XBox Adding HD Tuners Next Year

iloveCarla writes "Microsoft is partnering with Toshiba to turn the Xbox into a full fledged HTPC. With built-in HD DVD, a larger hard drive, revamped "MCE" interface, and possibly HDTV tuners, the Xbox would be in a better position to compete against the PS3 in the race to serve as the defacto entertainment hub for couch potatoes. According to the article "The new device is expected to be released late in 2008 or at the 2009 CES show in Las Vegas."

Comments

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if I had a screen big enough to enjoy the real benefit of HD, why the fuck would I want a locked down platform that goes out of its way to restrict my usage?

Re:Who cares?

[Blahbooboo3]

And you sound like someone who isn't successful enough to own a Z8 and is bitter. lol. :D

Not the enhancement people really want

[jandrese]

The real question is: Will they start making the 360s reliable enough to reduce the failure rate down to something reasonable? I don't really care about HD tuners and stuff like that, what I really care about is will it keep running long enough for me to finish a game before having to send it back to the shop?

Re:Not the enhancement people really want

[DJCacophony]

Microsoft has already done this. They have identified the problem that caused the general hardware failure (insufficient heat dissipation and weak solder) and retooled their assembly line to fix it. Any hardware failures you hear about are older xboxes. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_technical_problems for more info.

Adding New Features to Consoles

[usul294]

Adding new features to consoles just makes people who bought 360 early upset. If the HD-DVD had been included since the beginning, I would be buying HD-DVD movies, and I really enjoy my high-def 360 playing when I'm home from school. Well, since my Xbox is off at the repair center for red-ringing, back to my Wii.

Re:Adding New Features to Consoles

[MooseMuffin]

If the HD-DVD had been included since the beginning it would have cost twice as much and most of us probably wouldn't own one.

Re:Adding New Features to Consoles

[toolie]

I'd have to argue this though, the first DVD player most gamers had was the PS2. Back then VHS was still ok and no one had a need to go out and buy an expensive stand alone DVD player. Yeah, but back then everybody had TVs who bought the PS2. Not everybody has a HD-TV. That would make the expense unjustified to some who did buy the 360 already.

Well then...

[John Betonschaar]

.. they'd better also do something about the terrible noise the 360 is producing. There is no way I would use my 360 as an HTPC as long as it produces so much noise. I can live with it when playing games, but when watching a movie I want the silent scenes to be just that: silent.

Re:Well then...

[Cosmic AC]

FTA:

Anothe r[sic] big problem for Microsoft according to insiders is getting the heat and noise output from the current Xbox 360 under control so that the new device can run silently while a movie is being played. It is known that Toshiba has been working with Microsoft on this issue as it has extensive experience in notebooks and "quiet" drives.

Better position to compete?

[johannesg]

Unbelievable - "better position to compete"? Are they so incredibly afraid of Sony, then, despite their enormous lead? Or are things not quite as rosy for the XBox as various sources would have us believe?

Re:Better position to compete?

[ZachPruckowski]

Microsoft wants to own not only the console space, but also the STB space. In front, Microsoft wants to own the entire "computing" and "consumer electronics" markets.

Imagine this Microsoft Dream World: You use Windows at work, hear about a cool new show, and schedule the recording via your Windows Mobile smartphone, and come home to your XBox, which has recorded all of your TV shows to your Windows Home Server in the closet. You can fire up your Windows Media Center computer, and watch them from there or from the XBox, or sync them to your Zune to watch on the go.

Microsoft wants to compete with basically every technology company out there. Not necessarily unlike Apple. The goal that both companies have is domination of your computing lifestyle.

Re:Better position to compete?

[arkhan_jg]

Imagine this Microsoft Real World: You use Windows at work, hear about a cool new show, but can't look up anything about it, because your browser been locked down by the domain administrator to stop you visiting personal websites in office hours. You try to schedule the recording via your Windows Mobile smartphone, but there's no cell signal and the battery dies shortly after from the power drain of trying to use it with your work encryption on the wireless.

