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Bill Gates on the 360

Posted by Zonk on from the i-wonder-what-he-plays-in-ffxi dept.

Engadget had a sit-down with Bill Gates at CES, and they talk for a good while about the Xbox 360's launch and subsequent issues. From the article: "We played quite a variety. Actually, the Xbox Arcade was a big thing, a lot of the adults wanted to sit down and play for five or ten minutes. It was Hexic or Zuma that were easy for them to learn the rules, get used to the controller. We had some younger kids who were just beating the heck out of me at Project Gotham Racing, Kameo, basketball, Perfect Dark Zero. We have, I think, a dozen titles in total."

13 of 40 comments (clear)

  1. Don't bother by Mursk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Don't bother reading the article (not that most do). There's hardly any Xbox talk, and most of the rest of the stuff is freaking boring. This doesn't really belong in the Games section, IMO.

    --
    "This thing does science so hard, you say, 'I've never seen that much science.'" -Sam
    1. Re:Don't bother by FinestLittleSpace · · Score: 3

      Yes, agreed. I find Gates interviews an absolute joy to read (he is a bloody good speaker) but they say NOTHING useful. Ever. And this is no exception. He needs proper probing one day. One day...

  2. He Lies through his teeth! by tb3 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "Apple has always leveraged technologies that the PC industry has driven to critical mass, the bus structures, the graphics cards, the peripherals, the connection networks, things like that, so they're kind of in the PC ecosystem and kind of not."
    There's no way he could have said that with a straight face. It should be more like, "the PC industry has always leveraged technologies that Apple pioneered." Stuff like local area networking, laser printers, 3.5 diskettes, digital cameras, USB, Firewire, ....

    --

    www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance

    1. Re:He Lies through his teeth! by SteveX · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's an interesting spin he's got, but there's a grain of truth to it.

      Apple may have invented USB (I don't know the history of it), but today most USB devices are connected to Windows based computers. If Windows hadn't adopted USB, it wouldn't have become the standard that it is. Apple has had it's share of proprietary failures too - I don't see a lot of NuBus systems today for example.

      It's an ecosystem, and both companies are part of it.

    2. Re:He Lies through his teeth! by LoRdTAW · · Score: 5, Informative

      Apple invented fire wire not USB. It was proposed back in the 80's as an SCSI replacement. It was fully developed in the 90's and made it debut at nearly the same time USB did. I think USB was either first developed by Intel or adopted by Intel, can't say for sure. Fire wire never gained popularity over USB because Apple had a hefty per port license fee along with naming problems (Supposedly no one but Apple could call it Fire Wire). Apple used the name Fire Wire, Sony called it I-link and most others called it 1394. Imagine joe six pack presented with three names for the same thing. The only thin that really saved it was its wide adoption in the video world as the interface for most every DV cam.

    3. Re:He Lies through his teeth! by Psx29 · · Score: 2, Informative

      USB2 is faster in theory although in practice I doubt theres much difference something like 480mbps versus 400mbps

    4. Re:He Lies through his teeth! by Creepy · · Score: 2, Informative

      Apple wanted $1 per port to use the name FireWire, not for the technology itself, and the extra cost was to recoup co-marketing expenses - the actual technology was licensed as IEEE1394 for the standard rate most people including Intel charge for technologies, something like 25 cents per port. Sony called it iLink because they didn't want to pay Apple's marketing cost, which was perfectly fine with Apple. Incidentally, Intel let manufacturers avoid co-marketing costs if they agreed to exclusively put "Intel Inside" stickers on their machines (outside the computer's brand name), otherwise they were charging rates similar to Apple.

          Intel invented USB as a low power small periphrials bus that could be chained together and would eliminating device specific periphrial drivers by including drivers in the device itself. I believe it ultimately targets PS/2 mice and keyboards, which is a licensed IBM technology (Intel has "not invented here" problems as bad as Apple, IMO). USB was originally intended for low power devices only, and therefore items like USB disk drives also need power adapters. USB 2.0 was a quick ploy to steal market share for high speed devices, but it still is underpowered (500mA/5V max), if a slower device is plugged into the bus (a USB 1.0 or 1.1 device) the entire bus runs at the slower speed, and requires a special controller (e.g. a PC). USB 2.0 has a 127 device limit, while firewire is 63, and USB 2.0 has a 5m cable limit, while firewire is 4.5m.

