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."

Comments

Rumours Abound

[Damhna]

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...

Re:Rumours Abound

[ivan256]

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?

Re:Rumours Abound

[snuf23]

If the rumors are true about the flash based hard drive I don't see it as a good thing.
Most likely it will allow MS to put some proprietary device in there making modding and upgrading harder.
Flash also is not faster than a modern hard drive and has a much higher cost per megabyte.

Re:Rumours Abound

[Damhna]

I'm wary of these rumours too but having a mod restictive arcitechture does sound at least plausible from MS.

Re:Rumours Abound

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

If they did that, they couldn't sell you 8 meg memory cards at $30 a pop.

Der.

Re:Rumours Abound

[ivan256]

But on the gamecube you can get 64MB cards for under $20.... It's not like Nintendo is milking their customers for money on memory cards, so why did they go through all the trouble?

Re:Rumours Abound

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you mean megabits, not megabytes.

Re:Rumours Abound

[hal2814]

"a little lithium button battery on the board"

Cool. A suicide battery!

Re:Rumours Abound

[Guppy06]

"So in my travels this weekend I came across a Microsoft employee and talked him up about Xbox II"

Was this before or after he was finished vacuuming?

"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."

You misspelled "DVD Consortium." Anybody willing to pay the fees can play DVD movies (that, or get strung up under the DMCA). Sony opted to pay it. Microsoft decided not to (and yet the MSRP was still the same).

Re:Rumours Abound

[MilenCent]

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...

Hmmm... in fact, I'm reasonably sure it's because a licence for DVD playback costs money, and rather than roll that into the cost of the base machine, they sold it as an optional extra. Else why sell the dongle at all, which is ultimately just a remote and the license?

And remember: for a while, many Japanese customers bought the PS2 as a DVD player, which caused the console, for a short while after its release and if memory serves, to be unprofitable.

Re:Rumours Abound

[8tim8]

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.

Heh. I'll bet he and his coworkers in the mailroom had a good laugh about the wide-eyed kid he met this weekend.

Re:Rumours Abound

[IntergalacticWalrus]

Why do so many people think flash memory is fast? That's not true at all. It's actually slower than a modern hard disk and, quite naturally, much much slower than RAM.

Top 20 Xbox publishers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shoudn't that read, "All 20 Xbox publishers?"

I keed, I keed.

The submitter used the term gloat.

[Current Shunts]

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.

Re:The submitter used the term gloat.

[Smilin]

It's because if you don't hate MS here (oops, meant M$) at slashdot then you are a commie.

Re:The submitter used the term gloat.

[ivan256]

Why shouldn't people take outside opinions of Microsoft into account when judging the Xbox? What evidence do you have that they won't do the same thing in the video game console market that they've done in every other market they've become the leaders in if they manage to crush the competition? Do you look forward to a world where the Xbox 4 is essentially the last console that exists, because the Xbox 5, 6, anc 7 will just be the same thing in fancier colors and there isn't anybody else out there pushing the state of the art? Microsoft's stuff is always groundbreaking and exciting when they're playing catch up. It's the aftermath you should fear.

Re:The submitter used the term gloat.

[Mike Hawk]

Right, cause Sony is this tiny little company with victim written all over them.

When perception diverges from reality, there you will find Slashdot.

Re:The submitter used the term gloat.

[ivan256]

Right, cause Sony is this tiny little company with victim written all over them.

Remember Netware? 1-2-3? Microsoft is capable of taking out industry leading players. They've done it before... You just won't see any brilliant open source developers building billion dollar chip fabs to pressure Microsoft in to further hardware innovation once they own the console market.

I'm not saying we should all be Sony or Nintendo fanboys because otherwise they'll be crushed by the evil empire. I'm just saying you shouldn't ignore the possiblilty when deciding that Microsoft is suddenly wonderful for making the Xbox.

Re:The submitter used the term gloat.

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, I thought we are commies BECAUSE we hate MS?

Re:The submitter used the term gloat.

[xgamer04]

...and with the continued sucess...

I guess it depends on what you mean by "success". If success means losing tons of money all the time, then yeah, the X-Box is a success. This type of financial spending is what Japanese companies in the 80s were doing, taking huge losses on products in order to get a stranglehold on the market.

Re:The submitter used the term gloat.

[Ayaress]

They weren't trying to get a stranglehold on the market. They were doing something that's called "entering a market." I will give you one million dollars (if I had that much anyway), and let you pick any existing industry. You then have five years to produce a return on my investment by doing business in that industry. Very unlikely in ANY industry. Getting recognized as a legitamate name costs a lot of money and a lot of advertising. Microsoft needed to get contracts and partnerships that it didn't have before and start doing things and hiring people that it hadn't done before.

