Microsoft Confirms Original Xbox Support

GamesIndustry.biz reports that, despite rumours to the contrary, Microsoft is continuing support for their original console through the end of this year. From the article: "While we do not have other titles to announce at this time, we are committed to providing existing Xbox customers with exciting gaming experiences in 2006. There are 200 Xbox titles expected to ship this year. It is the responsibility of the first party to create genre-defining games for its platform and we are taking that stance with both Xbox and Xbox 360. We feel we have an amazing ecosystem with third parties providing content to Xbox at this time."

Comments

FP?

[shawngarringer]

I would have gotten the first post, but the 200 make believe games kept me away from /.

Re:FP?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well you did get the first post.

Now shut the fuck up.

end of the year?

[acvh]

as I recall Nintendo was still making and selling the NES when the N64 was on the market. Sony is (or was recently) still selling the PS1. Yet Microsoft is cutting off the xbox now?

looks like they're using their Windows/Office strategy on the console now.

Re:end of the year?

[Saige]

RTFA.

Nowhere is there any claim that they're ending Xbox support at the end of the year. NOWHERE.

Welcome to Slashdot, where we make up crap about Microsoft, then attack them for it.

Re:end of the year?

[drinkypoo]

I don't remember anywhere you could get a NES when N64 was on the market, except maybe they had a wacky version in China or something? OTOH, you can still get a PSOne, right?

Re:end of the year?

[smic]

I was talking to my xbox rep last week and the first question I asked is when they are killing off the xbox. He told me that they were going to kill it off in 4 years, and there was something like 420 games between now and then to come out for it.

So they could be keeping it around as a value system, if they only dropped the price

Re:end of the year?

[aliens]

Welcome to Slashdot, where we make up crap about Microsoft, then attack them for it.

I'd make the "you must be new here" but your UID says you're already been here for quite some time. :)

Plus making that joke would make baby Jesus cry.

Re:end of the year?

[damsa]

Nes was two generations behind. Nintendo sold a slim version of the SNES when the N64 came out, and a slim version of the NES when the SNES came out.

Re:end of the year?

[Anonymous Coward]

On that note, you know what else is mentioned NOWHERE in TFA? The part about Xbox production already having halted (which it has).

I quote the Microsoft spokesperson: "We remain very supportive of the Xbox platform and there have been no announcements about plans to cease or alter production."

You know why? There never will be any announcements about MS's plans to cease or alter the production of Xbox 1.0 - where "announcements" = may or may not mean "press releases," the word "plans" is a red herring, and "production" does not necessarily mean "manufacture." In fact, it has already happened; all Xboxes still in the retail channel are already-manufactured, unsold backstock, which MS is still allowed to sell despite the end of their manufacturing agreement with Nvidia. "Production" of this backstock, meaning putting them in boxes and shipping them to stores, may very well continue for the next year or longer. But GIdotbiz really jumps to the wrong conclusion when they assume that there are still factories out there that are pumping out Xboxes. They are busy building Xbox 360s to ship to, oh, let's say Japan (for fun).

I recommend that Paul Loughrey of GIdotbiz get his act together and not fall for intentionally misleading vocabulary in the future. Critical thinking skills should be considered more of an essential quality in gaming journalism; the readership of the gaming press is already full of idiots who will believe anything they read, the last thing we need is having such people in positions to misinterpet jargon and corp-speak for everyone else.

Ask the question again, Paul. Ask if new (non-refurbished/non-repaired), unassembled Xbox 1.0 parts are currently being combined (a la Voltron) into Xbox 1.0 systems intended to be shipped to American, European, and Japanese retail stores. Don't settle for mention of "announcements about plans." Otherwise, what good are you or the publication for which you write?

Re:end of the year?

[drinkypoo]

Right, I remember both of those (although you couldn't really call the rev 2 snes slim) but IIRC the NES disappeared quite a while before the N64 appeared. Certainly, the only place I could find them at that time was at flea markets - even the slim one.

Re:end of the year?

[rtb61]

to quote the article "We remain very supportive of the Xbox platform", they seem to skip about all over the place and say next to nothing. They define the XBox platform as both the XBox and the XBox 360 consoles and then just waffle some meaningless political marketing.

