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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..."
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.
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
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.
Of course it's not dumb. I mean, everything Microsoft touches turns to gold. Just look at Windows ME and WebTV... err... nevermind!
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.
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.
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.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
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.
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.
Advice for my fellow geeks: before seeking out that threesome you dream of, you might see what a TWOsome is like first.
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?
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.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world; those that understand binary and those that do not.
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"?
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.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
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.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
The question is, does it run linux yet?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
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.
http://hughgordon.com/
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
"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?
The more I learn about science, the more my faith in God increases.
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."
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
There is truth in humor.
A much better interview can also be seen here.
I just added "... so we will make more money" to the end of every sentence.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
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...
What?
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.
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)
Deja Vu
n. 1. The sensation that you've read this very article before.
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
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.
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...
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?