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Salon Goes Inside the X-Box
Romancer writes "According to this
article, Recent X-box "Sales have been disappointing, and the co-creator of Microsoft's game console just quit his job -- a day before a book portraying him as a hero hit the bookstores." "
The article itself is allright, but it has a lot of good links.
The xbox is like an American car, its big, its fast, it just doesn't turn corners! :)
So from the way the development team has lost its head the version 2 of the xbox will be a completely different creature.
But, since this is hardware (as opposed to software where it is easier to fix mistakes) can MSFT really succeed/afford in making a new versions untile they become successful.
xbox looks doomed as matters stand now.
Microsoft needs to help the developers. Give them free dev kits. Give them free support. If you built it, they will come.
Without massive developer interest like there was with the Sony PS1, you end up with a flop like the Dreamcast. Good games are the only thing that will keep the customers interested.
No amount of advertising can compensate for mediocrity...
Wait a minute. Did I just say that about MS?
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
Windows YP will include X-BOX as a mandatory part of the operating system. Bill Gates says:
"Not inclusion of X-BOX in Windows put the development of Windows 10 years back. Now, we can move in the bright future with Windows YP! Toaster included, too!"
All of the articles talking about Blackley's departure as being a sign of XBox's fall are mostly just hype. Blackley did this interview with Gamespot and said that his departure had to do with the coming of E3 and the formation of his own game company.
It gives me the hope that maybe a company software based or not will come along and make some business decisions that are not bone-headed and knock the Borg off their perch
And then we can start bitching about THEM!
Seriously - we don't want any ONE company to knock them off the perch. We want the hordes to eat the perch! making sure no one else gets up there to crap on us again!
I think the Dreamcast experience shows us that you just cannot recover from the position the Xbox is in - unless....
Well, MS could obviously use its market power to cut prices to silly levels. If it did it all over the world then it could be accused of dumping, but it would be high risk - MS would look to make money on the games, but would face more law suits.
Yet, given the pathetic nature of penalties suggested by the DoJ they might want to take that risk.
And what government wants to go up against a company selling its console for $99?
Anyway, get a Dreamcast. They're cheap and you can run Linux on them!
More DC Linux Stuff here.
Granted, we have a lot of gloom and doom here, with sales dropping, MS dropping their expected shipments by 40%, Blackley leaving, etc... but this is MS remember. Against the juggernaut of PS2, the Xbox does seem dead, but then MS doesn't usually just drop something that has this much market/profit share. Will MS make a bid to buy out Sony's PS development team to 86 any competition? We will have to wait and see....
...we are from the government - we are here to help...
"Opening the Xbox" is published by Prima Publishing. Among gamers, the Prima name is best known for publishing strategy guidebooks for a wide variety of console and computer titles. Prima guides are currently available for more than a dozen Xbox games, including Microsoft's popular shooter Halo and gridiron simulation NFL Fever 2002. Strategy guide publishers like Prima often depend heavily on the cooperation of game companies -- like Microsoft -- to release hint books that are information packed, timely and useful to gamers.
They also depend on mushbrained "journalists" giving them free advertising. That paragraph is worded like a prima press release, no one uses "information packed" in any other context.
Question - is Mr McCauley (who wrote the Salon article) a complete tool, or did he agree to include that exact phrasing in exchange for getting some sort of access? Have things gotten to the point where companies like Prima can dictate terms to the press? (He actually works for the Philadelphia Inquirer, not Salon.)
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
First off, there are far more than "10 games" and many more than "two or three good ones". Second, the Playstation didn't launch with "hundreds of different games". How long has the PS1 been out? 6 years?
Doesn't any large corporation have internal trouble in decision making processes? Why do you think it takes our government so long to pass bills? It's one big messed up corporation.
What?
Its just a computer inside a pretty box that connects to your TV so you can play games
Yeah, those have never succeeded.
X-box has been selling almost nothing over here in Europe but today is the first day with the new price, 299 which brought the Xbox to below $300 here in Sweden where it was previously around $500. Reportedly several stores have sold out of Xbox today so maybe now things will get going for Microsoft in the gaming arena.
Reading one of the side articles that the topic article linked to, it seemed that Gates was more interested in attacking Sony than he was in putting out a product that people would actually enjoy.
My brother has one of these things, and I hate the controller (even the smaller Japanese version that he picked up on a visit overseas). The games are nothing new (older PS2 re-releases for the most part, and don't even talk to me about Halo - if I want a FPS I've got my PC).
So am I surprised that it's not doing all that well? No. I think this one should have spent a little more time on the drawing board, and not come out just to take sales away from Sony.
I have all the current consoles, in fact, I have almost every console that has been made.
Of the current three the best hardware is the XBox. You get the HD for saving games and adding levels/characters/etc. You get true high definition support. True wide screen support. And very good Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. The GC game selection isn't very good, but it's cheaper. It has no DD and not all games support 480p resolution. The PS2 can only do DD in cut scenes. Not many games at all do wide screen. Both the GC and the PS2 still use memory cards. The XBox also has the shortest load times for games by far. The XBox also has built-in Ethernet.
As for game selection the PS2 wins, mainly because it's been out so long that the good games have appeared. Nintendo needs to get their Mario/Zelda/Metroid games out NOW. Microsoft is steadily releasing good games. Also, go hit IGN sometime when a game comes out on all three consoles. They have started doing very good side-by-side-by-side comparisons, and the XBox always wins. Better graphics, better sound, and sometimes extra levels/characters/etc.
Microsoft won't lose this. They have far more plans for this system than a simple game console. Give them another year to get even more good games out and we'll see what happens.
This is the famous Microsoft sensitivity and respect to the rights and cultures of others coming to the fore.
Seriously, this sort of thing is a part of the corporate culture. _Somebody_ had to approve the code name.
