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Allard 'Gets Real' With IGN
schnikies79 writes "In an interview with IGN, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President Chief Architect J. Allard said he wants to work with competitors on the XBox 360. From the interview: 'I'm pro consumer on this one to the end,' says Allard. 'Anybody in my company who thought this was a bad idea to plug in Sony or Apple devices into this thing, I ended that conversation pretty quickly. This is the right thing to do for consumers. Once they invest $500 in their digital media library, you can't ask them to go buy a 360 music player and a 360 digital camera, and a 360...NO! They got their stuff. They're going to want to plug it in. We're going to be open here, guys. And if anything, I wish we could be more cooperative with the other companies that are doing those things. And if Sony or Apple were to call me up and say, "Hey, we want to some special things with the 360," I'm on it. I think it would not be in anybody's interest to say, we're not going to work with 360. It's good for them, it's good for us, and it's good for consumers.'"
For Apple or Sony to approach him is a very large 'IF'.
Sony wants to sell its PS[n], while it may be good for the camera end of Sony or the Music end of Sony, they're probably not so far apart these days as to assist a competitor of the video game console end of Sony.
Microsoft's Corporate Vice President Chief Architect J. Allard said he wants to work with competitors on the XBox 360.
"Come in to my parlour", said the spider to the fly.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Strange, if microsoft feels that way why don't they release controllers or cameras for the playstation2? Oh that's because they wouldn't want to risk the industry standardizing on anything but their product. Could that be the same reason apple and sony aren't jumping at the opportunity jump on the 360 bandwagon... maybe.
Shadus
Read my previous thoughts on this matter here: http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=16623 3&cid=13866885
He may be telling the truth but I have a hard time believing him.
Actually, I may believe him but it's hard to imagine 1 Microsoft guy doing something that every one of their MBAs and Gates himself do not want.
Microsoft has been fighting open standards/interfaces for 2-3 decades.
I think I speak for all of us when I see WE'LL BELIEVE IT WHEN WE SEE IT!
If you "get" pointers add me as a friend (116)!
...then why are the games and system region-coded?
Why shouldn't this happen? Microsoft is never going to be on the forefront of the device market. Why not make it compatible with Apple and Sony devices? Then they can stick it to Apple and say they're open with their technologies, why is iTunes and iPod such closed devices. They are not losing market share with this ploy, but they are going to get a lot of positive PR.
That is, if you don't start charging a license fee to plug into the 360... Then we'll see how many other companies produce products for it.
Very. Probably say something such as "I'd like my Linux device to work with it" or "I'd like my Linux games to run on it" and he'd show some different colours.
I hope for the sake of the consumers, that he get's his way.
Smells like a hook, are you sure you mean that?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
what does the slashdot crowd do when, shock and horror, after spending years repeating the same litany of simple lessons about intellectual property, interoperability, secure code, etc., that someone in the industry actually wakes up and starts listening and says "yeah, you're right" and changes their practices accordingly?
i think some of you have based your entire understanding of reality on the fact that these guys will just never get it
well, and i'm not saying this 360 move is it or not, what if someday they actually get it?
a 500,000 ton tanker has difficulty changing course, but, lo and behold, that doesn't mean it can't actually change course, SLOWLY, but inevitably
these guys just might come around to the slashdot crowd's way of thinking after all
then what will the slashdot crowd do? what will be their purpose for living then? LOL
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Hey great Idea.
"Yeah see everyone, we made the 360 work with that stuff, but if it doesn't work for you, that's Sony/Apple's fault, not ours."
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2. Extend
3. Extinguish
Or has everyone forgotten?
How can we trust Microsoft to leave open standards and not pigeon-hole us into their entertainment platform after they've spent the past 20 years doing the exact opposite to the Windows platform?
This is not about open standards. This is classic double-speak, in the Orwellian tradition. This is saying "we are opening up the Xbox 360" when what they are *really* saying is "we have the Xbox 360 and we would like all other companies to open their products up to it." He's painting MS as the good guy and backhandedly saying it's everybody else's fault if they don't want to make products that conform to MS's vision.
All MS has done with the 360 is make it mass-storage compliant. So it'll work with any other device that's also mass storage compliant. Then he says something to the effect of "but if other companies who are not mass storage compliant would like to make 360 products, we'd love to have them." In other words, "Oh, so the iPod doesn't support Janus? Well, that's Apple's fault, isn't it?"
I hope nobody is fooled by this. Of course, every company - Sony, Nintendo, MS, whoever - would love it if all their competitors suddenly started supporting their products. But business doesn't work that way. MS knows that, but they're obviously trying to sell consoles here. This is called "public relations".
Is it good that the Xbox 360 is mass storage compliant and supports Windows DRM? I guess the first part of that is ok, though nothing special, and the last part is not something I'm really interested in. But the spin that's being put on this is really intended to make MS's competitors look bad for not toeing MS's line; it's not about actually doing anything for the consumer, because MS must know that they're really not doing anything for the consumer.
I guess my real question is: will they allow people to run Linux or BSD on the 360 without having to hack the hardware?
