Slashdot Mirror
State of the Xbox
An anonymous reader writes "Xbox head-honcho Robbie Bach has written up a State of the Xbox in which he gloats about the continuing success of the console but fails to say a word about its evolution." From the article: "You may have seen the October Game Developers Magazine, which announced its top 20 Publishers of the Year. Microsoft Game Studios was named the number two publisher, just behind EA, based on revenue as well as use of third-party developers, average critical response to titles, percentage of original intellectual properties (IPs), and developer opinion."
http://alexalbrecht.typepad.com/alex/2005/01/xbox_ ii.html
So in my travels this weekend I came across a Microsoft employee and talked him up about Xbox II... here are the facts I found out.
1) Hard Drive... Yes! There was some speculation that MS was going to take the HD out to make it more difficult to Mod.
2) Flash based HD... Yes!!! It was told to me that the HD was going to be flash based... small size fast access... BAM!
3) No Stupid Dongle DVD playback... Yes!!! The reason that the first Xbox didn't have built in DVD playback is a simple one, Sony owns the Intellectual Property rights for DVD playback. Nuf said...
4) Xbox II at E3... Hell Yes!!! There will be an Xbox II maybe more at E3 this year...
5) Xbox II release date announced at E3... another Hell Yes!!! MS will be announcing a release date for Xbox II...
Now this is not like the "rumors" about IBM before these are hard cold facts from the horses mouth...
Shoudn't that read, "All 20 Xbox publishers?"
I keed, I keed.
I felt that he was conveying genuine pride in this project. It appears that MS is getting their feet under them, and with the continued sucess, it appears that gamers will be the winner.
but I stopped when he started bragging about the "awards" xbox games won at Spike TV's second annual Video Game Awards. The award show I saw I wouldn't brag about to anyone.
Xbox is cool, and selling very very well and I don't understand microsoft's rush to release Xbox2....Xbox has finally come into its own, just in time for the release of the Xenon or whatever. I like new consoles and better graphics, but I think microsoft should slow down.
http://www.commaecho.com
In other words, if the Xbox did not have great games, it would not be much fun at all.
You forgot to say fuck to the good racing games (Project Gotham 2), which are online, and the superior versions of all the Tom Clancy games as well. And aren't fanboys the type of people that call systems overhyped and want them to fail? Lemme guess, you think the Dual Shock is the best controller ever made?
fails to say a word about its evolution? Why would the existing Xbox evolve more with only a year left in its lifespan? I don't give a crap about the system evolving nearly as much as I'd like to know about the evolution of Xbox Live functionality. Not to mention the fact that consoles, which are fixed systems (unlike a PC) don't technically 'evolve' anyway.
Touting their average critical response is a joke. The gaming press is not exactly a hive of quality journalism. Most gaming magazines and websites are simply deliverers of the gaming industry's press releases. They call it news and charge you extra for movies and such. Review scores are determined by how much hype has been generated and how well the the reviewer is treated by the company. The Driv3r scandal last summer is an example of this.
Lemme guess, you think the Dual Shock is the best controller ever made?
It's a hell of a lot more practical than the botched mess of a Dreamcast ripoff MS engineered. Not to mention that the original American controller was laughably bad, what with that giant jewel logo that took up about 40% of them entire front side.
Don't forget to tell Microsoft to fuck off for having the foresight to include a harddrive and broadband at the release of the product, or having four controller ports built in so you don't have to buy an adapter for your two extra friends.
OOOOOHHH, and all those low priced memory cards we ne.... wait, the built-in harddrive means no more goddamned memory cards too!
can i get an amen...
most xbox games are weak. mostly cookie cutter and the good ones seem to be spoofs off of other games made by sony.
Games like MechAssault which we've seen on consoles for YEARS now!
You can't really trust an article that states that.
His last name is spelled Bach, not Back.
Yeah, if it weren't for the hard drive, we'd never be blessed with the "you can crush your cat with an Xbox" jokes.
The extra moving parts also make the system more sensitive to shock. d(^-^)b
Because everyone's favorite places to store a piece of electronics are either the back of a pickup truck on a bumpy road or the top of a domestic animal.
I find it very interesting that on a system where it's arguably best game series (in terms of exclusives) is a racing game, that the controller doesn't allow for analog braking/gas simultaneously. Sure you could map the gas/brake to the right thumbstick, but that doesn't allow you to feather the brake while keeping the throttle down, nor to you get real analog control from the L/R1 and 2 shoulder buttons. Not to mention that the thumbsticks on the Xbox pad offer a lot more tactile feedback, as well as more resistance and a better, indented shape to prevent your thumb from slipping off, which makes it better for controlling pretty much anything with dual analog control for movement.
