New Xbox 360 Dev Kits Shipped Out

GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that Microsoft has sent out new versions of the beta development kit for the Xbox 360, replacing the Apple platforms used up to this point. From the article: "Prior to E3, developers reported that a very small number of these more advanced kits had been manufactured, but it's only in recent weeks that they have begun shipping to Microsoft's development partners on a wide scale."

Comments

FIST SPORT!

[ringbarer]

Hey cuntface! Yeah, you... The shithead that had nothing good to say about the original XBox. You called it 'flopbox', if I remember. Said it would never take off, in your snide spelling-Microsoft-with-a-dollar-sign manner.

WHO'S LAUGHING NOW???????

Re:FIST SPORT!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am!!

First off, How can you call any project that has averaged losses in the BILLIONS every year a success? The only reason the XBox has survived so long is that Microsoft believes that they can buy their way to market dominance. Face the facts, all XBox fans were saying that the Power Difference and Microsoft's ability to buy exclusive games was going to 'win the console war'; all Microsoft can say that they did was to virtually tie a company that has a fraction of the financial assets (Nintendo) while bleeding out money.

I would be surprised if there is a third XBox if the 360 is nearly as unprofitable. I think that only an idiot would think that Microsoft would continue to produce the XBox if Microsoft's entertainment division doesn't break even in 5 years.

Re:FIST SPORT!

[Anonymous Coward]

all Microsoft can say that they did was to virtually tie a company that has a fraction of the financial assets (Nintendo) while bleeding out money.

Yes, because a $2 billion loss (for a $8 billion profit on $36 billion revenue) last year is "bleeding out the company". Nevermind that the $2 billion loss of their Xbox division would have made a nice tax writeoff.

And let's pretend that Sony didn't only make $0.8 billion profit last year on $71 billion revenue! What are they doing wrong over at Sony?

I would be surprised if there is a third XBox if the 360 is nearly as unprofitable.

Come to think of it, Sony's not been particularly profitable recently, especially given the failure of the PSP - maybe they should give up too?

Re:FIST SPORT!

[SpartanVII]

And this is wrong because...?

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/30/ 1346221&tid=212&tid=98&tid=187&tid=233

Sony isn't an angel either.

Re:FIST SPORT!

[gabebear]

• Yes, because a $2 billion loss (for a $8 billion profit on $36 billion revenue) last year is "bleeding out the company"....
  And let's pretend that Sony didn't only make $0.8 billion profit last year on $71 billion revenue! What are they doing wrong over at Sony?
  
  WHAT?!?!
  The Windows monopoly is profitable?!?!?
  
  To put Sony's numbers in context:
  "Sony's electronics division, which accounts for approximately two-thirds of the Sony group's revenues, was in the red for its second straight year." Sony's gaming division posted a 407 million profit in 2004 while taking massive losses on the PSP introduction. Microsoft's Entertainment division was profitable for one quarter, that's it.
  
  
• Nevermind that the $2 billion loss of their Xbox division would have made a nice tax writeoff.
  
  That's not a tax writeoff, the only way this is going to save M$ on taxes is that you only have to pay taxes on your net income.
  
  
• Come to think of it, Sony's not been particularly profitable recently, especially given the failure of the PSP - maybe they should give up too?
  
  So are you saying:
  • That Sony should drop their electronics division? Which has been profitable and probably will recover...
  • That Sony should give up their lucrative console or movie businesses?
  • That Sony should drop the PSP before it's had ANY chance to prove itself?

Sony's troubles are NOTHING like Microsoft's. The original XBox was a financial failure and if the 360 doesn't generate profits in the next couple years then the whole division is going to be axed.

Re:FIST SPORT!

[RemovableBait]

Lets get facts straight here:

The Xbox is now making a profit for Microsoft, meaning that the entertainment division will break even quickly. What you casually forget, is that while the console sales were averaging a loss, the games were making a considerable profit. Microsoft is not stupid, it knows that the Windows and Office business streams can make enough money to subsidise the entire company (Microsoft is making an overall profit). The best scenario for Microsoft is to sell Xboxes at a loss, in large numbers, and make the money on software licensing. This is exactly what Microsoft should be planning to do with the early 360 launch... sell as many units as possible and tie those people into buying games at $50 a pop for the next 4 years. If one person buys 20 games (a conservative estimate) at $50, thats $1000 dollars. Thats where the real money is... not in the $400 hardware.

