J Allard Interviewed

malchus6 writes "J Allard, one of the Xbox honchos over at Microsoft, spent an hour in an online chat answering questions regarding the upcoming release of the 360 including some pointed questions having to do with the two different price points, no wi-fi inclusion, his opinion on HD-DVD and more..."

Comments

Revisionism at MS

[Anonymous Coward]

J Allard (Expert):
Q: Why even offer the core package, its seems quite useless
A: great question! the thing to remember that while we designed a no compromises game system, a huge percentage of our customers are not like the folks in this chat room. recognize that more than 75% of the folks on xbox have not played halo. by introducing the core system we are sending a signal to the market that we are committed to this part of the market just like with the xbox 360 premium bundle that we are committed to you.

J Allard (Expert):
Q: Why even offer the core package, its seems quite useless
A: the significance of this message can not be understated. many of the publishing and retail partners want our commitment to grow the market. and as you have heard from us in our press conferences and such we are very committed to growing the market.

Re:Revisionism at MS

[imstanny]

So basically... the core package is not meant for gamers?

Either way, I think tha core package is a good move on their part. Whoever buys it will still have to buy accessories for it if they want to use it (controllers, games, etc). In the end, they might end up making more off those people that buy the core packet than the premium.

Re:Revisionism at MS

[Infinity Salad]

That isn't revisionism, it looks more like he was further explaining the reason for having a 'consol + controller' release - i.e. to attract non-gamers who might be scared off by the $400 'full' system.

Bashing on MS is fun, but come on.

Re:Revisionism at MS

[FLAGGR]

He starts off saying they didn't make any compromises in the system, next question he's talking about how they amde compromises and that it wasn't designed for the hardcore gamer.

Re:Revisionism at MS

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically... the core package is not meant for gamers?

Um... it's a games console.

Re:Revisionism at MS

[gclef]

Bah. His answers were better in this interview.

Re:Revisionism at MS

[KDR_11k]

Microsoft marketing calls it a "digital entertainment hub". Marketing doesn't consider it a games console.

Re:Revisionism at MS

[Delphiki]

Way to ignore all of the other meanings associated with the word gamer, apart just from someone who plays games. One of the first issues of the escapist had a good article about what it means to be a gamer.. Read it. Or maybe you already know that the term gamer means more than just someone who plays games, and you're just being a tool.

Re:Revisionism at MS

[Guspaz]

It may be more than just fun, however. Some of it is actually deserved.

For example, out of the box, the $300 model can't save games. It doesn't have a hard drive, and it doesn't have a memory card. Compared to the xbox 360, this is most definately not BetterThanLastTime. The gist of the interview seems to be that the xbox 360 is, oddly enough, not designed for gamers.

Personally I think that every single person who buys the $300 package is going to realize they can't save, become annoyed, and purchase a memory card. If every single person is going to get annoyed and buy one, why not include one with the unit and save annoying customers?

There are many such things that are wrong with the useless $300 package. It looks to me like Microsoft is ignoring gamers (Or at least giving gamers second-seat) in favour of targeting the (possibly) broader "home entertainment appliance" market. I think this will backfire, especially with the more recent news that the PS3's "high" price might be $299, underpricing Microsoft's only out-of-box-useful package.

Re:Revisionism at MS

[Infinity Salad]

He starts off saying they didn't make any compromises in the system, next question he's talking about how they amde compromises and that it wasn't designed for the hardcore gamer.

Right, I should have been more clear; I was trying to say that the answer to the second question doesn't 'revise' so much as reenforce the first answer given (in which he states the lofty goals and then defends the seemingly contradictory 'core system.'

Anyway, I think the problem is that though the 360 may be an 'uncompromising' system with a HDD, by releasing a compromised version with no HD, they are encouraging the development of compromised games. Too bad. I wonder if the first generation of 360 games will have those old NES-style passwords that you would write down (anyone remember the password 'grid' from Mega Man 2?)...

Re:Revisionism at MS

[FLAGGR]

No. Modern games are too complex. Too many variables going on, why do you think save files are so big? They save entire data structures into files, you sure as hell wouldn't want to type them out. Save passwords are only good for arcade type simple games

How are they going to do savefiles? A $40 64mb memory card. That's right. Since you need the memory card, the budget system is actually only 60$ cheaper, and you loose the 20GB harddrive (100$ for a 20gb 2.5 inch harddrive isn't so horrible, $40 for a 64mb flash card that they will be mass producing is)

Re:Revisionism at MS

[Anonymous Coward]

well who cares if the customer is annoyed?

when was the last time Microsoft actually cared about annoyed and pissed off customers?

they can say "Here's a $399.99 version but it's to much for you so go with the $299.99 version"

naturally the $299.99 version doesn't have 1 feature they had been promosing since E3 (Standered HDD & Standered Wireless controller), so people buy the $299.99 pop in their copy of Halo 2 (cause nothing else looked all that appealing) and get an error that they need the HDD to play this game, wondering what that means (since the last time they heard about it, it had a HDD standered) they find out the hard way that they have to shell out another $99.99 just to play old games on it (something the PS2 and PS3 doesn't need to do it) but were never informed about it.

So now they go out and Spend another $99.99 on something they were told was standered, get home then read something about media features on it, wondering what it means they look into it (they don't care much about gaming so they don't look into all this stuff) they find that they can play files from their computer through their Xbox 360 rather easily and are shocked about it, so they see how to hook it up properly and go through all that and give it a go...met with another error message about needing a Remote, there's another $29.99 down the drain, oh and naturally they want to play Xbox live but that costs another $19.99 for the headset.

so in total microsoft just suckered $149.97 out of people because they decided to release a "Core" package for them that didn't include shit (well it did include shit but that's a whole nother rant).

If Sony pulls this shit where there is a "Core" system and an "Elite" system with a $100 difference I am going to be pissed.

Re:Revisionism at MS

[r00td43m0n]

Isn't this true of PSX, PS2 and GC?
Not one of these could save games out of the box, so people bought memory cards. I don't remember an overwhelming amount of complaining except in comparision to cartridge games.
I too, was very surprised and slightly annoyed with the $300 model because I didn't know who they were trying to appeal to. Working in EB Games I rarely see a casual gamer talk about the 360, but I now understand what J was saying by making it easier for a new adopter to get into video games by purchasing the Core SKU. The early adopter isn't going to need everything if they are just curious about the system. If they do a little research they will find out the bundle is a better value but it might not fit their needs

Re:Revisionism at MS

[mwvdlee]

Why are gamers getting second-seat? Nobody's forcing them to buy the $300 machine. Would it be a better option if the $300 just wasn't available at all and only the full $400 version could be purchased?

Re:Revisionism at MS

[Infinity Salad]

Heh. You knew I was kidding about using passwords, right?

(But yeah, the core system is for folks who are happy with only having to buy a memory card and don't care about the wireless stuff; I think it will be a while before game developers bring titles out that require the HDD).

Re:Revisionism at MS

[Guspaz]

IIRC, Microsoft's memory cards cost something like $40 or $50 US. People will buy them, taking them pretty darned close to the $400 package just from a single memory card alone. Even the casual gamers need memory cards.

My point is that if EVERYBODY needs a memory card, and it raises the price by so much (and so much closer to the $400 package), then the $300 package is sort of useless even for the casual late-adopting masses, no?

I'm convinced that Microsoft is going to be forced to revamp their packaged offerings quite quickly. If not right away, then certainly about the time of the PS3's release.

Re:Revisionism at MS

[Guspaz]

Would it be better? Well, it would certain be more honest. However, Microsoft needs to put a bit more into the core package to make it useful. Perhaps something as simple as bundling a memory unit with it would be enough to make it viable. Without it, the cost of actually playing games on the core package (and saving them) is a lot closer to the $400 package.

Penny-arcade put it well when they claimed that the $300 unit is an illusion, because the cost of bringing it up to a useful state (being able to save) takes it a lot closer to the $400 unit.

More readable format?

[garcia]

I tried to copy/paste this and reformat it a BIT so that it was slightly more readable than what it was on the linked website. Ugh.

Why is there almost no proper capitalization? I mean, it's already damn near impossible to read but a five minute skim/correct session wouldn't have been too much to ask, would it?

On to the article (slight edits for format, no other changes):

****

Major Nelson (Moderator): We are just about to get started

Major Nelson (Moderator): Welcome to today's chat. I am happy to have J join us for an hour to take your questions on the Xbox 360. Just to let you know, due to J's injury he does have someone typing for him, but all of the answers are directly from J himself. With that said...welcome J. Also, we already have over 1,000 questions...many of which are similar, so we'll chose the ones that are most representative of the majority of the questions.

J Allard (Expert):

A: we'll get going with the first question now....

J Allard (Expert):
Q: My question: Can Microsoft guarantee that the HDD will be fully uitilised when present or are we going to see long load times with a slow DVD unit as standard from most developers.

A: just like last generation utilization of things like xbox live and the hard drive will be up to the game designers and just like last time we expect game developers to be excited by this. we have been in clear communication for more than a year that some scenarios will include a disconnected hard drive and it has not slowed them down

J Allard (Expert):

Q: Mr. Expert, will the Xbox 360 games use the hard drive for game saves and caching like the original Xbox did?

A: absolutely. we think game designers have all kinds of innovative ideas that the hard drive will be used for. use of the hard drive is not limited to game scenarios. like xbox 1 you will be able to do things like rip and store music and don't forget about live scenarios and all the downloadable content

J Allard (Expert):

Q: Why is the hard drive so highly priced? A 20GB hard drive now a days goes for about 20-30... why $100? I believe this will deter alot of sales..

A: the 20 gb hard drive is a 2.5 inch user servicable drive and is more expense than a pc "crack the box" drive. it's one of the reasons we pushed to create a compelling premium bundle.

J Allard (Expert):

Q: Why is the hard drive so highly priced? A 20GB hard drive now a days goes for about 20-30... why $100? I believe this will deter alot of sales..

A: one of the reasons that we designed a user removable hard drive is in direct response to the hard core gaming audience to make it easier to take game saves, game maps, soundtracks, etc. easily to their friends house or lan party. they also wanted the ability to upgrade to larger capacity drives. and if the drive is not present because someone in the house took it on the road, you still want to be able to use the console for movies, music or games.

J Allard (Expert):

Q: will the loss of HDD mean that all games will be made without the HDD in mind, therefore effecting users of the premium pack?

A: absolute not. consider this last generation where somewhere in the neighborhood of 20% of game consoles had hard drives attached. this did not deter game developers from utilizing the hard drive both for exclusive games and cross platform games on xbox. this generation our first party team and our exclusive content developers are just as committed to using the hard drive and like we they demonstrated with this generation our third party cross platform developers are committed as well. games like splinter cell, madden, and tony hawk all demonstrated unique capabilities in hard drive configured systems.

J Allard (Expert):

Q: Can we stream videos from our PCs?

A: yes. if you have media center on those pcs. you will be able to stream standard and high definition video.

J Allard (Expert):

Q: Why even offer the core packa

Re:More readable format?

[josh roulston]

if you want the text in 80 columns, please help yourself.

Re:More readable format?

[Anonymous Coward]

Q: will the loss of HDD mean that all games will be made without the HDD in mind, therefore effecting users of the premium pack?