While I'll agree that there are some similarities to the Dreamcast controller (the triggers and main button layout (which is identical to the Dual Shock's), the Dreamcast controller was horribly designed from an ergonomical standpoint, as it required you to tweak your wrists outward in order to hold it, which became quite uncomfortable, even after short playing periods, due to the fact that it was somewhat disc-shaped.
And yeah, except for racing and FPS games, the orginal Xbox controller (aka 'The Duke'), was indeed quite large, but was still more comfortable to play with.
Instresting, I don't remember any Sony games like Halo, MechAssult, Ninja Gaiden, Fable, etc. Please tell me the Sony games that were spoofed?
Foresight to include broadband? I guess, but when their competition released their consoles, there was almost NO broadband penetration in their markets, so including it would have been stupid. And no hardrives? Well, when I got my PS1, a 4 gig drive cost twice what the PS1 did, at least.
That is the beauty of the MS plan. If you sit on your ass long enough, everything gets cheaper.
I'm with the haters here. XBox really sucks balls. Maybe 5 good games in total. And each of those good games, has a better version on some other platform.
First time I tried it, I got forced into Halo. I could not believe that this was the game that all the fuss was about. A slow, mid range FPS at best. Maybe it was mindblowing to those who hadn't played an FPS since GoldenEye, but to anyone who had used a PC in the previous 4 years, it was underwhelming to say the least. Give me my PC and FPS games any day of the week. And for all other game types, I think I'll stick with Sony. Better drivers, better sports, better company, better innovation, less borg.
In closing, as you said, a spirited FUCK OFF to Microshaft and the XBox.
Wait, Sony has made a good game? I'm sure they've published plenty, but made? I don't think so.
The PlayStation 2 is older and less powerful that the Xbox. The PS2 is showing it's age and IMO it's already saturated the market.
My response to MS gloating about how many units they sell is "so what, all the gamers that already have a PS2 are now getting around to buying an Xbox also."
That said Xbox Live is a great thing that I didn't understand until I had used it for a while. Sony and Nintendo would be making a mistake if they don't build an equivalent in their next consoles.
approx. the same as the state of the pc 3 years ago.
free online diet tracking.
Play Ico, Fantavision?
I'd go get a list, but I'm lazy. Those are the first two I saw on my shelf that were developed *and* published by Sony.
Microsoft's strategy of buying out and absorbing developers isn't any better.
Take a $150 Xbox, solder in a mod chip, throw in a big HD and even a USB keyboard if you like. What do you get? A great little media center box and an awesome box for emulation, oh yeah and it runs Linux too.
I know it's all illegal but I swear one of the reasons for the Xbox's increase in popularity is the mod community.
Because it is x86 based it's been pretty easy to port existing emulators over to the Xbox. Currently you have arcade machine emus, NES, SNES, Gameboy (up to Advance), Genesis, Sega Master System, Game Gear, Atari 2600 & 5200, Atari 8 bit computers, Atari ST, Commodore Pet, Vic 20 and 64, Amiga, PC Engine (Turbographix), Apple II and IIGS, Sinclair Spectrum, Lynx, Wonderswan, MSX computers, Colecovision, MS DOS, Intellivision, Neo Geo, Odyssey, Amstrad CPC even Playstation and N64 to a degree. All easy to use and play from your TV set.
Plus XBMC for playing DIVX, XVID and other video files, viewing pictures and playing mp3s. Oh yeah it will show you a current weather report too.
Amazing stuff.
Let's see how hard MS works to kill off the mod community with XBox 2.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
The point of the Dual Shock 2's design is that it's genre-agnostic. Besides, every part of the controller is pressure-sensitive. I don't doubt that an intuitive button configuration can be devised for racing games.
Here's my question: How does the XBox handle someone who wants to grab their saves and a game they own and head off to a friend's house (who already owns an XBox)? With the PS2 or Game Cube, you just grab the memory card and the game and head over.
I assume you can copy save games between XBoxs when they're connected to the LAN too. This doesn't come up too often, but still - it does come up occasionally.
I don't really want to get into a flame war, but I really don't see how using a hard drive to save games is any better than using a memory card - the flaws with the memory card (small storage space, slow write speed) don't seem to be large enough to really offset the flaws with using a hard drive (lack of portability, more fragile). They're just different. I'm just curious if the XBox has a solution to bringing save games over to your friend's.
Carrying the XBox over and being able to connect them without requiring a TV for both XBoxes is only worth half credit (since a memory card is much smaller and less prone to break if you drop it on the floor).