Look at the installed userbase for the Xbox.. last time I read, it was 29% compared to Sony's 60%. That doesn't sound great... but compared to Nintendo's 11%, Microsoft has been very successful at pushing into a new market. The reason that PS2s count for 60% is clear.. Sony had a whole year's headstart on the other two. This is EXACTLY what Microsoft want to replicate with the 360 launch.. even though they'll only get 4-5 months, they'll get the all important holiday sales. They'll build up a userbase quickly, and make a fortune on the games sales. Provided brand loyalty doesn't stop 360 sales, they'll be in a very good position to fight against Sony in the next 4 years. Nintendo is no longer a true competitor to these two; Microsoft has muscled them out of the running in the current-gen consoles and unless they pull something fantastic out of the bag, it's unlikely they'll recover. (Which is a shame, as Nintendo made some very good games.)

PS -- Note the sig, exceptions can be made for modded posts.

Re:FIST SPORT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because they make a profit now, does not guarantee profit in the future, let alone breaking even. I could be wrong, but in the last quarter, the X-Box division make something like $175 million. Comparing that with the $2 billion loss they've incurred so far, that means they would have to maintain their current profitability for nearly 3 years to break even. They can't do this, especially with losing money on a new console.

20 games is a NOT a conservative estimate. Most people I know do NOT buy 20 new games off the shelf for $50 (I'am also in the male 18-24 demographic that MS is targetting). The people I know do not have $1000 of disposable income just lying around to spend on games.

Your figures for installed userbase is also incredibly off. Maybe in the US that might be true, but worldwide, Sony has close to 2/3 (if not more) of the installed userbase, and MS is barely ahead of Nintendo. Nintendo is by no means out of the running yet, since they have almost always managed to turn a profit, unlike MS's entertainment division.

Re:FIST SPORT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Blah,blah,blah...

What a boring list of the bullshit every desperate teamxbox reading fanboy 'knows to be true'

Four years from now you're going to be posting the same pathetic rationalizations for the first xbox's marketplace failure.

The Dreamcast 360 disaster couldn't really be going any worse no matter how much MS's little fanboys don't want to believe.

* Gimped CPU - no one wants such a wimpy console
* Nightmare to program for - three in order cores
* Nothing but peecee developers making games for it - Halo and peecee games - yeah the console consumers are going to suddenly and out of the blue get a desire to play all that crap they didn't want with the first xbox

Sorry clown, you latched on to a loser. Go cry on teamxbox.com with the rest of the assgrabbing xbox fucks.

Re:FIST SPORT!

[MBraynard]

That's not a tax writeoff, the only way this is going to save M$ on taxes is that you only have to pay taxes on your net income.

You big dummy, the loss reduces the net income ergo reduces the taxes.

Re:FIST SPORT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid xbox troll, go away.

Slashdot has had enough of your xbox lies. Go back to teamxbox clown.

Re:FIST SPORT!

[Anonymous Coward]

MS is 4B in debt via Xbox, and any attempt to spin profit via the entertainment division is a numbers game.

Re:FIST SPORT!

[Anonymous Coward]

exactly how is the PSP considered a failure? it was well known that it was sold at a loss just like nearly every other console or handheld is. its only been out four months in N America, and still has yet to be released in europe. wtf are you talking about? last i heard sales of UMD movies alone were adopted quicker than DVD titles were when they were first released.

the playstation segment of sony has always been one of its largest moneymakers. as a CEO, i will support ANY division that nets almost a billion dollars over a division that costs us 2 billion anyday. exactly where are you pulling those numbers from anyways?

where are you getting your facts? oh yeah... that may be why you posted as AC... you have no facts. mod parent down.

Re:FIST SPORT!

[Fry a Lad Up]

If one person buys 20 games (a conservative estimate) at $50, thats $1000 dollars.

"And if you fill a 3000 seat hall at $800 a ticket, you gross $2,400,000. And this is what I'm shooting for.
-- Steve Martin

Re:FIST SPORT!

[Troed]

Nintendo is no longer a true competitor to these two

True. Nintendo _makes_ money. Microsoft and Sony lose money.

Re:FIST SPORT!

[Anonymous Coward]

"This is exactly what Microsoft should be planning to do with the early 360 launch... sell as many units as possible and tie those people into buying games at $50 a pop for the next 4 years. If one person buys 20 games (a conservative estimate) at $50, thats $1000 dollars. Thats where the real money is... not in the $400 hardware."

You don't really understand the economics of Console based videogames do you?

