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Microsoft To Construct iPod/DS/PSP Killer
Karsten writes "According to The Mercury News Microsoft is developing a PSP/DS/GBA/iPod-killer. J. Allard is leading the project." J. Allard is the man behind the Xbox, and from looking at the article it sounds like it's at least a year before this device, if it hits daylight, would be coming.
Dammit, can't they make a Windows killer?
This guy's the limit!
Hold your breath while waiting, and it will be a people killer too!
I've said it before and I'll say it again--for the love of god, please stop printing mindless headlines of the form "[insert company name here] is [planning/making] a [insert industry-wide leading product name here] killer."
My work here is dung.
Not to troll but .. I'm sorry, its from Microsoft .. its surely going to have an Intel chip (Mobile EXTREEEEEEEEME Hunger Eddition) and run WindowsCE(meNT) loaded with more DRM than you thought possible from a mobile .. the only thing this is going to "kill" is batteries ...
This won't work, but we should all know that already know that. You can't just stick all the available technology into something and hope it all works out, this will end up being as big as origami with about 2 hours of battery life. I like things to be seperate, which is why I have an MP3 player, and a DS (and a camera and phone and whatever else they'll probably try and throw in it) I like things to be excellent at the one thing that they do, not just "acceptable" at everything under the sun
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
in the tools section. It's called sledgehammer and is guaranteed to kill all of those devices in one shot.
Timo's Audio Software http://www.esseraudio.com
...dust off all your jokes about how big the Xbox is!
Seriously though, with Xbox and Xbox Live MS has shown that they are capable of doing interesting, cool things with both consoles and gaming generally. I'll be interested to see what they come up with.
Game dev and music blog
Yeah, seriously. Can we (the Slashdot community) officially retire the term 'killer' and replace it with 'competitor'? It is possible for multiple manufacturers and products to exist in a market space simultaneously. Competition is good! We don't need or want new products to kill anything.
I don't think I want an X-shaped console with a glowing green screen. I got enough objects in my pants that glow green in the dark.
I'm not a MS fanboy, but I do have very good experiences with Microsoft over my lifetime. I've had some terrible problems, too, but nothing that has affected me in a bad way. I believe Microsoft's Windows has been a big reason why PCs are so cheap -- a common operating system that was easy to use has helped to bring more people to computers. I think we'd be in the 80s still if it wasn't for Windows 3.0 -- Apple had no chance given their closed hardware.
My experience with MS in handhelds is terrible. I've owned about 30 PDAs in my life (I tend to use them for 3-4 months and then sell them to friends or family or give them away). All my Newtons were my favorite (from the original MessagePad through the 2100). I feel terrible that I sold all my Newtons years ago -- I think I'd still be using the beasts today.
Microsoft doesn't know how to downsize anything. The big complaints about Windows from the geek crowd is more appropriate for Microsoft in the small-PC crowd. I had a Microsoft car radio once -- Worst. Thing. Ever. My current PDA is Microsoft based and it works very well wirelessly -- yet I have to reboot it about 10 times a day to get it to run fast.
I have no faith in Microsoft in terms of an iPod killer. The X-Box is mostly a fluke to me -- a lot of money spent, very little profit made -- which means the item is NOT a success in terms of market viability. For me, the best products are those that make a profit, giving the manufacturer real reason to keep upgrading and supporting it.
If the Microsoft 'iPod' killer is another spend-a-ton-and-earn-none fluke, it won't last. Microsoft needs a happy customer, and a happy customer pays a happy profit. Without that incentive, Microsoft will be fighting battles on too many fronts, and we know what happens to the imperialists that have done that in the past.
If you'd bother to RTFA you'd know that the device in question is in fact a full-spectrum multi-wavelength high-energy data scrambler that will actually melt the circuits of any iPod/DS/GBA/PSP or Pacemaker within 100 meters. Can't wait to hear about the military applications.
Making you think you're crazy is a billion dollar industry.
For all intents and purposes, the PSP should have killed the DS from a technical viewpoint. Fortunately, ingenuity in the gaming industry can still make up for somewhat lesser tech. Nintendo has rules the handheld market since 1989, and I don't really see that changing anytime soon. Besides, Microsoft, at best, will come up with a Windows-running, $400 handheld with a 3-hour battery lift. I'll pass.
I doubt they will be able to create an iPod killer because that would mean they had to change the behaviour of hundreds of thousands of people.
A behaviour is exceptionally hard to change, especially if it is based on an already well working service.
