Slashdot Mirror
No Love From Microsoft For Xbox Modders
RandyOo writes: "Only 4 days after news of an XBox port of MAME was posted to Slashdot, Microsoft contacted the admin of mame.net and downloads have now been removed. Knew I should have downloaded it earlier this morning ... Thank goodness for P2P!" And scubacuda writes: "According to The Register, one group of Xbox hackers have decided to halt development on its Xbox mod chip. It will be interesting to see how other developers follow suit."
.. But Microsoft's lawyers contacted me and asked me not to.
do you think that if they are doing this with X-Box, that they won't do something similar with Palladium?
It is all that trademark control of the user experience thing happening all over again.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Microsoft? Not hacker-friendly? What is this world coming to?
Next thing you know they'll start mucking around with standards and protocols!
m00.
And you know what else? Fuck them. They chose a poor business model. I don't care if it's standard practice in the console market. If I want to do something with a piece of hardware I purchased then I'll damn well do it. This bullshit has got to stop. I don't owe them a profit, and I'm not going to bottle up my enjoyment of life for the benefit of a corporation.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
"No, Master!"
Microsoft can kick and whine and scream all they want to, but it's far, far too late. They knew that all the other consoles get chipped. They knew that their hardware was ripe for a Linux/Mame/Etc.. port. They knew that they were going to have to fight this, even if every other console maker has been doing it from the beginning of time.
Sorry, Bill. Take a good look at Sony, your main source of competition. What have they done? Released a Linux kit... and therefore eventual Mame compatibility.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
The site of another modchip manufacturer at http://www.xtender.info/ is also gone.
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
They're still posting source code as they update it. Of course, without the Xbox Development Kit (which they used to develop MAME-X), you can't build it, so it's kinda useless.
Precedent has already been set forth by Sega V. Accolade. One does not need permission from a platform developer to release software for that platform, given sufficient reverse engineering. However, since MAME-X, and all other Xbox software, uses Xbox's (and Windows') APIs, effectively nothing can be released without Microsoft's consent.
The EULA strikes again.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
Xbox mod creators, however, claim to have the moral high ground in this discussion ... they focus their efforts on creating chips which can run homebrew software rather than pirated games, such as the Xbox version of MAME (designed to emulate old arcade machines)...
;)
The irony of that statement, told by The Register with a straight face, is delicious! "Look! We're using this to run homebrew software, like Joust, Centipede, and Wizard of Wor!"
Microsoft, like Nintendo and Sony, spends millions developing anti-piracy technology and now they're mad about the cracks - what a surprise. Remember, consoles also thrive on licensing. If anyone could develop software for a console, it would defeat the purpose of the entire business. Of course, Sony's Linux kit is a bit of an exception, but you can't distribute any software for it.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
It sounds as if Microsoft is pissed because their SDK was used. I don't have an Xbox SDK, but I'd imagine that there is some pretty hefty licensing requirements that disallow posting any code built with it on the net.
Now, if someone manages to build Xbox binaries with other tools (gcc) and without the libraries and headers that come with Microsofts SDKs, I don't think Microsoft will be able to do anything about that.
Take a look at the GameBoy Advance scene -- there are at least two non-Nintendo compiler chains that you can use to build GBA binaries. Plenty of people have their own sets of header files available for use (I have a heavily modified set of my own). Nintendo realises that they can't stop them. But, if any of the offical GBA SDK shows up on the net, better believe it that Nintendo's lawyers are working to quickly get it offline.
So, this doesn't have anything to do with Microsoft's poor business model and everything to do with protecting their intellectual property.
dennis
Microsoft: If cars had improved the way software has we'd all be driving a million miles an hour uphill on a shot glass of fuel and the car would cost a dollar.
New response: If cars were like the xbox, we'd be sued for selling after market parts and only be able to buy gas from approved vendors at a dollar a gallon premium.
"Remember; listening to microsoft too much killed Sega as a Console producer; Now they've been reduced to software."