It's pretty equatable to a store (just with a few extra 0's on the bankroll). The initial investment is huge. You need to purchase property, and either build a suitable structure or remodel the existing one to fit (or pay a likely higher price on an already fitting location), you need to invest in initial inventory, hardware and electronics, pay the connection or transfer fees on all the services, and then you need to hire a workstaff. At this point you have still not made a dime, but boy are you spending it.

Once you open for business, you have a mountain of debts, which turns off investors (this is one of the few areas where a pre-existing corporation entering a new market has an advantage. it can offest these costs with profits from other divisions. However, many major investors will see this new division as a big gaping black hole and will be more hesitant to invest), meaning odds are those debts aren't going anywhere just yet.

Most importantly, you're new. Few people know about you, and even those that do don't know wether it's worth doing business with you. You need to spend money to get people to do this by advertising, and it's usually neccessary to cut prices to razor-thing profit margins (or even temporary losses) so that people are more likely to gamble on a "test" purchase from you. Microsoft did this by selling the Xbox at a loss initially. Nintendo has done this, Sega did this, I'm pretty sure Sony does this, although I've never cared enough to look up the particulars, and Microsoft had to do it to keep up. I don't know if Atari ever did this, but if they did, then it would have hurt them far worse. Nintedo was an old and successful card and board game producer, Sony had a long line of successful electronics, and Microsoft has operating systems. They all had to take the initial entry pains to get into the video game market. The fact that Microsoft is dealing with those pains the same way Nintendo and Sony did should not be suprising. In fact, it should be [reassuring or troubling, depending on wether you want to be reasonable and open or simply want Microsoft to fail for failure's sake]. It worked for the the other consoles. That's not to say it'll work for the next one, but it does strongly suggest that it's a pretty good way to go.

About the only company that didn't take initial losses on entering the gaming system market is Nokia. They went and tried to sell their handheld system at $400 out of the gate (I can only hope they were trying to profit off of system sales without having to rely on game sales or gamble on continued future success, anyway. If they were selling below cost, then they have worse problems than I ever thought). Had they started out with the sort of prices they cut it down to, I still don't think they would have succeeded, but they would have had a decent shot at getting some impulse buyers on the hook.

Re:The submitter used the term gloat.

[zero_offset]

Remember Netware? 1-2-3? Microsoft is capable of taking out industry leading players. They've done it before...

The PlayStation is a relatively insignificant sliver of what makes Sony what it is today, and console gaming is the only significant market in which they compete with Microsoft.

In most of the markets where Sony participates, they are a far worse example of abuse of monopoly-level powers than Microsoft has ever been -- it's just that activity in those markets aren't nearly as high profile as the software industry (read: as interesting to the general public).

Re:The submitter used the term gloat.

[johannesg]

It appears that MS is getting their feet under them, and with the continued sucess, it appears that gamers will be the winner.

Sounds good. Now maybe they have the excuse they need to stop producing their crummy OS.

Re:The submitter used the term gloat.

[Smilin]

The original point was that in the interview the man is taking pride in how well his product has done. In typical slashdot fashion the anti-MS bias interpreted this as something negative like "gloating".

The tough thing about prejudice is you usually can't tell when you have it.

----

Sony and Nintendo both have a huge installed base of both users and games. The number of available games for the PS2 when the XBox was released was a daunting challenge for any new competitor. Yet Microsoft is now a serious threat. They did NOT get this way by using any underhanded business tactics or abusing a monopoly or anything like that. Stop whining. The XBox got where it is today by being a solid product. XBox Live for instance is what multiplayer gaming should be like. Sony and Nintendo both had internet play capability available to them from the start but failed to properly execute.

You're not mad because there isn't competition in the console industry. You're mad because Microsoft is winning. You're not mad because you know at some point someone will get knocked out of the game and the number of competitors will be reduced. You're mad because Microsoft won't be the one to lose. If they play fair and win you're going to have to suck it up. Sony entered the fray a few years ago with the original playstation and now Sega is knocked out of the game. Why isn't anyone crying foul over that?

reading the article

[Fr05t]

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.

Re:reading the article

[Anonymous Coward]

"You may have seen the October Game Developers Magazine, which announced its top 20 Publishers of the Year."

Uh...guess what...must have missed that one.

