Slashdot Mirror
Ballmer Justifies 360's Costs
Next Generation follows up on news last week of the enormous financial burden the 360's launch has placed on Microsoft. CEO Steve Ballmer sent around an email discussing the company's bright outlook with the new console. From the article: "While Xbox 360 hardware itself is the most prominent area of videogame-related investment, Ballmer indicated that further development of Xbox Live is also integral to the success of the platform and its respective division, saying, "We must execute our Live strategy with speed and precision." Relatedly, Live's downtime yesterday has resulted in an underwhelming feature addition: messaging.
Relatedly, Live's downtime yesterday has resulted in an underwhelming feature addition: messaging.
/. crowd.
This is a myth. Microsoft have said repeatedly that the downtime was not for any specific new features but to prepare the various systems (Xbox Live, xbox.com, forums, etc) for future upgrades and the onslaught of E3 (masses of trailers, demos, etc). The messaging addon is nice, but you can't seriously believe they took down the entire network for a day to add a feature like that.
I can understand the 13 year olds on the forums not understanding the need for downtime for infrastructure upgrades and rework, but I'd expect a little more from the
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Just some nitpicking:
While Oblivion does have its share of bugs, the only slowness I noticed was after playing for a while and letting the game cache get fragmented. There's a work-around to clear the cache by holding down any button on the controller when you start the game (hold it through the BethSoft logo. Once the 2K logo displays, you can let go). Not the best solution, but it is a solution. I'm right there with you, wishing for SFII. What ever happened to shipping it in March?
You should clarify that the DVD-ROM is loud when it's spinning at full speed. The machine itself (fan noise) is very quiet, and the DVD-ROM is also quiet while watching DVDs. There's not a whole lot you can do about drive speed when it's running that quickly (the 360 DVD-ROM is something like 16x, compared to the 4x in the Xbox or PS2).
You're dinging the 360 for not doing something it never claimed to do. The 360 is a Media Center Extender. In other words, it's completely dependent on a Windows Media Center PC to feed it media. It sounds like you want the 360 to be a stand-alone media player (or mostly stand-alone, while occassionally pulling media from the network).
As for having limited component video inputs, get yourself a mux. I'm preferential to Audio Authority's 1154A, but you don't need to spend > $200 on a mux. You can find decent ones (minus auto-switching, audio format conversion, and the cool rack-friendly form-factor) for less than $50. You do realize the PS2 can do component output, right? The graphics will still look PS2-bad, but the color and sharpness will be better (and if you have a game that can support 480p, like GT4, you can only do that over component).
There is no such thing as "abandonware", legally. Either the games are released to the public domain, or they're not (or they're released under a license that makes it possible to port them without legal troubles). "Abandonware" games that are still technically under copyright cannot be ported without proper consent. The question is, who gives that consent? How do you get permission to port a game that's been out of print for 15 years, and the original developer/publisher has been out of business for 10? Who currently owns the property? You have to track down the series of sales of IP until you hopefully find the right company you need to deal with. This is painful.
I do agree Microsoft needs to add more games to XBLA, but I don't think that's really going to be a problem for them. I think we're just in the lull before the storm right now, having not had any new XBLA games since Jewel Quest. Prepare to be bombarded (good thing I just finished up Oblivion, so I'll be ready to play some new arcade games)!.
"While Oblivion does have its share of bugs, the only slowness I noticed was after playing for a while and letting the game cache get fragmented."
What about the dirty disk errors that pop up at random? (the oblivion tech forum is rampant with them, so I know it wasn't just the two machines I tried). Yah, I know how to clear the cache, but have you tried riding a horse? The loading every 3 seconds is unbearable. And the fact that with a PC with similar specs to the 360 gets farther grass draw distance is perplexing.
"You should clarify that the DVD-ROM is loud when it's spinning at full speed. The machine itself (fan noise) is very quiet"
I disagree, the fan noise is very noticable (it is an annoying whirling sound) when playing some games. I can somewhat forgive the DVD noise, but why couldn't they have included a 60gig drive (not much more expensive than a 20) so some games parts could be loaded onto it? (perhaps the batch was bad, as the two xboxes were from the same shipping batch, but I doubt it). The PC version of oblivion loads twice as fast. I hope the PS3 doesn't make the same mistake and allows games to be loaded onto the hard drive.
"You're dinging the 360 for not doing something it never claimed to do."
From the MS 360 website: "But Xbox 360 is also the center of your digital entertainment world." This is a hard feat to achieve if it supports only MS formats (plus mp3) and doesn't support the most popular format for digital video.
The problem is that the 360 doesn't even correctly extend MS Media Center formats. You can get divx to play with MS Media Center, but it will not extend it to the 360. The only explanation is they disabled it on purpose.
"As for having limited component video inputs, get yourself a mux. I'm preferential to Audio Authority's 1154A, but you don't need to spend > $200 on a mux. You can find decent ones (minus auto-switching, audio format conversion, and the cool rack-friendly form-factor) for less than $50. You do realize the PS2 can do component output, right? The graphics will still look PS2-bad, but the color and sharpness will be better (and if you have a game that can support 480p, like GT4, you can only do that over component)."
Thanks, that is my next investment. I got the PS2 for romance of the three kingdoms, which still uses SNES era graphics, so I figured component would be moot.
"Who currently owns the property? You have to track down the series of sales of IP until you hopefully find the right company you need to deal with. This is painful."
This is very true, but I know a decent amount of people would be willing to shell out $5 for betrayal at krondor with the original soundtrack, with perhaps an updated color palate. And I'm sure there are some other 32 bit games that would get a lot of downloads that would not be hard to convert, but you are right, you have all the liscensing problems.
The thing is, I downloaded outpost kaloki (sp?), geometry wars, and zuma. and thought "what a great idea this is aweseome". A week later I was done with these games, and nothing else on live interests me, and 360 live has been out almost a year.
I did not outright dismiss the 360, but once live has a good deal more of games, they switch to the smaller processer (early 2007 I believe), and some more games are out I'll probably pick one up. divx support and the ability to load games onto the hard drive would be a dealbreaker for me.