Slashdot Mirror
XBox 360 Redefining the Console?
Game Girl Advance has up an editorial arguing that, in effect, Microsoft has already won the next round in the console wars by shifting the battlefield. Looking at Gamasutra's rundown on the 360's multimedia and Live components, its easy to see why jane says that the 360 isn't really a console anymore. From the article: "Xbox 360 does not compete with Sony or Nintendo. It is not a gaming console. It is a powerful device to deliver content online and over WiFi. Microsoft's real competition is Apple, Yahoo, and Google. Apple's movie-download service. Yahoo's retail channels. Google's - well, everything. Heck, throw Comcast and TiVo in there for good measure. The games are merely a means to an end - an 'instant-on revenue to support an exponential expansion into the living room,' as Eric put it over an IM chat we had."
I'll buy an XBox 360 on the contingency that Microsoft stops selling Office. Deal?
But apart form the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
To be more specific, it was held against it on slashdot. However, this is because it fell foul of two of the most sacred orthodoxies:
1) Only Nintendo can ever be innovative.
2) Multi-functionality is a *bad* thing.
Will be interesting to see which of these lines win out of Nintendo ever produce a multi-functional console. Will this be an innovative *bad* thing?
If you want to respond to this post, please make sure you reference at least two of the following:
1) The battery life of the PSP. Make this as low as you want. Quote figures of 30 minutes.
2) The fact that Microsoft loses (or at least, used to lose) money on each X-Box sold.
3) Some mythical Japanese sales figures for the Gamecube, showing that more of them have been sold per week than packets of instant ramen.
4) The fact that your friend's, cousin's, boy-friend's uncle's PS2 once broke.
5) A general rant against Sony/Microsoft/The Milk Marketing Board for using underhand tactics to ensure the failure of the Dreamcast.
6) The fact that your younger sister's unborn foetus spends at least 12 hours a day playing Zelda/Mario/Mario-Kart.
Follow the advice above and... bingo... instant karma.
More like that fact that my friends' and my cousin's and my boy-friends' and my uncles' PS2 broke.
There are 11 types of people, those who know unary and those who don't.