WTF?! Where did you hear there? I realize that MS isn't well liked, that doesn't mean that they're responsible for failures that are even semi-linked to them.
The reason that Sega failed as a console producer dates back to their flooding the market with crap. The Sega CD was was a decent add-on but didn't have very many interesting games (at least compared to the Genesis.) They released the 32x and quickly forgot about it. The Saturn spent all it's time playing catch-up to Sony and failed miserably. When the Dreamcast was released, the PS2 was hot on it's heels.
If anything, MS helped the Dreamcast by providing them with a CE-based OS for developers to port games to it. Unfortunately, though, Sega couldn't afford to keep producing Dreamcast consoles. They'z expensive. With the competition from PS2, MS, and Nintendo, there was just no way they could keep up. So they made the right decision: Make games for all the consoles, make your competitors earn you money.
This has nothing to do with Microsoft. Just because MS has their logo on the Dreamcast, doesn't mean they did anything to lead to it's demise. I realize MS is widely hated here, but if everybody on Slashdot does nothing but bash MS, then nobody'll take you seriously when you have a legit complaint about MS.
"Derp de derp."
TiVo (the PVR) is more friendly to hackers and actively support them, so I came to the following idea where you can piss Microsoft off a little and add to your TiVo at the same time. As Microsoft plan into making future generations of XBox a Personal Video Recorder, what about killing them stone dead by installing MAME on a TiVo?
First generation TiVOs may not have enough CPU power to simultaneously play video games and record, but the second generation ones have faster CPUs. They're probably not up to leading edge games but early arcade games should be no problem.
Demonstrate that being hostile to hackers is not a good thing.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
I was watching Who's line is it anyway? last night and they had Collin play a character named Captian Obvious, I thought he did a pretty good job until now.
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
So, once again, the home consumer is being punished for a company choosing a stupid business model... How long until this is written into law?
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Why waste effort porting or hacking a platform if the vendor tells you it will be "somewhat" open in the future?
Sony did the right thing by saying they would eventually be releasing everything needed to make your own "custom play" console. They defused the desire and efforts of many who would have done otherwise. Since this strategy of "announce and release somewhere a bazillion years from now" was pretty much created by Microsoft I'm not sure why they just didn't do this now?
--- I do not moderate.
Untrue. If one wants to play legally purchased imported titles on a legally purchased console, the only way to do it is to bypass the technical (not legal) region restriction placed on the console by the manufacturer.
Granted, many console mods are done for the sole purpose of piracy. But there are most definately reasons to mod a console for reasons other than piracy.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Mmmm.. no use for Xbox HD, no Inter-Web games?? I believe Morrowind shows what the HD on the Xbox can do. They pre-load the huge levels they have on the Xbox and poof, no more long load times. Add to that unlimited storage for save games and information about the game and poof you've got one of the best reasons to have a HD in your console. As far as internet games, people have been playing multiplayer Halo and other games for months (like a month after the xbox came out). There is quite a large community of players and hackers. Also, MS's plans on internet play are by far the best of the 3 consoles (Nintendo doesn't have a plan really... PS2 is like you'll have to buy these $50 games and then pay $10 to each of the Publishers for the right to play on their network! No thanks to that, 3 games = $150, $10/month * 3 * 12 months = $360/yr, $150 + $360 = $510/yr just to play 3 games on the PS2.)
I agree that there have been some lackluster games on the Xbox, but it has enough hits that justify for those. The PS2 had NOTHING for 1 year!! They had no good games, and at the end of the year when the Xbox came out, they got GTA3 and FFX etc...
I'm tired of people bashing the Xbox based on its parent company. Fight MS on the PC side, but let them try to create some competition in the console market. We (the consumers) are the only ones to benefit from this competition. I'm tired of only have Sony or Nintendo as an option, because they don't compete against each other... those that buy Nintendo's products will continue to buy Nintendo products, and those who buy Sony products will continue to buy Sony products. The XBox bring a nice refreshing burst of competition, developers for the PS2 are now having to make their games look much nicer and concentrate on the visual aspects as well as the gameplay elements and Nintendo developers are now creating more mature games.
