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Microsoft Freon
Veramocor writes "MSNBC.com has an article posted from the WSJ about MS's new plan for living room domination, codenamed Freon. Freon will be capable of 'playing games but also offering television capabilities, such as pausing live TV and recording shows onto a computer hard drive.' The article then goes on to explain future potential business plans for XBox incarnations. The system does seem to have some great advantages. I must question their naming question however, we all know what a disaster the actual chemical Freon was. Here's to hoping, Cheers!" We mentioned the Xbox's planned evolution the other day, too, but without the fancy codename.
The entire point of the console market is as follows:
one: cheap
two: uniform hardware (or as close to it as possible)
three: a long upgrade cycle (about 5 years)
four: sell hardware at a loss or paper thin margins to make money back on software
My guess is that this will turn out to be the jack of all trades, but master of none. If they sell this thing cheap enough to be a successful console, then they'll lose money for every set top boxer. If they sell it at a respectable profit, it won't be a successful console. Granted, they could simply make it X-Box compatible, but then anyone willing to spring for a set top will probably buy them separately to get better features, or taylor their setup to their own needs. Not to mention the households like mine that have a dedicated gaming TV (nothing spectacular, really) so that other people can watch movies et al whilst the gamers game.
BlackGriffen
"The Xbox console isn't profitable for the Redmond, Wash., company and its costs are believed to be higher than Sony's, partly because of the hard drive and a version of its powerful Windows operating system included with each machine."
Oh cry me a river. Like Microsoft is losing money because of all the billions they're pouring into the miraculous X-Box Bastardized Windows Operating System. Sure, maybe the hard disk is a lotta coin, but the cost of putting Windows on a console? Catastrophic.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
You'd think that TiVo has some sort of patent on this kind of thing....
Oh wait....thats right....
OurCourtSystem: Money=Influence Microsoft=Money, therefore Microsoft=Influence. Patents and other such laws no longer apply!
Anyways...seriously...does TiVo (or someone) have this patented?
... that they probably named this product "freon" in a feeble attempt at establishing a connection between use of the product and being "free".... or something equally market-savvy and brain-dead.
I remember an anecdote about a du Pont employee demonstrating the safety of the chemical by inhaling a good breath of Freon and blowing it out to extinguish a candle, demonstrating that it was both non-toxic and not explosive. Try that with ammonia!
Even if it may have had an impact on the ozone layer, there's more than just the safety component of the refrigerant chemical to consider. Where would food safety and preservation be without refrigeration? Without refrigeration, say hello to E. Coli and friends. Get used to salt-curing, preservatives, and freeze drying (yum). And then say goodbye to fresh seafood, out-of-season produce, frozen pizza, and a lot of the food that we eat.
Here's an article about the history of Freon and another about the history of the refrigerator. (Oops, it wasn't just a du Pont employee who did the demo, it was the actual inventor... sounds like a lot of technology demos.)
"At least an old pc can still play new games..."
1. what you describe would be forward compatibility not backward (XBox playing XBox2 games which isn't going to happen)
2. one of my biggest peeves with windows is lack of compatibility for games across versions. my daughter has something like a hundred PC games (bought!) that were written for various versions of DX and windows and all of which show an amazing lack of compatibility with the newer versions of windows. Win2K,WinME don't work -most- of the time. WinXP is a bit better (in compatibility mode). so I have to basically maintain an extra machine to play (Win98) to play these games. let's not even go on to my pile of DOS games. the PC is no better.
3. sony has set a nice example with PS2 compatibility with PSX games. I would be surprised if the next version of XBox didn't do the same thing.
"Releasing new box after new box, and cutting off your established user base isn't going to win this system any fans..."
uhh.. hello? this is the way the console market has -always- worked. and it -has- won them new fans, year after year. I don't hear much complaining that the gamecube doesn't play NES games.
I would find it highly amusing if someone managed to crack the XBOX & write PVR software for it as well :) since it has the HD on it already..
I mean, one thing is selling a game console at loss -- you can license games, and another thing is to sell at loss a device that is perfectly capable of independent operation. And if they expect that they can tie PVR to a mandatory subscription, their worst enemy would be a... PC.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Actually, a lot of Microsoft's advertising belies a subtle sabotage by their PR types. Remember the Stones song whose refrain was "You make a grown man cry"? How about the Office ads with a requiem for a soundtrack? Or the way the Windows logo looks like it's going down/to crash?
I definitely think that it's a subtle jab at clueless leaders, that the marketing types are playing jokes on the computer geeks that supposedly run the place.
They were probably having trouble keeping a straight face as they suggested Freon. "Oh yeah, it'll connotate 'Free' and 'on'! (snicker) Um, I gotta go to another meeting! (burst of laughter as the door closes)"
Perhaps Open Source is not the greatest threat to Microsoft after all. The great Roman empire was destroyed from within; the invaders from without merely finished it off. Perhaps we'll soon see a similar scenario here, where Open Source is merely a coup de grace?
The only way the typical /.er can pick up a chick is with a forklift. -- AC
The Xbox offers benefits to many parts of MS, and the investment necessary to establish a beachhead is small compared what they could win.
It seems clear that there is a huge marketplace in the home entertainment / home management space. The traditional PC / laptop and Office type apps aren't going to take this area by storm so some new thinking is needed.
First off it isn't clear what will turn out to be the paradigm shifter. New ways to run e-mail? Video interaction with chat groups over broadband? New games? Management of CD music centre? TiVo style access to TV content? Automating household security and energy management?