Re:reading the article

[fwitness]

I agree with you entirely. I eagerly set my Mythbox to record that with high hopes. I started watching the first ten minutes. I really couldn't speak. That 'awards' show single handedly set back society's image of gamers 15 years in ten minutes.

Thank god for 'delete'. I just wish society had such a button.

Re:reading the article

[Guppy06]

You're forgetting that the Spike award show and the Xbox both have the same target audience. Microsoft wants to attract the people who actually liked what they saw.

Re:reading the article

[MilenCent]

Ooooh, good call. Also note that the #1 publisher of the year is Electronic Arts, which, despite selling the most games, is now far from admirable from the standpoint of advancing the art of game design.

Whoa

[slumpy]

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.

Re:Whoa

[Thag]

They're losing money on every XBox 1 they sell, that's why they're in a hurry to get XBox 2 out.

XBox 2 is designed to be profitable, both at launch and at the end of the life cycle. And will hopefully be small enough to sell in Japan.

Re:Whoa

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right. This console generation is too stable for Microsoft (PS2 and GBA on top by far in all regions, GameCube doing well in the East and the West, Xbox doing well in the West but very poorly in the East) to make any money on gaming, so the sooner the next generation arrives, the sooner MS can start seeing some monetary benefit from the financial losses they've eaten so far. But if MS thinks that the only thing that is keeping the Xbox out of Japanese homes is its physical size, they are doomed to a second generation in dead last there, behind even last-generation systems.

Re:Whoa

[hunterx11]

Halo 2 already overstresses the Xbox though, and frankly without the goods from Bungie, Microsoft doesn't have a ton going for them.

Re:Whoa

[Paradise Pete]

Halo 2 already overstresses the Xbox though

No kidding. On mine it doesn't even play the ending! At least I assume that's the problem...

Re:Whoa

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, the only people who are going to understand that joke have already experienced the same let-down that you did.

So for the sake of everybody else who is still wondering if Halo is as polished as the picture Microbungie had been painting since before its release: No, it isn't. It doesn't have a proper ending, whole scenarios that were in the preview movies as the main point of the game (like, oh, defending the Earth in a full-scale ground war) were basically not present. Further, players WILL have to pay for additional content that was not included in the game come March. (Yes, if you have to subscribe to and pay monthly for XBLive to access the final scenarios and the end of the game itself, you are PAYING additional costs unnecessarily for what should have been included in the first place).

Re:Whoa

[unclethursday]

Halo 2 already overstresses the Xbox though

Untrue, actually. The upcomming Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict looks better than Halo 2 (IMHO) and seems to run much smoother than the final release of Halo 2 from what I saw at E3.

The problem with Halo 2 isn't that it stretches the Xbox to its limits, it's that even with 2 years of working on the game, Halo 2 was still rushed out. That's why there's all the problems of texture pop in, in-game engine cinemas having horrid pop in (buildings, textures, characters who are speaking, etc), and bugs that allow for massive exploit cheating in Xbox Live multiplayer-- that Bungie can't fix now that it's out because of how they developed the downloadable content part.

There's an interview in the newest EGM with them, and lo and behold it comes to light that the geometry problems in multiplayer maps (specifically reaching through solid objects to grab items) was discovered in March of 2003, but due to rushing to add new features and to meet the date MS said it would be released, the fixing of these problems had to be cut from development (over 18 months after discovery).

It's unfortunate that Bungie has become a true Microsoft shop: features first, bug fixes later, if ever.

who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck Microsoft, fuck Xbox, and fuck the dimwitted Halo-worshipping fanboys who keep pushing sales. If it weren't for Halo, Knights of the Old Republic, and Ninja Gaiden, the system would sink like the overhyped, overpriced brick of mediocrity it is.

Re:who cares

[hollismb]

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?

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:who cares

[Squatchman]

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!

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:who cares

[Squatchman]

Games like MechAssault which we've seen on consoles for YEARS now!

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:who cares

[Squatchman]

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.

Re:who cares

[hollismb]

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.

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Instresting, I don't remember any Sony games like Halo, MechAssult, Ninja Gaiden, Fable, etc. Please tell me the Sony games that were spoofed?

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:who cares

[hollismb]

Wait, Sony has made a good game? I'm sure they've published plenty, but made? I don't think so.

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft's strategy of buying out and absorbing developers isn't any better.

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:who cares

[_xeno_]

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).

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

All two millimeters of pressure sensitivity.

Re:who cares

[scot4875]

and the superior versions of all the Tom Clancy games

A superior turd is still a turd.

