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VIA/Apex Game Console Details Leaked
DammiTT writes "It seems that Apex are releasing a new PC-based 'console', using VIA components, later this year. It'll be announced during CES on January 8th." However, HardOCP already has some initial pictures and details up on its site, for this "ApeXtreme Personal Gaming Console and DVD Player", or PGC. According to this early, unconfirmed report, it's running a 1.4Ghz VIA chipset, the CN400, and "will be powered by a near-instant-on version of WinXP (embedded) with Windows Media Player, and... will have removable media in the form of DVD/CD." It comes with "a 40GB IDE hard drive... you can play DVD movies, audio and video CDs... [and] the price points will be at US$299 and US$399."
If I'm reading the article right, there seems to be little difference between this "console" (if you can even call it that what with all the features) and a fully-blown PC, except for one thing - the OS, which will be embedded Windows XP. If a fully-featured Linux distro could be gotten to run on this animal - and I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard - it would make a great workstation, much better than the Xbox turned out to be for this sort of thing. The only potential problem I see is if it comes with some sort of DRM that makes loading alternative OS's difficult. Unfortunately this is more than likely, but we shall see. In any case, I'll probably be getting one simply because I enjoy tinkering with the latest tech toys. But who doesn't? 8)
I wonder if you could use this for a PVR too; Apex also makes one of those now.
Just get me one of these with a larger hard drive, and I'd be set...
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
VIA has a tendency to make the most unstable chipset.
I have owned 3 abit motherboards, 1 tyan and 1 ecs, all based on a VIA chipset. Only 1 out of 5 board could remain stable for more than a year. Yes, yes I installed the VIA-4-in-1 drivers and more or less the same OS.
If you do the math, that's 20% stability in my experience.
...normally around a launch, the console boys start to talk about which companies have signed on to make games. And how many games will be available at launch. So, the static with the games has me wondering, is this a slimmed down PC that will play PC titles?! Or is this a console that will play proprietary console games? Or somewhere in-between?
Anyone else think that this system looks a little like one of the 3DO systems that came out in the early/mid 90's?
... I remember when I was in Japan then, there was like 3 or 4 different models of the 3DO from different companies.
Not the first gen 3DO, but one of the later ones
Aaron
"Curiouser and Curiouser...." -Alice
I don't know if this new "game" system is a good idea, at least not from APEX. Yes, APEX has always been hacker friendly, but APEX has a pretty bad track record in the DVD player market; I had to swap out APEX DVD players four times before I got one that worked. Coupled this with the unreliability of the VIA chipset= "Emachines" 3 years ago, i.e. crap. Ironically, now Emachines has a really good quality and good value, for about the same price as this APEX game system. Even if they bundled this new game machine with a Radeon 9800 chip built in, I would be wary of it.
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
This has already been done on Xbox: http://mameox.sourceforge.net/
"The strong will do what they want, the weak will do what they must."
-Thucydides
Maybe it's a generational thing? When did you and your friends all get yours?
Damon,
http://actionPlant.com
7 GHz!?!? I have serious difficulty believing that.
Here's an experiment for you to try some time: When your next-gen console comes out, claim it has anti-copying technology in it, but don't actually put any in (just stick in a delay loop for checkDiskIsValid()). See if anyone notices.
I'm betting they won't. Because the fact of the matter is, whatever effect anti-copying support has on sales, those effects are completely swamped out by larger issues, such as sales and marketing efforts, distribution deals, "network effects," and the vagaries of the buying public. If you have a successful platform, no one will much care that discs can be copied. And if you have a crap platform, copy protection won't save anyone's ass.
Get the fsck over it.
Because the tech support is better? Because they can get a turnkey development system rather than have to locate and pay for expertise to cobble one together? Because they can get co-marketing support? Because "outsourcing" is still a buzzword among executive circles?
I can download a complete GNU-based development environment for the GameBoy Advance. But the documentation is uneven and incomplete. And I also don't get access to Nintendo's subroutine library (a valuable thing if you've ever tried to get the bloody network link to work). "Free as in beer," doesn't always win. There are tradeoffs.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
People who have no interest in Max Payne or GTA VC just might want to play Burger Time or Space Invaders.
Hate to burst the fun bubble, but if you just want to play Burger Time or Space Invaders, you can run MAME on a PSX, PS2, Dreamcast, Xbox, or hell, even a GBA. You don't need a 1.4 ghz anything unless you're trying to play some (relatively) recent games in MAME.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
When I read about this and some of the comments, the thought suddenly came to mind that if this sells at all, Microsoft is a big winner. Why? Because you know MS is not giving the embedded Windows XP away for free and since they aren't making this thing, every sale is money in the bank for them. And the embedded XP is probably similar to what they use in the XBox, so they get a little more return on that investment.