No one, not even retailers, makes money off of Hardware; the entire market makes money off of software. This means that their is a huge mark-up at every level in order to justify the costs. Believe it or not, off of a third party title Sony / Microsoft / Nintendo make around $8 for every one that is sold; off of a second party title it is around $12 and a first party title will be around $15. If either Sony or Microsoft sell their systems with a $100 loss they have to sell ~8 first party or ~12 third party games (per system) to break even. If you never understood how Nintendo is profitable when Microsoft isn't here is the reasoning: Nintendo doesn't sell their hardware at any real loss and they sell a ton of first party game. On the other Hand, the XBox sold for around a $100-$150 loss (depending on who you ask) and was heavily dependant on third party games. For simple math compare the strategies (made up numbers for demonstration):

Nintendo Gamecube
Loss per system: $0 (for most of it's life it was sold at a profit)
Average number of games sold: 10
Average profit per game: $12 (mostly first party games)
Average total profit per system: $120

Microsoft XBox
Loss per system: $100
Average number of games sold: 22
Average profit per game: $10 (mostly third party games)
Average total profit per system: $120

If you notice, with reasonable numbers, Microsoft would have to sell over TWICE as many games as Nintendo in order to approach their profit margins. The fact is that Microsoft was NOT profitable in the previous generation; using a conservative estimate of $2 billion in losses on about 20 million units is a $100 loss per system.

The thing that XBox fans seem to forget is that the 360 is not ensured success even if Microsoft continues to throw money at it. History shows us that Fans are reluctant to purchace new hardware for their system if a sequel is produced less than 5 years after the original system was released; people are remarkably unfazed on technical specifications of a system; people do not care about 'fancy' features like HDTV and internet connections; and most people wait for the system to become affordable before purchacing it. I know these things are hard to understand in the Slashdot crowd, being that a large portion of us pay WAY too much attention to these things.

I know I come across remarkably negative towards the XBox and Microsoft, but believe it or not I am planning to purchace the 360; that is if Perfect Dark and Kameo turn out to be good games. I have always been a Rare fan but (except for Perfect Dark) many of their 'newer' games (Donkey Kong 64, Banjo Twoie, Starfox Adventures, etc.) have been of lower quality and on top of that they haven't released a game in years (which is always a bad sign). But, if they're the Rare of old, I can't resist Rare's games.

Re:FIST SPORT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless of the numbers you posted, it took us console developers about five minutes to think something similar through back in 1999/2000 and write off the xbox platform outside of something to dump ports to.

The console biz is a ten billion or so dollar a year industry and growing fast. Only in fanboy fantasies can MS throw cash around and have the bulk of console developers come running.

And now MS has significantly less money to throw around with Dreamcast 360 and hardware that isn't in the same league as the PS3 and it is looking like the Revo too. It's dead jim, no amount of cash from MS is going to save them this time around. If you are a console developer you have one thing on your mind right now:

PS3.

Re:FIST SPORT!

[RemovableBait]

Nintendo _makes_ money.

True again. But, is Nintendo's profit largely due to GameCube sales (hardware and software) or handheld (hardware and software) sales? I'd be inclined to say handheld sales.

Re:FIST SPORT!

[RemovableBait]

The people I know do not have $1000 of disposable income just lying around

Remember, this is not $1000 in one go, this is over a 4-5 year period. I would not be too surprised if people bought 4-5 games per year. Also, if these people are gamers this is not wasted money -- you may very well spend £50/month ($100) on a full digital TV package, amounting to $1200pa, all in the name of entertainment. Certainly, I don't know what it is like in the US (I'm a UK man myself), but games go for £40 here ($70-80) and most people I know have over 30 games that they've amassed over the 5 years. I would suspect that around 2/3 of those were bought at full price (no, those people would not say they have £800 to blow on full-price games).

Your figures for installed userbase is also incredibly off.

I'd check my sources, but i'm pretty sure I read that in a Slashdot article. Having done a quick search:

Microsoft and its Xbox is a distant No. 2 in the North American console market, behind Sony with its PlayStation2 but ahead of Nintendo and its GameCube, according to data from IDC. Olhava estimated that last year, Sony shipped about 5 million units, making up 42 percent of the market, while Microsoft shipped about 3.4 million for 28.3 percent in 2004. Nintendo shipped 2.5 million consoles for 21.2 percent of the market.

Overall, Xbox is also behind the PlayStation2, with 12.1 million currently on the market, compared with 30.8 million Sony units. GameCube logs in with 9.1 million units. (source) (Ok, this strictly isn't installed userbase, but you get the general point.)

I would be *inclined* to say; however, regarding Nintendo's profit, that it is mostly gained by the handheld division. Unless GameCubes are manufactured very very cheaply, they must make little profit on hardware sales (they're about £50-60 each, $100-120).

PS - You raise valid points, so ignore the sig in this instance.

Re:FIST SPORT!

[RemovableBait]

You don't really understand the economics of Console based videogames do you?

