Getting All 1,700 Parts of the Xbox 360 to Market

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "Microsoft is hoping its Xbox 360 will further the company's goal to 'link the Web and entertainment of all forms in consumers' living rooms,' the Wall Street Journal reports, but 'one manufacturing misstep -- a shortage of graphics chips or a recalled hard drive -- could derail those ambitions and drag Microsoft's unprofitable videogame business even deeper into the red.' The WSJ traces the 1,700 parts that go into the device through the supply chain -- from two southern China factories, Rotterdam, and on to Toledo, Memphis, and ultimately, retailers in the U.S. -- and looks at what could go wrong along the way."

Comments

First Prime Factorization Post

[2*2*3*75011]

Getting All 2*2*5*5*17 Parts of the Xbox 2*2*2*3*3*5 to Market

Soundcard recall first, please.

[koonat]

Really, so if some hardware in the nex Xbox breaks or is recalled it will derail microsoft - would most other companies not be affected? What the?

I was recently in an IRC channel with basehead (who is an old tracking god, and now works for a video game company and is currently working on one of the 360 launch titles) who said:
The XBox360 does not have any standard stereo output. It either uses the Dolby digital, or it downsamples 5 channels together as 'mono'.

So anyone without a Dolby sound system is going to hear complete crap. Maybe this will change, but it will be launched this way. This sounds to me about as bad as a soundcard recall.

Re:Soundcard recall first, please.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, surround sound is a fantasy. I stopped going to the cinema because hearing grains of rice being bounced around on tracing paper behind my head was distracting me and destroying my enjoyment of film. Modern cinemas at least have properly designed accoustics which is more than can be said for the average family room.

In a controlled listening enviroment, well mixed 5:1 audio is fine but in the average room 5:1 leads to pronounced imaging and phase problems. Additionally, most home cinema systems ship with cheap (harsh sounding) speakers and mismatched or poorly tuned crossovers that leave a huge hole in the lower mid frequencies. The untrained ear will tell you that louder is better but really it just leads to listening fatigue, pity someone forgot to tell the public.

Re:Soundcard recall first, please.

[lowid (24) _________]

I can't speak to the xbox in particular, but it's probably worth pointing out that part of the dolby digital spec deals specifically with downmixing (not to be confused with downsampling, an example of which would be converting 48khz audio to 44.1khz audio) to stereo. What this means, is that if the xbox is outputting dolby digital encoded audio, it will output it in 5.1 if you have a 5.1 speaker system attached, or it will output in stereo if you have just the two speakers attached. This is all done automatically, as part of the decoding process, I believe. (This is why you don't necessarily have to select 5.1 or stereo when watching a DVD - only if the mixing engineer has provided a separate stereo mix.) A quickly googled reference, so you believe me - here.

The xbox could be different, but if it is actually dolby digital, which I would imagine it is if they are saying it is, the 5.1 output should also provide a true stereo mix, if you have a stereo speaker setup.

For what it's worth, I am a mixing engineer, though my work in surround and on films has been very limited.

P.

Re:Speaking of bieng in the red...

[42Penguins]

Probably, but they more than make it up with game licensing/royalties. Just like inkjet printers...cheap as hell, but ink is worth gold to sellers.

Re:somewhat on/off-topic

[The Lerneaen Hydra]

Yes it emulates the older games. However they need to port the code to a certain extent in order to play it. Also AFAIK that ported code sits on the harddisk.

Re:Speaking of bieng in the red...

[kilrogg]

Actually they don't fully make up for all the costs, as TFA points out they've lost 4 billion dollars so far.

Re:somewhat on/off-topic

[HuguesT]

The short answer is yes, it will run many, but not all XB1 games.

For the long answer, read Microsoft's own compatibility list.

Re:Speaking of bieng in the red...

[KylePflug]

They are supposed to make it up in game sales. In reality, Microsoft is losing money on the Xbox franchise as a whole.

Re:Microsoft Owns the Rights on All the Components

[SiMac]

Microsoft doesn't exactly own the rights on the components, but it's pretty close to. According to the Anandtech article, they have a license to manufacture the CPU. Likely (personally, I haven't confirmed it, but it seems probable), they have a license to manufacture the rest of the components as well. So you're correct that they can find another supplier if someone screws up.

"Full rights" to the CPU would mean they could also, for example, modify the design and license others to use their modified design. Suddenly, Microsoft becomes a powerful player in the embedded processor market by selling other people a chip that contains the results of decades of IBM R&D. IBM would, most likely, never let anyone do that, not even Microsoft.

Re:Microsoft XBox's division which....

[KDR_11k]

Which was a one-off spike attributed to Halo 2 that even their PR droids said wouldn't last and they wouldn't be profitable before 2007.

Re:"XBOX 360 DELAYED BY SHORTAGE

[epedersen]

A real possbility. Each X-box 360 has 22 #12 Torx Screws (14 silver and 8 Black.) (see http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=26 10&p=3)

Re:Speaking of bieng in the red...

[king-manic]

Doesn't Microsoft lose money on every X-box sold in the first place?

More accuratly, Microsoft loses money on every machine made. More if the machien is unsold.