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Xbox Next to Include PC/Console Hybrid Option?
Pluvius writes "According to CNN/Money staffer Chris Morris, Microsoft's next-gen game console, XBox Next, could be PC- and XBox-compatible and retail for $599. This was one of many possibilities for the console which was explored by the B/R/S Group, a marketing firm which recently did focus testing for Microsoft. This theoretical console would also require a PC monitor or HDTV to display images and come with a full version of Windows as well as a CD burner and a keyboard and mouse. However, Morris notes that even if this hybrid becomes a reality, it would probably be an alternative to a standalone XBox Next console, much like the Sony PSX is to the PlayStation 2. Would you be willing to pay $600 for a console with all of the capabilities of a standard OEM PC?"
I would rather use an XBox(next) emulator on my PC!
Would you be willing to pay $600 for a console with all of the capabilities of a standard OEM PC?
If it has all of the capabilities of a standard OEM PC then isn't it a PC?
Definitely - and I think that a great deal of the public would as well, especially if MS could market this well. Think of it this way - parents are going to buy their kids consoles as well as computers for school anyway. How can MS lose if they combine the two at a price point that beats the combined price?
Would you be willing to pay $600 for a console with all of the capabilities of a standard OEM PC? Microsoft Branded? Heck!, NO!!!
The package said "Windows XP or better. Pentium Class Processor or better"... So I got a Mac with OS X
Many people would. You pay US$600 and get a PC that will have games written to work on it, without any hardware upgrades for the next 2 years...
Yeah, standard OEM PC. Sure. After the encryption, DRM, automatic 'upgrades' by Xbox live. This is Microsoft we're talking about here, this thing will be so crippled it'll be next to useless except for playing games. Get out yer tinfoil hat kids.
Who moderates the meta-moderators?
Last I heard, Microsoft will be using a IBM processor for the X-Box2 (presumably Power5 architecture). If the console runs a version of Windows, this would mean that Microsoft will yet again be writing a version of Windows to run on Power5 architecture. Therefore, desktop PCs could presumably be based on Power5 CPUs in the near future. This could get interesting :)
But it does Rhyme Does this remind you oldsters of the Coleco Adam?
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Sarcasm may work, sometimes not.
Microsoft is in fact a huge threat to open source, for small companies, for hardware manufacturers - In fact, most companies involved in electronics are threatened by Microsoft in one way or the other.
If you want to make a statement, you have to be consequent. If some of us hate this product because Microsoft made it, it's for a reason.
Making fun of the anti-microsofters doesn't work. If you expect us to love this product, it's the same as if environment activists are driving polluting V12's just because it sounds so good.
After all, we post SCO stories, too ;)
> One minute Microsoft is the biggest, evilest monster that ever was, the next, everyone's a fanboy for the Xbox. What's up with that?
1) You need to rethink your definition of "everyone."
2) It's not like MS makes money on the Xbox1; by some accounts they are actually selling them at a loss. The real money is made by selling games and Xbox live. So even if you think MS is evil, buying an xbox and modding it to something else is not really supporting them.
The unofficial
"Would you be willing to pay $600 for a console with all of the capabilities of a standard OEM PC?"
Caveat: I'm a current Xbox owner. It's a great system overall.
I'd get this new system under some conditions:
1.) They stick with the current 2K kernel. Outside of a few games here and there, the current Xbox kernel has been rock solid. No more or less than the GameCube/PS2. If they switch to a full-fledged version of Windows, I'm bailing.
2.) They get a large contingent of companies supporting it. I'm not talking PS2-size, but current Xbox-size.
3.) They don't offer "upgrades" for the system. Doing so would defeat the purpose.
4.) They go with a more common architecture than their current "shared memory frankensystem". It works for games, but I can't even use the DVD drive in another computer without an adapter.
5.) They stick with the Xbox's strengths: great (perhaps the best) online games, solid use of the technology (they had games using pixel shaders before they even became popular on the PC), and good specs for the money.
Do that and I'll be all over it.
MS has, over the years, used their monopoly in Operating Systems to dominate software - they now either control or have a substantial offering in virtually every major software category.
Now, having put major competitors all out of business, would we really want a world where MS had a monopoly on the software AND the hardware for the entire computing industry?
Bye-bye Dell, Compaq, HP, IBM, etc...!?!?
Sorry, no. This is too much. I can't bear it any more. If Microsoft does this, they are turning on their best friends, the OEMs.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Slashdotters get excited over the $500 video cards coming out from NVidia (FX6800) and ATI (R420). According to all the rumors, the XBOX Next video hardware is going to blow both of these away.... the question is would you pay $600 for a system that had the equivalent of 3 HyperThreaded P4's and a video card that blew away an FX6800?
I think most people here would answer yes to that!
Could they even legally do this?
The only laws they might be breaking are antitrust laws, and they've discovered that the payoff for breaking those laws vastly exceeds the punishment.
Wouldn't that be some type of conflict of interest? If they sell windows to computer manufactures...
Yup. And at this point any smart computer manufacturers are looking at the history of Microsoft's other collaborations and wondering how they can get out of the trap they're in: they sell a product component that Microsoft can easily replace, but Microsoft sells a product component that OEMs can't effectively replace at all.
...by some accounts they are actually selling them at a loss. The real money is made by selling games and Xbox live. So even if you think MS is evil, buying an xbox and modding it to something else is not really supporting them.
Well, you are reducing their loss...
====
Crudely Drawn Games
Instead of buying the $600 Dell and the $250 game console for the kids, you buy the $600 XBox instead.
Thinking like this is why the GameCube doesn't play DVD Video. Nintendo realized that the PS2 won't let one kid watch a Meg Ryan marathon and another play Soul Calibur II on the same $150 PS2 console at the same time. However, you can watch a Meg Ryan marathon on a sub-$50 Norcent DVD player while your $100 GameCube, connected to a second TV, runs SC2. Likewise, you can do spreadsheets on a PC and play SC2 on an Xbox, but you won't be able to do spreadsheets and play SC2 on the same Xbox 2 unless 1. the video is dual-head and 2. the real-time multitasking is better than what the current Windows OS provides.
Remember that Microsoft also owns some really good x86 emulation/virtualization software which already runs on the Power architecture...
Funny that Microsoft got in bed with perhaps the worlds largest Linux advocates to power their next console.
There are a suprisiing number of people on /. who have more respect for MS than you think, but they don't say anything because they will get trolled to death. A vocal majority, to say.
Must I point out that the XBox 2 is confirmed to be shipping with IBM's Power PC chip line? That development machines have come on Apple G5's with a special version of Windows loaded?
You can't just swap out the iron and expect everything to work hunky-dorey. That's got to break a lot of drivers, high-end applications, etc, etc... I'd doubt many programs would run without a re-compile.
Probability: not bloody likely.
Next.
The ______ Agenda
I'd buy it in a heartbeat. This could be an amazing product if done half right.
I think people who say this sucks cause it won't run Linux or doesn't let you install your own OS have way too much time on their hands. Keep bashing Microsoft all you want - but at least they are doing something. IBM, Apple, Oracle, Sun, etc....they all could have entered the console market. They all have the money and the brand to stand up there. They didn't. They all could have battled for the OS for the living room - they didn't.
Microsoft did. Bitch and whine about the OS monopoly all you want, but Microsoft took alot of risk here in a vicious market and they deserve the benefits. I'll gladly hate Microsoft when it's warranted, but when they release a XBOX+PC for the HDTV+Sofa.....I applaud them.
Didn't Coleco prove very well nearly two decades ago that consumers do not want a video game console that can be upgraded to a home computer?
It's likely worth considering that precedant set 20 years ago in the realm of the average consumer's acceptance of technology has probably changed significantly.
-jd
I believe this would be an excellent feature. I know it would be great to have games running off of one console displaying on two tvs.
It would make dual player games so much fun, and more realistic.
It would also make single player RPGs easier to navigate and modify.
Jeoin
My actual, vocalized reply upon reading the last line of the post: "yes, absof**kinglutley!"
As someone who uses a Mac as my desktop machine and only has Linux installed on my other hardware (all of which are incapable of running the games I actually want to play), I would be infinitely more stoked to pay 600 bucks for a console on which I could play games from two platforms, rather than paying $400 for the next XBox and then another couple thou to buy myself a decent gaming machine.
And yes, I understand that this console wouldn't actually be anywhere near equivalent to a $2000 PC, but that's exactly the point: the only time I ever use Windows or ever need a powerful machine is to play games, so craming both consoles into one sounds like a great idea to me.
This all coming from someone who has always had an extreme aversion to dropping 400 clams on a console because I thought they never did enough "stuff." I certainly hope this fantasy comes true, even if it is from Microsoft!
Face it, a PC with a P3 733, DVD-ROM, 10/100 TP ethernet, digital audio, a little hard drive and enough ram to get by, and high quality TV out is probably going to cost just as much as the Xbox, maybe more. For $190 brand new you can get the Xbox, the remote control, and the S-Video kit, perhaps even as little as $170 now. Software exists which makes it into a quite functional (if less than bug free) media player capable of handling nearly anything you'd want to play on it. The video output is fantastic unless you want full-HD, in which case you're going to have to go elsewhere, but this is less than two hundred bucks and has a not-unattractive (if imposing) case and it gets the job done.
Spending another $200 or so to upgrade it will give it a shitload of hard drive space and a DVD burner, and you can also use it to rip movies, store a meaningful amount of video, et cetera.
It's not hard to see why the Xbox is so popular, especially when buying the thing means taking money away from Microsoft, since they take a loss on the consoles. The more people who buy them and don't buy games, the better, in the short run. Of course, not buying games will lead Microsoft to make a console with less hack value, since they make up the loss in game licensing, but no plan is perfect.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If it's a full PC, then how are you getting extra value by it being a "console" too?
Can you play high quality games on a PC? check
Can you use console-like controllers on a PC? check
The only value added is on Microsoft's side. They just got you to:
a. buy a PC from them
b. buy a copy of Windows from them
c. buy a "console" from them when their cost was close to zero after you already bought all the PC components.
d. buy games that give them licensing fees instead of standard PC games that give them no licensing fees
and you get nothing extra except the "privelage" of being in their special club of games that use PC technology but are not legaly able to be released for PC purchase without MS signing off on it.
This is insane. I'd offer to sell you the Brooklyn bridge but it seems MS has beat me to it.
TW
They make money on game sales, not the console price. How many 12 year old kids parents are going to buy them a $600 console + $60 games knowing they will have to do it again in 2 years. Sure there will be a few people but I would't count on nearing the popularity of the PlayStation at that price range.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
Can you play XBox Next games on a PC? ...
no check there!
I'm sure there are going to be PLENTY of XBox Next exclusive games which PC-only people will be drooling over.
I wonder why I'm getting Coleco deja vu....
Back when dinosaurs walked the earth, all of the console manufacturers at least prototyped addons for their consoles that would turn them into general purpose machines. The ADAM was availiable both as an addon for the ColecoVision and as a Colecovision compatible computer. One of the reasons it bombed (apart from some engineering gaffs and QC problems) was that there wasn't as much overlap between console and computer users as you might think. Then as now computers had a keyboard that consoles didn't as well as styles of games consoles didn't. You just didn't lay in the floor playing Temple of Aphsai. Something like Astroblast was more fun on the family room TV.
Faced with the '84 crash, everybody else canned their console/computer hybrids. I suspect that once again the console/computer will be a solution looking for a problem.
"potentially crippling DRM"
What a bunch of FUD.
What console doesn't have some form of DRM?
