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Dvorak On The Future Of The Xbox
Thanks to PC Magazine for its John Dvorak-authored editorial discussing his view of the present and future for Microsoft's Xbox game console. Dvorak rages: "Microsoft has over $56 billion in the bank and should be dominating the console market. Unfortunately, the company's overall strategies have failed and may continue to fail, leaving the Xbox in the dustbin with the last great American hope for a super game machine, the 3DO box from circa 1993", before continuing: "I think it can be argued that high-expectation syndrome was partially responsible for the deaths of both the 3DO machine and Sega. It definitely plays into the Xbox story... Compare this rollout to the original Sony PlayStation 1's debut... it just kind of appeared and worked its way to the top by attrition." He ends by musing: "Keeping the Xbox alive is important to Microsoft. Its pride and prestige are at stake... We will see an Xbox II. Whether it fulfills Microsoft's dream or becomes a collector's item remains to be seen."
What color is the sky in Dvorak's world? The Xbox is outselling the Playstation 2. Xbox parties have quickly replaced LAN parties, and the fact that you can mod the hell out of it has almost turned soldering into a fad. The only place I can see the Xbox as hurting Microsoft is that PC gaming may suffer as a result. But what does Microsoft care if they already control most of the PC world through Windows anyway? If anything, the Xbox is increasing Microsoft's stronghold in the home.
This written from a Gamecube fan.
The World is Yours.
Wasn't his editorial written concerning how Microsoft should be pouring money into cleaning up the 'spaghetti code' that he claims runs amok in Redmond? Granted, I skimmed through the article awaiting my father's recovery from retinal surgery, but I really do not remember any in-depth discussion of the Xbox. I hope his editorial is seen as a call for a new management paradigm, and not just another voice calling for the solution of a problem by more spending. That would make some investors a wee bit nervous, don't you think?
is it that bad seein a hot chick again? if i see a hot chick walkin down the hall i dont say "repost"
As a self-proclaimed Apple expert, he:
- Predicted the death of Apple for years and years,
- Predicted that the stratospherically successful iBook would be a disaster,
- Most recently, he predicted in March of 2003 that Apple would move the Mac to Intel in the next 12-18 months. Apple's got 3 months left to do it... what do you think the odds are?
The guy should change his name to "Anonymous Coward" for the amount of trolling he does. So now he's an Xbox "expert," eh?Dvorak?
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
From the sales figures, the x-box is certanly not dying, hell, i finally bought one last week (refurb though). Although the increase in sales could be because everyone already has a PS2, so now people are buying xboxs. But has Microsoft actually made any money in their gaming department? They have $50 bil in cash or whatever, so any loss is inconsequential, but iirc, microsoft took like a $200 hit on each console, its probably more now that they're cutting prices. I think the demise of the xbox will be its use of standard PC hardware, 1 $25 modchip and a standard IDE hard drive and you can copy as many games as you want, depriving microsoft of more money. Not that thats the reason i bought an xbox...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Dvorak is slowly becoming the Nostrodamus of the high-tech industry. I think it's about time he started writing apocalyptic theories in book form and sold them through thinkgeek. Meh, he certainly doesn't deserve space on any part of slashdot.
schild
editor, f13.net
I do a little work in the 'industry'.
Suuuure you do.
Dvorak is the most pro-MS journalist around. He has lunches with Bill Gates. For him to say the xbox is a disaster is pretty suprising.
This from a guy who claimed Apple should stop making computers and software and that blogs offer the world nothing new when it comes to original reporting.
the company has not been able to get worldwide sales, especially Japanese sales [..] but it still has not been popular enough to become a profit center for Microsoft.
I never remember Microsoft stating that they intended to make a profit on the first Xbox. It was their introduction to the market - and for a debut product they've done remarkably well. They've done better than Sega and (arguably) better than Nintendo.
The product itself is rather good for a first effort (controller slip-ups excepted). It's definitely the platform with the most longitivity due to the superior hardware specifications.
All this has recently been compounded by Microsoft's decision to cancel or delay the release of its online game True Fantasy Live Online.
A game company cancelling a game is not a big deal in the industry. Heck, I've worked in the games industry for 6 years - and been working on 2 titles when they were killed in various stages of development. Cancelling a title isn't a death-blow to a company as large as Microsoft.