A: absolute not. consider this last generation where somewhere in the neighborhood of 20% of game consoles had hard drives attached. this did not deter game developers from utilizing the hard drive both for exclusive games and cross platform games on xbox. this generation our first party team and our exclusive content developers are just as committed to using the hard drive and like we they demonstrated with this generation our third party cross platform developers are committed as well. games like splinter cell, madden, and tony hawk all demonstrated unique capabilities in hard drive configured systems.

Now this is just one beautiful piece of spin. For starters, he brings up numbers for hard drive adoptation by gamers across all consoles, and then mentions that the games developed solely for the XBox, as well as those ported to the XBox, used the hard drive.

Let me think: what's wrong with that? Oh, right, all XBoxes has a hard drive, and very few had memory cards. (Seriously. I've never even seen an XBox memory card, except when browsing through the electronics sections of stores.) Therefore, the lowest common denominator for that system wasn't to use a memory card, but to use the hard drive. A better comparison would be how many games used the hard drive for non-XBox consoles where it was an optional add-on? I think you already know the answer.

Re:More readable format?

[scribblej]

Q: will the loss of HDD mean that all games will be made without the HDD in mind, therefore effecting users of the premium pack?

A: absolute not. consider this last generation where somewhere in the neighborhood of 20% of game consoles had hard drives attached. this did not deter game developers from utilizing the hard drive both for exclusive games and cross platform games on xbox. this generation our first party team and our exclusive content developers are just as committed to using the hard drive and like we they demonstrated with this generation our third party cross platform developers are committed as well. games like splinter cell, madden, and tony hawk all demonstrated unique capabilities in hard drive configured systems.


What an idiot... "20% of systems had hard drives" -- yeah, but 100% of XBOXES had hard drives, and 100% -- count them! 100% of the XBox games are able to use it for something, if only storing saved games.

Compare this to the number of PS2 games that even have the OPTION to use a hard drive. He's trying to make it sound like the sometimes-absent HDD will be no problem. But it's a HUGE problem. There is yet to be ANY console with an optional hard drive that had more than one or two games support it.

Re:More readable format?

[MarkGriz]

"Why is there almost no proper capitalization? I mean, it's already damn near impossible to read but a five minute skim/correct session wouldn't have been too much to ask, would it?"

You must have missed the last question from the interview....

Q: Many gamers and non-gamers alike choose to communicate with the generally accepted practice of capitalizing the first character of each sentence. Does Microsoft restrict your usage of the Shift key, or is there some other reason?

A: Great question. The fact of the matter is that I'm typing this on the Microsoft "core" keyboard, which does not include a Shift key. Our market research indicates nearly 75% of our target market prefers to be lazy and not use a shift key. While our "premium" keyboard does offer this advanced technology, one was not available at the time of this interview.

Re:More readable format?

[MindStalker]

I know that, you know that, I'm sure MS knows that. They seem to have some clever marketing reason for almost every decisions like this they make. Now the question is.. WHY?!

My only guess is that they realize that the people who buy the core systems won't be hard-core gamers. These people will not be buying Halo 2 and such. Hopfully game developers will be wise enough to understand their market and make games that make significant use of the HD. Sadly I really don't see a market for non hardcore gamers buying the Xbox in the first year anyways. But who knows.

Re:More readable format?

[jon1012]

The fact of the matter is that I'm typing this on the Microsoft "core" keyboard, which does not include a Shift key. Our market research indicates nearly 75% of our target market prefers to be lazy and not use a shift key. While our "premium" keyboard does offer this advanced technology, one was not available at the time of this interview.

Wow, what an advanced technology is the shift key !

Microsoft just discovered it's use, and now it's an advanced tech... Woo hoo !

Re:More readable format?

[DistantShadow]

How many cross-platform games took advantage of the xbox HD beyond save-game storage? I don't know the answer to that question, but I'm guessing that the ratio of xbox 360 games that take advantage of the hard-drive to those that don't is similar...

Note: storing saved games != taking advantage of the hard-drive

-ds

Re:More readable format?

[*weasel]

XBox1 games had to function perfectly when the harddrive was full, so it couldn't be absolutely depended upon to be useful for streaming or storing. Hence, it's relative underutilization for a stock part in the XB1.

As far as the devs are concerned, this isn't much of a change.

It is, however, why there's this big push with the 360 to market it primarily for its usefulness outside of off-the-shelf games.

They're trying to take a part that was a loss (financially) the last go-round and make it into a premium upgrade that only depends on a couple major content providers for decent support (Microsoft, Movie studios, etc).

Their target market ain't us. Not anymore.

Re:More readable format?

[WilliamSChips]

75% of our target market prefers to be lazy and not use a shift key.

I thought that 75% of your market prefers to use CAPSLOCK all the time!

Re:More readable format?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point here was that we see many great games these days which are cross platform. Cross platform games (with PS2 and Xbox, eg.) necessarily are treating the HD as optional, so it stands to reason that great games can be made to leverage it when it's present and function when it's not.

Re:More readable format?

[ZildjianKX]

I think you are mistaken, they had to take into account when the E drive was full which game saves, etc, are stored on, but they had the X,Y, and Z partitions which are fully readable and writeable. Even if these partitions are full, it doesn't matter since it is swap space and the content can be erased.

Let's just hope developers do a check for the hard drive so they can at least cache files to it so games load faster.

Also, regarding load speed... why couldn't MS use a 16X DVD-rom instead of a 12X? I bought a 16X like 4 years ago.

Re:More readable format?

[scribblej]

Mod parent up. I hadn't thought of this angle, but it seems pretty right-on. Good point, anyhow.

Re:More readable format?

[forkazoo]

I was expecting something along the lines of:

A: microsoft will have a shift key available in the premium bundle keyboard. this isn't just a 'crack the box' keyboard. this is a removable, user servceable keyboard with some really compelling shift key features, for only a hundred extra dollars.

Re:More readable format?

[BackInIraq]

How many cross-platform games took advantage of the xbox HD beyond save-game storage? I don't know the answer to that question, but I'm guessing that the ratio of xbox 360 games that take advantage of the hard-drive to those that don't is similar...

More than you'd probably think. The two other major uses of the HD I could think of were custom soundtracks (I own a couple that use this) and downloadable Live content, such as maps, vehicles, etc. Granted, most people didn't utilize these features, but they WERE there on many titles.

Re:More readable format?

[Morgalyn]

Great, now they can go patent the technology of using a key to toggle between 'lowercase' and 'uppercase' characters during person-computer interaction.

Re:More readable format?

[phxbadash]

My guess would be that the 16x part may be slightly louder, more expensive and prone to failure that a 12x part, and the difference is going to be minimal to the end user anyways.

Re:More readable format?

[nutshell42]

A: great question! the thing to remember that while we designed a no compromises game system, a huge percentage of our customers are not like the folks in this chat room. recognize that more than 75% of the folks on xbox have not played halo. by introducing the core system we are sending a signal to the market that we are committed to this part of the market just like with the xbox 360 premium bundle that we are committed to you

Yay bullshit, here we come! They sold enough copies of Halo so that 25% of all Xbox owners should have a copy.

This means MS either believes

• that noone's ever rented the game, borrowed it from a friend or played a cracked version, or
• that, while many people have played Halo that way, the MS DVDs with the game were so crappy that most Halo owners had to buy two copies of the game, or
• that we're so stupid and actually think that J Allard tells us the truth instead of weaseling his way out of a question.

Q: Why even offer the core package, its seems quite useless

Because $299 is a much nicer price to throw around in "buy our console" pissing contests with Sony. Sony did the same with the PSP and MS knows a brilliant idea to rip of customers when they see one.

Re:More readable format?

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Most games just used the HD for saved games.

2) With Xbox live there will be the option to save games over the network.

THEREFORE -> No need for HD.

Re:More readable format?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, what an advanced technology is the shift key ! Microsoft just discovered it's use

First of all, it was a joke. Second of all, maybe you should discover the proper use of the apostrophe.

Re:More readable format?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats probably because major-nelson is a fucking moron MS ass licker. What do you expect? Screw the 360. Get the PS3 and be happy.

Public relations

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are interested in the XBox 360, the information in this interview could be extremely useful to you. However, whether you're interested or not, make absolutely certain not to forget this crucial fact while reading this article:

You are reading an advertisement.

Re:Public relations

[BlackCobra43]

Where exactly would objective information about an unreleased product be found?

I don't mind READING advertisements, I see somewhere along the lines of 10,000 or more a day...one more ,one less..

Re:Public relations

[josh roulston]

it's a fair point that you wouldn't be able to find any unbiased information about an unreleased product at the moment but there's a few things to remember; it's still just a computer (and probably similar in specs to the one you're using right now). the only differences are that it plugs into your tv, comes with a controller and the games software developers have to meet certain criteria to get published. it's fair to get excited about a new console but it's really just going to be a faster xbox with a few bits of media connectivity thrown in.

Re:Public relations

[Anonymous Coward]

Good point. The:

Q: Why even offer the core package, its seems quite useless
A: great question!

is priceless PR-speak

Re:Public relations

[Anonymous Coward]

> it's still just a computer (and probably similar in specs to the one you're using right now)

You're right, I'm using a Mac right now!

Re:Public relations

[jandrese]

It is interesting to see the PR guy squirm at some of the questions though. Look at his response to the wifi question. It winged him, but he managed to get through anyway.

I also like his reply of "The harddrive has an 800% markup because it's hot-swappable".

Re:Public relations

[Keith Russell]

You are reading an advertisement.

No way. Get outta town.

Really? An advertisement?

Damn. Who'da thunk it. Right there on the internets and everything. Wow.

Re:Public relations

[Fareq]

Well, if it's a hot-swap 20GB, for $100, then it's only about a 100% markup... I would expect such a drive to cost like $50...

Of course in a console environment, there's 0 reason why they should use a 20GB 2.5" drive... they should use an 80GB 3.5" drive (since they cost within about $5 of each other).

Re:Public relations

[Criterion]

Damnit already. I wish people would stop the moaning about the price of the hd already. The closest thing I've seen to it is $94.50 at newegg.
  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16822161304

I could really give a flying fuck how much it costs, but it's not a $20 item. The main point of people problem is that the unit without the hd creates a situation where the game devs can not create the games on the same level as they could if there was a hd in every unit. The "core" unit should have been, console, wired controller, hd, $340ish price. Either that, or tell the game devs that if their game needs the hd for advanced features, to put a "Hard Drive Required" sticker on the box instead of telling them to write games as if the hd isn't there. As it is, few devs are now going to make enhanced features in their games.

Re:Public relations

[jandrese]

I can see using the 2.5" drive though. Microsoft thinks you're going to carry the drive to your friends house because it has all of your saves on it and you don't have a memory card.

He also talked about ripping stuff to MP3, so you could bring your music over to a friends place.

To be honest, I think having a fixed drive inside of the box (every box!) is a lot more valuable than making the drive removable and expensive. I bet game developers are going to be looking at the sales numbers closely, if the majority of the customers don't go for the $400 option right off the bat you'll see fewer and fewer game developers bother with it at all.

Of course most people will get the cheaper option. $400 is a lot of money.

Re:Public relations

[Zen]

The cost of the drive (granted the consumer is definitely not being charged the price M$ pays) might have something to do with buffering, read/write speed, and most importantly (I hope) the physical characterists of the gforce ratings. No, not the Nvidia geforce, Gforce, like as in I can drop the 360 or kick it with my foot while playing a rather exciting game and the harddrive won't get damaged. The last time I checked, typical laptop drives had much better protection than 3.5" drives. As always there are exceptions to every rule.

Re:Public relations

[Fareq]

Interesting point.