It comes down to how much respect does MS have for others, inside the company?
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
The Inquirer had this nice suggestion about the XBox-2. Wouldn't that be funny if it happened?
"Information wants to be paid"
As it turns out, the X-Box contains a couple layers of hardware based encryption. For instance, I'm pretty sure that you can't run any code from CD unless it's been signed with a key that MS possesses - development is done on the disk. None of the software that supports this is accessible from the game, and the hardware is likely prtected too, so you'll have a bitch of a time loading linux on it.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Is Dave Cuttler still working for Microsoft? I remember he was once in charge of the NT project, but rumours say he had to give up the control because of internal disagreements.
What I see is a p3 733 CPU with custom Nvidia chip (anyone dares to benchmark?) running some extra-cool directX which MS is hiding from us (PC users) oh and a HD which runs some form of FAT (omg,make it at least ntfs for journaling,household electricity problems)
:-)
Did you see Sony PS/2's specs? Don't you laugh to those people (they finally got a clue) saying Xbox would kill PS/2 because it has 733 Mhz CPU???
MS couldn't win this game. Maybe next time... Oh and those "cool" plans... No, I don't want BillG in my god damn TV...
Microsoft seems to think that they can treat the Xbox like a piece of software. "This version didn't work out so great. Luckily, we have mandatory upgrades in the EULA, so people will have to buy the next version." No. They fail to realize that companies like Sony and Nintendo have successful consoles because they are *extremely* well refined for doing one thing only and that one thing well: playing games. (Duh.) Case in point: the SNES. Weak ass machine, 128/16kb sys/vid RAM, 3.5/2.6/1.7MHz CPU. Effectively less powerful than any given PC 5 years before its time. Yet, it's tight, well designed hardware was able to deliver astonishing audio and video effects for the time.
So, Microsoft decides to jump on the boat and they offer a console that is really nothing more than a repackaged desktop PC. Stock *everything* except for their pretty case. Microsoft sees Windows as "successful", and surely thought that if they do to the Xbox as with Windows, it too will be successful. That is to make it has huge and feature rich as they possibly can. Totally the wrong idea. It needs to fail so that game companies see quite clearly that this is no way to offer a console. I would venture that if the Xbox were a success, we'd see more slapped together consoles like this cropping up from Nintendo, Sony, or whoever else. Now they know they really have to engineer hardware instead of use the current market hardware like a Lego-kit to build a game platform.
Why bother.
The graphics as sound are better than anything else, aside from a full on PC. The HD is convienent.
As as for games: Project Gotham is better than GT, even some PS2 owners agree. Halo is a decent FPS. Jet Set Radio is sweet, vastly superior to the DC version. Spider-man is pretty decent too, even if you have to fight the camera a little bit.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
I agree, MS could cut prices to such a level that they could flood the market with cheap units. However, unlike the old Vetrex system which had an asteroids-like game burned into the console ROM itself, the X-Box requires software - and there lies the deficiency.
Microsoft made all the same mistakes that Neo Geo did in releasing a console - all the same mistakes that 3DO did. (Please tell me I'm not the only gamer old enough to remember.) Impressive hardware, nice design specs, even a cool niche idea - but not enough support. The Neo Geo was only for NG games and didn't have third party support that I'm aware of. The 3DO had so few games that I hesitate to think of more than one offhand.
The X-Box has fallen into the same perilous pitfall. MS built a system that's a bear to develop for and they didn't secure enough games on release day. Hell - in their release year.
The Gamecube sells because Nintendo has the almighty power of branding in the console market, and because they've got games by legendary designer Shigeru Miyamoto; that makes a lot of difference. Nintendo isn't about games, it's practically about franchises, esp when Miyamoto gets involved.
The Playstation 2 sells because, even though it's beastly hard to develop for, it was backward compatible with the libraries of PS1 games already out there. ("Look, Mom! You don't *need* to buy me all new games!") On top of that, they've got heavy duty third-party support: Konami's Metal Gear Solid series, and Squaresoft's Final Fantasy, to name two offhand.
MS didn't pay attention and has wound up in a bad way. On top of not paying attention to the console market, which they really didn't know, MS didn't even pay attention to the *PC* market, which is their bread and butter. They should know how tight the hardware markets are and how difficult it is to sell a third-party system; they've spent years ensuring this is how it would be. Yet, even so, they distribute the X-Box -- a scaled down PC, with the ability to port your PC games to it -- which places it directly in contention for a part of the PC Gamer market.
Alas, PC gamers have already bought their hardware and aren't bloody well likely to jump ship for Halo's sake.
-
I just don't know. MS has made every mistake they possibly can make with the X-Box. I don't see that unit climbing out of obscurity. They should lick their wounds and prepare for round two, because this one is lost; maybe they should go read about Sega's console history, and see how Sega made the leap from the Master System to the Genesis. (and then *not* follow them down the same paths as the Saturn or the Dreamcast..)
XBox's problems could be seen before launch. They claimed they made their hardware by asking gamers what they wanted. Who/what/which gamers did they ask?
This may be a symptom of a common marketing problem - overuse of focus groups. Often companies bring together "representative" groups of customers to ask them what they want to see in a new product. While this can be a good tool for generating new ideas, the problem is that these groups only give you people's dreams. What you really need is studies about how people make buying decisions. You may pack all the features they asked for into a console, but that does not mean that the product will be the one they pick when it hits the shelves. What someone asks for in an interview or poll and what they actually pick when they look at it on the shelf are often very different things.
I think he was emphasising the fact that they need to keep on the game companies' good sides, otherwise their hint books are 'thin on information, late to market and useless to gamers'.