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
All two millimeters of pressure sensitivity.
and the superior versions of all the Tom Clancy games
A superior turd is still a turd.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
It isn't difficult to get used to unless you try to manoeuvre it with your fat, clumsy American fingers.
I would be disapointed if my PC didn't have better graphics and game play because it cost me 6 times more than my XBox. Try playing your PC games on a computer that costs the same as the XBox, you will probably find that XBox blows it away because most of these newer games for the PC requires a graphics card that costs more than a XBox. Comparing a PC to an XBox is like comparing apples and oranges, I'm sure a XBox would blow your mind if Microsoft was able to get away with puting in highend parts and selling it for the same price as a PC.
One thing they fail to note, among all those glowing numbers and SpikeTV accolades:
Have they actually made any money yet? Or are they still bleeding money like they had been the previous 2 years?
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
Take a look at most of the Xbox's exclusive hit titles: Halo, KotOR, MechAssault, Fable. Is a trend forming here? Microsoft brings crippled PC-type games to the console realm. What an unremarkable achivement.
On that topic, you can also thank Microsoft for the watered-down turd that was Deus Ex 2.
XBox also allows memory cards, so just like the PS2 or Game Cube you can take a memory card to your freinds house. Just copy the saved game from your hard drive to a memory card and off you go.
The XBox does support memory cards. You have to copy save games from a management screen (similar to the PS2 and Gamecube memory card management screens).
The problem: Most save games are too big for 8MB cards. You would need 32MB for KOTOR I or II. You can only fit one Halo 2 "profile" on an 8MB card.
Benefits:
The big potential benefit for the HD, is for downloadable content. That is the primary driver for the Sony PS2 HDD upgrade: Large storage for dynamicly updateable content and updates in FFIX.
own DVD playback. The DVD-CSS charges a license fee for every DVD player manufactured and MS incorporated the cost for that into the remote.
I'll assume the rest of the facts have the same accuracy.
Yeah, ask them how their purchase of Rare is working out.
Last I heard they were still working on porting old games they had/wanted to release for Nintendo, are releasing games for the GBA, and their only Xbox release so far really sucked.
I can do everything you listed above, with more ease, on my computer, which can also be hooked up to my TV. Which I would rather do than have my Live account cancelled because I modded my xbox.
Seriously, I don't find that very amazing. I doubt enough people in the world do either to make any type of signifigant increase in xbox sales.
It's not illegal unless your mod chip violates Microsoft's copyrights. Some mod chips do, some don't.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Oh yeah it will show you a current weather report too.
Yeah, but so will windows.
Every morning I wake up and look at windows and I've got a current weather report.
Currently you have arcade machine emus, NES, SNES, Gameboy (up to Advance), Genesis, Sega Master System, Game Gear, Atari 2600 & 5200, Atari 8 bit computers, Atari ST, Commodore Pet, Vic 20 and 64, Amiga, PC Engine (Turbographix), Apple II and IIGS, Sinclair Spectrum, Lynx, Wonderswan, MSX computers, Colecovision, MS DOS, Intellivision, Neo Geo, Odyssey, Amstrad CPC even Playstation and N64 to a degree.
Do you work for Infinium Labs, by any chance?
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
How big is your computer?
How loud is your computer?
Does your computer already have TV out?
Can you upgrade your computer to optical out for only $20?
All Mod chips have a switch, that if your're not stoned and forget to flip it, that will restore you back to the orginal bios, and Live won't know any difference.
If you use Xbox Media Player, you don't even need a keyboard and can play files shared with NFS or Samba.
And how do you know with "more ease" when you've never done it before.
If you bought a shuttle case, and fans that are quiet enough you'd already been spending almost as much as a xbox itself.
You don't even need a mod chip, just a xbox version = 1.5.
Try to fathom these things as why some one might want one.
Or how about just a dedicated box to play internet radio?
Microsoft is the only company who can lose a billion dollars on a product and consider it a success.
a whole state? I could see fitting a township in there, maybe even a county or two. Anything more is just silly.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Saying that hackability is driving the XBox sales is just ignoring the facts. Having the highest attach rate for any console ever (7.6 games per console) means that there are a lot of quality games people are willing to pay for on that console. That's what drives the sales, not the ability to hack.
arcade machine emus
Is this the next thing in the "flightless bird video game" series after Tux Racer?
Well, that may be true for you - but I heard and saw about it from numerous friends. Most who are not techies at all. They play video games and don't read Slashdot.
I also can do everything I listed with ease on my computer. However I wanted a media center pc for my living room and I didn't want to spend a lot of money.
As for emulation on a pc vs. the xbox - all the Xbox emulation software benefits from the standardized controllers. On the pc it's a crapshoot as to whether a particular emulator will support say the dual analog sticks on your pc controller.