So in closing... just stop being ignorant... I'm tired of ignorance on Slashdot, are we a community of well educated tech people or are we a community of ignorant bafoons that have nothing better to do at work then spread FUD.
-- DeionXxX
Commencing flame.
No really, mod chips let me import games (which I purchase) from Japan. Pure and simple.
What the fuck is the point of globalization and "the international market" if they are selling neutered hardware that wont let you even USE the stuff you can now have access to in other markets?
It's a fucking joke. Anyone who supports increased global trade, but opposes mod-chips is a total hypocrite. We are not becoming a global community, but a two tiered society - powerful producers and powerless consumers.
Well, fuck that. Like the Boston Tea Party, sometimes you gotta break the rules when they've been sufficiently and effectively stacked up against you.
"Old man yells at systemd"
So the MAME project uses the Xbox Development Kit to develop MAME for the Xbox. What this means is one of the following:
- They bought a proper license for the XDK. The ability to buy one requires an approved title.
OR
- They illegally pirated a copy of the XDK.
Since the MAME project had a working version on a devkit box (the clear case Xboxes), I'd be willing to bet that a programmer at a games shop that has an approved Xbox title took it upon himself to port MAME.
Once MAME was developed, the only thing required to get it running on commercial Xboxes was either pressing a true DVD-9 and getting the code signed as an approved Xbox title, or using a mod-chip and burning the software onto a CD.
The first option wouldn't happen - MAME is not a title that would show the power of Xbox, nor would it be something the average consumer would want.
The legal problem with the second option is that the ported MAME software uses Microsoft's intellectual property. When building software for Xbox, your application is linked against several static libraries that provide the base software services (file systems, memory management, etc.)
Hence, Microsoft really does have the legal right to stop distribution of MAME in this case.
Don't ask me about the mod chip's legal case - I don't know about it at all.
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
I'm not entirely convinced Microsoft is doing this because they don't want users to run MAME or because they're worried that people will buy an Xbox, mod it, and just use it to run their own software without ever buying a single officially licensed Xbox game. Quite honestly, that seems like such a small drop in the financial bucket that I doubt Microsoft really cares that much.
I think Microsoft's main concern is that people will use modded Xboxes to screw with Microsoft's Xbox Live offering. You know, the one they're investing, like, 80 gazillion dollars into? I'm no security expert, and I have no idea what kind of "military grade" security Microsoft has implemented with their Xbox Live infrastructure, but based on this article on Wednesday, it does seem to rely heavily on the fact that they're using a closed, Microsoft-only system.
What does that mean? Again, I'm not really sure, but I'd wager good money it means the most likely way somebody could f*** up Xbox Live for users is by using compromised Xboxes. That's something Microsoft definitely doesn't want, and I'm guessing that's why they're showing no love for modders.
"Do you expect me to talk?" "No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die!"
The line of circular reasoning rather silly, don't you think?
If a company makes a product, I am not obligated to make sure they make money at it - only that the product is useful/enjoyable to myself. That's it. End of my commitment. If I buy War and Peace and use it to beat my groin in a strange masturbatory experience, then Tolstoy shouldn't get all pissed off - he got his money, and I got a bruised crotch.
The same thing applies here. Microsoft's plans for their product do not override *my* plans for their product. Once I've spent the money, they can try to *entice* me to buy games - but if I want to use the Xbox as a doorstop, there's nothing on earth they can do to stop me. Paperweight? My right as a consumer. Potted plants? Same thing.
Put in a mod chip to run Linux so I can put Mame/DivX/a SNES emulator? Still my right - all they can try to do is entice me to spend the money *they* want me to. If they decide to pull the product off the market - that's fine. Perhaps someday there will be a vendor who *will* put that kind of product on the market, and then they will be the one to make money.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
You license the hardware, you don't own it.