However, it does read as if he cut & pasted that straight from a company press release. A friend of mine works in PR, and says it's amazing the amount of stuff he writes that he sees verbatim in newspapers and magazines in the weeks and months after a particular release goes out...
deus does not exist but if he does
There has actually been a lot of talk in the business community about Microsoft's (mis)management. Bill Gates & Co. are obviously brilliant strategists, having successfully established a powerful monopoly over an exceptionally fast moving field. However, they have created very little in the way of an internal corporate structure. They still run it like a startup. What we may be looking at is something like an Alexander the Great empire, an enormous power at the moment, but likely to collapse as the original founders retire.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
And what happened to the team?
And what happened to Data General eventually?
The sad fact is that most "hardware" ventures, regardless of the industry, are short-lived.
The X-Box will have had a "shelf-life"/"existence in the retail space," about the same as any other consumer product.
In our own industry: Remember the Altair 8080? The Osborne-1? The Bernouli Drive? Data General- Keronics/EDS? DEC PDPs & Vaxes? Packard-Bell?
In other industries: The Packard automobile? Erie-Bucyrus & cable bucket excavators? Pet Rocks? The original Sony Walk-man before it became a profitless knock-off sold in a blister-pack for ten bucks by brothers on the street.
The list grows daily of products relegated to the ash-can of consumer oblivion. The disappearace is hastened by corporate pressures to perform.
The bigger the corporation, the higher the pressure. A lot of smaller companies would be quite happy with the X-Box's sales volume but it won't do for a Microsoft. The X-Box team need a lot more money coming in to stay alive as a budget line item.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
give it to the netbsd geeks they could get netbsd to run on a left-handed and broken abacus.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
...and that's after Saturn sold at a loss. It cost them nearly a billion dollars and put them out of the hardware business. That kind of thinking is what killed the Dreamcast.
It was a seriously over-ambitious system. The electronics were too expensive (hence the loss), and (likely in an attempt to compensate) the other parts were cheap and poorly designed. When you pick up a Dreamcast controller in your hands, it screams "Piece of junk!" through your fingers.
Sega needed it to sell big, and sell lots of games to make up the loss, basically to push Playstation aside right out the gate. It didn't, and by the time word started getting around about the great games, talk of the Playstation 2 killed it.
It didn't look or feel like a better system than the Playstation, and it was launched with the unrealistic expectation of (and desperate need for) a quick win. People perceived it as a loser box, a machine that would be abandoned, and lo and behold it was. This drove away users and developers alike.
It's true, good games aren't enough to carry a system. You also need a solid strategy for more new games, and a system that looks like you should buy it and feels like something worth hundreds of dollars.
More games, more games, more games. Then lower the price of the games. People are not buying a console because it looks cool, was made by a certain company or simply just to have another one. You buy it to play games.
I bought a Dreamcast in December and have bought at least 20 games for it since then. Why? Its a decent console, connects to the internet, and most of the games still left are under $10. I have spent less for my DC and all 20 games combined then the Xbox and one controller costs. $50-60 for one freaking Xbox game is over 2X above what I will ever pay for a console game, therefore my kids and I will stick to our PC's, Dreamcast and PS1.
The gamers and must-haves will always buy new, they already have the Xbox and now its up to the general public to keep it floating.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
This is a false argument. It is unfair to compare a 6-month old system with a 2-year (PS2) or 8-year (PSX) old system. At least compare today's X-box to the PS2 6 months after launch (which is when I bought mine).
PS2 at the time had only 2 'great' games (SSX and Madden), and a handful of good ones (Armored Core 2, Star Wars Starfighter). It also had a TON of crap. Comparing that to the X-box today with Halo, Jet Set Radio Future, and DOA3 they are not so different. SONY was also in a similar position to Microsoft when PS2 launched. Dreamcast had been out for over a year and had a number of good, solid titles behind it: Soul Calibur, Sega GT, Jet Grind Radio just to name a few. I remember at the time of PS2's launch when people were commenting how PS2 had mostly crap games, while Dreamcast had a good library of titles. Sound familiar?
Today, PS2 has FAR more market penetration than DC ever did, so it will be a more difficult struggle for MS. Plus, PS2 has done a much better job of continuing to produce great titles than Sega ever did. Gran Turismo 3, Grand Theft Auto 3, Metal Gear Solid 2, Final Fantasy X, Silent Hill 2, SSX/Tricky, Devil May Cry, Ace Combat 4, Wipeout Fusion, Virtua Fighter 4, etc.--most of which are exclusive content--are all great games that drive system sales. The upcoming schedule for PS2 also has more highly-anticipated titles than any other system.
Since the beginning, the Xbox has been perceived by many as a "cheap PC that connects to the TV to play games". And as evidenced by the upcoming titles on the system, a lot of PC ports seem to be in its future. Xbox will have far and away the most FPS games of any console, I'm sure. Problem is, it will have little else. Most console gamers grew up on "Japanese" video games. Many are anime fans. US developers mostly seem uninterested in making that style of game (cute), instead opting for 'manly' killing machine games. Consoles are driven by content, not tech specs, and the Japanese still own in the content department, at least as far as console-style games go.
Also, while the stable hardware platform should make Xbox less buggy than normal MS software, the folks at Redmond hardly have a reputation for making things that work well. That, coupled with the public's negative views of MS as a company ("evil corporate pirates!") and SONY's experience and head start, things look bad for Xbox.
And when the Japanese public finds out Xbox was called "Project Midway" by MS Insiders, don't expect to sell many more boxes there. ^_^
--
Dave
I've built up so much character I have an alter-ego
True, the sales figures were lower than expected, but not THAT much lower
I know you want to stick up for your Xbox because you don't want to feel so bad about flushing all that cash, but missing sales targets by more then 50% in Europe, and by way more then that in Japan when you're already taking a big hit on the cost of the hardware to begin with is called failure where I come from. Any company but Microsoft would have been forced to pull out of those markets or go out of business. Do you know how many more games they're going to have to sell now just to break even?