Yes, I've seen some laptop drives with all sorts of interesting characteristics regarding physical forces.

IBM at one point made a laptop that would detect if it was being dropped and stop the disks before it hit the ground. I don't know if this is technology in the laptop or technology in the drive itself. But if it is the latter then you have an excellent point.

Re:Public relations

[GaryPatterson]

Yeah!

Those puppies are retailing for $12.50 all over the place. The other day I got ten of them just to make a monitor stand that I can use as a RAID array. 20GB hot-swappable drives are so cheap!

Re:Public relations

[mink]

What most companies (HP for instance) mean when they sa a drive is "hot swap" is that it is still warm when you take it out.

I've seen a number of "hot swap" servers completely cook the entire HDD bus when the drive was removed.

is it just me is the 299 version utterly pointless

[Anonymous Coward]

i mean seriously it seems like the dumbest move in history, i mean microsoft manages to fit three bugs in a 512k boot rom in the original xbox but to take out the main apeal of the xbox in that every unit has a HD so developers can take full advantage of it, gah, it boggles the mind

hector

Re:is it just me is the 299 version utterly pointl

[LexNaturalis]

Of course it's not dumb. I mean, everything Microsoft touches turns to gold. Just look at Windows ME and WebTV... err... nevermind!

Backwards compatibility

[ChronoDK]

He forgot to ask the most important question - the only thing there is left to know about Xbox 360 - which first generation Xbox games will we be able to play? We know it's not all of them, but not how many or how few.

Re:Backwards compatibility

[Theaetetus]

He forgot to ask the most important question - the only thing there is left to know about Xbox 360 - which first generation Xbox games will we be able to play? We know it's not all of them, but not how many or how few.

From the article:
J Allard (Expert): Another one from mail: What about backward compatibility in the core system?
J Allard (Expert): because we didn't abstract storage in the first generation xbox back compat will require a hard drive. the good news is that the core system owners can upgrade if they deside to update at a later date.

The implication is that all xbox 1 games will be playable on an xbox 360, provided it has a hard drive.

That said, I doubt it, due to the differences in the CPU/GPU. My guess is that you'll need a hard drive to store the patches you'll have to download for the games that developers decide it's worthwhile to patch... So, Halo. Halo 2. Um... probably only a very few.

Re:Backwards compatibility

[CDLewis]

He forgot to ask the most important question

I would guess that he didn't forget.

Re:Backwards compatibility

[Have Blue]

As I understand it, it's not a matter of whether you will be "allowed" or "forbidden" to play a particular game. The 360 will come with an emulator that attempts to run Xbox 1 games. Microsoft will only guarantee (read: put QA resources towards) making it work with certain top-selling games, you're free to try whichever games you want and maybe they'll work if they don't do anything too crazy.

Re:Backwards compatibility

[jerw134]

You understand incorrectly. Due to the differences between the two consoles, any Xbox 1 game will require an emulation profile. If the profile is not available (they can be downloaded from Xbox Live as they become available), the game simply will not run. They'll start off with the most popular stuff, and work backwards (to a point) from there.

Re:Backwards compatibility

[DistantShadow]

Is that really the most important question? For those that already own an xbox, it's not a huge deal. Sure, you'd have to have that extra monster box under your tv, but you'll be able to play the games. And how many people that don't own an xbox will want to play xbox games on the 360? I'm sure there would be some...especially during the first few months. But in the long run, I don't think that the investment shows enough return to go nuts trying to get *every* game working properly.

-ds

Re:Backwards compatibility

[KDR_11k]

NEVER use implications from what a marketer says, they know very well that they can imply things that aren't true but noone can blame them for it because they didn't say it.

Re:Backwards compatibility

[Anonymous Coward]

And how many people that don't own an xbox will want to play xbox games on the 360?

Yes, what people forget is that although they may play Playstation games on their Playstations 2, not many people would want to play Xbox games on anything.

Haha

[FLAGGR]

What does he say is the successor to cd audio? Napster, iPod and MSN Music. Wait, he spelt iTunes wrong. Does anyone actually use MSN Music?

Ignoring that, cd sales haven't dipped AFAIK, I sure as hell still buy them. I like having the cd covers. the case, the whole "physical" cd. I use p2p to find music I like, and if there's only one song on the album I like, I keep it (not like I'd buy the album anyway)

MSN Music the successor to cd audio? My ass. If he had've said iTunes that would've made slightly more sense, but still, no.

Re:Haha

[Anonymous Coward]

I've used MSN Music for tracks not available at iTunes.

But since they are protected WMA, I have to burn them to a disc [image] and import them into iTunes to get on my iPod.

Re:Haha

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed it; he said the successor to cd audio is MP3...

Re:Haha

[bluprint]

Oh snap!! You got him there. Way to go!

(And he said MP3 was the successor to cd audio.)

An Hour?

[Red Flayer]

This interview took an hour to complete?

Some marketing mumbo-jumbo bs, and then a summary that says absolutely nothing other than "We want to make the best console ever for everyone." Which was probably written prior to the interview, then cut-and-pasted into the chat session. br>
If I am going to spend time viewing an online interview with an "expert," I expect to gain some insight, maybe, possibly, learn some new things. The MS press releases on the XBox 360 would have been a more informative read... and would, in essence, say exactly the same thing.

I know I'm getting modded down for this, but really now...

One valid item-of-note:

FTA: "Q: Why even offer the core package, its seems quite useless[sic] A: the significance of this message can not be understated. many of the publishing and retail partners want our commitment to grow the market. and as you have heard from us in our press conferences and such we are very committed to growing the market."

Translation: We have to convince developers and retailers that consumers will purchase the product, which they assuredly will not do at the price point for the complete system.

Re:An Hour?

[Morgon]

It took an hour, because they were having tons of bandwidth/technical trouble, and J Allard had a (horrible) transcriptionist, since he was recently in an accident.

Re:An Hour?

[Morgon]

That's funny. This above post prompted a 'visit' from a Microsoft employee to my website.

I bet it was Trixie.

Confusion

[keyrat rafa]

My friends aren't hard core gamers. They don't look up specs or read online chats. They'll probably buy the cheaper xbox only to find out later it's missing functionality (no backwards compatability, as well as other features). This is just a muck on MS's part. And a 2.5" drive? Why the hell would they go and do that? Just to make it more expensive? I'm waiting for the PS3. Hopefully it takes a normal 3.5" IDE drive just like the PS2 does.

Re:Confusion

[WillAffleckUW]

My friends aren't hard core gamers. They don't look up specs or read online chats

Well, some of my son's friend are hard-core gamers, and they're severely underwhelmed. My son went down to the Game Testing Expo in Seattle's Pacific Science Center this Saturday, hoping to see something from the xBox 360 or PS3 or Nintendo Revolution, but there wasn't anything there except mist (vapor is too strong a word). So he and all his teen friends seem to be leaning towards planning on buying the Nintendo Revolution when it comes out, as the game choices for the xBox were severely underwhelming.

But they did love the Dance Dance Revolution demos, even if they were single-player only - that and some kind of Crystal Edition for Sonic were tops on their fun games we must buy list.

Re:Confusion

[Anonymous Coward]

"And a 2.5" drive? Why the hell would they go and do that?"

Um... because it's an inch smaller than a 3.5" drive? The Xbox 360 isn't very big at all - a 3.5 inch drive could easily take up a quarter of its volume. Add the fact that it's a "user-serviceable" drive, i.e. it comes in a sealed caddy type thing, and you can see why a 2.5" drive is much more suitable. It makes sense from a consumer standpoint because they're far less likely to be comfortable slotting a vanilla 3.5" OEM drive with circuit boards showing in the back of their 360.

Re:Confusion

[Gruneun]

And a 2.5" drive? Why the hell would they go and do that?

Take a look at a picture of the drive.

It's tiny and built to be mobile. I'm willing to bet that it's almost no time before the mp3 add-on hardware is released. At that point, thousands of people already have the device and the upgrade would be a fraction of the cost against a new iPod. They would be stupid not to do it.

Re:Confusion

[MindStalker]

The drive will be removable. One of the selling points is a removeable drive you can take your saved games and such with you to your friends house. Do you really think most people would be comfortable lugging a 3.5 with its casing around. A small light notebook style drive would be much more consumer friendly in this regard.

Re:Confusion

[pixelgeek]

-- And a 2.5" drive? Why the hell would they go and do that? Just to make it more expensive?

Or to make it smaller. A smaller drive takes up less overall space so it allows them to decrease the overall size of the unit

Re:Confusion

[Anonymous Coward]

And a 2.5" drive? Why the hell would they go and do that? Just to make it more expensive?

Because a bunch of Slashdot-ish clowns complained that the original X-Box was too big.

Cake, eating it too, all that rot...

Re:Confusion

[cthellis]

Hopefully it takes a normal 3.5" IDE drive just like the PS2 does.

It does not.
2.5" internal, and easily-swappable like the 360's. (I do believe it's aimed at an internal bay and not attached to the outside, though.)

It is, however, supposedly going to be a much larger drive (rumored 80GB, but who knows?) and come with Linux pre-installed (and hopefully a useful suite of apps and PVR-type software) to be a more interesting optional add-on, though. Hopefully they won't fart around with it like the PS2's drive so that it'll be actively pursued by developers and made useful for we consumers.

Re:Confusion

[ZildjianKX]

I think piracy is also a reason to use the smaller drivers. The drives hold less and are more expensive...

Re:Confusion

[Anonymous Coward]

Because a bunch of Slashdot-ish clowns complained that the original X-Box was too big.

So Microsoft are making business decisions based on what they read on Slashdot? That's hilarious. This is going to be a catastrophe.

Re:Confusion

[KrisW]

They would be stupid not to do it.

Why thank you, Mr. J. Allard in disuise, for your completely unbiased opinion.

Re:Confusion

[Gruneun]

Perhaps, it was simply a poor arrangement of words on my part. "They" was meant to refer to Microsoft, not the Xbox owners.

Not a sales pitch for them, but...

[Cerdic]

For $100 more, you get:
-remote control (for playing movies)
-wireless version of controller
-Xbox Live headset and 'silver' membership
-20GB hard drive (needed to play some Xbox1 games)
-High definition AV cables

If you don't get that more expensive package, you *have* to spend at least another $25 for a memory card to save games. For the Xbox1, you absolutely needed the $25-$30 remote to play DVD movies. I suspect that the Xbox360 will require this.

If you didn't care about high def cables, Xbox Live, or features that need a hard drive, then you have saved $50 at this point. This seems more like a scam to rip people off than really offer them a cheaper package.

Re:Not a sales pitch for them, but...

[FLAGGR]

The DVD remote was just a way to make sure Sony didn't get money off of every xbox sold. Sony and some other companies get royalties off every dvd capable device, so MS made it an addon (even though the system was still technically capable of playing dvd's, since it didn't have the remote it wouldn't, so no money for Sony) this way people that wanted the feature would get the addon, and 10$ or whatever would go towards Sony from the remote's price. That's why the playstation line has dvd out of the box. Stupid Sony/other evil media companies. Same thing for the x360 I bet, and same thing for the Nintendo Revolution (as confirmed by Iwata)

Re:Not a sales pitch for them, but...

[rasty]

It may seem a scam, and indeed it will probably make M$ some more good bucks, but I still do see some use for the Core package. For instance it's great for kids who can get the parents to buy them the $299 system and later manage to buy the memory card on saved money by themselves.
I know we'd all mostly be buying the full version, but that's because we are more informed than the average parent.