Quite correct, thats why I kept my statement general and vague. The point is the same though -- the real money is in software. Now, I don't understand these fully: if the profit margins are so low, and the reliance on third-party games is so high for Sony and Microsoft... how does Sony make a profit? Is it sheer force of numbers or simply that they don't make a profit?

I'd consider myself fairly balanced in this... currently I own a GameCube (bought at launch), an Xbox (bought early last year) and a PSP (bought in February 2005). I'm very happy with all of them, even though I play the GameCube less (my local game shop no longer stocks GameCube games!). In the next generation, I'd be looking for much more information on the Revolution and I'd probably buy the 360... I'm an FPS guy, so Halo and Metroid excite me the most.

Re:FIST SPORT!

[Anonymous Coward]

and hardware that isn't in the same league as the PS3

Ah, see this is where that Sony fanboy distortion field comes into play. This ridiculous notion that the PS3 so superior to the XBox 360 when in fact what neutral analyses of both machines have been made available suggest they are remarkably similiar. But of course you'll take Sony for their word despite the fact that nobody exaggerates numbers like they do.

I do this for a living

[Pulse_Instance]

I am a software tester and I see some problems here. Changing hardware always, no matter how small the change, causes problems. They could get lucky and the problems may be easy to fix, but they may be out some launch titles if this causes problems for developers. I could see Microsoft losing their have the product out to market advantage being lost if all the good games are delayed due to this problem.

Re:I do this for a living

[ZephyrXero]

You may test, but apparently you've never developed for a console. Sending alpha and beta development kits is pretty standard and people have been doing it for years without much problem.

Now, some developers may not fully take advantage of the final hardware because of the lack of time spent with it before launch, but it's pretty common for the first gen titles to suck anyway :P

Rant Time

[ZephyrXero]

Wow...yet another slashdot article coming daysss after all the other game sites mentioned it. With the time it takes to get things posted, and the very small amount of them...I'm starting to wonder why Slashdot even bothers having a game section.
</rant>

Re:Rant Time

[macshit]

Because as we all know, "360 dev kits shipped out" is ultra-important, time-critical news. A few days late will just not do.

Re:Rant Time

[Anonymous Coward]

Because if there was no game section we'd never know what games girls like to play, why girls don't play games, what it will take to make girls play games, what girls think about games, how many girls it takes to play a game, why there aren't more girls making games, what we can do to get more girls intereted in making games, and why the games we do have don't cause girls to bury their faces in my massive crotch-sausage.

Re:Rant Time

[wheany]

Don't forget to mention the Rez vibrator in each story.

Athlon? Nope...

[Better Than Bacon]

Heh, after all the hubbub lately caused by Anandtech's article I thought for a sec that these new devkits might drop the IBM processor ... sigh.

Re:Athlon? Nope...

[Anonymous Coward]

You really thought that a game console coming out this year, that already has been announced and is being developed for is going to change it's processor just like that? Over an article on one hardware site?

Re:Athlon? Nope...

[Anonymous Coward]

Anandtech???

Boggle.

As someone who has been making console games for over a decade, it makes me sick to my stomach there really are people as stupid as you out there.

Get fucking clue dimwit. Reading peecee websites for console hardware analysis is pointless.

Re:Athlon? Nope...

[Anonymous Coward]

So say you are put in charge of this project to do a next generation console to ship this year, street price between $300 and $500, and you want to put an Athlon chip in the product...

which variant of Athlon would you pick...

and how much do those chips cost in volume?

I wonder?

[Dewrf]

Does anyone know what happens to the old dev kits from the old consoles?

I mean the snes and megadrive kits and others from time past.

I mean I know you needed certin hardware to run your games on when you made them but can they not be emulated?

Any information on what happens to the old kits would be appreciated.

-Jason

Re:I wonder?

[Zangief]

I do not know, but since a couple of old dev kits have surfaced on ebay, I guess not all of them are returned to Nintendo/Sony/Sega/Whatever.

# of units shipped vs. # of units sold

[dolphin558]

Since the launch of the original Playstation Sony's financial statements have curiously avoided stating # of consoles/games that were actually sold. Rather, they would speak of the # of units shipped that quarter. Be mindful of this language usage as it can be very deceiving. The number of units shipped has little to do with the number sold.

Re:# of units shipped vs. # of units sold

[gabebear]

The number of units shipped has little to do with the number sold.

It's likely Sony doesn't know exactly how many consoles/games were sold in each quarter. The PS2/PSP and even PS1 are still currently selling well: until demand decreases significantly the number of units shipped roughly equals number sold.

...An article that was complete bullshit.

