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From Midway to Xbox, The story of Seamus Blackley
Matey-O writes: "Red Herring has an interesting look at Seamus Blackley, the Man behind the Xbox, and what it took to bring the console to market." I like that this article points out the risks that Microsoft took by trying to enter a field with very established competition (and with mixed results, so far).
the demo froze" - glad to see M$ up to their old tricks again. ;o)
Video Game cheats, hints a
That's not true... The XBox runs a stripped down version of Window 2000, as you can read at the Xbox-Linux site. These guys managed to get Apache running on that minimal W2k.
I am not a gamer.
I was at Circuit City yesterday, shopping for some stereo equipment. I decided to check out the video game section just to see what the fuss was about. This was the first time i'd seen a gamecube,xbox,and playstation2 in person.
Frankly, i'm not sure Xbox in its current incarnation is going to do too well, at least among casual users like me.
1. Compared to the Ninendo system and the playstation 2, the Xbox was _huge_, and ugly. I guess it really is just a PC stuffed into a black box. I was surprised at its size; bigger even than my old colecovision. This is progress?
2. The game controllers were uncomfortably large for my (adult, male) hands.
3. the graphics were good, and the games they were demoing were good, but not so much better than the other systems. And there weren't that many games available for it.
4. Compared to the playstation2, which game in an elegantly small package, had a ridiculously huge selection of games, and controllers that fit my hand, i could see no compelling benefits for buying the xbox. The nintendo system also looked interesting, because of the totally far-out games they were demoing (i'm not sure what is in the water at nintendo HQ... those people have fantastic imaginations.)
So, from a "clueless" gamer's perspective, the Xbox didn't seem like a great deal. I am not "1337" when it comes to consoles though, so I don't know of the technical advantages of the Xbox. Nor do I really care.
the X box has had a poor showing... this was a gaming land grab by microsoft. All they would have to do is stop supporting Direct X on the desktop and they would own the entire PC gaming industry.. software AND hardware...
That's potentially another 8 billion dollars in their pockets annually, and growing all the time. Let us hope X Box 2 meets the same fate. Think, the only decent Open GL programmer is Carmack, and he is launching rockets. That leaves the entire world of game developers in Direct X land...in microsoft's pocket. If they owned the hardware too, welcome to 100 dollar games and Apple priced X boxes as the only viable gaming platform. Crippled of course so you still need a real PC, also in Microsoft's pocket.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
"I like that this article points out the risks that Microsoft took"
Taking pleasure in the possible misfortune of someone/something else - I believe it's near sadism (?).
Wow - never knew you had it in you.
-Shaunak.
THERES NO ARCADE UNIT!
Sony has a machine, Sega has several machines, Nintendo is working on one but needs one less so than M$ does.
Japanese gamers live in the arcade, thas why the strange (to us) puzzle games go over so well over there, because there in the arcade. Who is going to buy a 300 dollar console without ever playing it before? I didnt buy my dreamcast until i played several hits in the arcade. (dc is still better than anyhting)
M$ needs to realize that theyre not marketing to PCGAMER anymore. Halo is not a killer app, not by a long shot!
I want 2D games back.
Isn't $5-$6 billion pocket change for Gates?
MS may be taking the risk on losing hardware because they know the software sales will be high. XBox games are basically just directx based games. Windows has directX also. someday soon I expect to find a way to trick an xbox game into thinking it is on an xbox, when it is really on a PC. of course the pc would probably have to have an nvidi video card but many already do. And i don't think MS would mind one bit about this, because the games are still selling, and they are not taking a loss on game sales.
"As they were leaving, they all piled into one elevator. Mr. Blackley was the last to come diving in. The elevator was already sinking...Once Mr. Blackley was inside, the elevator promptly fell four floors to the ground."
The article fails to mention that there were only 5 people in the elevator.
Drop the donuts and pick up some dumbells, fellas.
Knunov
Why do users with IDs under 100,000 or over 700,000 usually have the most worthwhile comments?
