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MS Seeks Entrance Fee to XBox Accessory Market
pwnage writes "According to CNET, Microsoft's newest licensing model for the next-generation XBox will effectively lock out 3rd-party accessory manufacturers who don't enroll in Microsoft's licensing and royalty program. The new console will employ hardware security mechanisms to ensure that only products created by developers willing to fork over cash to Microsoft can connect to and work with the console. Is Microsoft shooting itself in the foot by making traditional 'approved product' licensing mandatory for 3rd-party developers? Or will companies line up by the dozens to tithe to King Bill? Finally, will Sony follow a similar strategy to eke additional revenues out of its PlayStation 3?"
It'll probably be more reason for cash straped people will opt for the Nintendo Revolution rather then the more expensive options that are PS3 and X360.
Bad idea for MS. Don't 3rd party accessory companies have a hart time turning a profit as it is? How would paying royalties look like an attractive option. They'll likely just develop for the PS3 or Revolution.
This kind of arrogance is often attributed to the downfall of Nintendo (though more so on a software basis). As N came to the top, they got greedy with their control on who could release hardware and also had ridiculous fees for being a developer.
With this in effect, suddenly hardware is going to be more expensive with less competition. With the PS3 and Xbox having basically the same game lineup, this could be part of keeps Sony at the top (assuming they don't do anything stupid like this).
Advice for my fellow geeks: before seeking out that threesome you dream of, you might see what a TWOsome is like first.
If console manufacturers could legally lock out third party accessories, wouldn't they have done it long ago? Nintendo sued Game Genie over patent violations but still couldn't keep them out of the market.
How is this any different from Lexmark's ink cartridge fiasco (a case they lost)? "We'll keep doing it in the face of all of this legal precedent that says we can't" doesn't seem like a sound long-term legal strategy.
I'm not too concerned though, it's going to be the same type of situation as it was with the chips in pinter ink cartridges.
1)DRM-like scheme locks out competitor
2)competitor reverse engineers said scheme
3)???
4)Profit!!
MS would be best off not suing under the DMCA, seeing as the SCOTUS was pretty firm in the Lexmark case about the DMCA not extending to interaction between components.
I never said I was smart, I just said I was smarter than you
You're kidding, right? This is nonsense. Third party makers will pay up, and proliferate. There is no shortage of people willing to pay, and they aren't interested in PC games, they want consoles. If you can't afford one you're probably not the market MS is targeting anyway, and will have to wait for second hand equipment on eBay.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Moves like these are based solely on the expected demand from consumers for these consoles. If consumers are frothing at the mouth to get their hands on the new xbox 360, then peripheral manufacturers are going to be frothing at the mouth to supply them with whiz-bang accessories. MS wins: a good business decision.
However, the opposite was true of Nintendo after their fatal decision to stick with cartriges for N64. For years, Nintendo dominated the console market, and for that, they required that all games were authorized by them and I believe even manufactured at one of their own sites. They could do this solely because there was incredible demand for their consoles. When Sony entered the market and support for Nintendo waned, all of a sudden they needed to offer game producers incentives to keep making games for Nintendo consoles.
The only thing that this sort of decision by Microsoft is saying is that they believe very strongly that their next gaming platform is going to be massively successful. And to me, that isn't really such a bad thing.
That was pre-DMCA however; laws have changed now. If the new xbox was some sort of "trusted computing" device, they could argue that the entire system used the same protection and this was breaking it. Might not be a credible case legally or technically, but the threat can be enough to make some manufacturers back out of the market. It's all risk assesment.
If they were to sue for some of these more recent laws, it may backfire and have some of the laws repealed/modified when everyone realises how sneaky it is. Which would be nice.
Really, did you ever truly believe that MS embraced the hobbyist with the original xbox?
This tactic not only provides them with more money, but it has a neat side-effect where it creates another hurdle for hobbyists and pirates to have to jump over (or perhaps its the other way around).
They do not want anyone hacking their console for any reason.
I disagree that it's about quality control.
Ever since the beginning of the nineties, Microsoft has been working to change the commodity PC into a Windows-only platform. What used to be commodity PC hardware interfaces, have gradually been replaced by complex, undocumented protocols requiring proprietary, vendor-specific drivers.
And Microsoft was succeeding in their decommoditization scheme... until Linux came along.
Now, Linux has an even wider range of hardware support than Windows. The only place where Windows still has a lead is in the latest hardware releases from a shrinking number of companies still willing to partner with Microsoft. Those companies include NVidia and ATI, who, case in point, were convinced to stop supporting Linux Open Source drivers when Microsoft offered to make them partners in the XBox.
It's not only Linux. Apple and Sun have also released PC-based versions of their operating systems. As a result, commodity PC hardware is back in vogue, and Microsoft is losing control.
Microsoft is desperate to get that control back. Otherwise, without the means to sabotage and block their competition, Microsoft might actually have to start to compete. That prospect scares Bill Gates, who knows that Microsoft has lost every fair competition it has faced, and has always found it necessary to resort to unethical, and even illegal means in order to prevail.
The XBox was one of Microsoft's strategies for regaining that control. But it hasn't given them enough control, apparently, so they're making it even tighter.
The other purpose of this step is to increase revenue. It's not that Microsoft is going broke, however, again thanks to competition from Linux and other Open Source software (Apache, OpenOffice, etc.), Microsoft's revenue has been shrinking, or at least growing more slowly. It is getting harder and harder for Microsoft to hide this trend, and, once the markets notice, Microsoft's stock price could take a huge hit.
Hence, this move comes as no surprise to me, and I expect to see more schemes from Microsoft aimed at gaining income, and raising the barriers to compatibility.
if it was a quality control issue they wouldn't allow third-parties to release crappy bug-ridden games either.
It's a Unix system - I know this.
I bought a couple of Logitech Precision Xbox controllers to replace my broken original Microsoft ones, and you know, I think they're better designed and better built, and were less than half the price. IMHO of course.
Third-party products aren't always going to be cheap tat. It'd still be nice for the consumer to have the choice.
It's a Unix system - I know this.