[Corngood]

Seriously, it was nonsense.

PS: I should actually make a point.

[Corngood]

Sort of off topic...

I haven't yet worked on any next-gen titles, but I have experience on current-gen Xbox, PS2, and PC games. Our game logic has a lot of branchy code, really branchy, spaghetti code, with lots of indirect branches, etc. This code represents the majority of the actual volume of our source, but in practice only takes something like 3-10% of CPU time. Everything else in the game is suited to parallelisation.

So we have this 10/90 split (at worst) of time spent excecuting the wacky code vs. the pure number crunching. Why on earth would I want a processor that is better at doing the 10, when I could have one that is better at the rest?

Re:PS: I should actually make a point.

[KDR_11k]

Is it impossible to have one that's better at both? I.e. would it have killed Sony to use a more advanced general purpose core in the Cell? Especially when they position the Cell as a processor for all kinds of systems, including desktop computers?

Re:PS: I should actually make a point.

[wgaryhas]

Maybe there are times when the 90% is done and it has to wait on that 10% to finish before moving on to the next thing.

Re:PS: I should actually make a point.

[Anonymous Coward]

" would it have killed Sony to use a more advanced general purpose core in the Cell"

Please just shut the fuck up you dimwit.

If there is one thing console developer will despise Microsoft for for eternity is by their mere presence in the console world has for some reason given any clown with a peecee the green light to run their dimwitted mouthes off on console hardware.

It's like back to the days when laser printers and fonts became available to anyone with a computer and the world was flooded with obscene typographic nightmares.

1) MS gets assraped by Sony and loses billions
2) MS is forced to rush a cheap, slapped together piece of hardware out the door to try to increase their sales beyond their current group of peecee gamers/Dreamcast(Sony killed my Dreamcast with teh hype) crowd
3) MS has nothing to compete with the much longer in development Cell chips from STI
4) The press pounces on the pathetic unveiling
5) MS cranks up PR campaign to try to recover from the damage the disasterous unveiling did to the new system
6) Paid hacks post bogus tech info on PR websites
7) x86 peecee websites run with the PR BS
8) Clowns like you lap up the BS and run your mouths off all over the Net

Do the world a favor and just shut the fuck up. No one gives a shit about the opinion of some random clown how has never seen the inside of a realworld console devhouse. Let alone seen or touched a real console devkit.

Re:PS: I should actually make a point.

[Corngood]

That could be true, and if you've got to the point where the 10% stuff approaches 50%, it's time to start building hardware for it. I just don't see that happening really, because a lot of that branchy code will end up being replaced by more abstract systems which are better suited to running in parallel.

Re:PS: I should actually make a point.

[Corngood]

Of course it's not impossible to do both, but given the limited resources available, compromises have to be made.

This branchy code that everyone is talking about, it only represents a tiny fraction of what a game does, time wise, to the point where you have things like the Unreal Engine. Most of the controller logic in Unreal is executed by an interpreted script language. UnrealScript is 10-100x slower than native code (it even says so in the docs), but it's still used, because this stuff DOESN'T TAKE VERY LONG.

Based on this, both Sony and Microsoft made the radical decision to create hardware that actually speeds up the things THAT TAKE A LONG TIME.

Re:PS: I should actually make a point.

[KDR_11k]

Yes but Sony is emphasizing how the PS3 will run an OS and function as a desktop computer, in that case they better make sure it can handle everything well, not just games.

Finally I'll get my kit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yay!

Delays, delays, delays???

[shoptroll]

Not knowing too much about this, but wouldn't this have the potential for pushing back some of the software development for this system?

MS has 6 months to roll out the hardware and their launch titles in time for the holiday season. If they're looking to knock people's socks off with the 360 launch, you'd think they'd give developers more time with the real dev kits.

Re:Delays, delays, delays???

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, let's say that it takes 18 months to create a top-notch game. Let's also say that it takes around 6 months to design and produce new console hardware. If we are to give developers a stable, realistic platform to program from, then by giving them an early lead, we have also made it so that on launch date the console is two years old, technologically.

I don't know about you, but I would rather have as new as possible hardware when the console ships, then wait a year or so for games that fully take advantage of the consoles cabilities (like Halo3 should do).

Re:Delays, delays, delays???

[Anonymous Coward]

When the games you want to play come out then you won't be playing on a console that's two years old, technologically and speaking? :)

So what are the system specs?

[popo]

How fast *is* the thing in PC terms?

(how much would an equivalent PC cost?)

images of new xdk surface

[JonnyDrama]

the guys over at Xbox365 have got an image or two showing the new, fugly xbox 360 debug kit...