Tell that to the secondary market. Hardware is a physical tangible hard-to-copy thing that is owned. If I had an X-Box, I could take little wires and a soldering iron and do anything I want to its innards, risking only voiding the warranty. If I just wanted to use the CPU to keep a little cup of tea warm, I could, and you couldn't stop me.
If you ever tried that with my gaming console (yes, I'm a developer for a major game company, not MS), I'll send my lawyers after you so fast you'll be in jail getting assfucked by Bubba and his friends.
Whatever.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
I don't work for Microsoft, and I don't know their current licensing agreements of their SDK, but here's my understanding based on my prior experience (in working for Sega, in their Developer Technical Support group).
There are apparently two things that Microsoft is griping about - the sale of Mod Chips, and the distribution of the MAME X-Box binaries.
Issue 1 (Mod Chips): Microsoft may not have a leg to stand on legally. Until reverse-engineering is completely made illegal in the United States (and other countries where Microsoft could sue people), the Mod Chips are semi-legal. I say "semi-legal" because although they generally allow for the use of pirated games, you can also claim that they let you run other things (like non Microsoft formatted CD-R's/DVD's, etc.), like MAME for the X-Box.
Issue 2 (X-Box MAME): It is my understanding that the binaries that were distributed were built using the Microsoft X-Box SDK. This is a no-no. At Sega, we would rent (believe it or not, basically, rent) the development hardware (which was a special Dreamcast unit that had a debugging CPU, a hard drive and a GD-ROM drive that would boot from non-retail GD's) for somewhere in the neighborhood of $5,000, and we would include with that a copy of our SDK.
The hardware and SDK were heavily licensed, to the point that we could take them away from a developer on pretty much our whim (although I had never heard of such a thing happening - usually the developers returned them on their own volition, like when they were finished development for the system). Also, the game concepts had to go through committee decisions, and the companies getting the hardware and software were generally heavily scrutinized. I can say from personal experience that I was ordered to not provide a certain company with support, even though they had our hardware and SDK, because they weren't working on an authorized title.
So, basically, you weren't allowed to give out the SDK's to anybody, and since you don't have permission to use the SDK, it is illegal to distribute the resulting binaries (kind of like the Quake I for Dreamcast that was floating around - it required WinCE to build, but only licensed Sega developers had legal rights to use the WinCE SDK). On this issue, I completely agree with Microsoft.
Build it without the X-Box SDK, and you're in the clear. Otherwise, get a good lawyer, because you're committing copyright infringement.
-- Joe
Step one: Place X-Box on secure platform.
Step two: Place drink on X-Box
Step three: Turn on Gamecube and enjoy.
The PS2 had NOTHING for 1 year!! They had no good games, and at the end of the year when the Xbox came out, they got GTA3 and FFX etc...
*ahem* So Gran Turismo 3, Metal Gear Solid 2, ATV Offroad Fury, SSX, Twisted Metal: Black, Onimusha, NBA Street, Tekken Tag Tournament and Sky Odessy don't count as "good games"? I'd hate to have your standard for "good games", as you are going to be disappointed with just about 99.999% of all games out there.
Sorry, I know, feeding the trolls and all, but this tired "the PS2 had no good games!" argument ticks me off whenever I see it.
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
Sure, research from Enigmah-X, based in China, has been shut down, but we can purhcase these chips. I believe Liksang.com, located in Hong Kong, still sells these chips. If you ever make a trip to the Far East, be sure to check out China and Thailand. A popular Asian philosophy that implies that "knowledge is free" is a reason why local officials drag thier feet to shut down production operations or enforce intellectual property laws. Movies, software, video games, and a long list of other items are considered "knowledge" there, which explains the existence of their large "piracy" market. Mod chip development, which involves research and development, is also considered as something needed to attain what is considered "knowledge", for example video games. (However, China has begun a recent crackdown on software-related piracy in recent months, as it tries its hardest to enter the WTO).