First off, they don't have many good games in their lineup for the forseeable future.
They have completely failed in Japan, which is a real problem because many of the best games come from Japan.
How are they going to make money? They have put a PC in a box and are selling it at a loss, whereas Sony and Nintendo either make money or at least break even on their console sales. Microsoft took a shortcut and simply put a PC in a box, because their expertise is not in making hardware, that's simply not going to work from a business standpoint.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
They're in for the long haul. They know people will buy the GameCube for the Mario/Zelda/Metroid games when they come out. They're not going to abandon their system, or development of their flagship products, just because people haven't bought it on the merits of the first wave software.
I also believe that their next portable platform will play GC discs. Long haul.
If I ran a game company, I'd be working on GC games. Ones with big, readable text for small screens.
Er... isn't that the definition of a video game console? What do you think is inside the GameCube -- Keebler Elves?
Well the "missions" such as they are might be easier, but the originals in Jet Grind weren't exactly hard. I don't think I ever had to try more than 3 times to beat them. And I do kinda miss the combo-style of spray painting, but I do think getting rid of that makes the game a litte faster pace and give it better flow.
But the new areas are huge, you can grind on more things, to more places, and do WAY more tricks, but best of all, no time limit, so you can really wander around and have a litte fun seeing what there is to see. I like that multiplayer game with the ball, hog ball I think. A nice touch.
Oh and I thought MSR sucked. It certainly didn't seem to have anywhere near the replay value, let alone multiplayer fun, that gotham has. Not to mention Gothams sound track kicks ass. I might even like it better than the original Jet Grind for the DC, which was pretty freakin sweet. Oh, I've never been to Tokyo, and don't really plan on going. So the homage, though it might be nice to some, it doesn't really make it a better game to me. No more than Resident Evil The Movie taking place in Raccoon City made it a better movie.
In the end, the games for the Xbox have a replay value that the DC versions lacked. And for me, replay value is more important.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
"And now, the 5 best games for X-Box this year!"
"In first place........Halo!"
"In second place........Halo!"
"In third place........Halo!"
...
...
---- I'll take you in a Hunt deathmatch any day.
there's a DOA3 booster disc that's coming out in the Official XBox magasine. There's nothing stopping them from adding Halo mods.
Yes, there are more than 10 games for the system. And how many are exclusive games that I want to play?
Halo. Project Gothom. Jet Grind Radio. Dead or Alive 3. Maybe New Legends and Munch's Oddyssee.
The rest of the games are either co-released for other platforms (Spiderman: The Movie, that Batman games, etc) or PS2 remakes (Genmu Onimusha, for example).
So at the moment, we've got 4 games I really want to play that are exclusive to the system. (If you don't disacount Halo since it's coming to the PC (and hopefully Mac) right before Hell Freezes Over)).
The PSOne took over because they won over developer support over Nintendo, which focused on their cartridge technology. They courted the 3rd party developers. Now, they're smart enough to not let them completly jump ship to Microsoft, so unlike your PSOne vs Nintendo argument (Six years! Give Xbox six years, and it will be just as good!), Sony isn't going to let their premiere developers leave them the way Nintendo did, so they'll still have a great lineup.
The Xbox has potential. It's even a powerful system. But they're fighting an upstream battle, and just saying "give them time! It's a great system!" isn't going to help. If they want to really succeed, they need to get the exclusives to their system, and that means winning over Japan.
I don't see it happening. I'm sorry, and I know that you've spent a lot of time in this article defending the Xbox. But you've got to face the facts - unless something changes, something that makes game developer en masse go "Damn, let's dump the PS2 and go to the Xbox" so that all the gamers will go "Damn - I guess we'd better switch as well" - until that day happens, PS2 will keep on winning since developers will develop games for the clear winner first to make money, then the "other" consoles later to pick up some extra income if possible. And with the Xbox systems/games dropping off in sales instead of increasing, the just looks more bleak.
Maybe Xbox 2 will be better. (For God's sake, maybe they'll include some real USB ports so I don't have to use the controller to t-y-p-e-i-n-w-o-r-d-s.) Maybe broadband support will really be "out of the box" instead of waiting 8 months for MS to decide that "Gee, I guess a TCP/IP stack is a good idea". Maybe someoe will hear the majority of users going "controller sucks - deal with it". Maybe they'll let you download games over a broadband connection for a fee (mixing in with the Ultimate TV developers that have been reassigned to the Xbox?).
But first we have to weather the current Xbox 1 storm, and it looks pretty rudderless.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Incomplete
Confusing
Badly designed
Overly difficult
I have said before that well designed games don't need manuals, and yet here's a whole subindustry devoted to selling you an additional manual! I suggest to all of you that if you play a game and have so much trouble figuring it out to the point where you think a "strategy guide" would be useful, you write to the company that made the game and tell them what's wrong with it. Because if you need a strategy guide, there is something wrong with the game. Most game developers love to hear suggestions on what they could have done better, and if enough people tell them, their next game will be better.
Furthermore, if you get stuck anywhere in any game, it's almost certain that someone will have posted a walkthrough, or even just a usenet post (which Deja/Google will do a wonderful job of finding for you) with the solution. Meaning you spent $10 up front for a guide you might or might not need (if you're buying it in case you get stuck) when you could have found the information for free from your fellow gamers.
Oftentimes strategy guides aren't even that good. I've worked on and seen enough games in development to know that some of the authors don't even spend much time at all with the game, and essentially just push rewritten versions of the manual or design document out the door as quickly as possible. To be fair, that isn't true for all of them, some guide book authors really do try to provide a valuable service. The main point of this rant is that it's only even a potentially valuable service as long as game companies are writing bad games. And if the games are bad, you shouldn't buy them.
