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Microsoft Talks Handhelds, Xbox Linux
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a Canada.com interview with Xbox head honcho Robbie Bach, which shoots him some wide-ranging and perceptive questions about Microsoft's console strategy. Interesting answers include whether Microsoft wants to get into the handheld console market ("It's like starting a new business...we will focus on making the current Xbox successful."), and their views of Linux for Xbox ("..the numbers are not really that big. It's not a commercial as much as it is an intellectual property issue and we always pursue those.")
I'd be very curious to know how running Linux on an Xbox is cheating.
From the article: Telling us what we can or can't create, we think is unconstitutional.
But of course if MS tells YOU what you can or cannot create, that's perfectly OK.
"Much work is lost, for the lack of a little more." -Edward H. Harriman
"Why would I want a portable blue screen? I get enough of that at home. :) "
Ugh. BSOD jokes are so 1998. It's about as funny as somebody saying "Who'd want a Linux portable gaming machine? It'd be a pain in the ass to type 'jump -high' on that little thumbboard."
"Derp de derp."
One foot by 3 inches thick and about 6 inches deep.
*opens mouth*
*closes mouth*
The coolest voice ever.
Wow, that's beautiful.
As a citizen of the United States of America, we can expect to have certain rights. As employees/customers of an American corporation, we can expect diddley. And according to Microsoft, that's just the way it should be. The guy at least deserves credit for being forthright about where things stand.
It's not just Microsoft, though. We live in a democracy. We have a free market. Nonetheless, corporations whose modus operandi resembles that of a feudal fiefdom by and large dominate our working lives. And when we leave work, we owe them our allegiance as 'customers'.
But who cares? We all have bread on the table. A glass of wine. A Tivo. A comfortable chair.
Society today is as hierarchical, class-based, and inequitable as ever. Perhaps more so. The only reason people aren't storming the castles with pitchforks is that they're too busy watching TV. That's the scary part. Seems to me that things are just getting worse and worse, but nobody cares. Why should they?
The reason why, of course, is that they deserve better. And if wealth was distributed more equitably, they would have better. But people are just too damn content to agitate for change.
So Bill Gates will continue to bitch-slap mod-chippers, all the while crying about his constitutional 'right' to do what he wants. Asshole.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
Where they could begin to get at you is if you ran Linux on an XBox, and then connected up to their online gaming system. If the system was designed to reject anything that wasn't running the MS XBox OS, and you spoofed it into thinking that your XBox-Linux was in fact the original OS, then you could be in trouble (because the TOS for the online service would undoubtedly prohibit you from connecting with a less-than-virgin box).
But if all you were doing was just running Linux on your XBox, just for the pure hell of it and because you can, without connecting up to their servers, I think you're probably safe. At least, I don't see how this would possibly infringe on their IP. Seems to me like they're just trying to discourage people...toss around the threat of an IP lawsuit and watch any large-scale effort to distribute an alternate XBox OS disappear.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Compare either Nintendo's or Sony's profits to MS's loss of $300M (claimed by MS in the article for division) or loss of $1B (as claimed in PC World article). The other two companies made more than infinitely more than MS. That's a pretty good beat down.
From the article (emphasis in bold added):
I find it interesting that even someone in the industry, who obviously has an interest in drawing women to the hobby, himself admits he mostly plays with his 12-year-old son. I wonder if he's tried "selling" the women in his own personal life on it? Does his wife play? His mom? His sisters, or women friends?? (Granted, as he's in the industry, it's likely a lot of his friends, including women, are also in the industry, but aside from that...)
I frequently see articles on modern gaming demographics that say more women are playing video games than is generally thought, though the numbers seem to vary. Is this really the case? If so, why are so many of the games obviously targetted toward 12-year-old boys (or older males, who arguably have largely the same interests)?