You come home to your XBox, which has tried to record all of your previous TV shows, but silently stopped working because it couldn't update the guide data, same as MCE. You spend some time trying to force it to download the guide data from your perfectly good home internet connection, but only a reboot fixes it, for no good reason. Except there's now no list of the failed to record shows so no information to try to manually reschedule a repeat broadcast with. You finally manually schedule that cool new show you wanted, and then you find out the broadcaster has flagged it with the do-not-record marker, and your xbox won't even allow you to record it. You decide to try and watch one of your previously recorded shows, only to find the last 5 minutes has been lost because it screwed up the clock. Again.

You finally decide to download that cool new show via bittorrent, made harder by the artificial TCP connections limit imposed by microsoft on windows and your ISPs packet throttling. You'd save it to your Windows Home Server in the closet, but the mofo died from overheating in your poorly ventilated closet, and when you try to reinstall you've hit your activation limit. You'd fire up your Windows Media Center computer and watch it from there, but MCE sucks at sharing media with other MCE boxes, and besides, you don't have the codec installed. You try watching it off the Xbox, but it just red-ringed of death from overheating because you left it running all day.

You give up on TV, and go to check your email, only to find out you've just had your account cancelled by the only ISP in your area for going over your 1GB a day limit on your unlimited super-amazing mega-expensive account, and you've just been sued by viacom for copyright infringement for downloading a show you could have watched on TV if you didn't have to work 14 hours a day to pay for your bandwidth bill and windows licences.

Welcome to the modern world of digital media.

Still no SMB shares though

[AmiMoJo]

The one feature that would make the 360 into a descent media centre would be support for SMB (aka Window's) shares, so you can easily access all the media from your PC or NAS. It's the thing that makes XBOX Media Centre rock. No-one wants to be forced to use Media Player 11's crappy media streaming when they could just as easily browse their network shares.

This generation...

[Tol Dantom]

I actually really dislike the way this new console generation has gone, and am glad I have held off buying so far. There is way too much SKU shifting, with new better versions constantly being released to one up the other guy and keep the console "relevant". Its all well and good if you don't care and are sitting on the fence, but as a person actually interested in a next generation console instead of dropping a grand on a gaming PC it is really aggravating. Kudos to the Wii for avoiding this, but its not really what I'm looking for.

Examples of this abound. The one that pisses me off the most is Dual Shock 3. Some of the upgrades have been less than necessary, such as the Elite Xbox SKU, but rumble is a novel game input that you're completely missing out on for no reason if you bought or will buy a PS3 in the next six months. Some weren't even able to make the choice to wait because Sony lied about it.

Now with the HD tuner incorporated HD DVD Player MP3 jack extravaganda, why buy now? You know there will be a new SKU and it will make your box look like a chump. And this isn't like Apple releasing something new and you're paying opportunity cost (forgetting about the iPhone for a second), because most of these upgrades already exist and are minor. The only difference is if you buy them now you're paying probably twice as much for something that's half as well integrated with the box.

Maybe I should just buy a Dreamcast...now there's a stable SKU!

Haha, I knew it was coming.

[Charcharodon]

Well so much for this generation of consoles being the end all be all "it just works, I don't have to upgrade every year" devices that were supposedly hamering the last nails into the coffin of PC gaming.

Looks to me like we'll be seeing XBOX and PC gaming being synonymous in the next year or two. They've already got the hardware rating system in Vista as well as USB adapters for their wireless 360 controlers. It's just a matter of adding direct game support for XBOX titles on the PC.

Considering how fast PC hardware advances in comparison to consoles there is no reason not too. The only thing they'll have to watch out for is letting the software developers get too far head of the average customer's hardware, the very reason many gamers have abandoned PC gaming in the first place.

Personally I would love to see this since I have already distilled my living room entertainment package down to a PC and a 40" LCD HD TV, and don't care spoil that with the noisy, anemic, unreliable, one trick pony, 360, just to be able to play the few console titles I'm interested in.