And of course this will allow them to put on ads saying "Xbox 360: starting from $299".

I really do believe the $299 version will make them sell quite a lot more systems!

Re:Not a sales pitch for them, but...

[bleaknik]

You're wrong.

I know we'd all mostly be buying the full version

You assume that I've seen enough compelling reasons to buy this system. Unfortunately, Halo 3 isn't worth $460 to me.

Re:Not a sales pitch for them, but...

[rihjol]

It's a ruse. Basically, the only sensible option is to buy the $400 package (if any at all). But people would balk at that price. So they throw out a $300 model no one is going to buy, so they can say that they've given everyone a $300 entry point, and ooh, look at all you get for just $100 more.

Just a typical, modern marketing ploy. But it will work.

Re:Not a sales pitch for them, but...

[SpinJaunt]

For $100 more, you get:

What is wrong with this picture?

1. emphasised "more"
2. Microsoft?
3. ???
4. PR0FIT!

beside my snide remark, it really is an M$ Marketing ploy to make you think that you, the consumer, are getting more for your money when infact --hmmmm-- yes, you are actually being ripped off again.

Great idea, maybe I'll patent the idea©..

Re:Not a sales pitch for them, but...

[Criterion]

And for a marketing ploy, they essentially killed any enhanced usefulness that the hdd could have provided. Now few devs will go the extra mile to service us, the true gamers, as it will be quicker to get games out for the lowest common denominator. Say goodbye to perpetual world damage, enhanced load times, etc.

Re:Not a sales pitch for them, but...

[rihjol]

I'm sure there's a part of it that is the financial equation, but in the end it doesn't matter either way.

My biggest problem with it is that it seems like they set a precedent by including it with the original XBOX, and by not providing it now, they're taking something away. Something that I now expect to be there.

And I really hated the way the interviewee made it sound like not having the HD or memory card was a valid option for an entry-level owner. Like it was okay to not be able to save games and/or settings. Saving should not be optional anymore. Hell, I could save records on my old NES cartridges.

Re:Not a sales pitch for them, but...

[shmlco]

Do people not understand retail markup? That's $100 more RETAIL. The store and distributors are going to snarf half that. So all those posts who say that those parts are overpriced by $50 need to understand that those extra dollars are not going to MS. Not to mention that there's more to a product than wholesale component costs.

Re:Not a sales pitch for them, but...

[EvilSporkMan]

People who are accustomed to building their computers from OEM parts don't understand retail markup, and for them, there isn't anything more to a product than wholesale component costs. (building computers is fun, not work) For this crowd, the Xbox 360 is competing with computer upgrades, and given the caliber of people on Xbox Live, the computer crowd might even be a nicer environment.

Re:Not a sales pitch for them, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing that pisses me off about the pricing on the XBox 360 isn't the highly priced 'preimum package' or the $299 waste of money version; what really pisses me off is that Microsoft is selling accessories for unheard of prices.

1) $100 for a 20GB hard-drive
2) $40 for a standard controller (PS2 and Gamecube controllers are $20)
3) $50 for a wireless controller (the wavebird is $25)
4) $40 for a Memory Card

It is insane that Microsoft is going to charge (essentially) twice as much for every comparable accessory as Nintendo or Sony will.

I just hope that the rumors about the games being $10-$15 more expensive aren't true, otherwize I'm never (EVER) getting one.

Re:If slashdotted...(or your scrollbar stinks)

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow...mod who modded this Redundant, congratulations, you changed a score from 0 to -1. Great job.

USB storage?

[Anonymous Coward]

J Allard (Expert):
Q: Can a USB Memory been used by the xbox 360??(I'm asking this because the 360 has USB ports)
A: at present our design for xbox 360 uses the usb ports in a read-only capacity for playing music and viewing photos. if there are other applications that you guys think are interesting then please give us your feedback.


This is such a weak answer.

Here's an interesting application, Mr. Allard: How about not screwing customers by forcing them to buy some undersized, overpriced "XBox360 Memory Unit", instead of allowing the use of USB flash drives for game saves?

Re:USB storage?

[MrPerfekt]

Because then it's that much easier to hack. A proprietary memory storage unit would be a good amount more difficult, I'd imagine. You can bet that 2.5" removable drive will be significantly encased and modified also.

Re:USB storage?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent +5 Insightful

Re:USB storage?

[Mongoose]

I have your answer right here: D-R-M.

They don't want people to be able to alter or control anything like saved games, media, etc. In fact they want you to buy a media pc to use with Xbox 360 -- runing Windows Media Center of course!

It's just standard practice. =)

Re:USB storage?

[antic]

You know how some people always talk about having a preference for gaming on their Xbox/PS2/etc because it "just works"? One of the things that helps is having a fixed install base. One type of harddrive, one type of memory unit, one type of video card. As soon as they allow any old device to be used, they have to support a variety of options.

Plus they lose control.

If you want to have a gaming machine that allows you to tinker with every component, keep your PC.

Re:is it just me is the 299 version utterly pointl

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, everything Microsoft touches turns to gold.

Goldbugs?

Dupe article

[ender1598]

This link was already part of the article here http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/22/ 0615249&tid=211 Why it becomes another article is anyones guess.

Come on...WTF!

[Anonymous Coward]

Q: Can we stream videos from our PCs?
A: yes. if you have media center on those pcs. you will be able to stream standard and high definition video.

Now we have to have to not only have a PC in order to use this awesome feature, but we have to have Media Center running on it! That is ridiculous. There goes my hopes of it streaming video from my Linux or MacOSX Samba Share!!

DAMN YOU MICROSOFT!!! DAMN YOU!!

Or in other words

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing to remember is that while we designed a no compromises game system, we made some compromises.

I just find it funny that they keep talking about "growing the market" when they $300 verison comes up. Um... I thought that was what the original XBox did, by trying to into new areas for the video game market, what with the hard drive and built-in ethernet and other features traditionally associated with PC gaming. Making those things into peripherals now with the XBox 360 seems to be acknowleging that growing the market wasn't actually a good idea to begin with, and they should retreat from that and just stick to the things the un-growed, traditional console market does.

How do you "grow the market" by releasing something totally indifferentiable from the PS3? Or does "grow the market" mean "try to steal Sony's market"?

Re:Or in other words

[SpryGuy]

Or does "grow the market" mean "try to steal Sony's market"?

Bingo.

Re:Or in other words

[Draigon]

but Frodo was on Mtv with crowds of people and they all looked pretty happy about the 360 so it can't be all that bad rite??

Seriously, I was kind of excited about 360 because I always said I would wait for them to learn from their my_First_Console.exe mistakes then I'd buy in once they're a little more stable and embraced by the gaming community, but now with it going this whole Ultra-Fantabulous-Media-Robot direction, I smell too much Microsoft bundle madness to care. All the outrageous pricing troubles probably went something like this:

"We're not doing so bad in this whole gaming thing, guys, but we all know bundling is our forte and not specializing so let's see if we can't put every media project into one."

"Oh shit, bundling costs money. A lot of it. Well, we could split this up into two parts. The first part will be less expensive and will move it into their living room while the second part will be slightly more expensive but justify the cost of the first part."

"Brilliant!"

Re:Or in other words

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple. You make it bad-ass.

Here's another exclusive interview with J Allard: http://www.weebls-stuff.com/articles/446/j-allard- interview

Re:Or in other words

[im_thatoneguy]

I believe they are refering to the people who don't know what a mHz is but want a really cool version of bejeweled.

Women now compose a majority of the online gamers, they just aren't playing a game running on the Quake engine. A 299 dollar Xbox is in essence attempting to appeal to those who don't need their Xbox 360s to be as fast as they are. They are in essence purchasing a Xbox Live 2.0 console so that they can play the latest Java/Flash styled games.

One of the fastest growing games markets is the 'non' gamer. The soccer mom. Xbox 360 lite isn't trying to attack the PS3, it's trying to impose on the Nintendo Revolution.

Re:Or in other words

[mwvdlee]

I don't think they're talking about "growing" the market towards the hardcore PC gamers but rather towards the casual- or non-gamers that really don't need the hard drive and built-in ethernet and other features traditionally associated with PC gaming because, well... they never needed PC gaming either.

Re:is it just me is the 299 version utterly pointl

[Anonymous Coward]

512 bytes, not 512k.

Kids these days! In my day, I had a computer with 544 bytes of memory.. none of this fancy-schmancy "Kilobytes"

MOD parent down - troll !!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think this was part of the original article:

"In terms of load times, as a gamer i enjoy thrusting into taco's backside and am super sensitive to how frustrating load times can be which is one of the reasons we put in a dual layer 12x dvd in the system to make sure gamers get great perf with or without a hard drive."

Re:MOD parent down - troll !!

[garcia]

You know, you're obviously trolling but I'll respond anyway:

Maybe if I had posted as AC there might have been some doubt, but being that I posted it as myself, no.

Re:is it just me is the 299 version utterly pointl

[Locke2005]

You're obviously not in marketing. Consoles have traditionally hit the market in a bare-bones configuration designed for minimum price point (usually sold at a loss). Vendors can then make up for the loss on the base unit by selling accessories and games licenses. This is really no different than what Sony does with the PS. Yes, I personally wouldn't buy one without hard drive and WiFi either, but you and I aren't representative of the customer base as a whole. Face it, most consoles are bought by clueless parents to satisfy whining kids, in which case price is by far the most important factor. Little do the clueless parents know that they'll soon be spending several times the cost of the base unit in accessories and games... you'd think they would have figured that out by now.

Mod article TROLL

[Anonymous Coward]

In this interview J Allard says that there will be a version of the Xbox 360 offered without a harddrive. I have been reading /. and i have been assured countless times that this would never happen and that we must stop believing pre-release rumors!

Shame on J Allard for posting these false rumors!

Re:If slashdotted...(or your scrollbar stinks)

[FLAGGR]

Although it is kind of pointless to mod it down anymore, it doesn't deserve to be modded up. If it was not an AC post it would definantly be a karma whore, since the site shwos no signs of giving up, and since its major-nelson.com which is a microsoft hosted site, its not going to. And, its a textfile for fuckssakes, not a .mpeg or something

Well, maybe something to remember

[mcc]

We at least know you won't be able to play any XBox 1 games on the $300 version. XBox backward compatibility requires the hard drive.

Re:Well, maybe something to remember

[MindStalker]

The stated reason in the interview is that the original games expected a harddrive which was not optional. Essentially claiming that they games will fail upon not detecting a harddrive. Do I believe this? Not really.

Re:Well, maybe something to remember

[KDR_11k]

More likely the emulator will refuse to run without the HD.

Re:Well, maybe something to remember

[aweraw]

One of the following is the reason for the HDD requirment of BC:

• the emulator needs to stored on something. Having an emu disk that had to be swapped out before playing any legacy games would suck.
  
• platform specific binaries will be stored on the hard drive. I'd hope that this is the case, as it will result in the best playing experience (not that I own or plan to buy an xbox)

Microsoft is invading /.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm beginning to see a lot more Microsoft articles (propaganda and PR) being posted on this site. Is this part of Microsoft's strategy to get their employees to post on the web in the form of blogs and messageboards topics, to further their marketing?

Re:Microsoft is invading /.

[MightyMartian]

Just remember that any MS employee has likely had whatever he's going to say carefully dissected by the Redmond marketing robodroids. In other words, take it all with a heavy dose of salt, because if it ain't outright bullshit, then at least it's a good chunk of spin.