So it looks like at the moment they don't know what they are doing, they seem to be living in fear and are driven by what ever Sony do. At a guess they would like to stick to their normal tactic of forcing everybody to upgrade by dropping all support and raising licence fees for games on the original consoles (standard mirosoft tactic, if it works it is far more profitable).

They seem to be really afraid of the success of the Sony PS3 and as such are retaining the possibility of the original XBox as a cheap console to undercut Sony, I know with the original Sony consoles still available for sale it makes no sence but then microsoft often makes no sence (without a monoply to sustain them they always seem to fail).

Re:end of the year?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's another Microsoft quote that underscores the fact that MS has not confirmed that the Xbox is still being manufactured with these statements.

FACT: The Xbox is no longer being manufactured, and hasn't been for the past several months. All Xboxes still in the retail channel were manufactured quite a long time ago, prior to Summer 2005, just sitting in MS warehouses, waiting to be shipped to stores until supply is eventually depleted. MS isn't running an efficient JIT operation here, and they never have when it comes to their consoles. They were just as sloppy with Xbox inventory as they are now with the severe manufacturing, QA, and supply problems of the Xbox 360.

Re:Xbox1...

[Drakin030]

"Microsoft is supporting the console until they are able to fix the new one to work without threat of fire." By that time Xbox900 will be out.

"Amazing ecosystem"?

[Hamster Lover]

We feel we have an amazing ecosystem with third parties providing content to Xbox at this time.

Now PR types are digging into the lexicon of the biological world to find new wordspeak? I guess Microsoft and ecosystems do have a lot in common: both generate vast amounts of, um, ,fertilizer.

Price

[sidb]

I wish this meant that XBox 1 would become MS's value console (like PS1 did a few years ago), and it would get a price cut. But as far as I know, they still couldn't make a profit on it at US$99, partly due to the way they licensed the chips.

I was hoping the price would fall, allowing me to complete the current-gen console trio, but I can't see any signs of that, and I'm a cheap bastard. I bought a PS2 last January when it slimmed down and hit $150, but I can't justify that price for an enormous machine that's quickly becoming obsolete.

Re:Price

[drinkypoo]

Wasn't PS2 $150 before the slimline?

Re:Price

[TechieHermit]

The slimline is SO much better, though. The disc bay is like a regular cd player, with a door that opens instead of a sliding tray -- less motor-driven parts to break down over time. Also it comes with an ethernet port built in, and has a built-in infrared receiver for the DVD remote.

I'm going to buy a couple of these as backups, stock up on fun PS2 games, and sit out the "next generation" console wars.

I love PS2s!

Of course... The only thing I still use my XBox for is Halo II. When they drop XBox support on XBox Live, I'm going to give up on it... Then I'll be PS2 only.

Maybe I'll get the new Nintendo, I dunno...

Re:Price

[CronoCloud]

The slimline is SO much better, though.

No, it isn't in one very specific way. It doesn't have a expansion bay for the HD.

I love PS2s!

Me too, I have 3, all with HD's installed.

Re:Price

[HTTP Error 403 403.9]

"The slimline is SO much better, though."

No, it isn't in one very specific way. It doesn't have a expansion bay for the HD.

I went to Playstation.com. I found one game that uses the hard drive - Final Fantasy XI. My iPod has more games.

Re:Price

[TechieHermit]

You like the hard drive? I wasn't sure about it, and didn't get one, myself... I've been doing okay without it. But I can see ways you might be able to use it, for instance, to copy all your games to it and clone them on another machine (is this possible?). If it makes backups possible, then maybe I'd be willing to get one, but otherwise, I don't know what I'd do with it. :)

Re:Price

[CronoCloud]

There's a few more besides FFXI:

SOCOM II
RPG Maker 3
Resident Evil: Outbreak (both games in the series)
ESPN NFL 2K5
ESPN NHL 2K5

But yes, NTSC U/C and EU territories got stiffed on the HD. I own several games that had HD support in the original Japanese releases which was removed for the US releases. And we didn't get the BBN either. SCEA was just to cautious

Re:Price

[CronoCloud]

Yes, I like it, can't play FFXI or run Linux on my PS2's without it

I don't know anything about backups or game cloning.