          IEEE1394 (firewire) is meant to be a powered bus (up to 1.5A/12V), like ATA or SCSI and can run independently between devices without a specialized controller (e.g. without a PC). A 400Mbps device plugged into an 800Mbps chain will not slow devices earlier in the chain (unlike USB, which slows everything to the slowest device), so it is advantageous to chain firewire devices by speed.

  3. Take a look in your Mac by snuf23 · · Score: 3, Informative

    And you will find mostly commodity PC components now. Let's see:

    PCI bus = check
    ATA or SATA hard drive = check
    ATA CD/DVD/ROM/R drive = check
    Standard PC style graphics card or chip = check
    USB = check (while Apple was one company in the standards body, so were Microsoft and Intel among many others)
    DVI connector for monitor = check
    Standard Ethernet using TCP/IP = check

    And coming soon... Intel x86 CPU

    Interestingly, it seems that Apple is phasing out Firewire (which it did create) in favor of USB (see iPod Shuffle, Nano and Video).
    Long gone are Localtalk, ADB, NuBus etc.

    One of the big trends in Apple since Steve Jobs came aboard was transitioning the Macintosh to use lower cost commodity components. This approach in addition to reducing the number of different Macintosh models and configurations, allowed for cost cutting and increased margins on Mac sales.
    I'm not saying Apple hasn't innovated in the hardware space over the years, obviously it has. Today's Apple however leverages commodity hardware and innovates in overall system design, operating system and software.

    --
    Sometimes my arms bend back.
  4. Summary of article by RickPartin · · Score: 3, Funny

    I haven't read the article but here is an pretty accurate prediction

    Bill: I think the new Xbox is neet.

    There I just saved you all the trouble of reading.

  5. Not true by rseuhs · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Gates: I mean, we're the hottest product there was at Christmas this year.

    Not true, in this holiday season more units of the 6 year old PS2 were sold than of the brand new XBox360.

    Gates: I don't think there's any doubt we'll have a substantially higher share in this generation than we had last generation.

    XBox360 sold less during the launch-month than XBox1 (in USA about 300000 instead of 500000, in Japan about 50000 instead of 123000 in the first 3 days, and just 70000 in 2005 http://www.the-magicbox.com/topten.htm) so I have lots of doubt that XBox360 will have "substantially higher share".

    And I think Bill has doubts, too.

    Don't forget that Sony sold 100 million units in 5 years and 9 months. Even if Microsoft keeps their new target of 4 million in the first 8 months and we assume that they continue selling at that rate forever, it would take 17 years to reach 100 million units.

    To reach "substantially higher share" with the XBox360, they would need to sell more than with XBox1, right?

    Well, XBox1 was sold 22 million times worldwide. Even if they can keep up 4 million / 8 months, they would need 4 years to get over that number. (Doesn't sound "substantially higher" to me) Of course they will not be able to keep up the current rate of sales and will probably never reach even the XBox1 installed base with XBox360.

  6. Re: i-wonder-what-he-plays-in-ffxi by chrismcdirty · · Score: 2, Funny

    That's a lie! Everyone knows that RMS only plays GPL games!

    --
    It's like sex, except I'm having it!
  7. Wrong strategy by the+computer+guy+nex · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "And I think Bill has doubts, too. "

    1) The 360 has sold fewer units to this point due to the limited supply rather than low demand. This doesn't take away from the "buzz" around the product, rather the opposite.

    2) PS2 has sold over 100 million units, and the 360 will never reach that point for 2 reasons. 1) The 360 is strictly marketed to the United States. Hell Japan barely even knew a new console was coming out, same in Europe. M$ is avoiding the "Land War in Asia" against the PS3. 2) The 360 will make money from Xbox Live rather than extra units.

    Too many people consider this a standard console. Sell a piece of hardware underpriced and make up the difference on a cut of every game sold.

    The 360 is doing the same, but rather relying on Xbox Live membership fees and marketplace downloads. This is a business model that will strive. Every single 360 game is beautifully integrated.

    1. Re:Wrong strategy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The 360 is doing the same, but rather relying on Xbox Live membership fees and marketplace downloads. This is a business model that will strive. Every single 360 game is beautifully integrated.

      Just like it worked with the xbox, -$5 billion four years later.

      I don't know how you can honestly believe that a mere 2 million users paying a small monthly fee can cover the many billions of dollars invested into a console.