I would love to hear a counter example from someone who buys strategy guides and finds they improve the experience (of an otherwise good game) somehow. Anyone out there?
So, eventually, Microsoft will have to ship a machine that is extremely unimpressive, face it, Microsoft just isn't up to the task of actually designing their own hardware, or it will cost twice as much. Or, they will simply never make a profit from the Xbox.
Sony and Nintendo on the other hand, develop hardware customized for gaming(instead of PC in a box) that can be sold at reasonable prices and they don't have to take a loss.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
The article is biased, and full of contradictions.
It tries to make the point that since the head of the development effort is quitting his position, he must know something we don't, and that the XBox must be doomed. It then follows with this:
--quote
"Absolutely! Xbox kicks ass."
But, hey, what else would you expect an ex-Xbox evangelist to say?
--endquote
So... he's not quitting because the Xbox is doomed? What's this article about again?
Judging by the volume of the box, I'd say they have enough for several weeks...
:wq
One ring to rule them all. The (_O_) in Goatse.cx
Kind of like watching a train wreck. Grab your popcorn and pull up a chair. Has anybody registered fuc*edconsole.com?
Hey things are fun on this side of the fence. I was sad during the demise of the Dreamcast....Now I am neutral (cause I don't have the funds to participate in the console wars of 2002.)
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
You can still find new SNS systems being solld in the 3rd world.
And in a few years they will have the TV's and electricity to go with their shiny new SNES!
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
I don't quite see your point, to be honest with you. You mention SONM (great book, btw; I think I own a first edition but I'm not sure), but I don't really see how it connects to your final point.
That said... your list is a lot less coherent than makes any sense. The Altair didn't last long, but it started an entire industry; one could make the same case about the Osborne-1 and portable systems. The Bernoulli still exists; the cartridges are smaller and we call it the Zip drive now, but the technology is the same. Data General was probably a history of missed opportunities more than anything else, though I don't know the whole story. Packard-Bell was a joke from the beginning. As for DEC... you mean to hold up a lineage (lineages really, but you're slamming them together) that got close to thirty years of lifespan overall as a failure (assuming that's your point)?
I don't really understand where you're coming from at all. The Xbox is in the situation it's in because of a failure to gain credibility in a vicious market. Indrema tried the same thing with very similar hardware and never even made it to the plate. The fact is that some consumer products will last a very long time. Some won't. (As for the Sony Walkman, what exactly you're getting at there escapes me completely -- imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all that, and I'd say knockoffs or no the Walkman and its successors have been a success beyond anyone's wildest dreams...)
/Brian
The capacity used on the XBOX even by Halo is at a very low percentage.
That is waste of resources and no company has been able to write code that would use it at its full potential.
Seamus might be leaving his job but he is not out of the industry. His next objective is to develop games. New games are what is needed for all that waste capacity you have in your living room. The best thing he could have done for the XBOX was growing it from a different perspective. He is the person who knows its architecture the best.
I can't wait to play one of his games on his console.
"Do you know how many more games they're going to have to sell now just to break even?"
Yes, just as many games as they would have had to sell before... People make the mistake
of thinking that consoles sell the games, when the reality is the other way around.
Only the most hardcore of gamers buy the console sight unseen, the rest of the public waits
for the release of the game that they really want to play to justify getting the console
for all the other games it can also run. If Microsoft can keep the release schedule going
for newer games, and keep the advertising effort/hype going for people to want to play those
games, then they will also continue to sell X-Boxes, and make further revenue on X-Box accessories.
It may cost them in the short term to have an oversupply, but IIRC Sony suffered last year
from not being able to make enough PS2s to meet demand during critical sales periods.
Some people were trying to call that a failure too.
MS is in a better position to keep a steady flow of consoles on store shelves, and meet
hoped for demand in the summer and winter sales seasons. They just have to convince
retailers that the upcoming game releases are enough to generate continued
interest in buying the box, and (more importantly) keep the game designers convinced
that the platform will continue for another year or two.
The biggest mistake MS (and Sony and Nintendo) have made was in keeping thier sales predictions
and expectations at such a high level in the face of ongoing economic problems and more recent
political and social concerns that, while they don't directly effect the demand, do have
an effect on how buyers will proritize making the purchase of a console.
Just like all the consoles before it, it will take more than 6 months on the market for
the X-box to really show as a success or a failure.
You never played them on a 64" widescreen with a great 5.1 sound system while sitting on a comfy couch with your feet up.
I'd rather do that.
so your saying MS entered the console market the same way it has entered every other market its in?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You know, I'm typing this on an iMac, and I've just realized that my model didn't come with a cup holder. Should I sue ;-)
Now that you mention it, though, it does seem a bit odd that the bitness thing has gone by the wayside; it might have made a fun marketing strategy, say, five years ago. It really comes down to the realization that if it's really a numbers game, it's not the big ones on the spec sheet that count. Yes, geeks have known this for years. But it would seem that people outside the geek world are starting to figure this out.
That said... well, yes, mister, that is where they keep all the gigabytes. See, they come out of here by this long ribbon when they're needed, feed around here into this circuit board, and see this big grey metal box where the power cord goes into? Once you have 1.21 gigabytes and the DVD is spinning at 88 mph...
/Brian
Umm... silly pointless numbers troll? You're forgetting the hacked nForce chipset with the GeForce 3 inside...
It's not about the CPU anymore (insert threadbare rant about Brian's PII box).
/Brian
A lot of people have said similar things about Microsoft's initial failures, only to be proven very wrong after a year or two once Microsoft has won the war.
I think that more competition in the console market is better for everyone. Yes, Microsoft rarely gets a product right on the first try, but look at the difference between win 98 and win 2000. Two years can make a big difference.