Microsoft has over $56 billion in the bank and should be dominating the console market. Unfortunately, the company's overall strategies have failed and may continue to fail
They're doing very, very well. Their main competitor is Sony. Sony is not going to take competition sitting down and has been fighting just as dirty as Microsoft, especially on their home turf in Japan. Microsoft has made impressive headway - done well in the US and Europe, but absolutely slaughtered the competition in some markets like Australia.
It's not like Sony hasn't made some mistakes - the PSX (Playstation 2 media center) pre-emptive strike against a possible Xbox 2 based "Media Center" was a disaster for Sony. There's no reason at all to doubt Microsoft's future in the console market.
The 3DO machine was the first 32-bit console; there were great games for it and it had powerful underpinnings. Its $700 price tag was probably the main thing that killed it, but it also suffered from the same problem that the Microsoft Xbox has suffered from: high-expectation syndrome.
Huh? 3DO comparisons aren't valid. 3DO was DOA because it wasn't marketed towards kids (who couldn't afford it), adult gamers weren't interested because there were no games (and Sony hadn't yet created the adult gaming market) - AND the 3DO didn't live up to the hype. But by all accounts from a consumer and developer perspective, the Xbox hit all expectations placed on it. I certainly have no regrets about my purchase, or about developing for it. I've played some great games, have some great games, had 2 titles published - and there are a number of games that I'm looking forward to.
I had experts come on my radio show and tell me flat-out that the Xbox would become the number-one gaming console, with Sony number two and Sega and Nintendo probably dropping out. [..] The relative lack of hot games reinforced the negative attitude, as did the promises that many of the hot games on the Sony platform would be "ported"--and when they were ported, they'd somehow be better. Some were marginally better, but not enough to change anything.
So somebody in marketing exaggerated a product's claims to a member of the mainstream media. Yawn. Really, were you born yesterday? Calling yourself a "journalist" would be some sort of exaggeration, but I don't blame you for trying.
However, you seem to forget that there weren't many good games when the Playstation 1 launched either. Sure, there was "Wipeout", but the PC version (or "port" as you seem to think that's a dirty word) looked much better. The killer Playstation 1 game, "Metal Gear Solid" began development when the machine was being designed. According to lore, they had a prototype running when the hardware was only at 30% of it's final speed. It was *several years* after the launch of the PS1 until that game eventually came out.
And it's the same situation on the Xbox - only last year and this
Mr. Dvorak comes over as a barely-intelligible fanatic.
I'm the first to admit that the X-Box has not achieved global domination. The only company ever to have made such a first-impact on the console market is Sony, and they did this with the PS1 when they entered a market which was much less business-savvy and brand-conscious than the current console market. Microsoft have also yet to crack in to the Japanese market, although I sense this wasn't really one of their initial priorities. All the indications are that their focus is shifting in this direction, so I wouldn't be surprised to see this change.
What the X-Box has achieved in its first generation is to ship at least as many consoles as (and probably a good many more games than) Nintendo, despite Nintendo having many generations worth of experience of the market and a console with a remarkably low price-point. That this has proved expensive for Microsoft shouldn't come as a surprise, but nor should it diminish their achievement.
Hopefully, MS will be so pissed off that they drop him. Finally.
I'm not trying to flamebait anyone on, but I've noticed people (not just on this newspost) like to say that the Xbox is ruining the PC market because of cross-platform development. Besides Deus Ex: Invisible War and Thief: Deadly Shadows, both of which were developed by Ion Storm mind you, can anybody name another game that was hurt as the result of this? I think people are mistaking Ion Storm's poor choices in development as some sort of nasty plot by Microsoft to cripple the PC market, because they certainly wouldn't want people to go out and buy PC's that run their operating system, heh.
I don't believe that the Xbox is failing. Just look at E3 this year, and you can see that Xbox exclusives like Halo 2, Burnout 3, Jade Empire, Fable, etc were walking away with a lot of awards, not to mention Xbox Live's success. I'm not trying to say that Xbox is the best system, because I think each of the big three systems has their own strengths, and I own them all. I think it's outrageous to compare the Xbox to the 3DO, though, as to this day I couldn't name you a single game for the 3DO, whereas the average gamer is probably aware of Xbox's lineup.
