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."
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.
Hard Drive... Yes! ... Flash based HD... Yes!!!
So instead of having some widely used removable flash memory format as a memory card or a large high speed (flash is slow compared to HDDs), high capacity cache space, they're going to build some flash memory in - essentially a soldered on memory card - and that's better? What next, are they going to put a little lithium button battery on the board and only allow three saves per console? Sounds like we're moving backwards here.
Whey the hell hasn't any of these companies used CF or SD or, hell, MemoryStick as a memory card format and stopped this silly crap?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Any "Top 20 Publishers of the Year" list that puts EA at number 1 will get no respect from me.
"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?