On Xbox's Progression, Positioning For The Future

Thanks to GameSpy for its article charting the progression of the Xbox from its launch to the present day, with the author's introduction suggesting: "For Microsoft, the video-game industry has been a whiplash rollercoaster ride with lucrative peaks, costly valleys, and a changing list of passengers going along for the ride." After charting a timeline for Xbox's history so far, he concludes: "Xbox has not lived up to all of the predictions, but Microsoft has more than made its point. After two years and two months on the market, the numbers speak for themselves." Has the Xbox been all you expected and wanted it to be?

Comments

Centre of the Livingroom?

[Cebu]

I found it interesting that the Xbox Timeline article mentioned:

"Despite the fact that Xbox now trails behind the competition, Takahashi says that he is confident that Microsoft will release a second-generation Xbox. What has changed, however, is the notion that Xbox will be the center point of the livingroom. "I think that the idea that game consoles are going to take over all processing in the livingroom has been tested and has failed," says Takahashi, who continues to cover the games industry for the San Jose Mercury News."

I think it's somewhat premature to say that "the notion that Xbox will be the center point of the livingroom... has been tested and has failed." What failure has occured, is in the creation of an attractive software package for making the Xbox a centre point of the livingroom. It's as if little to no effort was made at all in this respect, yet the Xbox management imply that they tried as best as anyone could and failed at the task.

The Xbox had no PVR functionality, didn't include the DVD player as part of basic package, had no ability to transfer media files (or at least stream media), and has a lack luster though useable interface for media playback. Furthermore, what functionality they did provide in these regards, did not even match what was availible in similar devices at the time. Even as a simple DVD player, it was only adequate at best; lowend DVD players could be obtained at a similar cost of just the Xbox DVD package and offered a better experience.... It's no wonder Xbox didn't succeed as "the centre point of the livingroom."

Following Nintendo

[Anonymous Coward]

So...they're using a similar chipset to the GameCube, taking out the harddrive like the GameCube, trying to be a price-competitive system much like the GameCube, and they say "I think that the idea that game consoles are going to take over all processing in the livingroom has been tested and has failed," suggesting that they're going to take up the philosophy which Nintendo stood by for GameCube.

There were doubters about Nintendo's philosophy back in 2002, but I guess that's a +5 Insightful in retrospect.