:rolleyes
1. I hate the x-box, it's sooo big! - Erm, I spend my time playing the games, not lovingly looking at the console
2. I hate the x-box, it's got these frigging huge controllers. A - I think the controllers are GREAT. Well, you know what they say about the size of your hands. B- you guys aren't trying very hard, there are SEVERAL controllers out there that are ergonmically different that the one the ships with the box.
3. The games suck. Well lessee, I've got 6 games (Rally Sport'll be the seventh.) and of those five (Halo, DOA3, Munch, SSX tricky, PGR and wreckless) only Wreckless sucks sack. Hmm, that's $350 worth of non sucking games. That's all the money I'd care to devote to THIS hobby.
Personally, The xbox has been a GREAT excuse to not upgrade my system any more. Quake III may only be $50 or so, but Quake+ Motherboard+CPU+Geforce 3 MX Turbo makes for a REAL expensive habit. Especially since NOTHING ELSE I DO on the PC takes the system reasources that gaming does.
Was it really that big of a risk for Microsoft? When reading anything about MS, I try to keep in mind that we are *not* talking about your average run of the mill business here. This is a monopoly, right? So the usual rules don't apply.
Even if it was a complete failure (unlikely) MS would be out what, a few billion? (that's over a few years too, so I'm sure the world's highest paid accountants could lessen the blow). Not quite a drop in the bucket, but still easy enough for MS to shrug off.
Also I enjoyed the bit about what a "success" it was since Xbox didn't freeze in demonstration. For any other company, that would be a bare minumum, for MS, it's a success...
I went to the city because I wished to live without deliberation.
... but in times like this, I don't think you need to use an ethnic slur like that.
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I have been struggling on whether or not to buy the xBox. For the price, ~400 bucks with the games I want, I could just upgrade my current PC and then have access to play every kick ass game the market has to offer as well as a faster computer overall for doing other stuff like web browsing, etc. Computer hardware is so cheap these days, it might be a waste of money paying ~400 bucks for a console system dedicated to just playing video games.
;-)
;-]
I do like the console idea because it keeps me out of the computer room and down in the living room with the rest of the living
Maybe I'll just have work upgrade my T20 thinkpad to an A series with the builtin Geforce4 chip.. *drool* [which wouldn't cost me a dime
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i will put my money where the better console package is, if its japanese, maybe the american companies(m$ is not the only one) need to grab them selves by the balls and give the japanese some competition.
Microsoft is the one that cares about what the Japanese gamers think, or haven't you read that? American systems and companies? I seem to recall Atari being a key force in the crash of 83/84. And don't get me started on that dust collector they called the Jaguar. Microsoft doesn't give anyone enough credit as they've really only given gamers sports, racing, and the shit they call Halo.
I want 2D games back.
It's funny, working at a videogame store. When the Xboxes come rolling in, the packing boxes say made in Turkey, Mexico, etc. That's not America last I checked.
I want 2D games back.
Pay careful attention to the part of the article where it describes the Xbox team versus the WebTV team vying for the support of Bill Gates, and notice the tactic which was used to convince Gates that Xbox was a worthwhile venture: "Bill, if we don't go forward with this, Sony will wipe out any hopes of a consumer presence," is the basic gist of it.
Ah, Microsoft. Once again they demonstrate their ability to thrust themselves into a market based on paranoia. Xbox fans, take note: if not for Sony, there would be no Xbox. Hopefully my geekiness isn't getting too extravagant because I have a sense of smugness over having bought a Gamecube. I feel that way because Nintendo doesn't see the Gamecube as a trojan horse to take over my living room's connectivity.
if that's the kind of shit it takes to be rich, beraking up w/ your g/f.. being underhanded and disgusting and getting married as a corporate publicity stunt (having already sold your soul to the redmond hive) then fuck that, i'll work at mcdonalds and keep my dignity ;P
** this is not a fucking troll
No, that's what Microsoft would want Japanese gamers to believe. In fact the manufacturers have never said what MSX stands for and and there are at least three other possible definitions of that acronym.