Bollocks. Most of the games aren't even similar in style. No mouse or keyboard makes sure of that. Many more games are cross developed over consoles only than consoles and PCs. Consider this, if there was no Xbox then those games probably wouldn't even have had a PC release, the market is becoming too small to bother with, full as it is of stale FPS's and point and click RTS. This is in the same way that the Gamecube is starting to find itself without ports of certain games. Stop whining and be thankful. Don't blame the Xbox for the PC's demise, blame all consoles for being something that most people would prefer to play games on.
Yeah, and I bet you're still on your Voodoo 2 aren't you. Idiot. I suppose all your games from back then work too.
He's not saying that the XBox isn't technically superior to the PS2, just that Microsoft have made a right royal balls-up of marketing and supporting it.
can anybody name another game that was hurt as the result of this?
Bungie was originally a PC (And Mac !) developer. And a damn good one too. (I hope you've all played Myth & Marathon)
I think the logic behind the 'XBox hurts PC' charge is that MS winds up buying development companies, and makes them XBox only. Like they did with Bungie. That, and the potentially more lucrative market for the XBox takes focus away from PC development.
--LordPixie
MS profits on sales of a surprisingly small amount of, well, anything. Think about how much MS makes when you use MediaPlayer, Internet Explorer, etc. MS isn't about selling a bunch of products, they're about controlling the platform. The idea behind the XBox isn't to turn a profit. It's to put a MS platform in as many living rooms that they possibly can. Once they've got that sort of control, then they can start making money. It's not like we haven't seen this before...
--LordPixie
You know you're wrong when even Slashdot doesn't agree with your anti-ms bashing.
You know, Microsoft takes a lot of heat for crushing the competition.
Now the XBOX is taking heat for not crushing the competition.
In my view the XBOX is doing well. I know just as many people with a XBOX as a PS2. Nobody I know has a GameCube (well except me I have all 3 but I'm sick).
Right now if most people want a new game system they pick the XBOX, the PS2 is seen as being "old" and the Gamecube is not seen at all.
Either way I hope there is enough market for all 3 and that the games keep coming.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
And considering how much money Microsoft is losing now, I don't think Microsoft will wait 12 years and will almost certainly give up before then.
I'd like to draw your attention to this Cringely article. It's a (long) opinion piece on MS' business model. Two points are made about the way MS works: 1) MS has incentives to increase losses. Yeah, you read that correctly. Without losses to balance off their massive growth in the Office/Windows department, they'd plateau and go nowhere. 2) Microsoft has basically saturated the PC market, and sucked as much profit as humanly possible from computer sales. Thus, they have to move into new markets.
Keeping the top two points in mind, the X-Box seems to be doing a perfect job of what MS wants. Now, I certainly don't expect you to whole-heartedly agree with the above article, but do at least read it...
--LordPixie
Dvorak, you can't be serious... he's kidding right... just trolling?
The xbox is alive and doing quite well... It's also quite superior to the ps2 in many ways. Anti-aliasing, high def support (beyond 480p), xbox live, games load quicker, look better and it's now pretty dang cheap. personally, I have even come to prefer the new s-controller over the PS2 controller, but maybe that's cause I'm playing the xbox so much.
In no particular order...
Neverwinter Nights
Morrowind
City of Heroes
UT2004
Farcry
Serious Sam
Empire Earth
Rise of Nations
To be released (probably before the next set of consoles comes out)...
Doom 3
Half-Life 2
The Matrix Online
Everquest 2
Evil Genius
To be released just after the heat death of the universe (in about 10^(10^72) years.)
Duke Nukem Forever
Hollywood: The place good stories go to die.
"Microsoft has over $56 billion in the bank and should be dominating the console market. "
That just goes to show, you can't have a monopoly without a market that agrees with you.
"Derp de derp."
5 letter mmorpg. It's been Sony's PC cash cow of ra while and as of yet PC mmorpg never get to the same level. It's a niche market but MMORPG is a very very profitabel niche.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Neverwinter Nights - old now. Graphically unimpressive even at time of its release. Never lived up to full potential because it assumed people we willing to go through far too steep a learning curve to make modules. Lack of party control crippled it for single-player.
Morrowind - available on X-Box
City of Heroes - it's a MMORPG... it's early days. We'll see how it fares. I doubt it's going to beat FFXI.