Re:Microsoft is invading /.

[Anonymous Coward]

That is the most ridiculous thing that i have heard all day.

Linux has landed and has taken over the leaders if microsoft is invading

Re:Microsoft is invading /.

[merlin_jim]

Just remember that any MS employee has likely had whatever he's going to say carefully dissected by the Redmond marketing robodroids.

Actually I believe in this case that he *is* the robodroid for the 360.

My take on the article: notice how many questions were asked multiple times? Notice how many questions he actually answers the question directly?

This felt like a fairly low-content interview IMHO...

It's all about what games will play

[WillAffleckUW]

and right now, if you're not an FPS fanatic, there's not much on the xBox 360 to interest you, except for the cross-platform games that won't really use it.

Re:It's all about what games will play

[Criterion]

"if you're not an FPS fanatic, there's not much on the xBox 360 to interest you"

Except things like Oblivion and PGR3? I could care less about FPS's *other* than Halo. I use my XBox mostly for racing games and RPG's. I do not care for the new style jap-rpg's, so I play old school on my psx if I want that (no, I don't have a ps2, nor do I want one).

Re:It's all about what games will play

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh. Well if you said it, then it MUST be true! I was gonna get a 360, but now I won't. I better go tell IGN that they are wrong!

Re:It's all about what games will play

[WillAffleckUW]

I do not care for the new style jap-rpg's, so I play old school on my psx if I want that (no, I don't have a ps2, nor do I want one).

Strange that, most of us here in Seattle love the new style japanese rpg's.

The only thing I want to know about it...

[Anonymous Coward]

does it run linux?

The question is not "does it run linux"

[mcc]

The question is, does it run linux yet?

Re:The question is not "does it run linux"

[ddefenba]

Does it run OSX86 yet?

Re:The question is not "does it run linux"

[sean23007]

It's not x86. It's PPC. And no.

Re:The question is not "does it run linux"

[Anonymous Coward]

This type of saying is getting boring my answer to this is "Why would you want to?".

Re:is it just me is the 299 version utterly pointl

[Cerdic]

Does anyone have any information about those three bugs?

Clarification

[mopslik]

Q: Can we stream videos from our PCs?
...
Now we have to have to not only have a PC in order to use this awesome feature...

I'm confused as to why you are surprised that "streaming videos from a PC" would require a PC.

...we have to have Media Center running on it

While there may be some code/DRM/whatever that requires Media Center, his statement doesn't make thet clear. He says "if you have media center on those pcs, you will be able to stream standard and high definition video." That just says that Media Center will be able to do it. It's like saying "if you have a car, you will be able to drive on the highway." It does not mean that you cannot drive on the highway in a truck, a bus, or even an armoured tank.

Re:Clarification

[Anonymous Coward]

You are right. It is quite vague. And by definition, what I am wanting to do is not streaming anyway. I want the 360 to be able to play video files from a windows shared directory on its network. It seems like it would be simple functionality to implement given the video capabilities they say it WILL do anyway. But who knows...its M$, they can screw up anything.

Re:Clarification

[tidge]

if you have a media center pc, and it is on a network with your xbox, then you can get to the content on your media center pc through your xbox and watch it on your tv.

I read that in an interview with billG.

Re:Clarification

[The Evil Couch]

hack an xbox1 and do it. they're fairly cheap now and you don't even need to open the case to do it.

I set up my xbox and red hat machine to play nice with each other. streaming formats stream, although non-streaming media like AVI, have to download before they'll start playing. still, that's only about a 10 second wait for a ~200 MB TV show file.(damn you, BBC! send some quality programming to America!)

I haven't looked recently, but I don't know of anything that'll let you stream out of a windows shared directory, but I haven't looked for one in about 2 years and someone may have put something together by now.

if the xbox 360 had included all of the features that I enjoy with my hacked xbox, I'd be much more enthused about it. as it is, likely the only reason while I'll even bother renting a system is to play the Shadowrun game when it comes out. there's just not enough new functionality and I don't play console games enough to justify the price tag.

Re:Clarification

[khellendros1984]

This is an advertisement, plain and simple. If they couldn't brag about it working in home/pro XP, then why the heck wouldn't they?

Re:Clarification

[assassinator42]

XBMC can definentally access samba/windows file shares. That's how I access most of my stuff.

Hold on - An original post of a story on slashdot?

[thenefariousone]

No thanks.

I only read duplicate stories. If it's not good enough to be green-lighted four or five times in a month, it's simply not worth reading.

Games?

[LBt1st]

I still haven't seen a reason to buy this thing. Where are the games??? Who cares about streaming video, mp3's and cameras? That's what PC's are for. Hell they even say you need a media PC to even use the feature. If you got that already, what's the point? I still haven't seen any games and it's like 2 months from launch. -Kevin

Re:Games?

[Anonymous Coward]

I still haven't seen any games and it's like 2 months from launch.

Then you haven't been looking very hard. Try GameRanking's list with links to media coverage for each game.

Re:Games?

[Miniluv]

How is this insightful? Some asshat can't find the lists of launch date games, posts about it and gets moderated well? Good lord.

Re:Games?

[Anonymous Coward]

I still haven't seen a reason to buy this thing. Where are the games???

You still play games on video game consoles? You must be old or something.

Re:Games?

[radish]

It's not really hard to find a list of games for the 360, but here's a few of the one's I'm interested in just to save you the google:

PGR3
Perfect Dark Zero
Ridge Racer 6

Gears of War and Quake 4 are also big ones coming up, not yet sure if they will be launch titles.

Re:Games?

[ChatHuant]

I still haven't seen any games and it's like 2 months from launch.

Here's a list; here's another; yet another here. Finding them took all of 20 seconds on Google.

Re:Games?

[Anonymous Coward]

And Elder Scrolls: Oblivion's gonna be great.

Re:Games?

[Anonymous Coward]

Racing
First Person Shooter
Racing
First Person Shooter
First Person Shooter

And the real reason...

[FatherOfONe]

"What is your opinion on HD-DVD?

A: it's going to be interesting to see how and if a high def format for movies plays out. when we designed the the initial xbox many people asked if sacd or dvd audio would be the successor to the cd format for music. as everyone knows the real successor was mp3 and digital distribution with things like napster ipod and msn music. while there is a lot of talk about this in the industry it will be interesting to see what the exact future of this is for movies. of course i think there will be a need for higher capacity optical media for storage applications. we prefer hd-dvd to blu-ray in terms of the flexibility it offers to different applications as well as the infrastructure costs to the market."

The real answer...
Well we hate Blue-Ray because it is what Sony picked and we are going to do everything we can to piss all over it. We realize that by not providing HD-DVD by default it will give the Playstation 3 a significant advantage in game content and as such we need to tell all the Xbox faithfull that it really isn't that important.

The real question that should have been asked.

How few XBOX 360's need to be sold this year (shipped to customers not stores), before you consider it to be a failure?

Re:And the real reason...

[Zathrus]

Well we hate Blue-Ray because it is what Sony picked and we are going to do everything we can to piss all over it.

Or, if you have a clue:

We aren't choosing Blu-ray because we don't particularly like the idea of paying our lead competition royalty patents.

There's no clear indication that Blu-ray will give Sony a "significant advantage" as you claim. Yes, Blu-ray has more storage, but it's not clear that any game is going to make use of anywhere close to even HD-DVD's "mere" 20GB+ storage capabilities in the near future.

How few XBOX 360's need to be sold this year (shipped to customers not stores), before you consider it to be a failure?

Uh, that's not even a question. That's a leading statement. Unless you meant for it to be similar to "So how long have you known that you are brain damaged?"

Which I think you did.

Oh, and no, I have no intention of buying an Xbox360. Or a PS3. Or a Revolution. The only consoles I've owned so far were a PS and PS2, but neither of them get enough use for me to seriously consider another console.

Re:And the real reason...

[blibbler]

I have no idea why people think that having a 50GB Bluray will have any benefit over 9 GB DVD for games. Warcraft 3 was released on one CD including movies. Doom 3 for all its faults, has a very impressive graphics is only 1.5GB. I am not a hardcore gamer, but I am unaware of any game that takes up more than 1 DVD, and I cannot imagine game content needing more than that in the next five years (Quake 3 was released about 6 years ago, and was about 500MB, Doom 3 was released this year (or so) and is three times the disk space.
The only benefit to bluray is if a game developer wants to release extensive HD video content, but even if they are doing 720p, the 7GB (left on a regular DVD after the game content is stored) would be enough for 40mins of carefully encoded H264 video... and if the game requires you to sit through more than 40 minutes of video, then something is wrong.

Re:And the real reason...

[TD-2779]

"...We realize that by not providing HD-DVD by default it will give the Playstation 3 a significant advantage in game content and as such we need to tell all the Xbox faithfull that it really isn't that important..." Please, how many PS3 games do you think will really NEED more than 9GB of data? Even if there's more than a handful, would it really be worth the cost of putting 1st gen Blu-ray or HD-DVD drives?

Re:And the real reason...

[FatherOfONe]

"We aren't choosing Blu-ray because we don't particularly like the idea of paying our lead competition royalty patents."

Wrong. Look at Microsoft's past as an example. My point stands. "If" the roles were reversed, you would see Microsoft telling EVERYONE why they needed HD-DVD. Much like they mentioned ALL the advantages like a HD in the XBOX vs the PS2. I do have to laugh now that they have done a 180, and won't include one in this new version.

Blue Ray in the PS3 will do two things. One is that it will cement it as the standard for HD-DVD, and the other is it will give most Americans who don't have "many" HD signals the ability to watch HD movies. So now, for a lot of Americans they could go to their local video store and rent a HD movie. This will just help fuel Blue Ray as "the" standard.

As far as games go, it will allow the devlopers to focus on either 1080i or 720p as their standard, without having to worry too much about data. The difference between 9GB and 54GB will be significant in this case.

My last question is very important. That is, specifically how few XBOX 360's need to be sold for it to be considered a failure. I ask the because Microsoft has constantly said what a giant sucess all their products where. They go out of their way to say that they have crushed all their estimates and are "way ahead" of where they are planed. They have said many times how successfull the XBOX is and yet by all accounts it has been a failure. So it begs the question of "what do they consider a failure"?
5 million units by the end of this year?
3 million?

What do they plan on shipping to the customers this year?

The silence you hear from them should tell you something.... but granted, by the end of the year, you will hear them say what a giant success it is.

Re:And the real reason...

[Why's_This_Fish_So_B]

"but it's not clear that any game is going to make use of anywhere close to even HD-DVD's "mere" 20GB+ storage capabilities in the near future."

Nor will any PC ever need more than 640k RAM. :)

Trust me, by the time content gets rolling for whatever high-def DVD format wins, we'll all be wishing for at least twice as much storage per disk.

Re:And the real reason...

[doctor_no]

Or, if you have a clue:

We aren't choosing Blu-ray because we don't particularly like the idea of paying our lead competition royalty patents.

There's no clear indication that Blu-ray will give Sony a "significant advantage" as you claim. Yes, Blu-ray has more storage, but it's not clear that any game is going to make use of anywhere close to even HD-DVD's "mere" 20GB+ storage capabilities in the near future.


If you remember back when the PS2 was originally released much of your arguments against Blu-ray were the exact same arguments used against DVD being in the PS2. Back then, DVD players cost more than most households could afford, and the DVD's capacity people said developers would never use (CD-ROM's capacity from the PS1 would be adequate). We now know that most developers have been able to utilize the DVD capacity and read speeds in the PS2 quite nicely. If MS believes that the X360 will be around for the next five years (2010) then I don't see why MS wouldn't include as a standard feature that developers can utilize for that period of time.

