Slashdot Mirror
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."
"Among the panel members were Nolan Bushnell... Who?
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.
Don't forget, while Bioware's Neverwinter Nights was not released for the Xbox, they also produced Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, probably still the best RPG released for Microsoft's console. They're also working on Jade Empire , which will be an Xbox exclusive, and was specifically designed from the start for the Xbox.
WARNING: If accidentally read, induce vomiting.
The experts seem to be pushing for an early launch, which seems strange to me.
Microsoft have unique levels of flexibility on their launch date - they can simply wait a bit and up the specs of the machine as their off-the-shelf parts fall in price.
If they go early, they have lower specs, less software, and less time to polish that software, and they will be up against people's perception of how good the '1000x more powerful than PS2' PS3 will be rather than the actual device.
If they go for the same day as Sony, they can use the cash mountin to outspend Sony on marketing and to go $10 cheaper than Sony.
If they go late, they can out-spec Sony.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
I am biased, because I am a big Xbox fan...but...
Most of the excitement I see around consoles currently, is around the Xbox. The PS2 is starting to look really bad lately, in comparison to Xbox games. The Gamecube has the whole on-line vaccuum which many Nintendo fans say is no big deal. Because they don't understand why there is excitement around on-line gaming. (Trust me, there is)
I was recently at a professional conference at Purdue University. (No, this was not for students, but for technical professionals) The agenda had 'game night' listed for 3 of the nights. I had no idea what it would be- charades, pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey...who knows. Imagine my happy surprise when I walked in the room and saw 4 Xboxes connected via System Link and projected onto big screens. We played for 2 or 3 hours every night, and people who weren't even videogame fans got into the action.
I really don't think people would have/could have done this with the other consoles. This type of technology is what is making the Xbox 'cool' right now. When I have videogame neophytes (or even PS2/Gamecube owners who aren't familiar with the Xbox) over to play some games, they are usually blown away by Xbox Live. "These are REAL people?" they say over and over into the microphone...(sullying my gamertag while doing it).
The better technology built into the Xbox is finally becoming more important, now that people see that all 3 consoles can play games. But the Xbox can save more games, play your own music, play on-line, download new content, system-link...
Hopefully the next Xbox pushes the envelope a little bit further, so games are still exciting 3 years after the launch of the console.
Because when I play on a PS2 or Gamecube, I think that just playing 'standard' console games is a real snore-fest.
No reason to lie.
" 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."
What a lot of Slashdotters don't know is that it's okay to not be in first place in the games market. A lot of people say the Nintendo 64 failed because the PS sold more units. Um, Nintendo sold 30 million N64's along with millions of software they produced. I'm surprised Nintendo doesn't have a McDuckian Money Bin on their property.
"Derp de derp."
Why this puff piece was posted is beyond me. I am planning on opening a gaming cafe in the next 3 months. This menas everything about gaming interests me these days. I want to know what is popular now and what may be popular in the future and why. Perhaps some discussion of market share or sales statistics. How about details on hardware specs or online services. Maybe information on their relationships with resellers and publishers. All this article does is try to convince people that Microsoft is still in the console business and attempts to convey the impression that Microsoft wont get its ass kicked by Sony again while providing excuses for when they do. If OSDN wants to sell Ad space they might as well be honest with us about it. Oh but wait, the whole purpose of the article was to give the Xbox some "street cred" with industry leaders that read slashdot wasnt it?
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.
Actually, this could have been done with a Gamecube and network adapters. Mario Kart DD multiplayer is a hell of a lot of fun.
I have all three consoles. For me what makes the XBox different is the type of titles you get on it - it naturally attracts a lot of PC developers. I doubt we'd see anything too much like Fable on the other two consoles.
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.