--Jeremy

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't difficult to get used to unless you try to manoeuvre it with your fat, clumsy American fingers.

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:who cares

[crashmstr]

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.

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:who cares

[Zorilla]

I suddenly have the urge to buy an XBox kitty harness.

Re:who cares

[Techiegeeks]

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?

Re:who cares

[fwitness]

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.

Re:who cares

[unclethursday]

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.

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.

Re:who cares

[MilenCent]

Wait, Sony has made a good game? I'm sure they've published plenty, but made? I don't think so.

Ico.

Re:who cares

[j.bellone]

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.

Re:who cares

[fwitness]

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.

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:who cares

[j.bellone]

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.

Re:who cares

[bigman2003]

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.

Re:who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignoring "Killzone", are we?

Re:who cares

[Rico_Suave]

Agreed - the GC controller in particular is way too small for my largish hands.

In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, if the Xbox did not have great games, it would not be much fun at all.

Re:In other words

[Zenikase]

Halo is about as cookie-cutter as you can get with a sci-fi shooter, and Ninja Gaiden plays like Devil May Cry in a different setting. I admit both titles are very polished, but at the core they don't offer anything new. The only reason the former has sold so well is because Microsoft dumped mountains of cash into marketing it.

Um....

[hollismb]

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.

Re:Um....

[damiangerous]

The "evolution" of a console system refers to the direction future consoles in the line will take.

Average Critical Response?

[warmgun]

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.

Re:Average Critical Response?

[Anonymous Coward]

then you havn't read game informer (which comes free with a $10 discount card from babbages/funcoland/gamestop) ... they're very critical of games... none of the x-play 3 out of 5 stars for average crappy games... everything's 3 out of 5...

they rip bad games a new one, on a regular baisis.

Re:Average Critical Response?

[Anonymous Coward]

Game Informer's low scores are their cheap little gimmick. They are like food critics who become popular by never giving good scores to any restaurants, then rating one restaurant highly just because the timing is right for readers to read a good review, or to validate popular opinion on the one game that people already KNOW is good. People point to them as an example of credibility as a result of it, but really, their scoring is some of the most horrible, arbitrary bullshit that you'll find anywhere. Unfortunately, the gimmick works BECAUSE their scores do not coincide with mainstream opinion most of the time. That's exactly what makes it a very effective gimmick! :)

I don't agree with X-Play's ratings either (also bullshit), but given the low maximum variance in scores, is it really a surprise that most games get a 3/5? Translated to a 100-point scale, those games get a 60 (which in school is just about a failing grade). They are no better than Game Informer, but they are no worse, either (unless you play RPGs or any games that involve thinking....Adam and Morgan seem averse to using their brains to any degree when playing games, so puzzlers and RPGs where the storyline is the driving aspect of the game get bagged on unreasonably by people who HAVE STATED that they hate such games - yet are scoring them regardless). Both are horrible in their own ways.

EA, number one.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't really trust an article that states that.

Re:EA, number one.

[Squatchman]

based on revenue

When you look at is that way...

Bach

[oasis007]

His last name is spelled Bach, not Back.

Xbox will gain in the short term

[Leknor]

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.

Re:Xbox will gain in the short term

[Anonymous Coward]

Play Metal Gear Solid 3 and then tell me the PS2 hardware is showing its age.

Re:Xbox will gain in the short term

[Anonymous Coward]

I hired out an XBox because I thought there might be something to all this hype that goes with it.

SIX GAMES I played, and not one of them could hold my interest. Crimson Skies, Tao Feng, Shenmue II, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Dead or Alive 3, and DOA: Beach Volleyball. The seventh game was the only one that I actually enjoyed, and that was Fable (a noticeably non-Live game). Now, all games are more fun when played multiplayer, but after playing a little bit of Crimson Skies, I'm not the slightest bit interested in playing it against others. I'm not interested in Halo or Halo 2, because I've been playing that game for the last ten years on my PC. So what does the XBox actually offer me? A high priced oversized machine with an apparently ratty collection of games. Any good games on the XBox aren't exclusive in the first place, so I can play them with a comfortable controller.

If Live is the only thing the XBox is good for, I'll wait until Sony and Nintendo devote their talents to a similar system.

Re:Xbox will gain in the short term

[Zorilla]

You heard it here first. Halo was released for PC in 1995!

Re:Xbox will gain in the short term

[Dal Platinum]

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."

Exactly. I've had my PS2 for ages now, and it wasn't until very recently that I even considered buying an XBox.

