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Hacking XBox 360 HD-DVD To Play On XP
Dan writes, "The XBox 360's affordable HD-DVD, with the help of some custom drivers and a specific player, has been hacked to work with any Windows XP machine. This may have created the cheapest HD-DVD player on the market to date."
Xboxhacker forums has links that points directly to the files. http://localhostr.com/files/c46c39057dc3fbe73d9f.r ar
Xboxhacker points out that there is currently no available PC player for hddvd, so all you get is access to the dvd content.
The site paints this to be a cool hack that MS never intended, but really, Microsoft may have always intended for this to happen officially in the future. They already officially support Xbox 360 controller use on Windows, for instance and have released drivers. This is the logical next step.
Really, it's part of their strategy to converge the 360 and Windows gaming worlds together... witness the recent reorganization into a single games division, for instance.
-- Samir Gupta, Ph. D. Head, New Technology Research Group, Nintendo Co. Ltd., Kyoto, Japan.
"I've never even seen an actual computer monitor (not LCD TV/monitor) that can display in full HD"
You've never seen a computer able to display 1920x1080?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Saying that it's the cheapest HD-DVD player because you can hack it to work with a PC running Windows XP is as stupid as saying it's the cheapest HD-DVD player because you only have to connect it to your Xbox 360.
I'm only 10 years old...
Which means you obviously get out a lot to stores that'd have BluRay and HD-DVD titles. Y'know, some places put them way up on the third or fourth shelf, so you may not have been able to see them...
All in all, Xbox has lost $4+ billion for MS.
The XBOX division of Microsoft has lost a lot of money, but it can be argued that XBOX has actually helped Microsoft in the long run.
Think of XBOX as a combination of Marketing and Insurance. By selling the XBOX, Microsoft ensures that their name and their products will be in even more stores and homes. By including Media Center Extender features in XBOX, Microsoft has a better chance of selling the Media Center version of Windows XP. By taking a huge chunk of the game market, Microsoft weakens Sony and Nintendo.
And the big one:
Ensuring a strong Direct X following. Most, if not all, XBOX games use Direct X libraries. There are only two platforms that can use true Direct X: Windows and XBOX. By keeping programmers on Direct X, Microsoft ensures that games will remain on Windows/XBOX and will difficult to port to other consoles and other OSes. The last thing Microsoft wants is developers to begin using cross-platform libraries which could allow for an OS transition sometime in the future. Besides, XBOX simply helps promote Direct X. Think of it: "Use Direct X, easily run your games on the most popular desktop OS and the second most popular game console without a major re-write!".
XBOX has been $4 Billion well spent. Expect iZunes to be a similar venture.
As a side example, consider Firefox vs IE 7. If you find yourself spending a majority of your computing time using Web 2.0 applications via Firefox, why use Windows at all? At that point you may as well just use Linux or FreeBSD to host your Firefox client, no need to spend money on Firefox. However, if your web app only works on IE 7, or works best on IE 7, then you have a soild reason to remain on Windows/IE7 platform.