In Thailand, you can obtain PS2 and Xbox games from 2.50-5 bucks a pop. Ps2 and Xbox mod chips in Hong Kong cost less than 110 of US currency in the local markets and stores, last time I checked. X-box Mod chip development will likely pop up in Asian countries, so be on the lookout if your interested in this subject.
The Asian mentality which states that "knowledge is free", which is Confucian in origin, is something a so-called "Westerner" may not understand, especially when that person lives in a country full of IP laws. This explains the seemingly endless battle of American companies, such as Microsoft, against the gargantuan "piracy" markets of Asia.
Also, this quote from a paper of a student of Rutgers University titled "Preliminary Analysis of Intellectual Property Protection and Economic Development in China" describes the situtation of IPR (Intellectual Protperty Rights) in China:
"Confucius's concept of the transmission of culture and Marx's views on the social nature of language and invention arose from very different ideological foundations. Nonetheless, because each school of thought in its own way saw intellectual creation as fundamentally a product of the larger society from which it emerged, neither elaborated a strong rationale for treating it as establishing private ownership interests.[15] Deeply influenced by these two ideologies, China falls behind all developed countries and many developing countries in the field of intellectual property protection. It is also not difficult to understand why most of Chinese did not know what were IPRs in 1980s."
As one can see, the IP battle between West and East began with ideas created in the West and East. Microsoft's successful attempt to shut down R&D on the Enigmah-X is part of it.
As one famous Chinese scholar once wrote:
"To steal a book is elegance."
More information on the reasons behind the East-West IP battle can be found in here:
"Preliminary Analysis of Intellectual Property Protection and Economic Development in China", an essay written by Sheng Ding
"To Steal A Book is an Elegant Offense: Intellectual Property Law in Chinese Civilization" by William P. Alford
Fah, Nintendo has the cheapest console and they actually make money selling them. Microsoft created a console that is quite a bit more expensive to produce than Sony's or Nintendo's and they sell them at a significant loss because they know that otherwise they wouldn't sell very many. They hope to make back this loss with game royalties and services, but it isn't my responsibility to make sure they do. If Microsoft wants to guarantee that they don't lose money on XBox purchases then they need to raise the price of their goods.
Sometimes companies just come up with bad business plans. Microsoft is apparently not immune to this trait.
< There is absolutely no legal reason to own a modified console.
Untrue. If one wants to play legally purchased imported titles on a legally purchased console
Right, but also...
It allows people to write new programs for it. I could write a recipie database, a web server, or GrandTheftSpaceShuttle3000 and sell it or give it away for free.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Hey, now wait a minute. A kick in the ass I can understand, but the X-BOX people have to get IE too? Be humane, please!
It costs Microsoft money the same way refilling ink cartridges costs printer companies money. Microsoft is losing something like $150 on each X-Box it sells. Any X-Box that is used for something other than selling game cartridges cost MS money.
It's also similar to the situation where people were selling cheap internet appliances expecting to lock people into long, expensive ISP contracts. Anyone who bought one and hacked it to use as a cheap terminal was costing the company money.
Another similarly ineffective money losing endeaver was the CueCat debacle. Remember their value attempts to prevent people from hacking on hardware that they were giving away at Radio Shack?
Perhaps the real issue is whether there's any enforceable law that props up a business model that obvious gaping holes in it. Maybe the DMCA is applicable here? Are hackers bypassing any protective measures included by MS?
same thing they're smoking every day.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
What Palladium is proposing is that the boot decryption keys are embedded in the CPU itself. They need AMD & Intel's cooperation for this, of course, and now they have it. This way, it's all but impossible to modify the boot code or to view the encryption keys, except perhaps by shaving the top off the CPU & examining the ROM mask directly with a (very) high-powered microscope.
Palladium may not take off (there's going to be a lot of privacy concerns, and it's going to be very difficult to secure comprehensive industry support, or it just won't fly), but they sure as hell can implement it in Xbox 2.
