How Xbox Happened

Next Generation has an exerpt from the book Smartbomb, discussing how it was that Microsoft came to enter the console market. From the article: "Two years before the Xbox's launch, Bill Gates and his top executives retreated to Puget Sound to discuss Microsoft's business model. A seismic shift was under way. The late nineties was a time of a burgeoning new consensus among media pundits and high-tech industry folks that the consumer world would turn its eye from desktop computers toward 'information appliances.'"

Comments

Has the world really turned to such devices?

[antifoidulus]

it seems to me that while usage of such "information devices" has increased significantly over the past few years, they haven't really replaced the PC so much as complimented it. It seems that now the PC is still the hub of our information activities, but when we cannot or do not want to use the pc, we use such information devices. However, it seems we are always either syncing data with the computer or connecting to it. Gates was wrong that they would supplant instead of compliment the PC.

Re:Has the world really turned to such devices?

[Anonymous Coward]

No doubt, but that is not what people were thinking in 1998; essentially the 'Next threat to Windows' has moved from the Playstation 2 to Google. With the Threat Radar changing targets, Microsoft will be less conserned with winning at all costs and thus will not be willing to spend money endlessly to capture the market; had the PS2 become more of a PC in most people's houses Microsoft would be far more willing to win at any cost today.

Re:Has the world really turned to such devices?

[king-manic]

it seems to me that while usage of such "information devices" has increased significantly over the past few years, they haven't really replaced the PC so much as complimented it. It seems that now the PC is still the hub of our information activities, but when we cannot or do not want to use the pc, we use such information devices. However, it seems we are always either syncing data with the computer or connecting to it. Gates was wrong that they would supplant instead of compliment the PC.

For my generation the PC has replaced the TV. Microsoft has it pegged wrong. They banked on the other way around.

Can't ignore Dreamcast

[FadedTimes]

Article doesn't mention working with Sega on the Dreamcast. Which in my opinion lead Microsoft in to making the Xbox (because the Dreamcast failed). It had the experience just a few years before launching the Xbox.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1998/May9 8/Segagmpr.mspx
"We have worked very closely with Sega for nearly two years to optimize Windows CE to provide the services and level of performance necessary for the exacting development requirements of video games," said Harel Kodesh, general manager, consumer appliances group at Microsoft. "We are tremendously excited by the opportunities the Dreamcast system offers to traditional video game developers and the PC gaming community."

Come on now...

[ShadowsHawk]

We all know that it wasn't created.. it evolved from Bill's loins.

Cannot stop the mental imagery!

[rts008]

"...Bill Gates and his top executives retreated to Puget Sound to discuss Microsoft's business model." I'm sorry, but every time I see this ( or similar) statement I cannot help thinking of Pinky and the Brain: "...and tomorrow we take over the WORLD!"

Change

[Piroca]

A seismic shift was under way

Sure, they began paying for people to have their hardware (as opposed to profit happily from software).

Re:Change

[GigsVT]

Yeah, I imagine it went something like this:

"How can we get the proprietary vendor lock-in that Apple has without alienating our extremely profitable base of commodity PC users?"

just maybe...

[Gravis Zero]

maybe they got bored of enslaving the business world and decided to enslave children too. sounds right up their alley. :)

Re:just maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your jokes all suck!

Seamus Blakely

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't Microsoft have enough cash to get people to rewrite the Xbox history.

It has to be embarassing for them to have hired Seamus Blakely...

Slashdotted with 10 comments?

[RemovableBait]

Whats up with the link? Slashdotted already?

Neither
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_conte nt&task=view&id=1932&Itemid=2
or
http://www.next-gen.biz.nyud.net:8090/index.php?op tion=com_content&task=view&id=1932&Itemid=2 (coralized)
work. Mirrordot isn't even linking it.

Anyone got a working link?

The same thing we do every night, Pinky

[David Nabbit]

Except the Brain was funny when his plans failed. Gates is just pathetic.

Re:The same thing we do every night, Pinky

[Dot.Com.CEO]

You, basically a nobody, are judging the richest person in the world (who, by the way, got there by not failing), calling him pathetic. His plans, by the way, have not failed. Microsoft are a big player in the console market and they have a solid business plan. The fact that they are losing money on this market is more than offset by the fact that, strategically, they have ensured their presence in one of the most important areas in the entertainment industry.

Re:The same thing we do every night, Pinky

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that they are losing money on this market is more than offset by the fact that, strategically, they have ensured their presence in one of the most important areas in the entertainment industry.

So, to use the old saw, they lose money on every console but they make up for it in volume?

Re:The same thing we do every night, Pinky

[F_Scentura]

No, the little they lose on each console (at this point) is less important than diversification a strong share of the console market offers.

Re:The same thing we do every night, Pinky

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the little they lose on each console (at this point) is less important than diversification a strong share of the console market offers.

A strong share of a market in which they are consistently losing money. I see.

Re:The same thing we do every night, Pinky

[F_Scentura]

Here's the plot.

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov 2005/tc20051122_410710.htm

They're more lumbering than stupid, you know.

still not succcessful

[ActionAL]

even after the xbox, ms wasn't successful.

as an engineer, the complex yet powerful architecture of sony's equipment can make developing games a real geekfest research and scientific project that makes you explore new ways of developing games

however from the microsoft point of view, they looked at it from a corporate how do we do just shove more games out the pipeline faster, which was what led to them using common hardware and directx on xbox 1.

interestingly they have gone a bit more complex with the triple PowerPC cores on xbox360, but still it isn't anything like what the geekfest would be to do research and develop new games for the ps3's cell.

XBox has it's roots in DirectX

[brontus3927]

Actually there was an article a while back about how the origin of the Xbox goes all the way to the development of DirectX. The basis for DirectX to be the graphics language for a Microsoft game console.