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Gates May Announce Xbox 360 DVR At CES
Via Kotaku, an article at the Seattle Times offers an interesting theory on what might be an important part of Bill Gates' keynote at CES next week. According to Times writer Brier Dudley, upgrades and licensing for the Xbox 360 could be a big new feather in Microsoft's cap: "I've speculated on my blog that Microsoft may be preparing to license the Xbox gaming platform to consumer-electronics companies. In particular, Microsoft could work with Toshiba to develop a digital video recorder with a hard-drive, high-definition HD-DVD drive and Xbox gaming capabilities. They're already allied against Sony and other backers of the Blu-ray DVD format, and Toshiba could help Xbox finally penetrate the Japanese market." Toshiba has repeatedly denied the possibility of a 360 unit with a built-in HD-DVD drive, it should be noted.
If MS wants to continue their business the way they always have, the xbox and xbox360 may have been part product, and part proof-of-concept to try to sell a sort of gaming-system platform, ala the Windows OS for desktop.
If Toshiba and others decided to make consumer electronics devices that happened to be 'xbox 360' compliant, or whatever the platform specification of the time happens to be, MS may decide to maintain merely the core platform specification, client software stack, and the server infrastructure of xbox live, without producing many units of their hardware implementation of the platform they dictate.
Of course, they run the *high* risk of doing so of defeating the whole point of consoles, that every console is the same hardware with the same features so game developers don't have to worry about the complexity of the user having a varying amount of central processor/graphics horsepower/memory/different optical drives. If HD-DVD got integrated and supported as a platform for games to be published on, that would walk the 360 down the path of the computer in terms of having to read 'requirements' on the box before purchase, and licensing could lead to a mess if they aren't careful on all the various components.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Between a nice sale and gift card I bought the 360 HD-DVD addon for a song. An HD-DVD player for (practically) free that didn't take up an extra set of Component inputs, how could I loose? Plus I could now watch Heroes season 1 on HD-DVD (I missed all of the first season on TV).
Unfortunately it didn't take me too long to realize that my 360 is just too flippin' loud to enjoy movies. It's one thing if I'm gaming, but if I'm watching an old classic I'd rather not heard the buzzing of those fans. Since I was already jazzed to get Heroes I decided to return the unit and get the cheap Toshiba HD-A2 for a small price instead.
If they want to seriously consider doing this, they need to engineer the unit so it's a lot quieter or perhaps makes sure it doesn't get so loud with age.
It won't be built in. The public image of ANOTHER version of the xbox that is more expensive than the ps3 is too damaging to the brand, even if it has new features. They wouldn't release an 360 at the current price point with the DVR built in, WAY too many upset early adopters who would be RROD their xbox on purpose.
The only way MS could do this successfully is by upgrading the HD-DVD player, keeping it at the current price point, but adding DVR functionality to the thing, even if it makes the player a little thicker for the hard drive. An "HD upgrade kit" if you will. Then get rid of the old version of the HDDVD player at fire sale prices. That way, the minority of xbox owners that bought the HDDVD players would be the only consumer base that would feel upset, but keeping the price the same would be understandable since the add-on has been around for a while, and it's sales are definately slumping.
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
How will the media companies respond to this? I thought they were already fighting the idea of DVRs, or at least trying to get them to prevent commercial skipping?
Surely the media companies won't want Microsoft to allow this to happen in any form the consumer might actually want? And I'm sure anyone affiliated with Sony won't like the HD-DVD format at all.
Admittedly, if anyone has the clout to try it's Microsoft, but I'm still skeptical this would take off.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Consoles have always had one major advantage over PCs as a gaming platform: consistent hardware. An Xbox is an Xbox is an Xbox. When producing a game for a console, you don't need to test every possible combination of a dozen video cards, a dozen processors, a dozen motherboards, etc. You test it on an Xbox. It works on your Xbox? It works on your customer's Xbox.
I'm worried about the possibility of fragmentation that may occur here, if other companies are allowed to make their own Xboxes. Even if there are a set of standards, there's nothing stopping them from skimping on parts, or even using slightly different architectures which throw the whole thing out of whack.
You've been hearing the rumors for most of the second half of 2007 - Microsoft is preparing to exit the console market.
And now the reality is finally here.
After two years Microsoft has failed to find a way to fix the 360 hardware failures with even the latest models still giving the infamous RRoD right out of the box for many people. After six years and now some 7 billion dollars with the 360 essentially selling to just the US market like the first Xbox Microsoft has had enough and are looking for other hardware manufacturers to come in and pick up the pieces and try to salvage what they can of the existing Xbox infrastructure. They will never make back anywhere near the billions they've lost but at least they can bring in licensing fees on their way out of the console market.
It looks like right around middle of 2007 when the shit hit the fan up in Redmond and a bunch of messy meetings took place that decided the fate of the 360:
Microsoft finally bit the bullet and admitted to the RRoD failure problem and announced the 1.1 billion they were going to spend to keep fixing the existing failing consoles.
Peter Moore was fired
The primary Xbox first party developer left Microsoft
Two major Xbox exclusive developers Bioware and Bizarre went off to EA and Activision leaving Microsoft with pretty much just Rare and maybe one or two other minor first party developers
The worldwide sales figures showed that the 360 was selling at virtually identical sales rate across the US, Japan, and Europe making it clear that the 360 was going to be once again an almost entirely US based console
And finally Microsoft has been increasingly focused on moving Xbox technologies and services over to Vista
Microsoft obviously has decided they have had enough in the console market and are looking for someone to come in and pick up the pieces. Console hardware obviously isn't an area Microsoft can compete in. Ideally they would like to have PC developers locked into Vista exclusive titles with Microsoft pocketing console type licensing fees without having to waste billions on hardware.
The Panasonic Q. It was a Nintendo Game Cube with DVD player functionality added. But the game-playing guts were exactly the same as a regular Game Cube so it didn't interfere with game development.
Just imagine, a cheap device that is "360 compatible". Plays any Xbox 360 game. Has any set of features any number of licensed OEMs would like to put in. HP could make one. Dell could make one. Panasonic could embed them in TVs.
If the licensing outlay is cheap and competitive enough, it would kill Sony.
It seems a bit far-fetched, though.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
This simply isn't happening.
The rumor within MS is that Microsoft would announce another VERSION of the XBOX 360 with PVR capabilities and Cablecard support. It is my understanding that this hinged on getting at least one of the major cable companies (TimeWarner and Comcast) on board. This apparently did not happen. Therefore, there will be no 360 PVR.
so they can destroy that just like they wrecked personal and business computing
That comment is so wrong, it's incredible.
If there is one single company that moved personal and business computing forward, it is Microsoft.
Say what you want about their interface, their ethics, whatever...no company has done more to move businesses and individuals onto computers than Microsoft.
The fact that 90% of the computers in the world run Windows should tell you something about their influence.
No reason to lie.