As for VIA, this doesn't make much sense as a games console. Usually a console maker takes a loss on the console hardware itself (at least at first) and makes up the losses on game royalties. PC games don't sell anywhere near the number that console games do, plus a PC game publisher pays no royalties to anyone. As it is unlikely that the market will support another proprietary format, games are not likely going to make VIA any money.
Since VIA is in business to make money, one can only conclude that they plan to make a profit on the hardware itself. Being able to play some PC games and do PC-like things then becomes just another marketing bullet point. This is also support by the fact that the thing looks like a more or less standard DVD player. This strategy can work if they keep the manufacturing costs down and do a good job of marketing. My final guess is that this will be marketed primarily in Asia where PC penetration is low which would make a device with some PC functionality more attractive. And the you can bet that games like Starcraft and other titles wildly popular in places like South Korea and China will run on the system without a hitch.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Considering that Xbox and PS? Will be shooting it out for the top tier market, and Nintendo will pretty much retain their core market from their various franchises; their could very well be a place for the Apex.
Cost of developing for any of the big three consoles is pretty much through the roof, enough to where any of the smaller publishing houses would never have a chance to develop for the current console market. This has translated into stale games overall... I own over 50 PS1 games. I own less than 10 PS2.
Given that Apex could never hope to compete with Sony head to head, they might be able to carve a niche market by having a more diverse creative pool, lower priced games, less cost of development, and being able to take more risks as far new games are concerned.
You wouldn't need tremendous hardware to do that, and since Apex already has positive cash flow from their other ventures; they can ride out building a user base.
All they need is one killer game that is unique to their system. All the other things it can do would just be icing on the cake.
This could very well be a giant killer.
Why did this get modded up? The author is obviously stuck thinking in their own little box.
1. So what. It will be released before the next crop of consoles from the major manufacturers. It beats current models without much effort. The C3 may not be the fastest processor in the world, but has dedicated hardware for accelerating encryption (which can be retasked for similar math operations, somewhat similiar to MMX, etc) and the graphics hardware has MPEG2 in hardware.
It is still faster than PS2, xbox and gamecube. And it will be available quite some time before the next generation of consoles arrive.
"At 1.4GHz, it wouldn't be able to run many of today's PC games"
Care to name any that won't run at the typical 800x600 max used on TV screens when using current 3D hardware?
Besides can PS2 (PSX released outside Japan yet?), xbox, gamecube do PVR functions?
2. Really? Is that why there is so many games on the PC platform? Copy restriction technologies can be seperate from the OS, and indeed this allows a publisher choice and the ability to move to newer ( fixed ) forms, when they are eventually cracked (modchips anyone). I would have thought that publishers would prefer this option?
2b business model. Yes platform licensing is the only possible way to make money from a console.
Did it ever occur to you that this is a hardware company, and that they might want to use a hardware sale business model. Which is why they will likely encourage the use of these boxes in alternative applications. (It is amazing how cheap something can be made for, if the volumes are right)
Besides technological lockin isn't the only way to enforce platform licensing. Trademark law is quite sufficent in most cases. However I would be surprised if the console games didn't use some form of public cryptography to sign the licensed games though. (Don't forget there is hardware acccelerated cryptography support on C3 1Ghz+ chips)
3. It isn't a Via console. In the same way xbox isn't a nvidia console. Apex is experienced in consumer entertainment devices, and that is all they need if they are planning on not following the traditional console business model.
4. Besides it seems that the game playing ability is being marketed as one feature of many.
However as it is PC based, with a windows OS, and therefore likely to be Direct X based. The effort required to port games from xbox or PC titles should be minimal, so if it gets a reasonable install base for PVR features, and the platform licensing, if any, is reasonable. I wouldn't be surprised to see at least a few publishers trying the platform out.
In my household, I see this being used more for a cheap media jukebox for playing DivX, MP3, OGG, or XviD than anything else. The other main use I would have for it would be as an emulation machine - MAME, Atari800Win, Stella, JNES, WinUAE, STeem, WinSTon, and VisualBoy Advance to name a few. You can find most of those for a modified XBox, but it is a hassle since they would have been created with an XBox Developers Kit and so couldn't be distibuted except through unofficial means. For the latest and greatest FPS a pc would be the logical choice, but for emulation and older games that do not require a fast 3D video card this box would be a good alternative. I could build a similar spec PC for about the same cost of this or less but I like the small form factor and the fact I don't have to spend my time building it.