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).

Comments

From a non-gamer...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Livin' Large @ MSFT

[Knunov]

"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

Re:actually 2 systems

[Matey-O]

damn, i wish i could mod that up

Why? It's incorrect. The OS for the XBOX boots' from the INSIDE LAYER on the RIM of the DVD, counter to normal DVD's being read with sector 0 bein on the OUTSIDE layer at the innermost track on the disc.

MOD THAT UP. It's accurate.

MS domiation of the Console

[Mulletproof]

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.