The other nice thing is the Xbox software is easy to use with a remote or controller sitting on the couch. Just simple menu driven screens.
If you don't think there is a market for this I suggest you take a look at how large the mod scene is. And yes the primary driving motivation for the mod may not be what I think is cool and what I use it for (video and emulation). It's more likely piracy seeing as a modded xbox can suck a game off a dvd in 15 minutes or so and can also play downloaded isos.
Do you honestly think the only people who modded Playstation's were techs who post on Slashdot???
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Base the system on MSDOS 3.0
;-)) but that would be awesome for modding.
Sorry not to let you troll (try harder next time
First, DOS 3 will run in real mode, meaning that any user application can switch to protected mode and use the processor without worry from anything else.
Second, DOS 3 implies that it'll use a standard and known partitioning/booting method. The Xbox drive setup is not quite standard.
Third, DOS 3 is so well-known that it can much more easily be hacked than whatever random OS they cobbled together for the Xbox.
Fourth, it would easily and properly support most PC peripherals -- and let you boot Windows and Linux with little trouble.
The best thing Microsoft can do for its side is to remake the fundamental system and drop all vestiges of PC inspiration from its Xbox OS. Let them use a custom microkernel for boot and some psycho database for the HD, and we'll not figure it out for enough time that modding won't be a problem.
Any "Top 20 Publishers of the Year" list that puts EA at number 1 will get no respect from me.
Attach rates as of June 04:
PS2: 8.43
Xbox: 6.88
GCN: 6.55
GBA: 3.60
I suddenly have the urge to buy an XBox kitty harness.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
I don't know if such is driving xbox sales in general or not, but it's why I bought mine. Oh, and you can flash the TSOP onboard with any cbox made before March '04, so no mod chip required.
It's an incredible media PC, and an indispensable part of my entertainment setup now. Thanks Microsoft, but sorry if I'm not buying games, I'd hate to help you make money. (btw, I'm not copying them, either. I just don't play any)
Umm. I like the original controller. I bought the Xbox when it first came out. The big controllers are great. I'm a big guy and they feel 1000 times better than what PS2 and Gamecube offer. Have you ever tried them?
Someone mod this informative. I always thought the XBox had the best of both worlds this way. I was wrong. A lot of save games *cannot* be taken off the hard drive as the memory cards are too small for massive save size.
I've asked this question many times and never gotten an answer. What *good* does the hard drive do for gaming? Like what XBox game would have been impossible (or extremely difficult) to do on another console?
Downloadable content is a nifty trick for a console, but I don't see it justifying the HDD at this point. The lifespan of a console game is just not long enough. People keep PC games forever. This is probably due to almost zero resale value. Most people who game on consoles play the newest titles, finish them, beat it on 'difficult' then sell them and repeat.
In addition, I really don't want to encourage developers to have a 'safety net' for console games. There are far too many PC games which are not playable until version 1.9 or something ridiculous because they were rushed to market. When I pop in a console game, I want it designed well enough to work without having to be patched.
Ok, I guess that was a rant. Sorry.
-- I have fans? Wow.
"Fable" was awarded "Best Role-Playing Game" at last month's Spike TV's second annual Video Game Awards.
Do you REALLY want to mention that the Spike TV Winners Bought and Paid For By Advertisers Video Game Awards are really the way to say how good a crap ass RPG like Fable is?
There are 8 MB memory cards available... alas, as others have pointed out, some games have save files too large to fit on them. KotOR and KotOR II saves are around 25 MB each.
assume you can copy save games between XBoxs when they're connected to the LAN too. This doesn't come up too often, but still - it does come up occasionally.
Actually, you can't. Ironic being as network gaming was what they pushed before Live, and yet you can't transfer settings or saves over the network. Oddly enough, transferring over a LAN is something so simple, even crap OSes Windows 95 can do it, but the Xbox with it's modified Win 2K kernel can't.
How is the Xbox doing in Japan again?
Has Xbox Live managed to break the worldwide 1m users mark yet?
Hey wait, if 6m people bought Halo 2, then most of them aren't playing it online. Is that because online console gaming isn't a big deal after all, or because consumers don't want a hideously crippled online gaming 'service' which third parties are loath to support? Or both?
Preferences > Homepage > Customize stories on homepage > Authors > Zonk > Uncheck
Wait, Sony has made a good game? I'm sure they've published plenty, but made? I don't think so.
Ico.
I've never actually tried this; but I know that the Xbox controllers are USB - does this mean that the memory cards are USB flash drives? If that's so; someone should have came up with a nice little plug in port for my 1GB USB flash drive. In fact... I'm going to go look right now :p.
