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Microsoft Game Console
Nukelear writes "MS will be releasing a gaming console in Fall of 2000. The box will be running Intel OR AMD chips (not yet decided) and NV10 graphics. The full story is here." Note that it hasn't been confirmed yet, however. Assuming it's true, it means MS is going up against (primarily) three companies with well established brands - Nintendo, Sega, and Sony. Even if MS is MS, it still sounds like they would be up for some stiff competition...
Talk about using your friends as stepping stools... development on this must've began while they were working on Dreamcast with Sega!
If you read the article, you'd know that this console _will_ be running a Microsoft OS. A modified version of Windows CE.
The issue comes down to who gets to control the standards for interfacing to your future digital TV (I beleive analog transmission is due to be phased out by 2004?) and thus eye-ball time (if stories of teenage 40 hour/week watching TV is true). By aggressively pushing the brand awareness, alternative choices don't even get a look-in, especially if you can default to your content site. Selling hardware is not profitable, but claiming a slice of the on-going revenue stream for services is. By defining and thus controling the OS standards, they can get advanced notice of future applications and thus breathing space to put a foot into high growth areas before others catch on. Time to market is a killer advantage which is worth a fortune if you can establish leadership in a game category (witness Quake, C&C, etc).
Now the technical question (considering this is SlashDot) is should the x86 family really suitable as a media processor compared with alternatives such as Sony Emotion Engine or SH4? Would the component count be low and cheap enough to support broadband, ASDL or even wireless? And would the Japanese consumer electronics manufacturers be taking this lying down?
LL
But at the same time, the PSX and N64 are most certainly obsolete, but there are many games being actively developed for both. Just because hardware isn't the best out there doesn't mean it isn't usable; having a stable and adequate hardware base is much more important for console game developers than having a constantly-shifting but cutting-edge hardware base. Look at the kind of stuff that's being done on the PSX now that the developers have had a chance to figure out a lot of the neat tricks...
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
Remember how at one time IBM and Micros~1 were humping each other's legs trying to make OS/2 the server that everyone would use, and then making WinNT to destroy their former friend and burn another bridge? Hrmm... Microsoft has a new friend. Sega is gonna go through a bit of hell on this one. making a deal with Goliath, showing him your world, and watching Goliath attempt to take it over.
I used to be a hardcore nintendo lover, but then they got this hard-line attitude about emulation, and everything related to it, being illegal. Same with Sony. May those bastards rot in lawyer hell for what they're doing to bleem. Sega actually ASKED steve snake (of KGen emulator fame) if they could use his emulator in a Genesis compilation CD for the PC. no matter what I used to think about Sega, they are my one shining ray of hope in this black "intellectual property" tar pit that the console world has become.
My advice to sega: ditch windows CE... it's a hunk of poo anyways. Use Linux or *BSD, or hurd, or whatever tweaks your knob... as long as microsoft can't screw you over anymore then they already are going to. Sega needs to survive more than any other console company, because they have proved (at least to me) that they still have a soul left.
Hopefully this thing will be killed before it stinks up the marketplace like Divx did. Three points:
By fall of 2000, the Sega Dreamcast will have been out a year, the Nintendo64 and new Dolphin box will have built some momentum and Sony's follow-on PlayStation2 will be hitting its stride with complete backward compatibility with thousands of games. Any one of these consoles (especially, and probably, Sony's) could wipe the floor with X-Box because of market momentum, consumer loyalty and brand awareness alone.
Console videogame OSs are also rock-solid stable (CE is an option, not the core, on Dreamcast), and they already run on workstation-level chips with equally brawny graphics co-processors, both of which are often 64-bit or better, and god knows how fast they'll be a year from now. (With apologies to all you open-source folks, this stability is because, at least in this case, each of these companies maintains tight, proprietary control over their hardware-software sets.) M$ can call it a game console till they're blue in the face, but if the hardware and software guts are hardly different than a crappy eMachines box, it won't be stable enough for the pre-teen kids and soccer moms who will have to run it.
As for the "may have other functions" line, my guess is this might be a play for set-top cable tuning. If that's the case, it's worth nothing that WindowsCE may not yet be a qualified real-time operating system, which it would have to be. CE is shipping on some set-top boxes today, but only as middleware, because that industry set up a consortium to keep all boxes open-source specifically to checkmate M$. And if M$ tries to position X-Box as some kind of "embrace and extend" advance, expect the $hit to hit the fan. M$ (or Dell or whoever) can build all the set-top tuners they want, but if they stray from the Open Cable specs, no cable system will buy them, not even the ones M$ invests in.
An ineteresting consequence of this move may be that SDKs for game consoles may shoot down in price. Remember what actually makes the money for companies like Nintendo, Sega and Sony is the royalties they make from the sales of the games. If Microsoft jumped into the industry they would probably use their standard tactics of undercutting the competition where it hurts *them*.