Take the interview in temporal context, it was done at X05, when there was many, many weeks left before 11/22/05.
Wow, Microsoft can't get away with anything on Slashdot. A little less knee-jerk bashing, please.
Why do we have this attitude that "what's good for consumers is bad for shareholders?" It smells of zero-sum economics, which I think is a load of crock. Could it possibly be that Microsoft, in persona J. Allard, recognizes a demand (i.e., an opportunity to make money) and wishes to supply that demand?
To me, that's that mark of a great business leader, to take advantage of the market's demand, as opposed to trying to twist demand to match supply. A good example of the latter, I think, would be the RIAA et al.
I'm not saying Microsoft hasn't/doesn't do some bad business, but come on, people! Give credit where credit is due.
Obligatory MS bash: M$ is probably just touting a feature they plan never to implement. w00t! I called them out!
Microsoft's certification is a GOOD thing. If they are delaying games to get them through the certification process - like drivers going through basic WHQL compatibility and regression testing - then they will arrive on your doorstep with less bugs.
This means a better reception for your console!
If Certification is granted and manufacturing can start the next day (we will assume Microsoft have some dedicated factories for this and won't be put at the bottom of the list for some subcontracted DVD fab) then they can print hundreds of thousands per day, and millions per week.
Launch units are meant to top 3 million WORLDWIDE, so they may start certifying them next week for production, and still be ready with every title of a 20-title line-up with equal share of the market.
You might get shortages of the standalone copies of popular titles but.. that's life on launch day. Since most retailers are bundling, the popularity of the titles is defined on what they THINK they can sell - and they have already been "sold" as preorders to retailers. This would determine the numbers they NEED to produce.
I would think launch day is the BEST time to make a fast production run of exactly the right amount, to cut down on wastage and warehouse stock at all levels.
Really, they may be on to something here, and it could increase sales greatly. You could use iTunes to load up your iPod, and not own a "proper" PC or Apple computer. I don't think that they are trying to compete with Nintendo at all - Nintendo has taken the Revolution far enough afield, you could almost say it is in a different genre of games console from the MS and Sony products. That just leaves the PS3. Including a feature like this could help encourage consumers to adopt the XBox 360 before the PS3 release occurs. It might be a valid selling point for homes without a PC, allowing them to use those digital devices to their full extent without a PC.
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2) Microsoft likely don't care, so long as your boats dock at their port.
3) The last thing Microsoft needs is for Apple to succeed with their digital hub thing. Giving up the peripheral market they never had to competitors in order to maintain their control of the 'hub' is probably A-OK.
4) Peripherals are more competitive and diverse than whatever you plug them into anyway. I doubt Microsoft really want that kind of stress.
5) Mind/marketshare matters more at this point than total control, and if people know the 360 works with everything, they'll be more likely to buy one. Once they get people hooked on their goodies, it's much easier to fuck them over. People are more likely to buy the next XBox than some other thing if they already have one.
Opportunity knocks. Karma hunts you down.
What's he doing specifically to ensure the XBox is different than every previous "embrace and extend" Microsoft campaign? What's not different is that he's telling the media the MS wants to be "open, consumer-driven, interoperable", that they've "learned the lesson", that "this time will be different". Talk is cheap - vendor lockin is expensive.
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make install -not war
Why is this hard to believe? Notice that he called the 360 a 'digital media library' not a 'game machine'. MS wants to get a foothold in this area, lock it up with their proprietary DRM, and force everyone else out of the market. That is their strategy - they just need acceptance from others to allow it.
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and its self-serving. Encode with their proprietary codec and you shut out non-MS windows platforms from viewing the content.
Just for the sake of repeating what I've been saying all along, this is nothing new. No, I don't mean MS was ever sincerely for open standards, but then they never were sincerely all against them. Corporations do not have ideologies and crusades, they just want to make money, and are _supposed_ to be inconsistent (and arguably even sociopaths) in that pursuit. If what's good for business today or just in a different market segment is different from what was good for business yesterday, a corporation won't stick to an ideology and Right Way like a nerd would. They will do an about face and argue the exact opposite as if it always said that.
And I don't mean only MS. Everyone. We even had sad cases like Sun which flipped between arguing opposites (e.g., between "we love Linux and open standards dearly" and "Proprietary Solaris is teh rule! Linux is teh suck! Die! Die! Die!") within the same day.
And to that end:
- when you're in the lead, you want closed proprietary (and preferrably patented) stuff to keep your customers locked in. You want a penned market segment that you can shear as you see fit. See patented connectors, the unix fragmentation, etc.
- when you're the one fighting uphill, you want open standards and anything that'll let you have a go at everyone else's penned customers
And MS in the console market is finding itself fighting uphill against Sony. (Which, as the conspiracy theory goes, was always MS's target. Nintendo was more like collateral damage.) Guess what they'll want? Right. Open standards and interfaces.
It's not that MS wouldn't like you to be locked in the XBox camp. It's that the priority now is: they don't want you locked in Sony's camp. That's all.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.