable it. I knew enough about that system that I could make that program completely secure.
Now, the Xbox is a lot more complicated and we would expect the probability of a security hole to be quite high. But we don't know until we find it, do we?
I never expected anyone to take on board my definition of a "valid hack". Let me put it like this. Suppose we gave points for a hack according to how cool it was. I would give 10 points for booting Linux from a CD-R popped into a standard retail XBox. That is pretty much top marks. (I might give an extra one for booting off a memory card
Taking advantage of a hypothetical back door that a mischievous developer left in a game would be worth less points, you see? And desoldering your BIOS and bunging in one you flashed is worth a few more, but less than 10.
Erm, no. Have you ever looked closely at PlayStation graphics? While in the hands of the right developers the PS1 produced impressive visuals, it was by no means capable of "beating the shit out of" a PC with a decent 3D accel. The textures were not filtered, and were not entirely perspective correct, producing strange "warping" effects when you approached a wall in many games. The final image was, I believe, rendered in something less than 16-bit color, as dithering is quite apparent in many games (Silent Hill being a good example; gotta love that halftone fog). The Voodoo had much higher quality output, and did so at twice the resolution or four times the screen area of the PS1.
I will agree with your contention that the X-box was sort of cobbled together so Microsoft could say they had something BETTAR TAHN PS2, but the real-world performance doesn't match the hype by a long shot.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
I'm not doubting the technical quality of the article (actually, I did...but that's for a different post). But the English (general grammer and syntax) seem pretty poor.
Why do website publications think they can get away with a poorer reading experience than a print rag could?
Funny that, because it's actually the reason why a lot of people want to hack it...
there's nothing "nano" about the xbox. it can barely pass through the door, goddamnit!
Ok ok...we get the point, games drive the success of the console. But so what if PS 1 or 2 have more games coming out....are you going to buy all of them...sheesh...most of the games that I see for PS2 I wouldn't want anyway, and the ones I do want are on the Xbox as well. I concede that PS2 will be more successful than the Xbox, but I believe the box will survive. You guys just hate MS, and that's why you shred the xbox so much. Settle down. MS has enough money to keep fighting PS2, and when Sony churns out the PS3, there will be an Xbox2 ready to roll as well. I'm sure MS has already thought about this....they are not the kings of the PC market for nothing. PS...I'm not an MS supporter, I bought the xbox because I like it...plain and simple.
The PS1's textures may not have been that good, but it was able to push some crazy polys! MGS1 has more polys then most PC games today.
I like to kill your couch. HE DIED HARD! MOO.
Towards the end of January we had a little miniature heat wave of sorts in Chicago and I was chatting with some of the local teenagers and pre-teens about the consoles they'd gotten for Christmas. The twin boys who'd scored the Xbox had their father take it back several times because it wouldn't stay running for more than an hour; they finally managed to exchange it as a lemon for a PS2 which they vastlt prefer. The other family in the neighborhood that got an Xbox is happy enough with it but their father is kind of frustrated because the kids are always at somebody else's house playing some other game while the Xbox gathers dust. The Neighborhood Teenage Consensus is that the Xbox "blows", "sucks", and is otherwise unworthy of their attention. The crowd seems to prefer the PS2. And I assure you they could care less about Microsoft's business tactics or their hardware prowess or lack thereof.
I feel truly sorry for you. Go experience a good 5.1 setup - none of this PC based THX crap Dell and others are foisting off on the ignorant public.
Damnit! Who moded me down?? This is so EVIL!!!!! It wasn't offtopic!
I shall haunt you down and destroy you. YEA!
-- The ballad of arrivederci