Gates Shows Off Xbox Media Center, Discusses Consoles

Thanks to Reuters for its story reporting on Bill Gates' announcement of an Xbox Media Center Extender kit at the CES show in Las Vegas, discussing the add-on "that will extend the functions of its Windows XP Media Center Edition to the console, turning it into a set-top box that allows the playback of live and recorded video, music and photos." 1UP has a couple more details, noting the add-on "will combine an Xbox DVD title with a dedicated remote control [and] currently carries no release date or price point", and the Reuters interview with Gates has him noting of the Xbox: "We are pushing the boundaries in terms of expanding what people think of as what the device can do." He's also confident but secretive about the next generation of consoles, suggesting: "In terms of the next round, hey, it's a new game. We're not showing our hand and I don't think Sony's showing their hand. We're doing some very cool work, but that's really all we say at this point."

Comments

Windows Tv's

[Bruha]

Yeah and he's also secured deals to put WinCE into many tv's for some home media center.

Frankly I'm pissed becuase the last thing I want to do is have to buy antivirus for my Tv.

Re:X-Box Media Player

[bigman2003]

Microsoft is giving a lot of their customers what they want. The customers they find valuable at least.

If you are looking for DivX, XviD, RealPlayer, Quicktime, OGG/Vorbis, AAC, OGM, Matroska, SRT/VobSub subtitles etc etc etc, are you really one of their valued customers- or did you maybe just buy some of their stuff and mod it?

In a way that many people here might find stomach churning, I'm a Microsoft customers. I own an Xbox, and about 30 legitimate games. 2 Windows computers, with XP/Office (one Media Center edition). I use SQL Server at work...etc, etc, blah blah blah.

I also don't give a flying fuck about a single media format you mentioned, other than Quicktime. I've got my music on Windows Media Player, my videos (movies) are all stored on their original DVDs- my home movies are stored in a .wmv format.

I don't mind at all if their products don't support those other format- because I don't use them. I would guess that the average person who stores their media in an OGG/Vorbis format does NOT purchase Microsoft products, and therefore, Microsoft would be wasting their time trying to support those people. (I don't think there would be a big rush to buy the products if they were available either)

This was not meant to be a rant- I just think that Microsoft IS supporting their customers here. They make my life easier by making all this crap work together as easily as possible. Most of us don't need it to support everything under the sun- just what WE use.

Re:X-Box Media Player

[NanoGator]

"the thing is that this is a feature why the thing should have been more open from day 1, up until now(and still!) you MUST mod your xbox to take advantage of it as a common media player(also to have more enjoyable playing from hd)."

So long as it opens the possibility for the machine to play 'pirated' games, then there's no 'should' about it. Don't get me wrong, I agree with you, but the reason game companies don't like you modding is that they don't want you burning ISOs and playing them. Remember, it's a game machine first.

"This is a feature that is addable to xbox at NO COST AT ALL,"

Not true. Microsoft loses money on every console. They make it up again with games. In theory, this 'feature' could make for a lot of XBOXes to be sold without plans to buy games for them. Microsoft risks losing serious money on something like that. Yeah, I know none of you care, but it does take the wind out of the whole "Microsoft's just being dumb" argument.

I'm not saying I agree with Microsoft. I think they're being overly protective of the system. It doesn't help, though, that everybody expressly hates Microsoft and would do anything they can to try to 'punish' them.