This gives a result that MS enters the market and loses money on the hardware (not like they can't afford to). They give away their SDK and don't ask royalties for games. Game developers will swamp to this banner as they get to make more money for themselves, and still undercut the game prices on the other consoles. Sony and co have to do the same to remain competitive, but as they are already losing money on their consoles that are already out there, they stand a lot more to lose. Also it becomes a competition of who can afford the most loss. In that kind of race, my money is on Microsoft.
John Wiltshire
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
Microsoft tryed to get into the game console market before. Sega's Dreamcast is supposed to be running WindowsCE.
But the truth is different. Microsoft could not deliver CE on time for the Dreamcast's launch here in Japan. In reality, all the big game makers have written their own OSs for their games. Much faster, more reliable. Because of this delay, the Dreamcast has basically failed here in Japan and Sega is in a really dangerous state financially.
My only proof would be that virtually no games have been ported from Dreamcast to PC. Though that been the basic idea behind using WindowsCE and DirectX on the Dreamcast.
With PCs becoming so cheap, I see no sense in creating a game console with x86 compatible chip and PC architecture. Better buy a cheap PC.
The whole idea of integration between television and computer has been around for quite a while now and is happening, albeit slowly.
You see, the PSX2 will have a DVD drive and the ability to attach a modem. And it'll be available for around £250. Well cheaper than most pc's today.
So..kids will use this to surf the net and play interactive games..... they will not be using a large PC and not using windows.....The PSX2 will eventually become a PC with added periphials....Microsoft could be fucked.
What I want to know is how Microsoft intend to compete with Sony who substitute the hardware costs with game licencing.
Intel will not sell the x386 chips at a loss so MS can dominate a market, and neither will any 3-D board manufacturer. And since MS cannot control the hardware, they cannot control the software that runs on it, nor make any money licencing games (They don't on a PC.)
It's one this distributing IE over the net and CD's everywhere to crush Netscape when the actual costs are are tiny compared to hardware manufacturing and distribution costs.
The only thing going for it is the fact that the games can be a lot cheaper as the will not have to pay licencing fees to sony and saga. By the sheer fact that the could be a high volume of cheap games very, very quickly could mean that this console will get a lot more shelf space in the games stores.
Games volume and quantity (and quality) dictate console success. Not poly-fill-rate.
A linux console anyone?
Rocket science is easy. Neurosurgery, now *that's* difficult.
How much you wanna bet the only games for it will be Minesweeper and Solitaire? (:
The entirety of Microsoft's success has been based on its ability to use its Operating System monopoly to lever its way into the market until its product matures into the defacto standard.
The problem Microsoft will face is that it'll be in an entirely alien position. Sony, Sega and Nintendo are not small-fry software startups waiting to be crushed by the Microsoft juggernaut. Nor are they lumbering giants past their use-by dates. Between them they've owned the console market for about as long as MS have owned the PC market, and they don't seem to be showing too many signs of vulnerability.
Microsoft's OS monopoly will be meaningless in this market. Sure, they could stick CE on it, and make it do email and web-browsing, but in the end, a gaming console is about the games, and the OS is just the screen you get when you've got no CD/cartridge in the slot.
On the other hand, if they fix it so that their console games will also run on a Wintel PC with a 3d card and DirectX, then that'll get the developers on board pretty sharply. This is something that console manufacturers could never do, because every PC version of their game that sold would be a reason not to buy the console. But for MS, it's just moving from one of their products over to another.
So the big, and very interesting question is how Microsoft is going to adjust to being the small fish in a big pond, and what cards they're going to play to drain some of the water.
Charles
The more I learn about the Internet, the more amazed I am that it works at all.
The mice aren't bad but them joysticks they make just feel shoddy.
Anyway on the console front I think they'll have a hard job competing against the likes of Playstations and N64's and whatever SEGA call their console. Because although Microsoft are a recognised name in the PC world, I don't see their name getting them anywhere in the console world. It'll take a lot of marketing for them to even get a small share of this market.
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A "cheap" pc won't play your latest games. Will Microsoft's console be any different?
How we know is more important than what we know.
I'm just gonna lose it if I hear one more post like this. For some reason, people (even some Slashdotters) are eternally blind to the real problem with Microsoft. And it sure as hell ain't marketing. Of course they're not killing people. But you have to realize the significance of Microsoft controlling computers. Computers are at the heart of our world. Everything revolves around them. They are information source, entertainment sources, gateways to communication. Computers and design are my passion. They are what I want to do with some significant part of my life. To have a single company walk up and dictate what that will look like is frightening. People hardly realize what Microsoft is trying to control -- personal computers, household appliances, cable access, internet access, press/media, games, web servers, web browsers, document management. You name it. The problem is, too many people see computers as merely and industry -- purely dollars, which is SO frustrating to me. For me, computers are a canvas. They are what I use to create artwork in many forms -- design, programming, websites. The equivalent of Windows taking over everything for me, is the equivalent of somebody telling me "you can no longer use the color red in your artwork." That's the significance. Do you really want somebody to dictate to you how to write software, how to create artwork, how to access information? I sure as hell don't. But it's apathetic people like you that are going to allow it to. Just because it's not literally life and death, doesn't mean it's not worth fighting for. Our society holds the arts at a very high value as well. - Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
What are the chances that the cable companies are going to support this little box? Pretty high, I'd say. The console is truely the only popular and accepted form of set-top, and MS realizes this. Given their obsession with set-tops, this move was a nobrainer.