For a console that claims to be High Definition console it's funny that it doesn't actually play any HD movies or for that matter have a HD format for its games.

So what happens when MS brings out a HD-DVD version of the X360. Will we have four version. 1.) DVD core-system 2.) DVD/HDD Premimum system 3.) HD-DVD core system 4.) HDD/HD-DVD premium system?

Re:And the real reason...

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG - a voice of reason??? On slashdot. I am blown away. Particularly so given that each MB of content _cost_ those $$$ that are so hard to come by in todays economy, because you'll have to pay texture, model, animation artists, testers and script developers to fill them.

Thank you, blibbler, whoever you are.

Re:And the real reason...

[Zathrus]

you would see Microsoft telling EVERYONE why they needed HD-DVD

Er, they are saying that. The future Xbox360s are supposed to ship with an HD DVD drive. I wasn't aware until just now that the initial versions wouldn't have it -- that is lame.

One is that it will cement it as the standard for HD-DVD

Doubt it. That war will be fought and won or lost long before the PS3 ships. And exceptionally few people use their console as a video player anyway, so even though Sony can try to use it as a marketing chit in Blu-ray's favor, most CE companies and studios will discount that. The war will be won or lost by the standalone players and by studio contracts.

The difference between 9GB and 54GB will be significant in this case.

I was presuming an Xbox360 with an HD DVD player, which MS has said would happen (and I mistakenly assumed was in the release). Not having one is a huge drawback. Potentially fatal. And unless MS is going to upgrade the original X360 for free/minimal cost then developers won't be able to rely on having the HD-DVD drive in the future.

As for capacity, if you bring HD-DVD into the picture it's much better, although BD-ROM still has the advantage (in your example it's 30 GB vs 50 GB; not 54 GB).

by all accounts it has been a failure

I guess that depends on whose accounts you're listening to. Certainly they've been losing money hand over fist on it, but they've also managed to become seriously considered as a contender. That's not exactly failure. Their sales figures in the US and Europe haven't been horrid, but they certainly haven't been great either.

And it's hardly like they're the only company that does this. You'd be hard pressed to find a press release from Nintendo, Sony, Samsung, or any other major consumer electronics company that says "well yeah, that just fucking tanked". To single out MS here isn't exactly fair... but it's not surprising either.

Still have no intention of buying either console.

Re:is it just me is the 299 version utterly pointl

[KhaymanUCSD]

For some reason I'm reminded of a funny little line from the O'Reilly Learning Perl book talking about bugs: [Perl] is a program, and every program has at least one bug*. (footnote) * Programmers also know that every program has at least one line of unnecessary source code. By combining these two rules and using logical induction, it's a simple matter to prove that any program could be reduced to a single line of code with a bug.

SO WHATS THE DEAL WITH BACKWARD COMPAT?

[Anonymous Coward]

So is backward compatibility with XBox 1 titles going to be 100% if you have a HD!!????

Re:SO WHATS THE DEAL WITH BACKWARD COMPAT?

[RupW]

So is backward compatibility with XBox 1 titles going to be 100% if you have a HD!!????

My guess is it'll be best-effort - they'll write enough to emulate most (if not all) of the original xbox but they'll only do serious testing of the most popular games. It'd be a huge testing effort to cover them all.

Re:is it just me is the 299 version utterly pointl

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone have any information about those three bugs?

It wasn't so much three bugs as there exist three ways to defeat the security code in the 512-byte ROM.

Here're the details, Slashdot covered it a while back.

HD-DVD

[Have Blue]

Another question he didn't answer: If the 360 ever ships with a next-generation DVD player, will it output 1080i over component cables? Or do we all still need to keep waiting for a player that will work with early adopter equipment?

Re:HD-DVD

[Cid Highwind]

Don't hold your breath. The early adopters bought their hi-def equipment before Hollywood had a collective fit and started pushing for DRM to the screen on any signal over 480p. Older monitors that don't support HDMI will probably never be usable with HD content from the big entertainment corporations...

The Chat's Response = negative (400+ comments!)

[larsoncc]

Here's a Coral cached link to the article's comments. Most of them are seething mad, still.

uh huh

[stagl]

"we prefer hd-dvd to blu-ray in terms of the flexibility it offers to different applications as well as the infrastructure costs to the market."

translation: "why the fuck would we use the same format as sony?!"

Oh no...

[mg2]

From TFA:

J Allard (Expert):
Q: Will a completely black 360 be available?
A: not currently in plan for launch but as you know we will have removable faceplates and i expect down the line we will get feedback that people want other colors and we will provide it

Looks like those obnoxious mall kiosks that sell faceplates for Nokia phones from 1992 will be able to refresh their inventory.... *sigh*

Core sounds like a dud.

[gkozlyk]

The Xbox 360 sounds interesting but why go with the 2.5" drive when 3.5" are common and inexpensive. Wifi (B&G) is dirt cheap these days too. With that, plus talk about MS charging fees for companies to make 3rd party addons later on, it sounds like money-mongering of the highest level. Even for the 75% of people that wouldn't be in that chat room and aren't geeks, it doesn't sound like the Core system is a deal. Sounds like a dud.

MS should be honest and call the Xbox 360 a dud, but for now you can upgrade that dud for the low price of $100 and get what it should have in the first place.

Re:Core sounds like a dud.

[Anonymous Coward]

"why go with the 2.5" drive when 3.5" are common and inexpensive."

It's removable, so making it small and light is valid - assuming anyone ever actually uses the removability which I'm not sure about. Interesting experiment at least.

Also, it'a a games console so keeping it small, cool and quiet are good things, since it lives in the lounge. However, the full thing looks to be as freakishly huge as the xbox 1 so it seems like they wasted the size opportunity there. And given the graphics card they put in there the heat savings from a laptop drive probably won't make much difference.

Oh. shit.

[d2_m_viant]

as everyone knows the real successor was mp3 and digital distribution with things like napster ipod and msn music

Oh shit. He said iPod. 20 bucks says there two guys in black suits staring at him when he turns around from that computer screen. Somebody didn't get the memo from Bill G that says "we don't speak of such evils."

Re:Oh. shit.

[Jearil]

heh, and why would he care?

MS invented the iPod, remember? It'd be good for him to promote it :)

Rose colored lenses, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

as everyone knows the real successor was mp3 and digital distribution with things like napster ipod and msn music.

Maybe I am crazy, but I know very few people who use either service. (Whatever a 'napster ipod' is). However, I know lots of people who use iTunes (and iPod). Which brings up an interesting point.

Really, I would find the media features of the XBOX 360 more useful if I could somehow run some type of iTunes on it (due to the account permissions on iTunes purchased MP3s). I would assume that the Napster service does something similar. So really what he is saying is: hack your iTunes MP3s (its not that hard with a tool), rip your own cds (again), or buy it from us. And really for the vast majority of the public he is saying: 'buy it from us.' I think that these media aspirations are going to fall flat. How many people really loaded that many MP3s on their original XBOX? I can say I loaded maybe 200 songs and that was it.

Re:Rose colored lenses, anyone?

[ezweave]

MS wishing to market the 360 as a media hub is going to be hampered by the millions of iPod/iTunes users. Perhaps they should finally admit defeat and offer some type of compatible system.

Of course, without an HD, who is going to be ripping/downloading/selling limbs for MP3s that I will store on my... CRAP! Great marketing.

Re:Rose colored lenses, anyone?

[InsaneGeek]

I'm not a gamer (either with PC or consoles) so I'm not always up on the latest but my guess is that they are planning on their Media Center product to be the storage/app hub with their console as the media playback units.

Compared to the PS2? Why not compare it to 3DO?

[Anonymous Coward]

> This in from e-mail: Got a question about the $399 price point
> for Xbox 360. Feels steep.
> J Allard (Expert): i think that the capabilities we are
> offering with xbox 360 are unmatched in the history of
> videogaming. it's a great value. and the system that most of
> the folks in this chat room are going to prefer.

As I read this, I couldn't help but recall that this was pretty much the same thing they were saying about the 3DO prior to its launch.

> [continued]: i saw a posting earlier today where someone looked
> up the historical prices and capabilities of games systems.
> it was worth noting that the ps2 launched at $368 (in japan)
> with no hard drive, no online service, no mu, no wireless,
> no voice, no network adapter, no remote, and only support
> for 2 controllers

The 3DO launched at $699 with no hard drive, no online service, no mu, no wireless, no voice, no network adapter, no remote, and support for up to 8 controllers daisy-chained (IIRC). This point of his is really meaningless.

Article Slow, Transcript here

[hobotron]

pS34lyfe: lol ur xbox doesnt have 200 mil textapixel fill rate lol
pS34lyfe: cell is cyberdyne look at the screen sh0ts
AllardJ: what
g4m3Cubist: u know u can get liek 2 rev for one xbox360 so is that like 2 rpm? lololz
satUrnSleeper: SATURN WILL RETURN AND TRIUMPH
pS34lyfe: sum1 +b that s3g4 n00b
g4m3Cubist: jus +b *@aol.com lmaosedong
PeeCeeG4m3r: why is the cs:s serber down
d0nK1nG: CLOCKSPIDER VS LIMECAT DEATHMATCH AT 8PM CST
rEvOlUtIoN06: so uh why are u talkin bout ur console every1 knows ur just apossed to be quiet like nintendo
AllardJ: Oh Jesus Christ why did I agree to this

Re:Article Slow, Transcript here

[Morgalyn]

ROFL k THX

Re:Article Slow, Transcript here

[Thuktun]

AllardJ: Oh Jesus Christ why did I agree to this

This would surely have been in all lower-case, as Mr. Allard seems to have a malfunctioning SHIFT key.

Re:More readable format? Thanks!

[Anonymous Coward]

When I brought up the original article my first thought was "Oh no! I can't read through this mess!". Then I realized some kind person would likely have a reformatted version in the discussion thread and, lo!, here it is.

A better interview ...

[tirefire]

A much better interview can also be seen here.

I may have read it differently...

[Winterblink]

I just added "... so we will make more money" to the end of every sentence.

Re:is it just me is the 299 version utterly pointl

[jcdick1]

Actually, its quite smart. If you look at the suggested pricing for the components to upgrade the core system to the premium, the price goes way above the premium package pricing. Since most consoles are purchased by parents for their whining kids, they will get the cheaper version to make the holiday nice, and then their kids start whining about how useless the box is without the add-ons (backwards compatibility requires HDD, for example), suddenly MS has the revenue from buying all the addons separately. Its sort of a delayed "bait and switch". Come in and buy the core, but six months later, you have purchased the premium for a lot more money...

Re:is it just me is the 299 version utterly pointl

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd call those bugs. The code was designed to be secure, and any security failure was clearly not intended.

Thanks for the link.

CORE audience

[malakai]

A: i think it is really important to emphasize especially for the folks in this chat room that we did not design the core system around you guys. similar to the shuffle, the boxter, the 4:3 tv, the 1mpix camera, we designed the core system as a way to get folks to come into the family at a cheaper prices and decide if an how they scale the system. the great thing about our approach unlike these examples is that the core owner can upgrade the system and match the capabilities of the premium system when the time is right for them.