All companies make mistakes. Not all companies learn from them.
Amazing magic tricks
Customers impressed about XBox?
Actually, the specs are making XBox look very bad compared to the PC already standing at home in the consumer's home.
If you think that specs and buzzwords impress consumers (actually they don't, a big game library will) 128-bit, emotion-engine and DVD-playing are much more impressing than an outdated Celeron.
i expect that if there is scrutiny on this aspect of Microsoft's operations, Bill & co will have put in place a world class system w/in 8 months to a year. That is the benefit of running the company like a startup.
Amazing magic tricks
Midway used to be a big name in the used to be big pinball industry.
Seems like the codename could be construed as an homage to that rather than a WWII reference.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Microsoft's going to make plenty of bank on the XBox overall. This whole thing is pretty much a non-issue, and is a bunch of media hype about Microsoft being a failure for not being the #1 console. Nobody in Microsoft expected to be anywhere near the #1 console, Sony built way too good of a brand name with the Playstation. Microsoft is in this for the long haul, at least two more hardware releases.
Also, the PS2 sold mostly on the brand name, it would have sold well even if not PS1 compatible. Further, the PS3 looks like its going to be even harder to program for, using tons of processors (IBM style grid computing), and Sony has shown no interest in providing better libraries and documentation for even the PS2..They are getting away with this now because the sold a mass of consoles based on their brand name, but treating 3rd party developers the way Sony does is a dangeorous business, ONE slip-up on the business side, and developers are going to flock away from Sony in a mass exodus.. That's not a good position to be in for the long term, and Microsoft realizes that (Nintendo also realizes this after the N64 debacle).
Why is the Console "Network effect" never mentioned. Has anyone ever seen something on the local geographical distribution of console sales. Local, like by city or smaller geographical units.
Most gamers buy the same console as their friends so they can share games. This would make the incumbent almost impossible to dislodge and might be the "real" reason the market can't sustain 3 consoles. Dreamcast had lots of good games but I think the "Network effect" killed it, little else.
This would mean that Japan for sure is dead for Xbox (see sales data below), Europe will depend on the GC early succes. The GC addresses a slightly younger audience so they are to a lesser degree taking on PS2 head-on. Sales of Consoles in Japan early April. Third week sales is out but I couldn't find it)
Quote
Sales tracking firm Media Create reports that in the first week of April (4/1 - 4/7), Microsoft sold an abysmal 2,179 units, a number that in and of itself is astonishingly low for a newly-released console system. But when you examine sales of some of the other hardware on the market, the news gets even worse. In the same week in April, Sony's seven-year old PS one platform sold 3,959 units. And get this--Sega's discontinued Dreamcast console even managed to outsell the Xbox with 3,427 units purchased by Japanese gamers. As for the other next-generation platforms, the PS2 and the GameCube sold 80,734 units and 15,06
8 units respectively.
Help fight continental drift.
The Saturn was the first system sold at a loss. It was NOT normal or usual prior to that. Sure consoles didn't make the money, games did, but the marginal loss was a Sega invention.
They build the Saturn, it was too expensive. They needed a hit to follow on the Genny and the 32X was a disaster. They sold at what the market could bear, losing money.
In fact, Sega tried to get the stores to lose money on the sales as well. The Saturn killed Sega. They then created a business model around moving LOTS of Dreamcasts and lots of games. They didn't have enough capital.
Sega died from poor business decisions.
The Gamecube is the first Nintendo system sold at a loss, and it is apparently in the $10-$20/console range, not the $100+ range of Xbox.
If you make money/break even on hardware, and make money on software, you make money in the console business. Sony copied Sega's practice of selling at a loss, but they successfully moved units.
Nintendo made more money than Sony's video game division did during the years that the PSX was destroying the N64.
If you make money on everything, you make money. All you risk is your initial fixed costs. If you lose money on each item and plan to make more elsewhere, you're running in dangerous territory.
Microsoft can afford to lose money for 4+ years to make it up in years 5 and 6. Sega couldn't.
Alex
So are you.
First off, they don't have many good games in their lineup for the forseeable future.
That is *YOUR* Opinion. Personally, My opinion is that Halo, Project Gotham, Max Payne, Munch's Odysee, Simpsons Road Rage, Rallisport Challenge and DOA3 have all been EXCELLENT games.
They have completely failed in Japan, which is a real problem because many of the best games come from Japan.
How are they going to make money? They have put a PC in a box and are selling it at a loss, whereas Sony and Nintendo either make money or at least break even on their console sales. Microsoft took a shortcut and simply put a PC in a box, because their expertise is not in making hardware, that's simply not going to work from a business standpoint.
Where do you get this nonsense? Everything is a PC in a box. Why such a fuss over putting a hard drive and Linux on a PS2? Isnt that " Just a pc in a box".
I don't know what you guys are smoking, but the Xbox has only JUST began. The online lineup is amazing, the future titles coming through are amazing and the potential is amazing.
Just like others have said, we haven't even scratched the surface of the potential of the xbox. It is nice being able to play my own music, have basically infinate game saves and have an EXCELLENT LAUNCH Library.
You want a sh**y launch library look at the ps2. Took a year before things really got going!
And i'm sorry, a 300.00 xbox doesn't cost anymore then a 299.00 PS2. You DO get DD 5.1, HDTV 1080 support, DVD Playback, (yeah yeah, a remote is needed, spend the 20 freaking bucks!), Great game linup and a hard drive with infinate potential and savegames.
I'm sorry, but i'm looking foward to Unreal Championship with the voice commander. It will be nice to not need a keyboard and be able to yell at people.
MS Money never knocked off Intuit...
Had an interesting conversation with friend who works at Microsoft... He agrees that there isn't enough exposure to non-MS products among the employees.