Even this approach can be defeated by e.g. bugs, human error, social engineering etc etc, but it makes things a lot harder to crack/reverse engineer from the hardware/software aspect. Look for Xbox 2 as a feasibility study of the Palladium concept.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
It wasn'y clear from any of those links on what gounds microsoft objected. It wasn't a port of one of their games, was it, but rather to their platform?
How is this different from apple throwing a hissy fit because I've ported galeon to run native on carbon (which I haven't, but for sake of argument)?
I truly am confused, not just shocked, shocked. Not askign you to justify M$ reasoning, just explain it.
Refillable ink cartridges are an excellent analogy to this XBOX situation - if I remember correctly, the major printer manufacturers are getting sued over the way they handle the pricing of their printer cartridges. The point is that both businesses sell the major hardware so cheap that they lose money on it, assuming that they will make the money back from sales of accessories. From a business standpoint, this approach is flawed because of the changes in the ways consumers approach intellectual property.
Let's extend your analogy a bit. I'll start a car company, and make cars that require a special type of fuel. I'll price the car competetively against others on the market. How long before someone else starts producing my fuel at a cheaper price? Not long. Who cares if it "costs the company money" when you buy from the cheaper source?
Now hackers have provided alternative "accessories" for the XBOX, and no one cares about Microsoft's business plan.
-dbc
MS have never said Xbox would be "integrable" with "other stuff". They never pushed the fact that it was based on standard PC parts. They always pushed it as a killer game console, nothing else.
There will never be a "commercial OS" to run on the Xbox, if MS have anything to do with it. Repeat after me: It's a game console, not a PC.
The online service has not been opened yet, but even so you can still play half a dozen games, including Halo, Tony Hawk (2X & 3) and Nascar Heat, over the net. Not quite "no inter-web games available", whatever that means. When Xbox Live opens in a few weeks, there will be dozens of net-based games, as promised.
And clearly you haven't looked at what uses the hard drive HAS been getting. First off, virtually infinite save games. Second, rip your music & play it from there without the CD, or play it instead of a game's supplied soundtrack (this is really nice). Third, caching game data really does speed up game load times, especially during the game itself. Fourth, it allows you to add content to a game, as DOA3 did with their recent bonus add-on disc.
Fifth, and most important, games are starting to use the hard disk for LARGE amounts of persistent data. Morrowind is a current example of a huge, really detailed world that is simply not possible without the HD. Project Ego is an even more ambitious RPG that preserves & evolves every last detail of the world - forget doing that on a memory save card!
And of course they're pissed off at modders. They will oppose anything that gives people a reason to buy the Xbox (which they take a loss on) and not buy games from it, at least until they can break even on the sale of the box. They will (of course) also oppose anything that might promote or allow piracy of games, to protect their publisher partners.
They haven't "given us a bunch of resources", they're selling a game console, just like Sony et al. And just as with the other consoles, people are seeing the Xbox as a challenge - one with more promise than PS2, DC etc, since it has a built-in HD & ethernet, a faster CPU, more RAM, better gfx & sound and it's a largely familiar architecture.
You're complaining that the Xbox is "useless" because of its lack of non-gaming support, yet you claim MS doesn't belong in the gaming industry? Make up your mind.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
"I'm tired of only have Sony or Nintendo as an option, because they don't compete against each other..."
I'm sure they'd like to know this...
"those that buy Nintendo's products will continue to buy Nintendo products, and those who buy Sony products will continue to buy Sony products."
So... you're saying having a choice between two different philosophies is bad, and being able to choose between three carbon copies is good?
You may have a point about Nintendo fans being in it for the long haul, but please remember that this is only Sony's second console to date. Just because they're buying PS2s today doesn't mean they'll buy PS3s tomorrow (or even continue to buy PS2s). After all, most of the people that bought PSX today bought Sega yesterday, Nintendo the day before and Atari before that.