Re:is it just me is the 299 version utterly pointl

[Criterion]

So you're saying that you don't have a problem with the fact that MS released a bundle geared towards less discriminating users, and as such, have created a situation for the game dev to cater to that lowest common denominator? There is now no real incentive for them to utilize the hdd to it's fullest, as it is not a component that is present in all machines. This irks me to no end.

I despise MS, but I love the XBox.. yes, it's a quandry for me. This gives me added reason to despise MS as they seem dead set on killing the one thing they make that I like : .

Budget Issues?!

[BrackishWater]

Q: Why doesn't wifi work out of the box? A: we worked with game designers and talked to hard core gamers and asked them what their top priorities were and the bulk of our investment went into the silicon to the cpu and the gpu so we would have kick butt games. we had a fixed budget and could not do it all. Since when do the richest bastards on the planet have budget issues when it comes to competing with Sony and Nintendo? Tens of thousands of developers and billions of dollars and everything MS has ever done is crap. Ugh, the irony...

Re:Budget Issues?!

[Winterblink]

Because maybe this time around Microsoft is actually looking to make a decent profit? More features and more hardware equals more money to be paid by the consumer at the till. The more they sell the more they make, and the higher it costs the less they sell.

Re:Budget Issues?!

[realmolo]

You retard.

By "budget issues", he meant that they couldn't include wifi support in the box and still keep the cost of the console low enough.

Re:Budget Issues?!

[dioscaido]

The xbox360 will sell with or without wifi. Would you rather

(a) include wifi, take a extra $10-20 hit for each console sold

(b) sell wifi seperately for $50, profit

Well, I'm convinced...

[FSUpaintball]

...not to buy an Xbox 360 for awhile. No streaming content from a PC unless it's got the Media Center version of XP installed, packages sold WITHOUT the HDD meaning developers can't utilize it for game performance, a measly 20GB drive in the version that DOES come with an HDD...

I was actually thinking about buying one on release day when I heard about the wi-fi capabilities, about the streaming media center potential... really, I wanted something that doubled as a media center for my entertainment center. I wanted to be able to stream music and movies and content from my PC. I wanted great game performance. And the $299 price tag was icing on the cake.

And then I hear about wifi problems, about seriosly disappointing graphics hardware, about hard drives that developers can't utilize any better than a memory card, and about needing a Media Center PC to stream content. Oh, and the "good" version of the Xbox is actually $400. Screw that. I would have thought MS had learned from the first Xbox and listened to the consumers. I guess not. I think this is going to fail and will probably be MS' last venture into the console world.

Re:Well, I'm convinced...

[Is0m0rph]

If you want a media center go pick up a cheap old Xbox, wireless adapter, softmod it and put XBMC on it. You're done. Stream whatever you want from your PC for less than $200.

Re:If slashdotted...(or your scrollbar stinks)

[Anonymous Coward]

The main point of the post was to fix the awful formatting of the original article. Since it was posted one minute after garcia's (+5 informative) version, the redundant mod is appropriate, but if it wasn't an AC post that would be harsh.

Technology for Sleepers.

[Fantastic Lad]

Word to the wise. . .

Stay away from these things, kids.

Ascending takes a fully charged and properly functioning mind, and these boxes exist to make sure you never reach such a state.

-FL

Re:Technology for Sleepers.

[Anonymous Coward]

How the parent got modded up for this is beyond me. If you're mind is weak enough a game will keep you distracted from the real world, the Xbox 360 isn't the first of your problems.

Re:Technology for Sleepers.

[Anonymous Coward]

clearly not a virtual adept. the future is the machine. and it looks pretty damned good.

Re:Technology for Sleepers.

[Fantastic Lad]

How the parent got modded up for this is beyond me. If you're mind is weak enough a game will keep you distracted from the real world, the Xbox 360 isn't the first of your problems.

Tha parent was not modded beyond the normal posting parameters, so something clearly is beyond you. Perhaps less time in your game cube would help. . ?

-FL

Core version not backwards compatible...

[techstar25]

Is it backwards compatible? Apparently not the core version.

J Allard (Expert): Another one from mail: What about backward compatibility in the core system?
J Allard (Expert): because we didn't abstract storage in the first generation xbox back compat will require a hard drive.

It sounded like they designed the "core" version for casual gamers. Well it's the casual gamers who want to play their older games. This was a strange decision indeed. The "core" PS3 will be backwards compatible. The "core" Revo will be backwards compatible (as in way backwards). I think we may have discovered the proverbial nail in the coffin.

Re:Core version not backwards compatible...

[Thuktun]

It sounded like they designed the "core" version for casual gamers. Well it's the casual gamers who want to play their older games.

(1) The newer version of the XBox APIs abstracts the storage, the older version didn't. You therefore need a hard drive to property run the older games.

(2) Someone in another department (marketing or product management) designed the different market deployments of the system. Since they now had the freedom to vary the storage level on the system, it was an obvious decision to have one level with and one without the hard drive.

Only when you combine (1) and (2)--decisions made in different departments without a lot of analysis on their combination--do you get the outwardly-strange "backward compatability only works in the premium edition" thing.

Accessories argument is not valid...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think that selling accessories has anything to do with the Core pack.

The Core pack is all about "being like Sony". They want to sell 50 million systems - and the only way to do that is to sell systems at $199 and $149 (see PS2 - which only took off after being dropped to that point). This will get them there fast, and still have bleeding edge technology (if you want it, you pay for it, why not? People who just want to play Madden won't care).

Re:Accessories argument is not valid...

[bleaknik]

Wrong. People who are stupid enough to play Madden again and again are just stupid enough to run out and buy an xbox 360 so they can play it in hi-def on their 13 inch sylvania crt from 1996.

You over estimate the intelligence of Madden fans. (For the record, I liked Madden once upon a time... It used to be an innovative, enjoyable game)

HDD questions

[solomonrex]

1. The core system looked a lot better when I thought any hdd could drop in.
2. If you can't drop any hdd in, you can't really play your old games, if they're saved to the X-1 hdd, right? So what do you do? Is it compatible with old memory cards? Do you now have to buy: X1 memory card, transfer to new hdd/new memory card? How do you transfer (perhaps a lot) of files when you upgrade from X2 to X2 hdds?

Make money?

[Gruneun]

It's that sort of capitalist mentality that gets money just flowing into the shareholders pockets. What in God's name were they thinking?!!

Re:is it just me is the 299 version utterly pointl

[Locke2005]

Internet connections are not a component on all machines either... does this deter developers from making games that require an internet connection? Yes, no guarateed hard drive discourages developers from making games that depend on a hard drive to function. But that doesn't mean they won't make games that have more functionality if a drive is present. All applications need to handle lack of file space gracefully anyway, since there is no guarantee that some other application hasn't used up all the space on the hard drive...

Does it annoy me that once again Microsoft has let all the technical decisions be made by the Marketing Department and not by engineers? Yes, but come on, you should be used to it by now...

Retailers Ripping off Consumers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't it be possible for the retail stores just to un-pack all of the crap in the premium package and just sell "core" systems (maybe even at a profit) as long as the Xbox360 is selling out elsewhere? Then they can sell the accessories at full retail value, racking up profits, if not MORE profits. I know if I ran a game shop, that's what I'd be doing. Sorry you nerds, daddy's gotta eat and most consoles launch with razor-thin margins for retailers....

On the same subject, isn't it usually the retailers who make the console+accessory bundles (see:PSP). I really didn't expect this from MS.

Re:No one is 'forcing' anyone

[BraceletWinner]

Why do people insist on using this term? Microsoft isn't forcing anyone to buy anything. They can't. If you don't like the options they've presented, don't buy the damned thing. PS2 works this way (and I assume the other two gaming systems as well, but I don't own them, so I don't know). Accessories are a big money-maker in this industry.

If they did release the 360 with only one option: HDD, wireless controller, and everything else that comes in the premium package at $399, people would be bitching that they are 'forced' to pay for stuff they don't want. But you would still have two options: 1) pay $399 for the box or 2) Don't give MS any money.

I don't see anyone being forced to do anything at all.

Five Years

[FriedTurkey]

another possibility is that 5 years from now that you want more storage on the box or on the network and be able to take advantage of that

Who cares?? In 5 years Microsoft will replace the Xbox 360 and only certain games will be compatible.

Re:Five Years

[Crzysdrs]

I doubt it will be even five years, Microsoft pushed this cycle of console games. Who says they aren't going to reduce the length even more to be the first one out the gate again?

J Allard interview

[klept]

I hope he can design gaming systems better than he can answer questions

360 could be screwed withouth HD-DVD

[greggman]

The simple math is there are plenty of PS2/XBox games with 1-2 gig of graphic data plus 1-3 gig of sound and video. The sound will stay the same size, the video will go HD and the graphic data will go 8X! 512meg system member vs 64meg for Xbox means current gen data sizes * 8. Today's games with just there content made next gen will not fit on a DVD.

360 Sells out in UK

[Anonymous Coward]

Well despite all the negativity, GAME, the UK's largest games retailer, has already gone through it's entire allocation of premium units on preorders.

Unsuprisingly there's still a ton of the POS 'Core' systems left over.

not quite

[sbma44]

It's not media center XP that will be required, it the XP media connector. It's just a free download, not a whole OS. I'm not sure if it'll work with win2k -- that'll be the sticking point for me.

It's all a shot in the dark right now, but I'm guessing it'll just stream WMV. I'm no expert on encrypted video, but hopefully someone can pluck whatever keys are necessary (if any) out of the binary and hack up a modified version of VLC.

Re:not quite

[si618]

why bother?

XBMC is superb, streaming most things you'd want from windows or linux (ccXstream is easier than smb), I dumped my old dashboard ages ago, and aside from a dvd menu system (just the play the dvd doofus), is there much else you need it to do? plays ogg vorbis, xvid, xlink-kai integration, milkdrop visuals, all those python scripts for game and movie trailers, it's the bomb! M$ are going to have to do something pretty special to make me want to switch from XBMC.

If the games are great and XBMC makes it across, i'll probably get one, the 20GB HDD doesn't phase me, most of the 160GB my current Xbox has is full (can shift that to my PC), but the standard Xbox partition still has ~4GB left :) If the 360 games aren't that crash hot, the old xbox can be for media and the PS3 for games.

Another assessment of the Allard interview

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/ChrisM/weblog?cat name= for another detailed assessment of the J Allard interview. Pretty good insight!

You missed his point

[Namarrgon]

this did not deter game developers from utilizing the hard drive both for exclusive games and cross platform games on xbox.

A cross-platform game has a single codebase that supports both systems with a HDD and systems without. When a HDD is present, the game offers extra features - custom soundtracks, for example. Yes, the developer actually went the extra distance to offer more features to make his game more attractive, because the market was big enough.

Now, if 95% of customers buy the Core system with no HDD and only 5% have a HDD (as with the PS2), the developers may not bother. If it's 50/50, that's a much more significant market; all those HDD-owning customers may well choose his game with custom soundtracks over the competitor who didn't bother.

MS have to be able to ditch the HDD; Xbox 1 taught them that. But they really want people to get one, so they're making the HDD system as attractive as possible. Any sensible gamer who wants a 360 will very likely pay the extra.

Re:You missed his point

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you would've made a good point if custom soundtracks weren't forced upon developers in every game via the Xbox360 dashboard which has to be acessable from every game released for the Xbox360,

People have paid more in the past

[Namarrgon]

Of course most people will get the cheaper option. $400 is a lot of money.

You may be right, but anyone who bought a Playstation or Genesis at launch paid almost that much in today's terms. Others, like the Saturn, 3DO, NeoGeo and even the original Atari VCS, cost far more.