MS wins by bundling, product dumping, etc...
Alex
Jet Set Radio Future is the SEQUEL to JSR for the Dreamcast. I should certainly hope that it's much better for the Xbox.
As for Halo, FPSes shouldn't be played on consoles. The interface is just plain clumsy in comparison to the keyboard/mouse interface, and there's no ability to mod or import skins and the like. Those who like consoles to play FPSes, more power to you, but you're not getting the real deal. I don't care what kind of graphics the Xbox can pump out. They still have to be displayed on a regular television. I personally can't tell the difference between the Xbox's graphics and the PSX graphics on a regular TV. While I expect that the Xbox does look significantly better on an HDTV compatible television, exactly how many people do you think own HDTVs? If your answer is "more and more," let me be the first to laugh my ass off at you.
Maybe one or two people out of 500 can afford to drop $2000+ on a HDTV system, if that. If it would even fit in their living rooms wherever. Hell, I just bought a regular 27" TV, only to find out that it's too big for my large entertainment center. Technical specs will blind all the gadget hounds out there, but most people want price and games, both things the Xbox loses big on.
Nintendo, I will freely admit, is being very VERY slow out of the gate with their games. However, they did the same thing with the N64 and it didn't hurt them much. Nintendo relies on their licensing juggernaut to get consoles out the door. Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, et al, all give Nintendo a "get out of jail free card" when it comes to slow release cycles. Hell, you can't buy Mario World 64 (one of the N64's launch titles) for less than $30 used. Nintendo also has the GameBoy Advance, which for all intents and purposes owns the portable console market. That as well allows them alot of slack in getting their GameCube lineup set.
The Xbox's game lineup is a cast-iron joke. Not to say that there aren't quality games released for the platform by any means (Jet Set Radio Future for one, Dead or Alive 3, Project Gotham Racing) but the rest of the lineup is either Windows ports, Dreamcast sequels, or 100% quality free productions.
There's nothing worth playing, aside from hijacked Dreamcast franchises (which both JSRF, Project Gotham are, and DOA2 was orignally DC only) that they can point to and proudly proclaim as Xbox only.
Microsoft hyped the Nvidia chipset and the P3 processor when they announced the project. They talked about the state-of-the-art components to get computer gamers to get excited.
Now they go down in flames.
Using an Intel x86 (with 20 years of backwards compatibility cruft) saves on R&D costs but increases chip chosts. Nintendo and Sony's decision to bite the R&D bullet but lower the component costs was the correct one.
Microsoft went in with the attitude of release Xbox, release Homestation in 2 years. The strategy was to launch a WebTV/UltimateTV/Xbox combo in two years. Two years to bring costs down (though you'd toss a big-ass hard drive in Homestation) so Homestation would be affordable (has to be less than $500, possible the $300 price point of Xbox).
By launching Xbox two years before the real product launch, they get some revenue from game sales and establish a beach head.
Xbox's failures in Japan and Europe will hurt badly. The real question will be if Homestation ever launches, and if so will it be an Xbox2 or Xbox+. Backwards compatibility is important in this strategy. Do they just add features (Xbox+) or rev the processor and just play the old games.
I don't know that MS can do this 2-3 year upgrade cycle, we'll see.
I agree with another poster in this article, MS damaged the PC Gaming market with this entry. They may really suffer for this or benefit. For Xbox to really take off, they want to kill PC gaming to be replaced with their console... we shall see.
Alex
Of course it's a capable gaming machine, it's a PC!
That's its strength, but it is also its weakness.
I'm not criticizing the hardware, I'm criticizing the company. They are trying to gain marketshare in the industry by selling a piece of equipment way below cost, and they are doing that because they aren't capable of developing a dedicated gaming system that can be sold cheaply, above cost.
Folks, they cannot take a loss forever. Something eventually has to give, either the hardware or the price.
Also, my criticism of their game lineup is an opinion, you may disagree. But many people are of the same opinion as myself, their lineup is not diverse enough to get the attention of a wide enough audience.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Yes, just as many games as they would have had to sell before...
Ok, if they stopped console production, and managed to sell off the remaining stock, they would only have had to sell as many games as before. The problem is the stock isn't sold, and they made enough units to cover their incorrect projections. They will sell that overstock, but it'll be at a reduced price (Read: increased cost to Microsoft). Now, if you increase the amount of money you loose on each console sale, you increase the number of games you have to sell before you start making a profit. It's simple math. No matter what the bottom line for MS will be smaller then what they thought it would be because they had to lower prices. You are correct that only time will tell if they come out in the black, but that is only one measure of the success of a product. I don't understand what "games selling consoles, not the other way around" has to do with it. Wait, yes I do. It has nothing to do with it. If microsoft makes enough good games to sell the console, but not enough good games to break even on the console, then they've failed.
How many more games does microsoft have to sell per unit now? Well lets see: They're loosing $145 additional dollars per sale at the new European price. Lets say they pocket $30 for the sale of each game (That's likely generous considering how much marketing they do) $145/$30 = ~5 additional games per unit before they are turning a profit. What percentage does 5 games make up of the average number of games that are purchased for a particular console over it's life (My guess is between 10 and 20%)? How many games did microsoft already have to sell to break even?
The biggest mistake MS (and Sony and Nintendo) have made was in keeping thier sales predictions
and expectations at such a high level in the face of ongoing economic problems and more recent
political and social concerns that, while they don't directly effect the demand, do have
an effect on how buyers will proritize making the purchase of a console.
I'm curious as to why you say that, since only MS seems to be having problems meeting it's sales projections (Though Nintendo hasn't launched in Europe yet, so we don't know what will happen with that).
They make money off licensing and publishing. If I could download the Devkit, what would I pay MS for, a pretty little "seal of quality" logo? By controlling the Devkits, you only get one with a contract. The contract results in licensing fees.