Hmmn, lots of talk about buying Square, Sega etc. But no mention of MS purchasing the company that developed the "alien shooter with the compelling story".
Typical puff-piece. Lots of breathless "insider" moments, but short on substance.
I think I agree with what you said. I went into a store that featured the X-box, and I concluded that yes, the graphics are better but not that better, the box is big'n'bulky and at least here in Europe, too expensive.
The fact that I can't watch DVDs without dashing out more dough for the remote, and the news of scratched DVDs in Japan didn't make it look any better.
As for games, remember, I am NOT a gamer, but the few games I think I would enjoy playing are Spyro, Eco (or was it Ico? You know, the dolphin thingy) Final fantasy and Mario Kart. None of these runs on the X-box. But from what I have seen, I can find similar games on the Playstation 2, to the ones that exist on the X-box.
In the end, I didn't and won't buy any console. Well, perhaps when the Playstation 2 becomes cheaper I'll go for it, I really like that Spyro dragon.
Sigged!
As much as I dislike MS in general, I had hope for the Xbox. The pieces seemed to be in place for the Mac of Consoles; Seamus' renegade tactics, the corporate culture necessary for a trancendental product like this.
What bugs me is, if I may use a tired phrase, lack of vision.
It's all fine and good for Mr. Blackley to run around spouting how video games should be 'art'. I agree. He doesn't back it up. And Microsoft is not conducive to art; it is conducive, custom-engineered, for commerce. Case in point: In a meeting with the Xbox team a few weeks after the May 5 pitch, Mr. Ballmer started out bowling them over with one of his infamous monologues. He boomed, "The Xbox is the greatest fucking thing in the world! It's going to make billions! It's the greatest thing ever!"
Mr. Ballmer then hammered the team on its naÔve business model, but he offered a lot of encouragement in his own fashion. Once, when they were standing in line at the company cafeteria, Mr. Ballmer sneaked up behind them and bellowed, "It's the Xbox guys!"
"I almost peed in my pants," Mr. Blackley says. He looked over at Mr. Bachus, whose face went white, like someone who had just been caught in a crime. Mr. Blackley adds, "But at the same time, it was so motivating that he was showing everyone else there exactly who we were." As Mr. Ballmer moved closer, he joked more quietly, "Are you making any money yet?"
Why is it the greatest fucking thing ever? Because it might be the greatest money-maker ever? There's no talk of what makes it great, other than the cushy developer tools. Which are fine, until your programmers do an end-run around your nicely doc'd methods to squeeze an extra frame or two/second out.
Sony understands this. The PS2 is difficult. The PS2 is flexible. It does not have MS-USB ports; it knows how to make a controller.
I read an interview during all the fracas over Halo & Bungie from a guy at Access Software (remember them? Links golf?)... they were also bought by MS. He described a situation where the best and brightest were basically picked apart from the inside, after being acquired. The Red Herring article also points out that there are no original team members left outside of Seamus.
No, you won't get 'art' from these guys. Art doesn't make as much money as entertainment.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Fundamentally just to sell a cut down PC for the lounge room. This is what I thought it was going to be, but then I saw it in the store, and found that it was just another console, just more expensive, with fewer games, and a really bad controller. It seems that M$ simply ignored their punters (the kind of people who buy PC's) and went ahead doing what everyone else was doing in the marketplace, all I or anyone who were likly to buy a XBOX wanted was a simple lounge room PC. If M$ had taken this root then they would be in a much better position today, IMHO.
For a start, M$ would not have had to sell the thing at a lost, and since they own the OS, they could have maintained a reasonable price point. Also they would not have had to spend time buying up developers like bungie since all the games which work on PC would have worked on the XBOX, and lastly they would not have had to have spent millions (more like billions) hyping the thing up just to sell a few units. The only problem would be that they would have pissed off makers like dell or gateway, but seriously where are they going to go (if you say linux I'll shoot you).