Any or all of these could be the key, but maybe something not on this list at all. The big thing for MS is to leverage current strengths to absolutely dominate the space they target.
From this point of view they need to establish a new common platform for H/W, S/W and comms under MS control.
Xbox offers
* A foothold in the livingroom via a games console, with a cashflow attached
* Testing out of the control technologies that will be needed to enforce a monopoly:
* Xbox architecture for coupling the OS and hardware so that only controlled, approved apps can run
* The chance to test out DRM and distribution apps (at least in the next Xbox release)
* MS mediation of interactive services, e-mail home shopping etc that are currently set top box based
* A viable platform for whatever does turn out to be the killer app/service in the home
A lot of people would love to see these kind of services up and running, but lack the muscle to do it on their own. If MS can ship enough Xbox class machines they should be able to attract third parties to deliver whats necessary (within MS rules of course)
Whatever happens I'm sure that Xbox and derivatives will not be money down the drain for MS
"The Xbox console isn't profitable for the Redmond, Wash., company and its costs are believed to be higher than Sony's, partly because of the hard drive and a version of its powerful Windows operating system included with each machine" ROFL!!! Powerful!??? As ever MSNBC continues to show its dedication to impartial, unbiased reporting.
Not to mention the fact that Freon is compatible with the compressors they operate in. It doesn't corrode like the others mentioned.
I heard a story on Freon in that if you check it out. The patent is expiring, or has expired. The company owning the patent (Dupont?) for fear of losing liscensing revenue has invented a new refrigerant and lobbied alongside the Greenie Weenies to outlaw Freon.
Follow the $'s dummy.
The process that happens inside a refrigeration system is based on physics. It does not matter which gas.
It definitely does matter. Freon isn't just a gas in a refrigerator; it liquefies when it is compressed and gives up heat to the outside air, then evaporates _quickly_ when the pressure is released in the cooling coils. This takes the right variation of the boiling point with pressure. To get just the right physical characteristics in Freon, they tried substituting various numbers of flourine and chlorine atoms for hydrogen atoms in hydrocarbons. And as a bonus, it turns out that Freon is non-poisonous, non-corrosive, and coexists quite well with compressor lubricants.
Nothing else works quite as well. Water and alcohol have too high boiling points (and might be bad for the pipes and bearings too). CO2 requires a quite high pressure to liquefy. Ammonia is as toxic as cyanide. R134a (similar to Freon but with only carbon, hydrogen, and flourine atoms) is not quite as good at lubricating or at refrigerating.
By the way, refrigeration was responsible for only a tiny percentage of the chloroflourocarbons released into the environment. Refrigerators that leak coolant are defective! Spray cans were another tiny percentage. Most of the release was industrial cleaning systems - Freon and similar substances being great solvents that dry quickly, and pose no danger to the workers as long as there's enough ventilation to keep oxygen in the room. Generally these systems would try to recycle the Freon, but it kept leaking out around both ends of the conveyor belt.
Actually your the one who is lacking intelligence. Dupont, the patent holders on Freon started the incredible shit storm surrounding it just as there patent was about to expire. If they had let it simply expire, any company would have been able to manufacture it, introducing competition which would have hurt Duponts monopoly.
So what does dupont do? Simple, tell everyone that Freon will destroy the world, get it banned and introduce a replacement. Voila, they have a safe monopoly again.
Well that depends on what your perception of a "little while is". Assuming this article is correct and things won't change timetable and market wise, (A BIG ASSUMPTION) an improved version of the Xbox console will not be released until approx 2005. This isn't any different than what Sony plans to do, and has done in the past. The way I read the article Freon is only an Xbox with additional NON-gaming features like the PVR. MS may lose based on the initial problems of when they released the Xbox but I can't see them losing more just by adding a PVR next year or so.
:-)
I've got a PS2 and I think its the better machine, but admittedly I am partial to Sony products, I know they have a larger market share on game titles, and also I haven't been exposed to playing the Xbox. I'm not an MS junkie and Kudos to anyone who can do anything better... but really, whats the point in always expecting or wanting them to fail. I for one would rather see them produce better products
I'm a console programmer, and I've worked on both the PS2 and the XBox. The libraries included with the XBox are a load better than the ones included with the PS2. As is the hardware. XBox kicks PS2 on everything but fill-rate.
The dev-kit is also cheaper, and comes with a full suite of dev tools - something the PS2 dev-kit doesn't do. As much as MS get's deserved grief here on /. it's dangerous to ignore the facts.
'Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.' - George Gordon
I'm not quite sure how MS plan's on evading the patent issue. Unfortunately for Microsoft, the PVR industry is laden with patents like a minefield. Both TiVo and ReplayTV hold a number of them on PVR technology. Unless these companies plan on surviving on license fees like a tick on Microsoft's neck, it seems to me like Microsoft is going to have quite a wait (about 15 years) before it can get into the PVR biz.
That anecdote was most likely bullshit. Inhaling Freon is a tremendously bad idea: Freon is heavier than air, and will displace all of the oxygen in your lungs. You'll suffocate pretty fast. Unless the du Pont guy basically hot-boxed the Freon, and was extremely careful, the incident was probably fabricated.
There was an Emergency 911 where some dumbass HVAC tech filled his air mattress with Freon. His kid caught a lungfull, nearly died.
And at any rate, it makes a stupid codename. The marketing drones fell asleep at the wheel.