Xbox Wireless Adapter Details, Live Bundle Confirmed

Thanks to Reuters for their story confirming the official Xbox Wireless Adapter, now locked in for an October 5th release for $139. Details of this 802.11b/g device were inadvertently leaked by the FCC a couple of weeks back, and TeamXbox has a first look at the adapter, but this announcement also reveals the new Xbox Live bundle deal, as Microsoft "...will offer a $40 rebate to people who buy both the adapter and the $69 Xbox Live Starter Kit, which offers a one-year subscription to the company's online gaming service, a headset for voice communications and a copy of the game 'MechAssault.'"

Comments

Re:Hmm, Wireless Adapter Or 3 Games...

[Babbster]

Didn't they learn anything from Steel Battalion?

Actually, they did. They learned that there are people out there (myself included) who are willing to pay $200 for a good game and a good controller to provide an extremely immersive gaming experience. After all, Steel Battalion SOLD OUT. There are still people out there who would like to have the game and can't buy one from a normal retailer (the game is available on eBay and goes for well over $200). Capcom never expected to sell as many copies of Steel Battalion as, say, GTA3 or Halo. But the game apparently sold well enough that the sequel is coming stateside (with Xbox Live play) next year.

Now, I don't know how many people will buy the wireless adaptor but the truth is that the price point is competitive with other 802.11g wireless bridges. At Outpost, for example, the Linksys g-compatible model is selling for $159.99.

Original First Look @ Xbox Wireless Adapter MN-740

[Geartest.com]

That's interesting that simoniker mentions TeamXbox as having the first look since (bragging rights alert) we had our

• first look at the Xbox Wireless Adapter including a
• preview article with the MN-740's details
• Xbox Wireless Adapter external photos and even the
• Xbox Wireless Adapter internal photos which all true geeks love

on August 28, a full 3 days BEFORE the good fans at TX. The drawings in the TX post are straight out of the product manual, which we didn't think were important to publish, but I will say that the TX crew did a nice job of coloring in the screenshots. The originals were black and white. Sorry guys, but you were scooped!

In fact, Microsoft's lawyers visited our feature and thoroughly examined it, after which we got a message from our friendly Microsoft PR agency expressing some concerns (as noted on the home page).

I know that it must be a little troublesome for Microsoft that they weren't able to introduce the product to the world as they would have liked but that's always a risk, especially when regulatory approval requires that the product becomes part of the public record.

Design

[rmull]

Man, MS really could stand to take a page from apple when it comes to designing their hardware gadtes. Or from anyone else, really - why would I want to string up a little antenna with an ethernet cord and its own power source? I'd much rather plug something into the side of my console or even the back. How hard would it have been to put a couple of usb ports on the back of the xbox for the purpose of integrating little gadgets like this?

Oh, god no!

[Inoshiro]

Not 32 characters!

For shame, that 32-byte key will be the end of inumerable Xbox controllers!

Seriously, though, you seem to have forgotten that a bit is 1/8th of a byte, which would be 1 character you type in via the keyboard.

I'd be more worried that your keyspace will be restricted since Xbox Live!'s little keyboard will only let you enter a-zA-Z0-9 and some punctuation (instead of a full range of nul to char 255).

Team Xbox - Caught in a lie

[Geartest.com]

After I just got through complimenting TX in my previous post for their colorization skills on the original black and white screenshots, I thoroughly read the TX post. I was stunned that they made this claim:

On a recent trip to a top-secret facility, we discovered an upcoming (and an unannounced) wireless networking product from Microsoft.

Unfortunately that is a lie. If it's supposed to be a joke, it's not a very funny one. The photos and drawings that TX has on their site were based exclusively on the FCC submissions. The technical information came straight from the same filings. <SARCASM> I guess Geartest.com's staff were at the same top-secret facility </SARCASM>. At the time we published the photos on August 28, we were the first ones to do so and it was a scoop. TX uploaded its wireless adapter post on August 31.

This is exactly the problem with so-called "game press." Team Xbox has intentionally misled its readers about the source of the material for its wireless adapter post.

When Team Xbox and its ilk lie to their readers, it is not only unethical but it makes it much more difficult for readers to trust anyone who writes about games.