I honestly think that if the Xbox had been your standard windows box then the thing would be a success now, the mistake was just trying to create a Playstation with computer hardware. Seriously, This is marketing 101, If you go into a market with an established player, you don't create a "exact" copy of what that guy is doing, you create something different, unless expect to compete on price, which the XBOX never could
Ofcourse, this idea of a lounge room pc, is probally what the XBOX2 (the homestation) will become but by then sony may already have a foot hold in that market and, if that happens, it will have been too late. This must be a good thing, knowing how M$ would act if they had a monopoly on the lounge room, However Sony are not that much better - but at least they got there by making kewl stuff.
Ofcourse, if the idea of buying a "proper" console appeals to you, and not some bloated mess designed to plug you into M$/Sony TV then, do what I did, and just get a gamecube (rocks by the way).
Pianist : Some jerk whos taught themselves how to type in rhythm
Lets all face the facts here. Microsoft doesn't take risks. Yeah, they make stupid desisions sometimes (some would say all the time),but really.
The only reson I even considered buying an X-Box is because of Microsoft itself. Not only do they have gobs and gobs of money to buy 3rd parties hardware, etc., but they also have this unnerving habit of either buying out or crushing the competition. Even if the console sucked balls at first, I'm willing to bet that MS would do anything it takes to keep that foothold in the living room. Anything. Fact is, whether you like them or not, they make stuff work... Forcibly if nessisary. Given the capital they had to work with and the mentality they had with their past projects, I can hardly see any notable risk involved on their part. I'm sure Blackley was under pressure to make it work, but I'm also sure they researched the gaming market, profit and loss potentials and competition before getting involved. Risk? No a lot of it when you know most of the variables and have wads of cash to throw at them (again, cash = good talent, advertising, hardware contrary to popular gamer belief)
I'm a gamer. Microsoft isn't my favorite company in the whole wide world. But when I considered whether to buy a PS2 or and XBox, I had to figure in MS's track record. It may suck now (in your opinion; I happen to like Halo, Gotham, Rally and JSRF) but like the artical said- This is a battle over your livingroom and I think they will do whatever it takes to secure that holy grail. And that is good for gamers everywhere.
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Well, no shit it's sucking in Japan. It's been the home of videogameing for the last 20-odd years. Not exactly friendly territory. Go find out how well Ford does in Japan compared to Toyota. Oh yeah... Did anybody mention it's new while the PS2 and DC have had time to build up a consumer base? Could those two items have anything to do with sales? Nah....
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Not blacklisted.. Heck, I was heavily considering buying one. Got an Xbox though got Christmas ^__^ The only problem is lack of titles, but that's any new machine.
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Look at Sony when they came with the first Playstation. At the time, a lot of people was unsure if they could get into that market. The graphics were at the time excellent and before 3D pc cards was something that was expected in every new PC. I even got myself one and enjoyed playing it. But after a while games started supporting the 3Dfx cards etc. I slowly stopped playing on the Playstation although Gran Turismo did breathe some extra life in to it. But I ended up selling it after some time. Today, fancy graphics is not enough to cut it. We need features that can compete with the PC's. It a different maket than on the PC, but still I can see that people would want a proper internet connection and the joys of playing online should not be underestimated. I think that they should really focus on getting the box on the internet and getting some multiplayer games up and running. The ethernet port is a very good thing but it should not be limited to that. A serial/usb connection to a external that would allow you to connect using a modem/ISDN using PPP would be great. Get it on the net for real and their advantage would raise a great deal.
my sig
I like that this article points out the risks that Microsoft took...
That is precisely why I disregarded the article. Microsoft could give every person in America two XBoxes and still have enough money left in the bank to buy out most of its competitors in the operating systems market. It's not a risk whatsoever - it's an attempt to murder Nintendo and Sony.
== Paul Rickard, Editor of The Microsoft Boycott Campaign ====
While I agree with you about Microsoft's "games as art" bit of marketing spin (it's a bit like Romero crowing "Design is law!" and then shitting out Daikatana), producing a truly artistic game is platform-agnostic, and Nintendo is perhaps the company that wins overall when it comes to bringing the art nature to gaming.