But, as the first poster said, I'll keep my computer. This doesn't look to be a killer thing hardware-wise; at least, nothing that you couldn't get for the PC. And knowing MS, this thing will run like a PC, none of the traditional advantages of a console. A thought; it might also have the advantage of a PC, the ability to run Linux.
Basically, I think that this console will be marketed on the basis of a fast connection. That's the one advantage that the other consoles don't, and can't, have. Well, that and the GeForce.
I'd imagine an MS console would look like this: an X86-descendant CPU, a 3D accelerator, a swish sound card, USB, presumably all built into a single board. Peripherals (controllers, lightguns, mouse, modem etc) would be USB or similar. There would be a DVD-ROM drive on board. We already know it'll run something akin to WinCE.
But let's take a look at the only Next-Gen console currently available -- the Dreamcast. As well as upping graphic/sound/CPU performace, Sega have *innovated* in several areas.
The VMU (visual memory unit), for example, is a stroke of genius -- it's like a PS memory card, but it slots into your controller, and gives you an LCD screen which a game can use for whatever it likes (speedo, stuff the other player shouldn't see, etc).
That's clever -- but the VMU also works as a standalone mini-gameboy-type-thing, into which you load software via the Dreamcast.
That would be enough to convince me that Sega are having good ideas; but there's more -- the VMU's connector is the same shape as its socket, so you can plug two VMUs together for two-player pocket shenanigans.
That's just an example of innovation in consoles. I can imagine Sony doing similarly clever stuff with the PS2 if I could guess what, I'd be earning a whole lot more than I do now.
I really can't imagine MS doing anything that imaginative. They are doomed to imitate.
Still, the public might fall for it.... they usually seem to.
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It makes absolutely no sense (to me anyway) to make a hardware game platform when the market has three huge players there already. The Dreamcast is running CE already so what's the niche there? Sony and Nintendo are planning some amazing graphics horsepower consoles in the next 12-18 months. MS should be targeting WebTV. It has enough of a consumer base to create a market, but isn't big enough to have real power in the computer world. Will it be good for everyone to have MS dominate another market? no. Will it be good to get more people online, newbies or otherwise? yes.
-Barry
- When your character dies, instead of "Game Over" the screen is the Blue Screen of Death.
- Your VCR will start accepting only Windows-compatable tapes.
- Everyone has to get MSNBC to download software updates to the console over the Vertical Blanking Interval. (This of course takes 6 straight hours of watching MSNBC.)
- TVs have to meet Windows Hardware Compatability tests and be on the Hardware Compatability List.
- All MS game consoles will have more RAM and storage than your current machine, and will have expansion ports for more (and of course the ports are all proprietary).
- One word: WebTV.
- Records your TV watching preferences and sends them back to Redmond for analysis. Microsoft buys the Nielsens.
- Games display ads for MSN, Win2k, etc. either full screen or as subtle references.
- MS would make it illegal to use Game Genies and such, and would attempt to harm/kill anyone attempting to modify the system by strobing the picture and causing seizures.
- Dramatic increase in sales of TVs and replacement parts as the tubes and projection screens suffer burn-in and wearing out of the blue phosphors from constant Blue Screens of Death.
- Apple makes a combination HDTV/VCR/game console/internet access device/satellite receiver/etc. that you only have to connect three cables to at an affordable price, and it comes it various colors to match your interior decor. It sells well in educational, computer novice, and Sega-fan markets, but everyone else blows it off as not being a serious computer.
- And of course, once it is available, someone makes an effort to port Linux, *BSD, etc. to it.
I made my attempt at humor. If you're someone famous and you liked it, drop me a note.From the miniscule amount of information available on it in the article, it seems like this thing is basically a PC with only a processor, motherboard, 3d video card, memory, game controller interface, and some variant of Windows CE stored in ROM or Flash. Whatever it really is, it doesn't sound any more powerful than any current PC available today.
I would be willing to bet that part of the advantage Microsoft will be trying to use here is to make this box run all of the current PC games for Windows. If this is true, it means it would already have a wide range of available games -- even before this thing is released! Microsoft would not have to commission more programmers to write games for it, as the PC industry would already be doing this. Basically, Microsoft is creating a box that would bring PC games into the console game market. If this were not true, I am not sure how Microsoft would ever expect this thing to become popular, as there would be a lack of games because everybody would be programming for Dreamcast and Playstation 2.
Either way, I am kind of surprised something like this hasn't been done before, as it seems relatively simple to do. I just wonder what a BSOD would look like on this thing...