I'm f#$king magic!
It may not be the only factor, but for many Japanese it is a deal-killer.
They have to get the kind of games that Japanese consumers want also, but that is a matter of getting the third party software manufacturers on board.
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
I was looking into this yesterday. According to a lot of the xbox-linux sites you are correct in this assumption. However, I haven't found any cables to achieve this yet. It's difficult because "XBox to USB Converter" gets a zillion hits for using XBox controllers on your PC. I couldn't find one in fifteen minutes and gave up, but I bet they're out there.
Meanwhile, why are these XBox saves so big? I mean 8mb for a Halo 2 profile? It's almost as if they don't want you copying it, which would be silly.
-- I have fans? Wow.
I actually totally agree with you. My point was slightly mis-formed. However, at the very same time this whole thread is comparing Xbox to PS2, except that PS2 is at least half a generation older than XBox. How many XBox owners, do not have a gaming rig? As for the point about the high cost of a gaming rig compared to an XBox, I disagree. FPS games from 2000, run on a shitty celeron 450, with a whopping 32meg geforce II vid card,and 128M Ram (PC100) totally put Halo1 to shame. That machine could be bought for less than an XBox at release. You don't have to be running HL2 at ultra max settings to have a better gaming experience than Halo, you could do very well with a $200 (CAD) recycled PC/monitor, and a $20 FPS from the bargin bin.
As for "XBox would blow your mind if Microsoft was able to get away with puting in highend parts and selling it for the same price as a PC." I doubt it. First off, the M$ development cycle ensures that they can NEVER release anything cutting edge, mostly because they have to wait and see if anyone else is having success first. Since you can't legally change anything on Bill's Box (even though you bought it, go figure), you can't even keep it cutting edge if you want to. Secondly, how can you compare performance to price, when the XBox is being sold at an unspecified LOSS on every unit? Who knows what the comparable price is. Maybe it is a 700$ PC, that only does one thing? And since the whole XBox architecture IS a set top PC, then it is not comparing apples to oranges, it is more like comparing hand picked Macintosh's to Granny Smith's that you found on the road side.
I guess the point is, PS2 does drivers better than XBox, PS2 does sports better than XBox (not specific to the hardware, but Sony has better developers, and third party providers), and a 4 year old 150 dollar PC does better shooters (which BTW also can run Linux, take bigger drives, have USB support, and no chance of being banned for altering YOUR machine).
If you love your XBox, great, I won't hold it against you. If you think it is the cats ass in gaming today, I won't fault you for it. I was just agreeing with the parent, XBox ain't all that, and fuck MS. I agree with him.
Does it matter. My PS2 plays them, no matter who developed them. How does your XBox play all those Sony games? Oh, right, they don't. Well I'm sure all of the people developing for XBox will keep cranking out the hits. Oh, right, they only have 2, and BOTH are Halo games. Well, keep waiting, maybe there will be a great game catalogue sometime before XBoxX. Maybe by then MS will have actually sold an XBox for a profit. Maybe by then IE will be secure. Maybe Windoze will be stable. However, being an M$ customer is often like that. A lot of promises and maybes, followed by disappointment.
Who knows? It probably dumps a lot of data; could be dumping classes directly to disk. All Xboxes have hard-drives maybe they're just taking advantage of that fact? I guess the only games that wouldn't would be the cross-platform ones that have all the same (hopefully) saving formats. They must manage their savefiles better.
I'm f#$king magic!
Someone mode the parent as 'too stupid to use Google'.
You can get a 64MB memory card, if that really floats your boat.
As far as what good does the hard-drive do...
Well, most Xbox users never need to buy the aforementioned memory cards at all. And, we never have to go looking for them...or 'manage' our saves because we don't have enough space.
And, we don't have to listen to the latest EA TRAX music, which probably sucks, because we listen to our own. (One time I mentioned this, someone suggested that he just turns the volume down on his TV, and turns the radio up...umm...what about the effects?)
The list goes on and on.
But one of your main points was that people buy console games, beat them, and then sell them.
Yes...chumps that don't have Xbox Live do that. Because once you beat the game, there is no point in continuing to play.
But if you have a world full of opponents, who can make every game different...well, the replay value just went way, way, way up. The only games I DON'T sell back are the games I like on Live. And of course if it has downloadable content, there is a good chance it has Live multiplayer.
No reason to lie.
Let me go check...
Ok, its still in the closet gathering dust like usual, and I don't see any changes in the foreseeable future.
Ignoring "Killzone", are we?
Agreed - the GC controller in particular is way too small for my largish hands.