MS needs to make money, not just lose money.
Alex
3D0 failed to do the things that would be required to create this perception: ubiquity is the most important (if you see 3D0's everywhere, you know that they're getting market penetration, and thus games will be produced); a sense of stability is important (3D0 and indeed everyone else loses to Sony in this regard - Sony's, and to a lesser extent Nintendo's - reputation as a hardware manufacturer is such that no one fears getting "orphaned.") Sega's earliest successes leveraged the relative lack of heavy players in the field, and attested also the their ability to work well with their channel. Unfortunately for them, the other players moved into the field, learned from Sega, and then won with their pre-existing advantages.
Technical details are generally not as important unless there are generational differences in technology.
Come on...Project Gotham better than GT3? Get real.....GT is THE acknowledged king of driving simulations.
Acknowledged by whom? Having played both, GT3 sucks in comparison to Project Gotham Racing.
Heck, it REALLY REALLY TRULY sucks in comparison to RallySport.
Si
Coming soon - pyrogyra
point taken. A better, though longer, transition is the one from win 3.11 to XP.
Amazing magic tricks
But games that are available on all platforms like Spiderman have been rated the best (mainly for graphics and sound, but sometimes playability as well) on the Xbox. So yes, I can play the same game on the PS2, just as I can play Unreal 2 on a Geforce 1 without all the detail on. Which would you rather have for the same dollar? A Geforce 3 or a Geforce 1?
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
This is just my own experiences but...
the folks at Redmond hardly have a reputation for making things that work well.
This is BS. I make my living as a developer on Windows servers. Our servers have incredible uptime. Remember, MS's problem is security, _NOT_ stability. Also, I've had my XBox at a "LAN party" where it was essentially hammered on for 12 hours straight. This is on the network. The bottom line is, for the past few months that I've owned my XBox, I've yet to have it crash. If only my PS1 would have the same uptime.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Though, one thing I think they failed on was removing the ability to use CDR's in the box. I know they did it for copyright protection, but if they had they could let developers and individuals make mods for Halo and its kind.
Actually, it's because the DVD drive they use is the cheaper, single-laser type - and that only reads CDs, some CDRWs, DVDs and DVDR. You need a twin-laser system typically to be able to read CDRs.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Back before Xmas, when all the hype was learning towards X-Box, I said "Wait a minute! There's almost no way this thing will beat PS2 in the marketplace. Too many people already own some type of personal computer, and they don't want to own another stripped-down one with the same processor, hard drive, video adapter and RAM in it!" When I bought my game console, I went the Sony route. It had very little to do with backwards compatibility. (I never owned the PS1 and had no games for it lying around. Furthermore, I didn't want to play older technology stuff with my brand new console.) I was sold because it was different enough from my PC that I felt reasonably certain I wouldn't just end up with a bunch of games that felt just like I was playing them on the computer.
As long as MS bases their game consoles on PC technology (Intel architecture), they're limiting their audience to some extent.
No, it's fair. Timing has a lot to do with why any product succeeds or fails. In fact time is sometimes the ONLY reason why. When it comes to competition being a year behind someone might more than wipe out any advantages you would have otherwise had, such as superior product.
Who moderates the meta-moderators?
Good idea - reparations. But I think Japan should start off first paying reparations to china, korea, malaysa, taiwan for their past colonial exploitation.
It was released on one of the consoles and it was simply horrible.
.... but without a keyboard much of the fun of network play (trading equipment - begging others for equipment, showing equipment off) will be lost. So i dont think diablo will work either.
Diablo might be good though. It seems simple enough for a console
I agree FPS are best on a PC. Still. But most FPS on consoles add a new dimention to the word "suck". Halo rises above that, and not to merely adequate, which would still make it a standout in it class, but to actually good. With replay value no less.
But if you want to see a difference in graphics, play the san fransico tracks of Gotham that take place at sunset, and put that up against anything. The level of detail is truly impressive.
And I would also say that DOA3 for the xbox, pardon my french, licks ass. Not that DOA2 for the dreamcast was offensivly bad, but neither of them are soul calibur. But DOA2 does get points for letting you play Denis Rodman in a teletubby costume.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
Since M$ has a history of just dropping things that don't work out right. Is the Xbox worth it to them to stick it out for the long haul? We all know that given enough time M$ can make any product acceptible to consumers.
http://Lenny.com
I think the set-top box and the X-Box fight are (for now) seperate issues - Microsoft has directly said they wanted to make a game console, which was one of the reasons they made the USB ports non-standard. Microsoft's web-tv and UltimateTV are more the set top contenders... though it seems to me likely the strategy is to build up a good library of XBox games and then release a set-top that also plays all the old XBox games (now as to that being a wise strategy - of that I am unsure...)
On the other hand, Sony has said publicially they would very much like to move in a set-top direction even with the current PS2 and provided standard computer ports like USB and firewire to help that along. I expect when the HD/networking combo comes out we'll see some browsing capability built in, possibly that was a reason the ported Linux to the thing to use as a lightweight OS for the browser.
So, Sony might be in the running earlier as a general use set-top, and possibly get a huge lead that even Microsoft pouring resources into can't break. I personally think that Sony's expertise with home electronics counts a lot for producing better set-top boxes than MS can come up with.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yep, nothing stopping THEM from making approved Halo mods.
But if you have a fantasy to have an Urkel or Smurf mod, more power to you trying to convince THEM to write such a thing.
Though I'm with the other poster in noting that the reason you can't read CD-R's is to keep the hardware costs down.
Now, the real question - why can't you treat the XBox drive as a network share and write mods out to it that way? I'm not sure if that's possible the way things stand, apart from ripping the drive out of the system and mounting it on a PC (or is that even possible?).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley