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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!
No.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
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?"
No, but I would be willing to pay $600 dollars for a standard OEM PC with all of the capabilities of a console. Oh wait. I already did that.
"I have great faith in fools: Self confidence my friends call it." ~Edgar Allan Poe
XBox is already already "pc compatible". The only thing different is the boot process.
http://www.xbox-linux.org/
http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/
"...a generation of kids has grown up thinking Trance is the shittiest music since country and western." - Paul van Dyk
Sort of a silly question to ask this crowd. Virtually all of us already have a relatively decent PC, and upgrade it regularly. An XBox almost certainly wouldn't meet our needs.
This will probably appeal more to the less technically-literate population. Instead of buying the $600 Dell and the $250 game console for the kids, you buy the $600 XBox instead. If marketed correctly, Microsoft should clean up on this.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
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?
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?
They were "fanboys" because it was a $200 PC that could be hooked to the TV and "hacked" to run Linux. It was more of a cheap novelty and a poke at MS than a "fan" thing here.
Now that they might have it purposefully be a computer (for more money) it's not going to be nearly as interesting or attractive to the userbase here.
While it's probably a smart move by MS (and one step closer to Billy coming over your TV every morning to greet you as you awake to his alarm clock) it's not something that I would run out and buy myself.
"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!
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
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
While the original PlayStation was commonly known as the "PSX", the PSX in this case is here
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.'"
I'm sure Steve Jobs doesn't think it's funny to call everything NeXT.
'SBEMAIL!' is better than a goat!!