UT2004 - largely an update of UT2003, with a few bits of Tribes bolted on. Utterly stale.
Farcry - will grant you this one. Gameplay (particularly difficulty curve) has some problems, but it does go beyond what the consoles will do.
Serious Sam - multiple versions available on all consoles. Has been for some time, actually.
Empire Earth - may be good, might not be. Never heard much about it, so I doubt it's a "killer" title.
Rise of Nations - fairly generic RTS. Again, utterly stale.
Doom 3 - also for X-Box.
Half-Life 2 - if it doesn't turn out to be also for X-Box, I'll eat my hat.
The Matrix Online - after Enter the Matrix and the second two films, can't say this excites me.
Everquest 2 - I suspect FFXI has beaten it to the post.
Evil Genius - not heard of it, won't comment.
Neverwinter Nights in particular had rave reviews inspite of its 'unimpressive graphics.' Personally, I didn't think the graphics were that bad, and I don't tend to rate a game on its graphics much anyway. Lots of people are still playing it. That must say something about its 'killerness.'
The other thing to mention is that a game can be available for a number of platforms and still be a big PC game. Doom 3 in particular will do incredibly well on both PC and XBox. (I'll probably go PC for this one, even though I have an XBox. I prefer using a mouse to play a FPS. Much more efficient.)
Hollywood: The place good stories go to die.
Anyone that manages to get themselves that badly infested AND NOT NOTICE IT untill running a malware removal app is clearly not someone that the computer world should take seriously.
The man simply doesn't know what he's talking about.
The World's Worst Webcomic!
Quake 3 was a roaring PC success. Sold less then any of the Final fantasies after 6. NWN is a huge success, still sold less then Gran Turismo. Warcraft 3, starcraft, Half life are about the only games that sell console numbers on the PC. HL2, Doom3 won't do console numbers. Even on the Xbox. Their FPS. FPs have a limited market. Even Halo didn't do GTA or FFX numbers.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
I turned my XBox on last night and it works just fine. Admittedly, it has been neglected of late as I've spent a lot of time on my PS2 playing FFXI. That aside, the XBox is not dying yet. Instead, the real threat comes from within Microsoft itself where the company has shown a history of cut and run on anything outside of Windows and Office. It's hard to argue the numbers though, since right now at least PC gaming may make more money for MS than XBox gaming since PC gaming must be driving some PC sales which of course means Windows and Office sales.
But, if they can come up with the games to drive sales in Europe and Japan, then things could turn around dramatically. I think (with no evidence whatsoever) that internal politics may be keeping them from doing what must be done in the way of aquiring local development talent for the overseas markets and of course marketing effectively there. There's no secret to what Sony did to become the dominant player in the console market. Microsoft just has to decide that this is a game they want to win. I think the future of the company depends on this more than they would like to admit given the rise of Linux and OSS solutions on the desktop.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Halo had a very large PC fanbase going for it before Bungie was bought out. I have absolutely no doubt that Halo would have been a significant success saleswise had MS not come along. It might not have been widely considered the best game on the platform, but a success nonetheless. Bungie had a excellent track record with the multitude of Marathon and Myth titles. The cult-following alone would have made Halo a hit. It most likely would have garnered mainstream recognition as well.
--LordPixie
I'll give you a hint: they're located in Redmond, WA and it isn't Nintendo of America.
It goes back to a talk I heard from Robert Cringely last year. Cringely noted that IT pundits, like himself and Dvorak, simply have to make the prediction and let it loose - but they don't blast it. That way, if they are wrong, very few people know about it. If they are right, they can go on for years about how they predicted the end of the Xbox, Apple, etc.
Pretty good gig if you can get it. :)
If MS could get away with it they could always put create an PS1 EMU for the XBOX but that would hurt there sales of XBox games.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Don't you think it's a little stupid to draw lines in general? It's natural to favor one flavor of things over another, but it's the lowest form of human behavior to start arguments and wars over it.
Yeah, God forbid we actually try to understand through argument why others have the opinions and beliefs that they do. Far better to assume that everyone is exactly the same, holding hands and singing songs under a bright rainbow.
To sum it up: who the fuck cares?