I think we'll all eventually forget about Grand Theft Auto 3, but Mario and Zelda are forever.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Wow! A story about a game magazine editor reborn as a game developer failure re-reborn to break into the gaming console market with a budget of a mere $5-6b. Result: mixed success --- yowza.
It's hard for me to be inspired by a venture which is basically insanely well funded, still has deep pockets, and takes advantage of monopoly power and positioning (MS) to make the venture a success, and then meets with mixed success.
Truth be told, they may well have done a good job under some extremely competitive conditions (Sony, Nintendo, etc.), but the Red Herring story just seems so misguided and manipulative. It's a personal piece trying to make this guy out as risk-taker (with $5-6b and MS backing) and who learned from his failed game experience. The marriage proposal at ToysRUs just makes the whole artificially romanticized story that much more saccharine sweet and distasteful.
I sincerely wish Seamus all the best on his marriage and ventures, but the story strikes me as forced, sleazy journalism.
Gross me out.
(So much for Seamus's 15 minutes.)
But, like the Dreamcast, it will die a slow death from lackluster titles. (Soul Calibur wasnt enough to carry a console, sorry.)
I said before, I'll say it again: Lackluster titles are what CARRY a console in the marketplace. The gaming platform with the most shovelware invariably wins. Look at NES, SNES and Genesis, PlayStation. They won because they had a good selection of killer games, plus "a library of a zillion titles" which sucked but which could be picked up from a bargain bin and stuffed into stockings.
The Dreamcast probably lost because of its low number of games, a great many of which were solid titles. And because unlike Sony, Sega didn't run around screaming, "OUR CONSOLE WILL PHYSICALLY KICK YOUR ASS WITH ITS L33T POLYGON-RENDERING SK1LLZ."
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Ok, it's getting so I can't stand this anymore. I can only hear people whining about their phobea of Microsoft dominating the console market AND how the XBox sucks in the same sentance for so long.
For said domination to occur, your competition either needs to be non-existant, disorganized, doesn't have capital, fields an inferior product, or you're plain smarter. Microsoft was more than just lucky taking the PC market because at least one or more of these came into play.
So which one of these are you willing to admit to for the console industry? Sony and Nintendo exist as established competition, they are organized, have capital, field good products and have experience in the market. Which one of these are you saying MS is so much better at?
None of them!? That can't be...! You must be paranoid for some reason! I realize this is flame bate, espicailly here on Slashdot, but come on, it's getting pathetic. Either admit one of these or quit whining about MS and console domination. Fact is that Sony and Nintendo would love to do the exact same thing, and complete domination by any one party isn't a good thing, regardless of how much you hate MS.
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the Xbox team wanted to deliver a machine for the most enthusiastic gamers who don't really care how much they have to pay.
That attitude is what gets you into the position that Apple is in now, and it forgets the lessons of VHS vs. Beta, and Microsoft vs. Apple: good enough wins marketshare, while producing quality dooms you to a niche market.
Quality might prove successful in the production of some things, eg cars, but where one's success depends on the production of third parties, and those third parties are rewarded by the popularity of the underlying platform, ubiquity is better than quality. If Mercedes required a non-standard gas to operate, would people buy them, regardless of their quality? Look to the acceptance of alternative fuel vehicles for your answer.
Since PCs depended on software developers, ubiquity in the marketplace, and the subsequent larger rewards for developers, is largely responsible for Windows 95% marketshare. And the availability of PS2 games is the reason people buy Playstations rather than the X-Box--the quality is irrelevant if you don't have anything to run on it.
--
$tar -xvf
It was a disaster. The physics (which Blackley tried to write personally) didn't work, the inverse kinematics was flakey, the gameplay was terrible, and the AI was a dud. And that's according to one of the developers. Reviews were harsh. ("Trespasser is a frustrating game, filled with boring gameplay and annoying bugs.") Sales were poor.