Someday there might well be a product that comes around that is more hip than the iPod. I'm pretty sure about two things, 1) It won't try to cram a bazillion features into an ugly product (Oragami?) and 2) Microsoft probably won't be responsible.
Yeah, I guess I'm funny like that.
I don't want a brick that's large enough to play video/games on. I want a music player that's small enough to fit in a pocket and be generally unobtrusive.
Microsoft might not be producing any real 'killer' products (well, not until the 3rd iteration from history), but if they start throwing themselves at the competition, then the competition is gonna start freaking out and producing an even better product, one would hope. So stop dissing Microsoft for having a go.
Umm.... in Japan even the Gamecube is selling better than the 360.
--- witty signature
The killers? hmm...
Somebody told me, that you had a handheld, that looked like a Newton, that I had in february of last year...
I'm sorry, it's early and wouldn't leave my head. Will it be stoning, or am I to be drawn and quartered?
Despite any pretences this thing is going to be 3 years late, the size of a shoebox, and it will be a slightly reconfigured WinVista PDA. It's primary function will be to "deliver" windows DRM. The ability to play some games will be secondary. MS will shore it up with an inexhaustible slush fund much like the xbox in order to subsidise the infiltration of windows DRM into common home appliances.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
So this is to go with Microsofts Linux/OSX/BSD/AIX killer and Microsofts PS3/Revolution Killer and Microsofts Oracle/MySQL/PostgreSQL/PeopleSoft/Dbase Killer?
Sure a lot of killing going on.... supposedly.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3609953966 5548298
Also, they should be sure to implement a fold-out cutting blade, screwdriver, corkscrew, can opener, toothpick and nail file so it can kill swiss army knives as well.
This is the product the global marketplace has been waiting for.
Exhibit no 2213 is housed in the west wing of the museum. This is a late (very late) 2007 Ipod Killer made by a now defunct company from Redmond that some people on the tour may remember. Like many of our other 3000 exhibits it suffered from being late to market, overhyped and having a battery life of approximately 27 seconds. The user interface also attracted severe criticism, based as it was on their then popular desktop operating system, that I believe was called "Panes XP" or something.
Move along please, there's always plenty to see in the Ipod Killer Museum. New Exhibits are arriving all the time!
...Microsoft bought the rights to Gizmondo, didn't they?
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
Of course any portable game system MS makes would be hyped as a DS/GBA/PSP killer; those are the competing products in that category. The MS marketing department would have to be pretty braindead NOT to claim that their as-yet-unreleased system is better than the stuff that's currently on the market.
That leaves "iPod killer" as the only questionable assertion. Well, here's how I read it: the system will have either a hard drive or a decent amount of flash memory. This would be great on a portable for all sorts of reasons (e.g., you could download the games to the system rather than carrying around 50 tiny cartridges). A WMA/MP3 player would only be one fairly simple app on such a system, so they may as well stick it in there and add another tick on the checklist.
Will it be a better MP3 player than an iPod? No, but who cares? The PS2 is a pretty terrible DVD player (low quality, clunky controls, noisy as heck), but it was that feature that convinced me to buy it over a GameCube.
And about the only thing the PSP seems to be killing is... the PSP.
If Microsoft wishes to do the same thing as Sony, making a "gaming" handheld that does everything but actually play games, they'll get the same results.
Granted, they may make a better movie player than the PSP (depending on the specifics), but Microsoft is already losing the format wars with Apple over music formats (much like Sony) and if they aim for squeezing the "latest and greatest" in graphics and sound technology into the gaming function, it certainly isn't going to be as small as the iPod (like Sony). And, finally, like Sony, there'll be little more than "portable" (i. e. watered-down) versions of console games (read "Halo Lite").
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3609953966 5548298&q=microsoft+ipod
(google video)
This is one of the best parodies i've seen in a while.
I like my DS being separate to my phone because, I can play it and not worry about killing my battery and not being able to receive calls.
I can listen to songs on my mp3 player as I sight-see, and not have to worry that I'm going to kill the battery before I get to the big sights I want to take photos off.
If a business man is on the tube, he likes his blackberry an iPod to be separate because he won't miss any email after listening to music on his commute.
Unless your device can run for over a day - whilst doing everything - continually - then I don't want the stress of balancing battery needs. Portable devices are about reducing stress, "all-in-one" devices don't do that, no matter how many times you write "killer" in the title.
http://skeptobot.blogspot.com/ - A site for the Renaissance man and woman
Yanno what? From now on, let's just keep a handy supply of large trout on hand, and use them to beat anyone who uses the phrase 'iPod killer' to death.
