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Game Industry Experts Discuss Xbox 2
Alan Wong writes "Taken from the latest issue of Xbox Nation magazine, 1UP.com has posted a feature entitled Doing The Right Thing, where eleven industry insiders discussed what it would take for Microsoft to make the next Xbox a success. Among the panel members were Nolan Bushnell, Trip Hawkins, Steven Kent, Bioware's Greg Zeschuk."
what it would take for Microsoft to make the next Xbox a success
Come on... Disclaimer: I have never owned an Xbox (I bought a PS2 a year after it came it, and a Gamecube shortly after that. After selling them both when I moved, I bought another PS2, and will buy the gamecube again, as well, but used this time.)
I mention the above, because it's plain to see that the Xbox is already a success. By market standards, they're in an incredible place. (Um.. TurboGrafx, anyone... Or N-Gage?) Sure, they're not the number one player, but coming from nowhere, they've made themselves into a contender, and that's a success as far as I can see.
They've taken one portion of the market, and done it better than anyone else, and that's the 'net connection. Anyone who has used the PS2 network adapter (as I have) has seen that it's a pale comparison to Xbox live.
If Microsoft wants to succeed, all they have to do is keep doing what they've been doing well, and make sure to continue pushing out good games.
Nintendo has historically pushed out some of the best games, but limited to mostly first and second-parties. Sony has managed to have the most games, with the few gems spread throughout the abundance overcoming all the other really crappy games, and Microsoft nailed the online market.
Since the online market is going to do nothing but grow, they're already in a good position for the future...
However, if the DS is a success I think that it could give Nintendo the edge it needs to take the lead over MS in North America (the only place the XBox is beating the GC in sales) and help it maintain and widen it's lead in the world. With it's low price of entry (especially by the time the next round of consoles are released), it's unique data entry, ample screen space, and wireless networking, the DS could actually suceed in the handheld/console connectivity segment that the GBA, let be honest, failed in.
Anyways, if there are a few million DS's in the market by the time the GC2 launches, and they include wireless connectivity between them (here's an idea: give the GC2 a built in ethernet port AND a wireless adapter and have all GC2s function as an AP for DS's) right off the bat (in terms of having games that give a truly usefull feature when used w/ a GC2 and DS link at launch) it could be what spurs those DS owners to choose the next GC over the Xbox2.
Or I could be wrong, it happens.
Which means years before release, right now. IBM has hit a wall, for the time being, at 2.5 GHz, much like Intel has hit a similar wall at around 3.6 GHz.
Otherwise, we'd be seeing (or at least hearing about) the 3.0 GHz and 3.5 GHz G5's in Apple PowerMacs soon. And Jobs admitted that Apple and IBM weren't able to hit the 3.0 GHz mark on the G5 just yet back at the WWDC in June, even though both companies had hoped to have the 3.0 GHz G5's out in the PowerMacs before the WWDC.
Initial rumors about 3.5 GHz PowerPC chips are fine and dandy... but, as of right now, IBM simply can't produce them. If the Xbox 2 goes with the PowerPC architecture, it might be at the 2.0-possibly as high as 3.0 GHz mark, depending on the price of the chips and the rest of the system components.