After that debacle, it's not surprising that the XBox contains nothing at all technically risky. The XBox is an Pentium 3 PC with 64MB, an NVidia GeForce 2, a stripped-down Windows 2000, and manufactured by Flextronics. No risk there.
Wow. I didn't know nearly half the population of the US is in NYC. It would have to be to out number the 126 million people that live in Japan. No wonder the rent is so high.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
First of all, People complain the Xbox is just rehashed versions of games you already have on your PS2. Well, i don't have a PS2, so it isn't a rehashed game and secondly, 99% of your PS2 games are rewrites of PSX games. Not much is new for PS2.
My xbox has tons of hours of play from Halo to Project Gotham and several different people running through oddword begining to end.
I don't have many games, but come on, it isn't about the amount of games you own, but the quality of games you own.
The Xbox is here to stay, and selling really well. I already have like almost a 100 titles to choose from and the sucker hasn't even been out a year. The Games have been INCREDIBLE for FIRST generation and *NOTHING* is standing in the way of the xbox.
Incase you didn't know the average Xbox owner is 25 to 36 years old. This croud is a technology oriented and often wealthy crowed. The Xbox has enjoyed a NEVER before seen selling of 3.2 games per console and well, nothing has repeated that yet. The PS2 is for the 18 to 22 year old croud and the nintendo cube thing is any age really.
Sure the PS2 sells alot, but there isn't a single game i havn't already played on another console that i liked on the PS2. For all those people saying "Halo will be on the PC" but so is Tony Hawk, so is your highly rated GTA3.
I bet it will be another story come this october when the xbox has been around for a year, sold 5 million units and launches the online gaming network. From racing to Unreal Championshop the PS2 nor Gamecube have anything BUILT IN to compete. The "peripheral" network has never taken off for *ANY* console so i don't see the PS2's ability to use external devices as any means to compete against the Xbox's built in broadband support.
Yes, the PS2 has a lerge library of decent games and has some great titles you can't get anywhere else, but so does the xbox.
And i'm sorry, if your pushing graphics, gameplay, connectivity and peripheral support the xbox winds hands down.
Remember todays games are only pushing today's tvs. The xbox will be able to push graphics beyond what anyone can imagine when it comes to 1080 and 760 hdtv.
Ok, I'm tired of being the X-box martyer ;) Somebody else can convince the ignorant and unwashed masses that MS knows what it's doing ^__^
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OMG... I saw that... Soooo tasty!
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Too bad it was all staged. He is lucky that he was with Gates for this stunt. If Balmer had been around, he would have probably shouted "So, your fuckin' this asshole?"
Preach it brotha!
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Perhaps if America made some decent console games americans would buy them.
Metal Gear Solid 1 & 2
Gran Turismo 1,2 & 3
ISS Pro Evolution 1 & 2
Silent Hill 1 & 2
Final Fantasy
All the major franchises are Japanese. Face it - the Japanese are better at writing games than Americans. Just be thankful that they don't give a toss about PC gaming because they'd probably be better at that as well if they tried (Mr Carmack & Valve excepted).
The PS2 is what really brings jobs to the u.s. first of all all the retail jobs made possible from the strong sales, then all the game development jobs in the u.s.! what the xbox people has managed to do is simply pay flextronics to manufacture the console abroad, pay japanese companies 4x the cost of development to ensure temporary exclusivity of their games and utterly failed to impress the publishers to take a risk on games for the xbox hardware. What the xbox has done is to make more people buy videogame consoles, but they are choosing ps2 because they like the games better so they are really creating more NON-u.s. jobs. Oh, and I don't think the xbox is bad or the games are bad, I just think people like to have a choice when it comes to games they can play. Microsoft has apparently decided that we only need 30 games to choose from each 6 months. Wake up and smell the effects of a monopoly.
Even this XBox gamer knows that Japan is where 90% of the good console games come from. Gaming isn't a sub-culture there; It's a lifestyle. It's been the capital of gaming for 20-odd years. To say they aren't important would be an understatment of the highest order.
