Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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."

8 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 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. 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: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.