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Console Pricing Economics

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the stuff-to-read dept.

Red Mercury writes "Red Mercury has just released a new installment of Monday Morning CEO. Today's topic: XBox Economics. The article explains some of the myths and realities about game console pricing, how the current price war is playing out, why Sony is winning, and why Microsoft is losing." Interesting piece about all the recent console price cuts.

2 of 442 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Getting PCs to the third world by MsGeek · · Score: 5, Informative
    I have a friend who was in on the final testing of the XBox. He was able to look at its guts and basically told me that the box is "un-crackable."

    Point one: the BIOS is distributed over several chips, not contained in one EEPROM.
    Point two: the operating system itself is encrypted with strong crypto. It uses a species of crypto related to the EFS encryption infrastructure first released in Windows 2000. Since the OS is in ROM and thoroughly encrypted kiss the thought of booting the XBox with Linux goodbye.
    Point three: their DVD-ROM has a reversable motor. XBox game DVDs spin BACKWARDS, and the content starts at the second layer.
    Point four: Even the peripherals are non-standard. The XBox implementation of USB means that plain-jane USB periphs WILL NOT WORK with the XBox. There will be a keyboard and mouse for the XBox when hell freezes over.

    Microsoft made DAMN SURE the XBox would not end up like the IOpener.

    The better chance to get PCs to the 3rd World is the VIA Eden Platform. There are already products using the Eden Platform out, and more are on the way. VIA might not attract the power users (The nForce+Athlon is more appropriate for them) but they will 0wn China with this platform.

    And no, not every poor fsck can afford a TV. Some can't even afford a bowl of rice. In places like this, technology is the least of the populace's worries.

    --
    Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
  2. Great Article! except for the fact that it's wrong by Fatal0E · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is one of those articles that takes present strategy (as viewed from the outside looking in) and runs it into the future.

    The whole article assumes that MS will never fab it's own chips into an Xbox... that might not be entirely true.

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    BOSTON SUCKS!