The sad fact is that until it becomes an accepted culture here in the US, any help we can get in the Japanese arena would be highly benefical. Ignoring japan as a market and source for games would be suicide since the US doesn't have a devoted following like they do. If we did, then we could say "screw japan". It still wouldn't be a good idea, but native consoles could at least survive.
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It could have been worse:
Ballmer: Develop Her! Develop Her! Develop Her! Develop Her!
Frankly, I wouldn't introduce my significant other to any of those freaks, but I suppose billions of dollars does kind of tend to have a reality-distortion-field effect.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
About a year ago I was at a restaurant with a group of friends, and one of them had an XBox jacket. The waiter who served us started pontificating about how the XBox was going to be a failure...
The main difference between the XBox developers and the people dissing it is that at least the XBox devs are fucking trying: trying to build a great product, trying to enter a highly competitive market where previous wins are irrelevant (Windows, Office). The same goes for the Pocket PC, MSN, SQL Server -- and Linux, RedHat, Lindows, KDE, MySQL, Java, etc.
I have enormous respect for those people and companies who get off their asses and actually try to produce something. Usually they will fail; the majority of projects (and small businesses) inevitably do. But to have tried is the main thing. It's so much easier to be an armchair cynic, but the cynic is the real loser.
The Japanese generally don't like American companies invading their turf. We already knew it wasn't going to do too well in Japan. The Xbox is a superior console than the PS2. That's clearly viewed when PS2 ports run better on the Xbox than the way they were originally created for PS2.
Wouldn't want to see /. haunted by evil lawyers...
He's worth about $48 billion actually. $36 billion being in MSFT, the rest in other investments.
$5-6 billion isn't pocket change, but he certainly could spend it should he choose to. Aside from possibly losing the "Word's Richest Man" title, his life wouldn't change in any meaningful way. Unless you make a habit of buying office buildings or football stadiums, you'd be hard pressed to spend $1 billion in a single lifetime, much less $40 billion.
Besides, it's not Bill Gates' personal money that Blackley convinced Gates to spend on the Xbox anyway. The money being spent on the Xbox is Microsoft's (the corporation) money. Bill Gates' personal wealth really doesn't enter into this, excpet for how that the sucess or failure of the Xbox might affect the price of all that MSFT stock he holds.
I'll agree every mechwarrior through 3 has sucked, but I have to draw the line at 4. MW4 is acually fun to play. And lo and behold, it didn't get good until Microsoft bough the licence... Hmmm...
No comments on Armoured Core. I liked that too =p
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Even I have to admit the "running better on the X-Box" is debatable... Ports are only what you put into em. Everything says they should run better, but it's been screwed up more than once on every concole in existance.
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All good points and I certainly didn't mean them as absolutes. What I intend to illustrate was the fact that MS is serious about what it's doing and will make the project succeed. The degree of that success, however, is a huge unknown admittedly. It could range anywhere from playing second fiddle to Sony and Nintendo, all the way to total living room domination (doubt that). The point I was trying to make was I just don't think it will be the Atari jaguar or 3do that people seem to think it will be. Finally, Money by no means guarantees success, but it will improve your odds if you know how to use it.
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I used to work for an IT company that did kiosks, specifically for the Big 3 auto makers. The one I made for them is in most US GM Dealers, and it sucks ass as it was based on an M2 (3DO 2) console.
When the XBox came out, our quite large, publically traded company asked Microsoft if we could have a dev kit so we could do kiosks on it. They refused. Apparently they weren't interested in supporting any development but games.
So, we lied and said we were going to do games on it.. 3 months later, their publisher relations guys STILL hadn't gotten back to us. I talked to Seamus through email periodically about this - great guy, but totally disconnected from the biz side of it, he was unable to help us out.
I don't know about MS, but I DO know that kiosk systems are the ONLY thing that kept the M2 alive for so long. It was stupid to blow us off, the thing is an ideal kiosk machine.
Ah well, maybe it will get some good games soon.
Cheers,
Backov
In the law there is no overlap between theft and copyright infringement whatsoever.