Having said that, I'm actually quite pleased with it, the newer, smaller controller is far more appealing than the huge chunk of shit that I first played with (which put me off buying it altogether)

The other reason for the recent rise in popularity is that modding them is so much easier these days. XBMedia Center is stable, the bios's are all stable, the dashboards all seem to work pretty well.

I got mine modded before I even plugged it in.

Re:Xbox will gain in the short term

[j.bellone]

I believe he meant the story sucks; game looks great. Classic id/FPS game (Classic; not all).

Re:Xbox will gain in the short term

[AlexMax2742]

It's showing it's age.

(I did, by the way, play the game. Quite a bit, a friend of mine had it)

Re:Xbox will gain in the short term

[AlexMax2742]

I'm not interested in Halo or Halo 2, because I've been playing that game for the last ten years on my PC.

Halo has only been out for around 3.

Unless you are implying that all FPS games are alike, in which case I then ask you how many FPS's do you have on your computer. If you are one of those guys who still plays Doom and ONLY Doom after all these years, my hat is off to you (Hell, I still play it a ton), but I think chances are that you've picked up a few more since then. Give Halo 2 a try. If you look past the hype, you'll find a very solid game beneath it, with very unique (and excillent, in my opinion) multiplayer. That's what is nice about FPS's, there are so many things you can change about weapon loadout, gameplay mechanics, movement physics and level design that can deliver two totally different experiences.

As for Crimson Skies, it almost like a totally a different game when played online. Kinda like mechassault, the single player was forgettable but the multi-player was very very awesome. If you didn't find DOA3 to be very furfilling by yourself, DOA Ultimate is now out, and from what I hear it has fantastic online play.

Tao Feng and Shenmue II, yeah I didn't like them either. Same with DoA: XBV. And although I loved Panzer Dragoon Orta, I can understand why someone who doesn't like rail shooters wouldn't like it.

There are also a ton of other games out there too. Project Gotham 2 is a fantastic racing game with controls that just 'feel right'. Not arcadey to the point of Mario Kart, not simulation to the point of Gran Turismo, it just feels right. Rainbow Six is also a pretty neat game that plays similarly to counterstrike in team adversial game modes. Ninja Gaiden, on the other hand, frustrated the hell out of me, but I've heard rave reviews about it from others.

Also in most cases (i.e., unless you enjoy Electronic Arts games), you're getting the best ports out of all three of the systems. This goes double for the Grand Theft Auto, after playing Vice City on Xbox, I could hardly play San Andreas on PS2, it just looked terrible by comparison and the controls didn't feel right. SSX3 is also a dream to play on the Xbox (aside from a lone framerate drop in the city level).

Re:Xbox will gain in the short term

[mapmaker]

The PS2 is showing it's age and IMO it's already saturated the market.

Saturating the market is a good thing. The real money is made not on the console sales but on the software sales. You achieve maximum software sales when everyone already has your console.

The war is already over on this generation of game consoles. Sony won handily. Maybe Microsoft will dominate the next round (and maybe not), but crowing about the success of the current Xbox is just silly.

Re:Xbox will gain in the short term

[VendingMenace]

i know you prolly don't really care at all, but i gotta say, before you completely give up on the xbox, you gotta try ninja gaiden. This is a game that it is certainly worth owning the xbox for.

Re:Xbox will gain in the short term

[bigman2003]

So you rented the most WESTERN of the game consoles...then you proceeded to play 5 EASTERN games on it...

No surprise that you are complaining.

state of the xbox

[ColonBlow]

approx. the same as the state of the pc 3 years ago.

Re:state of the xbox

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much. The best way to sum up the Xbox is "a console for PC gamers."

Re:state of the xbox

[Anonymous Coward]

And you know why that's so? It's because Westerners are better at making PC games than they are at making traditional console-type games. The counterexamples exist (especially when you look at sports titles), but they are the exception, not the rule. It goes back to what I always point out: The Japanese developers of today grew up in an arcade-based gaming culture which is still going strong there ("Anyone see the screenshots of Raiden III in the last issue of Arcadia magazine?") whereas the Western developers of today grew up in a Wintel PC-based gaming culture which is still going strong here (where the fans drooled over screenshots of Doom III and World of Warcraft in the PC mags).

So when Microsoft makes such a hard point of strongly encouraging Western developers to make Xbox games, leveraging all the corporate relationships that they've established with Wintel game publishers, they end up with largely PC-ish game results. And that's why I, an arcade and console gamer of many years, just don't see any appeal in the Xbox as a gaming platform, just like the PC. But the politics of Microsoft's involvement in the industry side of my favorite hobby....that's just downright intriguing to me.