Re:Price

[Mitaphane]

Check out ps2hd.com. There are various software exploits out there that can make use of the PS2 HD for more than just memory card backups and FF XI cache data. You can load up emulators, media playing programs, and images of PS2 games with the hard drive.

Re:Price

[TechieHermit]

Now, THAT is interesting. Theoretically, you could put all your games on the hard drive, and legally use it as a backup of your collection. Hey, how is it implemented? Can you swap out the disk for, say, a 200GB model, or whatever? Replace a bad disk? I'm thinking "long-term collection backup" here, good for twenty years or more...

Re:Price

[HTTP Error 403 403.9]

There's a few more besides FFXI:

SOCOM II
RPG Maker 3
Resident Evil: Outbreak (both games in the series)
ESPN NFL 2K5
ESPN NHL 2K5

Those games use the HD to save levels or additional maps but none of them require the HD except FFXI.

Re:Price

[drinkypoo]

I have a slimline, I bought it used last weekend, and gran turismo 4, the only game I care about :) (Mostly, I play emulated games on Xbox. Sometimes I play GTA:SA on there too.) Just don't have time to game like I used to...

Re:Price

[Mitaphane]

Implemented? Using an software exploit(e.g. the PS2 independance exploit) or mod chip, you can run homebrew software that lets you format a new hard disc, install new partitions for each game, and run the partitions off the hard drive. It's not flawless, there's like a 70% compatibility for my version of HD Loader that uses a softmod, but it runs a lot of popular games. I have almost my entire collection on a 320 GB disc. It's very nice, especially since the DVD-ROM drive is about busted.

You can use almost(there's a compatibility list online somewhere) any IDE hard drive with the network adapter. Even the Sony HD is a Maxtor 40GB drive with special firmware or something that allows to be used by the PS2 browser. I don't know what the average life of a internal IDE hard drive is but I say 20 years isn't unreasonable. It's certainly a lot longer than the POS optical drives they put in PS2. The first one I got direct from Sony didn't work when I got it. The second one crapped out in a couple of years. And the one I have now, it's drive has about had it.

200 XBox Titles?

[rholliday]

There are 200 Xbox titles expected to ship this year.

200 XBox and 360 titles, or just XBox? I find it hard to believe that there would be that many titles for an non-current system.

Re:200 XBox Titles?

[lju]

I think it makes sense, as most of the games were probably in development before the 360 launch, and are just coming to fruition now.

But their costs are still high...

[WoTG]

Interesting, but I wonder if they can even make money on the older Xbox's. In the old days of consoles, the parts became significantly cheaper over time. XBox components can't get much cheaper than they are now - it's that pesky hard drive, a miniscule 10GB drive doesn't exist!

Not News

[SeaFox]

Every video game maker says this when they bring up a new console. People wonder if their previous generation system is now obsolete and the company says "Oh no! Well keep making games for this system for awhile."

What they usually do then is change their marketting and protray the older system as targetted for younger players (whose parents can't justify the cost of 'teh new hotness' for such a young child). The result is the majority of the new titles that continue to come out are kids games. This leaves older owners with nothing new to play unless they buy the new console.

Hudge Back Catalogue

[Anonymous Coward]

There are so many games for the XBOX that I have yet to play that Im not worried about this. I think my amazon.com wishlist has about 20 games for the xbox still. I also have about 10 games sitting on my shelf that I have to tackle. I just hope that companies make release for both systems like what is being done with Ghost Recon 3. Somebody really need to port Quake 4 for the Xbox. If they can for Doom3, Quake 4 should be no problem.

Answers Two Questions

[jjlilj]

One: is M$ still selling XBox's (console hardware support)? Yes, and they plan to continue through the end of the year (at least).

Two: is M$ producing new software titles (console software support) for the XBox? No, the rep says in a nice way that the first party titles have to be ground breaking and genre defining (meaning: our work is done here, time to work on the 360) and then talks up the third party stuff, the 200 titles.

Third-Party Content

[maharito]

Is this M$'s tail-between-the-legs way of acknowledging that people do develop homebrew apps for the XBOX, that it is relatively easy to get these apps to run, and that the best thing ever to happen to the XBOX was the ability to run Linux? :o)