Unpleasantries.
This new thingy is going to kill the iPod just like Microsoft killed SPAM - they're going to redefine 'kill'. I suppose they'll put an EKG on an iPod and declare it dead.
I pity the foo that isn't metasyntactic
Monopolies are legal, but they used to be controlled, when the law was actually enforced and "conservative" judges weren't appointed to short-circuit it.
Monopolies are damaging because they can leverage their overwhelming advantage (=money) into new markets, conquering one product segment after another, erecting barriers to entry to new competitors, and most importantly, monopolies can prevent new technologies from dislodging their old tech by using extortion in all sorts of ways (in the classic case, "put Linux in your boxen, in any way, and say good-bye to your Windows discount, hell, good-bye to your Windows boxen).
Microsoft is building "killer" after "killer", using their infinite cash from their Office and Windows monopolies to simply underprice their products in new businesses like game machines and portable media players until their competitors, who don't have monopoly cash, fold. Then, classically, they raise their prices in their new monopoly, then use the cash to move into a new monopoly. This is why we busted the trusts after the Guilded Age. Inevitably, one company will own everything. Microsoft wants a media tax worldwide, wants a piece of every media streamed and stored. Then they'll inevitably move into media creation; hell, that's what they're doing in video games. Vertical lock.
Oh, shit, Miscrosoft is releasing Windows for these platforms, aren't they?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Sure, no wifi, but the rest of it rocks.
Yet another blogger begging for an audience.
Apple's core competency seems to be design. Their hardware and software products in general are aesthetically pleasing, easy to operate, and fun to use.
Could it be that MS, in trying to be all things to all people, has lost sight of its core competency?
Is leveraging their Windows/Office hegemony Microsoft's true core competency? If not that, what? It used to be marketing, but that's not true any more. What is the core competency of a company that has been riding on the dominance of its desktop OS and office software for over a decade?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
... is that it was made by Microsoft marketing. They know what their problems are, and they essentially admit they haven't a chance in hell of fixing them. That's why they'll never develop an iPod killer, much less an iPod/DS/PSP killer.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
I stull can't get live.com, their google-killer to work. At least I get to wait a year until I can't get their iPod killer to work.
Oh well. Back to trying to get windoze to work.
Why do I get the impression that if Microsoft invented sex then your genitals would simply exlode if you became aroused?
Need Mercedes parts ?
I should be a product consultant.
Make what the mac people are crying for.
The device must be the same, exact form factor as the current gen ipod.
Make it out of aluminum or titanium with a matte or beadblasted finish.
The screen should be the entire front of the device.
It's only user input; the touchscreen and perhaps a single scroll wheel. NO MORE. Think about inertial input in a second release. MAYBE.
Put a video and headphone jack on it.
Put 802.11 on it and stop being a bitch to the media industries.
Make it with open programmable interface and a real OS.
The only user interface and application options should be just what the ipod has - a video player, audio player, and basic little apps like the ipod has.
Let the market fill in the gaps.
Sell millions. When you do, buy me a ferrari, ok thanks?
..don't panic
are the ones that are NOT advertised that way. The iPod was never sold as a 'killer' of some other MP3 player. For that matter, the PC itself was not sold that way. Each of these things was promoted based on its own merits -- and not on how it compared to other things. What is it with our hyper-competitive culture now that always has to find 'The only one'?
Now given MS doesn't have the greatest track record on their first offering into a new competitive area in the tech market, but dominating the DS and PSP and iPod and even Cell phone industry would be pretty damned easy if you ask me.
Just do these 6 things:
1. Make it out of real metal and indestructible. Brushed Aluminum, or even Titanium, or Stainless steel. Real Glass for a cover.
2. Make the battery last and charge over a standard USB connection.
3. Give it plenty of capacity. (hopefully with no moving parts).
4. Make an interface that doesn't completely blow. I like the Sony Ericsson interface, kinda, but it's a tad slow.
5. Avoid load times on anything. Lose all the crappy shortcuts to features people almost never use.
6. Avoid all DRM. Just use mp3s (or even ogg!), and divx (or xvid!). Fuck aac, wmv, all those.
If you do those 6 things, everyone will buy it and use it. I'll be first in line.
Eventually somebody WILL make these, and sony/ms/apple/etc. can all kiss their non competing product lines completely good bye.
Again though, I seriously doubt MS will do it, as they are so married to wmv, and all their other own crappy ideas that nobody but porn spammers really like to use ever.
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.