Then there's all those gamers who pay $400+ just for a high-speed graphics card, not to mention the rest of the PC. Considering that the 360 and PS3 both include a top-flight graphics chip at least as powerful as anything around, getting the entire system for $400 (plus a wireless controller etc) is quite a good deal from that perspective.

Re:People have paid more in the past

[jandrese]

Yeah, but I'm not talking about them. They're less than 1% of the population and less than 5% of the gaming population. I'm talking about the guys who stream into Wal*Mart by the millions to pick one up so they can play Madden07: Just Like Last Year.

Par for the course

[Namarrgon]

Could you plug a standard flash drive into PS2, or Xbox1? They both had USB ports.

The idea of forcing consumers to pay extra for "official" accessories has been around since Nintendo pioneered it more than a decade ago. You get the console at a loss; they have to make it up somehow. Don't like it? Buy a PC instead.

Re:Par for the course

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes you can on PS2. You can't save your games directly on a flash drive but you can use some third party programs to transfer the data.

The console is sold AT A LOSS

[Namarrgon]

People, I know this is /. and an MS article to boot, but aren't we overdoing the complaints here?

Yes, the accessories are expensive. All consoles have expensive accessories, especially at launch. Why? Because the console itself is way underpriced for what you get.

You get a complete gaming system with HDD, remote, wireless controller, headset, 512 MB of RAM etc with a top-flight graphics chip for the same price that gamers pay for a board with just the graphics chip, and you're calling it a scam?

It's a business, they try to make money, same as anywhere else, and the console market can offer better deals than PCs in many ways (the combination of Xbox1, a modchip and XBMC has made a lot of people quite grateful for MS' "generosity").

Its also Java

[Anonymous Coward]

Blue ray will use Java for the DVD menus and games.

Why is obvious to me...

[YesIAmAScript]

Of course, I could be wrong.

The hard drive is the single biggest mistake MS made with the Xbox, from a unit cost perspective.

Why? Because you have to drop the price of a game machine over its lifetime. So you hope that the price of making it gets lower over its lifetime. The problem is that hard drives don't really get cheaper over time, they get bigger.

When the Xbox came out, MS got a deal on some left over Western Digital 8GB and Quantum (I think) 10GB drives. They maybe paid $40 for each. How much is a 8GB or 10GB drive now? Answer, you can't get one, even as an OEM. The smallest drive made now is 40GB. It's the Seagate ST340015A. And it's sold to OEMs only. It's the same drive Sony sells in their PS2 HDD add-on.

So MS buys that and gets a custom firmware for it to limit it to 10GB (and then limits to 8GB in software). How much does that drive cost, in quantity? Maybe $30. And it's the only 40GB drive left, if Seagate didn't make it, they'd be buying 80GB or 120GB drives from someone else at an even higher cost (perhaps $40).

A PIII (w/Celeron sized-cache) was mildly expensive 4 years ago. Now? Peanuts, in quantity. 64MB RAM? Cheap, perhaps $10. A GeForce 3-class video chip? $50 at Fry's on a card in a box with 128MB VRAM (Xbox has no VRAM), surely under $15 OEM.

This is also probably why MS selected a 2.5" drive. They simply couldn't get a 3.5" drive with small enough capacity. By going 2.5", they can get a 20GB drive (of which Xbox emulation will take up 8GB) and sell you an upgrade later. In 3.5", they could get a 40GB today, probably 80GB tomorrow. By the end of the life of Xbox 360, it'd be 120GB minimum, easy.

Meanwhile, the sell price of Xbox has dropped from $300 to $150. With perhaps 25% of that locked up in the hard drive, it's a tough squeeze. And we all know the real profit is in selling games. If you bought an Xbox 4 years ago, MS probably sold you 8-10 games by now. If you buy one today, how many will you buy before you move on? 5? How many will be for the full $50 and not $20 platinum hits?

It's no surprise to me MS wants to get 360 on the road ASAP. Selling an Xbox is near a losing proposition for them now, better to get people on the next platform, where they can buy $50 controllers and $20 battery packs/chargers for them.

Making the HD optional clears a path to a lot more cost cutting in the future. It makes a ton of sense. So I was shocked (in the E3 timeframe) to hear MS was jumping on that grenade again and including one standard. Don't go expecting a PS3 to have a standard hard drive.

But I hope both make good use of the optional drives. It really does improve the gameplay, a lot. And it's a near necessity if you want to sell online add-on packs for games at $5 every two months.

I agree many hardcore gamers won't buy XBox 360 at the $400 price. I know my hardcore friends are mostly staying away. And that's bad news for MS, because if you were at E3, you know there weren't many A-list titles in the pipe for XBox. MS has to get gamers over to Xbox 360 and fast.

My personal theory on the price is that MS expects very short supplies before Xmas. They're already floating a November (even Black Friday!) release date. That's last-minute. Surely the schedule is already up against the wall, and if doesn't slip at all, it'll make Xmas, but not with many units to sell. So, if you have only a few units to sell, why not make as much as possible off them? As long as you sell them all out, you can't lose. So make it a $400 launch and drop the price to $300 in February.

BTW, I have a 360 ($400 version) on order. But none of my friends (some who even work in the console gaming industry) do. Good luck MS, it's going to be tough getting this thing established the way you wanted to before PS3 comes out.

Re:Why is obvious to me...

[MindStalker]

You're wrong in assuming that a company the size of microsoft couldn't have an endless supply of small harddrives. iPod has a custom made harddrvie, no reason microsoft can't have one, and for cheap.

Xbox 360 is a terminal

[tepples]

Hell they even say you need a media PC to even use the feature. If you got that already, what's the point?

The Media Center PC is in one room. The big screen TV is in another. Put the Xbox 2*Pi Radians console next to the big screen TV, pull some CAT5e cable through the wall, and the console can act as a terminal for the Media Center PC.

Re:No one is 'forcing' anyone

[patternjuggler]

Why do people insist on using this term? Microsoft isn't forcing anyone to buy anything. They can't. If you don't like the options they've presented, don't buy the damned thing.

They use a strong term like force to warn other people not to buy the damned thing. We don't like the options because there's is no natural technical reason for how limited they are- the limitations have been forced.

Re:is it just me is the 299 version utterly pointl

[patternjuggler]

MS released a bundle geared towards less discriminating users, and as such, have created a situation for the game dev to cater to that lowest common denominator?

Right. The average gamer is more savvy than MS and the grandparent post gives them credit for- there's no better way to turn off your most valuable market (I'm guessing teens and 20-something males) than by making your machine something that isn't dedicated 100% for them to play cool games on- it's for suckers, it's for kids, it's for families, it's for people to watch movies or listen to music on, it's to browse the net with, it's an appliance, (and the worst possible, but MS hasn't gone there yet) it's educational.

Out of the box

[Namarrgon]

How many consoles in the last decade were useful "out of the box", at least the basic package? How many included any save-game storage? Only one. Did every single PSX & PS2 purchaser realise they couldn't save & become annoyed? Did Sony solve the problem by including memory cards in the basic package?

Look at it this way: no matter which console you buy, you're getting a great deal - a lot of expensive hardware at well under cost. Yes, the add-ons are too expensive, but it's still an excellent deal compared to buying a PC to play games of that level, or even just an equivalent graphics card.

Try to take a more balanced view of things. Oh wait, slashdot, right...

Re:Out of the box

[Guspaz]

But this isn't about comparing the 360 to a PC, it is about comparing the core package to the $400 package, and if the $300 package is actually useful. IIRC the Microsoft memory card is something like $40 or $50 US, which takes the $300 package a lot closer to the $400 package. I doubt we'll see any third party memory cards any time soon.

The question is if the market will bear a $400 console. I don't think it will, and I think Microsoft is going to be forced to backtrack a bit and offer a bit more in their core ($300) offering.

Don't mistake my statements for an anti-microsoft statement, because I'm not against the 360. I just think Microsoft is making some big mistakes that could cost the 360 the market.

Re:Out of the box

[Namarrgon]

There's no question that some of the market will pay $400 to get the console & HDD & new wireless stuff (people have paid a lot more in the past), and some people will be happy to have the option of a cheaper Core system, despite the difference in capabilities. It's really about expectations - the people who are unhappy today are universally those that wanted all the features MS have been hyping at what they felt was the "standard" console price. Their own expectations have lead directly to their disappointment. Realistically, since both systems are well below cost, one shouldn't be complaining.

We'll see what happens when PS3 pricing is announced. If it's also $400 (or more), as seems likely to me given the sheer cost of all its hardware (and Sony's confidence), then people will likely see the XBox pricing in a better light - similar price & similar features, or a stripped-down version for people who don't need the fancy stuff. Where's the problem?

P.S. I note that Premium system preorders have already hit #1 on Amazon UK & FR (Core system is #197), so I don't think MS are that far off the mark...

Biggest Mistake Ever

[thundar2000]

The reason why consoles work so well, is that they are standardized. So they are an appliance, put in any game and it works.

By creating all these options, they are killing that standard.

MS should just suck it up, create just 1 "xbox 2" and be done with it and stop letting the marketing and sales people f up everything.

Also, they way they approached this was so stupid. They should of just said this is the system at 299, and these are the options. Plus there will be bundles of options in packages too. Would of been much easier to deal with than announcing that there are two 'skus'

I'm not.

[YesIAmAScript]

Microsoft doesn't make harddrives.

But perhaps you're saying MS simply bought up enough hard drives years ago to last the length of the Xbox run. Well, there's two problems with that.

1. They didn't. I've opened at least one Xbox a year and I know what drives are in them. I didn't just make up the model number on that drive, you know. They are that particular Seagate 40G drive right now with the 10G firmware. And a friend who deals with OEM drives told me it is the only 40G available. And he appears to be correct.
2. That wouldn't be cost effective either. The whole point is to get drives cheaper now than you did before. If you bought them all at the start, you'd have fixed your cost for the life of the product, which ensures it wouldn't drop.

The iPod drive is not custom made, it was sold by Toshiba before the iPod even came out. Just no one else thought to use it for what Apple did. And Apple is a victim of the same problem. Toshiba doesn't make a 1.8" drive below 20GB now. Many people would be happy with 15G, but Toshiba refuses to make it (more accurately, won't make it and sell it for less than the 20G).

The drive vendors are smart. They protect their revenues. They don't want them to drop. Additionally, the problem is that it isn't cheaper to make a (capacity-wise) smaller drive than a bigger one. The current heads and media are capable of 80-133GB per platter in the 3.5" range, you don't save any money by not filling at least one side up.

I love how you use "custom made" and "cheap" in the same sentence. They don't go together. The way to get something cheap is to buy commodity parts, and have multiple suppliers at the ready. If you buy custom, you blow that away.

And since there's only one supplier of 40G HDs, the price on them isn't going to be as good as if they were in the meat of the market where there is competition. Going to 2.5" put them at the cost-effective low-end of the market, where they wanted to be, instead of as a specialty item.

I know I'd love my Xbox 360 to be a lard-drived media server, like my HD TiVo with 400G in it. And why wouldn't MS want to sell me media over the internet to the 360? I'm a little bummed they didn't go that direction.

Re:I'm not.

[MindStalker]

Well they did imply that the HD is upgradeable to a larger HD. And as its removable.. why not. The new systems will probably add spin to the mix. New Xbox 360 with HD-DVD and NEW 100GB drive!!!! (when its the minimum they can buy anyways)