Who the fuck cares about anything on the Internet? Why are you even posting to Slashdot?
It seems the only way to escape such an immature stereotype is to either own all three current systems, or none at all.
Actually, the way to not be a fanboy is to realize that your game developers of choice are not the end-all and be-all of gaming, that not everything that they touch turns into gold, and that their competitors are not complete trash. It's really not that hard.
You should be siding with consumers in general, and not You should be siding with consumers in general, and not voluntarily giving more power to an already overwhelming and controlling entity.
Funny; I thought that being a fanboy was "voluntarily giving more power to an already overwhelming and controlling entity."
Rob
The point is that both a console and a PC get outdated and replaced. With a console you throw away the whole thing and get a new one that consists almost completely of superior parts, with a PC you usually replace one component at a time. While you could say your PC lasted you from the 386 generation to now, it isn't really the same PC as ALL components have been replaced at some point in time. Just because you don't replace the entire system at once doesn't mean you aren't replacing it. A PC bought on the release day of the XBox likely has been replaced by now or is so outdated it doesn't play any current games, whereas the XBox can still play all of its new games at full detail.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
FFX sold 10 million AC. 4 million is 30% penetration for the Xbox. It'd be considered a fair success for PS2. IT's a super smash hit for the Xbox. FFX-2 sold 6.6 mil. GTA, PS2's smash hit sold 29 million world wide. So yes, my statement is correct. Halo didn't do FFX or GTA numbers.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
No, you aren't expected to know everyone. No one is asking you to. But if you want to work in this industry you do have to know who people, especially loudmouthed idiots like Dvorak, are. You want to know why?
Because those are the columnists your bosses read. They are the ones who shape what business managers dream about late at night. Thus, when they come in to your departmental meeting, talking about the fact that they know what's going on in the "industry" - they read Dvorak, after all - you know how to argue with them.
However, if your arguing style is evidenced by what you wrote above... well, then, you have a long way to go.
Morgahastu got a 4 for funny?.. that's a 5 on informative!
The Xbox may have superior stats in some ways but that does not make it the "better" gaming machine.
PS2's can also have hard drives,bigger ones than X-boxes. Both of my PS2's have hard drives installed.
IMHO Gameplay is more important than resolution and the PS2 has a better and larger variety of games.
Most PS2's you can buy nowadays have the Network adapter included, so Ethernet right out of the box.
Last I heard Sony was going to release a music application for the PS2 allowing one to rip and listen to music.
I've always wondered why a console with built in networking needs 4 controller ports. Shouldn't you be playing muitliplayer online?
The reason the X-box has those 4 ports is because it's aimed at the "dorm room" market in the same way the Gamecube is aimed at the "after school" market. I'm 37, arranging some in house multiplayer with friends is almost impossible due to schedules. I don't need 4 ports and if I did hooking up a muititap is not that hard. On top of those two ports a PS2 has USB ports. Don't need special adaptor or special X-box only keyboard, all you need is any ole USB one. That goes for mice too. Did you know that most PS2 FPS's support keyboard and mouse input?
Still, maybe longhorn will have a cool new card game if it ever gets released eh?
"..you need to buy an extra "output adapter" and "remote control" to unlock all its features - but that's only to make up on the money lost by MS on the base system..."
Actually, making the remote control as a seperate purchase was a slick way to avoid paying licenses to the DVD consortium (or whateverTF they're called). At first I thought this was stupid, but now I realize it makes sense. You would have to pay another $15-20 per Xbox if they shipped it as a viable DVD player, and what if I don't want another DVD player? If I do want that feature, I buy it for a nominal fee. It's a great solution. When the XBox does drop low enough for me to consider making it my 3rd console, I don't need a 3rd DVD player, and don't incur the cost.
As to the extra video cables, that's just the sellers choice. Their are currently 4 ways to hook a console up to a TV (RF, Composite, SVideo, and Component), and I don't mind the fact that they don't ship every console with all 4 different types of cables. That also doesn't really count as an Xbox 'weak spot', since the other consoles also do the same.
Oh, and I try very hard to avoid excessive bias. Case in point, I don't own an XBox, still think it's an awkward, although interesting duck, yet will defend it's good points.
"... but that's only to make up on the money lost by MS on the base system."
So in conclusion, no.
-- I have fans? Wow.