Xbox is a nice cheap wonderfully mod-able system

[snuf23]

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.

Re:Xbox is a nice cheap wonderfully mod-able syste

[The Islamic Fundamen]

Let's see how hard MS works to kill off the mod community with XBox 2. Thats easy: Base the system on MSDOS 3.0

Blah blah blah

[scot4875]

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

Re:Blah blah blah

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares! Snoop Dogg said Halo is the shizzle!!!

Re:Blah blah blah

[urbaer]

Snoop Dogg said Halo is the shizzle!!!

OMG! Snoop Dogg is clearly the most reliable reviewer ever. What am I doing reading slashdot when I could be buying an XBox and Halo?

Hang on... what does shizzle mean?

Re:Blah blah blah

[dragoncortez]

The point isn't whether they made money off this generation (which I think they are starting to do with all the games sales, but I don't have any data to back that up). Their goal is to dominate the market in the next generation of consoles. Microsoft hasn't exactly been shy about their goal of being the exclusive provider of home entertainment hardware and software.

Re:Blah blah blah

[Rico_Suave]

When you have over $50B in the bank, who gives a shit?

Re:Blah blah blah

[Anonymous Coward]

The stockholders for one, who lost hundreds of millions dollars when it was announced exactly how much Xbox was going to be a loss for the company.

How much it continues to be a loss hurts the company. The Xbox2 will be no different. A foothold is a foothold, and Microsoft can buy their way into any industry, but the fact is the sales they simply don't support the kind of costs that it takes for such strong arm tactics, and never will.

Sony was a success with these tactics because they made PS1 a success, it worked, and it's greatly helped the PS2, but Microsoft doesn't have that luxury, they are far, far behind in both mindshare and sales of Sony, and never, ever will catch up. They're going into a battle already having lost the last one and they are never going to turn a profit having to wage war for second place.

Umm.. Sony doesn't

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Xbox is a nice cheap wonderfully mod-able syste

[Anonymous Coward]

I have never seen, nor heard of anyone, other than here on Slashdot and other tech related sites, of someone modding an xbox.
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.

Re:Xbox is a nice cheap wonderfully mod-able syste

[LordNimon]

It's not illegal unless your mod chip violates Microsoft's copyrights. Some mod chips do, some don't.

Re:Xbox is a nice cheap wonderfully mod-able syste

[urbaer]

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.

Re:Xbox is a nice cheap wonderfully mod-able syste

[SunFan]

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?

Re:Xbox is a nice cheap wonderfully mod-able syste

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Success?

[SetupWeasel]

Microsoft is the only company who can lose a billion dollars on a product and consider it a success.

It's big but....

[rsilvergun]

a whole state? I could see fitting a township in there, maybe even a county or two. Anything more is just silly.

Re:Xbox is a nice cheap wonderfully mod-able syste

[JFMulder]

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.

Re:Xbox is a nice cheap wonderfully mod-able syste

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

arcade machine emus

Is this the next thing in the "flightless bird video game" series after Tux Racer?

Re:Xbox is a nice cheap wonderfully mod-able syste

[snuf23]

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???

Re:Xbox is a nice cheap wonderfully mod-able syste

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Base the system on MSDOS 3.0

Sorry not to let you troll (try harder next time ;-)) but that would be awesome for modding.

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.

Top 20 Publishers of the Year

[PhotoBoy]

Any "Top 20 Publishers of the Year" list that puts EA at number 1 will get no respect from me.

Don't believe the hype

[Phil Wilkins]

Attach rates as of June 04:

PS2: 8.43
Xbox: 6.88
GCN: 6.55
GBA: 3.60

Re:Don't believe the hype

[Anonymous Coward]

Good one Phil. Did you pull those numbers out of you r fat ass?

The internet has a thing called hyperlinks if you have a source for those figures.

Idiot.

Re:Xbox is a nice cheap wonderfully mod-able syste

[Jon Howard]

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)

Spike TV awards?

[unclethursday]

From the article:

"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?

Hey Robbie...

[fondue]

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?

Re:Hey Robbie...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it probably has something to do with only 20% of households on the net are using broadband... You have to have broadband for live.

Re:Hey Robbie...

[fondue]

Even if that figure were true, the subset of the population that plays video games intersects heavily with the subset that has broadband.

Size really is a deal-killer in Japan.

[Thag]

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.

State of the Xbox?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.