I'm not looking at this as a PC that plays console games- I'm viewing it as a console that can do a lot more.
No reason to lie.
Jesus christ! Their market was kids who want to spend a few hundred bucks on a console system to play video games with their friends. No one is going to spend $600. Why? Because kids usually aren't the ones who buy these! These come as christmas or birthday presents. Parents aren't going to shell out $600 for a hybrid computer when they've already shelled out money for the computer. College kids who buy these don't have that kind of cash to burn. They need to make these systems impulse buys. Their price now at $150 makes them an impulse buy for kids with cash to burn. At $600 it's a major purchase.
I hate to join the anti-microsoft bandwagon, but if sony or nintendo were doing this, I'd feel the same way.
This just shows how they've completely lost sight of their market.
That's the point - consoles are all DRM'd - but would you want your PC to be? In my case, hell no. Double hell no. I want my PC and DRM game console completely seperate, thank you.
It would also be a great way for MS to introduce Palladium. If they tried to add DRM to a conventional PC, people would be complaining and resisting. OTOH, DRM is expected on consoles.
Just a thought...
OLPC Australia
They eat a loss when they sell one, but each additional unit is one more in the installed base that can be used to woo developers to make new games (which should eventually make MS money). The first generation is largely MS learning the console market and getting developers to at a minimum port their games over, which has been a pretty major success. Compare their status today to the dire predictions at launch. They will probably still be willing ot tolerate losses for the next generation (MS is pretty willing to lose money on new businesses, MSN turned its first quarterly profit last quarter) but following that the XBox begins the transition away from the PC as MS platform. They start collecting a subscription and charging developer fees to developers to run signed code.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
So are we gonna have Windows running on the PowerPC, or will the Xbox 2 be running Mac OS X?
XBox 2 SDK released on PowerMac G5s
XBox 2 to sport 3 64-bit IBM Chips
Microsoft leaks details about XBox Next
XBox 2 innards laid bare on web
Just think of the implications of Microsoft producing a PowerPC based PC...
I know some people that would love a machine they would see as guaranteed safe
And they would trust Microsoft with the task of building such a machine why?
...Is that the Xbox 2/Next will be based around *3* 64bit powerpc chips. You're not going to be able to buy these parts yourself for that kind of money.
Another thing to keep in mind, MS owns VirtualPC now, so it's very possible the vpc technology will be used to allow the xbox 2/next to run a stock windows distro, as well as possibly providing the backwards compatability for the original xbox games.
Why in the world would the U.S. government allow a company with 90% market share in PC operating systems start selling pre-built PCs?
This has strongarm market-opening written all over it. Bet on the PC portion having the XBox's style of boot hardware -- you can't put a new OS on it without replacing a chip, and the chip also has DRM on it (with which Windows is signed), so it's illegal to replace the chip as you'd be disabling copyright protections.
Imagine General Electric (the parent company of the U.S. media giant NBC) selling televisions which only display the NBC, CNBC, MSNBC etc. stations in its stable. Imagine Turner Cable dropping all stations which compete too closely with Turner Broadcasting's stations. If you can't condone these practices, how could you condone MS putting out a Windows-only PC (with Windows sold internally to itself at little or no cost to subsidize hardware costs)?
Hopefully Dell, HP, IBM, eMachines, Alienware, Sony, Winbook, and the attorneys general for several states will raise all kinds of hell about this.
XBox... exclusive. Oh, that's rich, especially the PLENTY bit.
Man, you're funny for a guy posting on the internet with a PC that can probably play many of these "exclusives" for way under $600, even after MS tax.
There are only two publishers that matter that put any exclusive content on the XBox. SEGA and Tecmo. Not too shabby, but without Square-Enix and a sane luggable hardware design they'll never get Japan and without Japan they'll never get the older franchise games that really move units and add value.
And, you're assuming the XBox is going to get lots and lots of quality exclusives in the next generation it missed out on in this one. You psychic or did you cut a faustian marketing deal with Microsoft?
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."