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"Levels" of Computers the Future?
RabidMoose writes "Gamespot has an article up talking about a recent interview with Microsofts's Dean Lester about the future of PC gaming (as well as Xbox 2 tidbits). Basically, they're in contact with the big hardare producers about transitioning to a system of tagging pre-made computers with "levels". He provided a hypothetical example that a PC with a "level 5" designation might have a medium processor speed, amount of RAM, and mid-range video card, while a "level 7" PC might have a faster processor, more RAM, and a higher-end video card."
Since computer hardware improves rapidly and continually, it's impossible to tag a particular specification with a level. Today's level 10 is a level 5 in six months and a level 2 in a year.
The only meaningful "levels" are price tags, and people already do that: cheap home PC, low-cost business, high-cost business, top-end gaming and video editing, server.
I suspect this is just a ploy to justify releasing a new pricing system for MS software. Obviously Windows for a level 10 system is going to cost more than Windows for a level 4 system. It would allow them to make Windows _very_ cheap for $399 PCs while making fatter profit margins on $1999 game monsters.
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Yup. Like Goku, your power level will just keep increasing over time.
I've got a Dell Dimension here dating from mid 1997 (and a motherboard out the back that's even older) with onboard USB that disagrees with you.
On the gen1 iMac, the usb/floppy stuff provided for some compatibility issues until vendors scrambled to get usb peripherals out the door.
Actually it was a typical example of Apple doing a half-arsed job and smokescreening it with an "Innovation!" sticker. Had they been *serious* about "innovation" they would have included a CDRW drive as standard instead of selling a machine that didn't even give the user a way to get data off it without third-party services and products.