A lot of Nintendo people buy Nintendo stuff because they are God's gift to game developers (a point that has proven itself far too often to bother arguing about). Generally speaking, we don't care if Nintendo's new system will be two tin cans and a rock as long as we get to play Miyamoto's next games on it.
Sony, on the other hand, has shown a reliance on third-party developers, and their PSX sales were high because of the wide number of third parties that developed for it instead the N64. But even then they lost out to the N64 in many areas (including North America). In short, Sony isn't selling a Sony system, they're selling a non-Nintendo system. And Sony is heading for trouble because the vast majority of third-party games today are hardware agnostic. Even Final Fantasy's next installment will be on all three consoles.
If you say that Nintendo and Sony don't compete with each other, then by your own definition Microsoft is only aiming to compete with Sony. The majority of the games on both of those systems are aimed at the same audience.
"and Nintendo developers are now creating more mature games."
Pet peeve time: Anybody who says something like GTA3 is more mature than something like Zelda: Majora's Mask needs to have their head examined. That, or they're still in high school.
Actually, the don't have any right to limit what you can do with the hardware you bought. If they sold it to you for a loss, stupid them. The hardware itself is completely yours to do with as you please. What MS is using, and what companies who invoke legal action for hacking systems generally use, is the fact that in some part of the hacked system, MS-developed software is being used. In the case of this, its the code in the XDK. Since software isn't bought in the traditional sense, but instead licensed, they have a hook to stick it to you legally. Companies can use BIOS code in a similar manner. What we need now is somebody to make a clone of the XDK software (maybe using stuff from WINE...) so resulting binaries are "clean." That would stick it to them!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Use the SDK to build gcc.
In practice, a cross-compiling port of the GNU Compiler Collection also requires a port of GNU Binutils, which is strictly not part of the GCC project, but is almost always distributed alongside GCC. Binutils contains the assembler and the linker. The Xbox SDK's linker signs the code with Microsoft's private key, and parties to whom the Xbox SDK is disclosed are contractually restricted from disclosing Microsoft's private key. The unmodded Xbox will not run unsigned software. Therefore, how will you make a linker whose output the Xbox will accept?
Will I retire or break 10K?
A dollar a gallon for premium???
This is what I immediately thought, but the confusion comes from the fact that "premium" appears in both the phrases "pay a premium" (pay more than one would normally pay) and "premium petrol" (petrol with more than 90 percent octane). Grandparent was referring to the former sense, such that if 93% octane petrol normally cost US$1.50 per gallon, Microsoft Gasoline would cost US$2.50 per gallon, a $1.00 premium over the other brands.
And with the combination of the CBDTPA mandating DRM and Microsoft's patent on DRM, Microsoft may be able to pull it off with the force of U.S. law.
Will I retire or break 10K?
So, depending on the game, it's not so simple as you seem to think. How much did you pay to play Quake 3 online? Diablo? These are "games worth playing" with "large user bases".
Also, as noted in other posts, Microsoft's strategy may not prevent developers from charging additional costs. See PSO for an example.
Finally, there's this silly little thing known as "conflict of interests." What if Microsoft makes a game that competes against another developer's game (think EA's Madden versus MS's NFL Fever)? Electronic Arts would much rather support their own network independent of MS than depend on a direct competitor. This is not anti-MS rhetoric, this is how business works.
-J
Don't underestimate the power of the installed base. You can't sell games to people that don't own consoles. Not only that, as I recall (ergo, take this with a grain of salt...) there have been more PS2 systems sold in the time since the X-Box was released than X-Boxes. That's not exactly setting the world on fire if you're MS.
I think Sony knows exactly what they're doing. People keep saying that online play is going to be the next killer app for consoles but it isn't happening yet. The huge broadband rollout has not gone as well as expected, which is a big part of this expected console network boom (hence X-Box has built in Ethernet). If I had to guess, Sony put a plan in place to have the PS2 online but they're really waiting until the next hardware iteration for it to take off. I don't really care if consoles go online soon or not--it's a novelty. At some point it may be huge. But not now.
-J