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More on the MS "X-Box"
The Hulkster pointed us at an article at sharkyextreme that talks about microsoft's rumored X Box, their x86/WinCE gaming box designed to compete with the Playstation/Dreamcast home gaming console market. The most interesting tidbits are the rumors that will use a
.18 micron K6-2+ and possibly a GeForce 256. Its all speculation, but its still interesting.
It needs something to read the OS off the disk. Think BIOS in a PC, only you can cut down on the functionality even more. That doesn't count as an OS.
Then when do they make their money? They don't. This is a loss leader for the PC platform, but there are some _fatal_ problems with this approach:
- people don't necessarily trust Windows and Microsoft well enough to consider them a competitor in consoles- consoles are about not having to reinstall Windows on, about being troublefree. The perception will be that it's a PC with the floppy drive welded shut
:) - although they can get some development by making it appealing to develop for Windows and ship on this as well by clicking a few checkboxes in the IDE, again, this is a loss leader strategy. Why are they acting threatened in this area? It looks very much like the only way they can make it fly is to take _serious_ losses on it for the sake of proliferation- and they can't reasonably be doing that. MS can't afford to squander its money- that money is the sole source of its power.
- finally, the biggie: every single one of these things made and sold, assuming a world in which all or most of the Windows games are also released for this thing (i.e. marketer's wet dream of _success_ for it), means one more reason to not run a PC with Windows on it. If you can get The Games on a little box with a CD-Rom slot in it, you don't need to beat yourself into the ground making a Windows PC do both that and email and web browsing and spreadsheets etc etc. You can specialise and use something else for the 'real computer' stuff- a Mac, Linux, Be, whatever!
Microsoft can't afford to do this. At all. Not even a little bit. I wonder if this project is even real, or if they've considered the implications: "Get Windows- you need to be able to run the games, games are only for Windows!" "But wait, I got a *whatever-it's-called*, and it can run all the Windows games, so I don't need to run Windows anymore!" "Oh." It seems unbelievable that they wouldn't clue to this problem. I guess we'll see, or not see, in the long run. Might be the purest vapor... if they know what's good for them. They _must_ maintain the PC or basically die. There are too many other things that are a lot easier to manage and keep happy than a PC for consumer computing purposes, and giving away the dominance of the PC in numbers of games is a _bad_ mistake.I do find it interesting that they are supposedly looking at an AMD chip, much to the chagrin most likely of their long time buddy Intel.
;-P
But I must say, WinAMD isn't nearly as catchy as Wintel..
You also have to wonder what they want to use for graphics on this machine. Even with a 500Mhz processor, they really would also need a dedicated graphics processor to stand ANY chance of beating something like the PS 2. zthis machine may be able to compete with current game consoles out there, but they will all soon be in a whole new playing field then the one they are in now..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
I disagree that this will ever be as 'open' as you say, and certainly no more open then Sony using Linux as it's primary development platform for the PS 2.
You automagically locked in to, more then likely, Visual Studio for development, and Direct X as the primary graphics library, neither of which are noted for being superb for game development.
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Yes, but at the same time, it'd most likely run Windows CE, which anyone can develope for, as long as they (*TADA!*) buy Visual Studio. Not to mention the likelyhood that they sell Microsoft Office, etc, to run on the beast. It's a system that they can NEVER WORRY ABOUT THE MANUFACTURES with, as they are them, and they can PUT that roadblock up that says they will ALL run Windows..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
DirectX has been beat to death my many of todays leading game developers as being one of the worst systems to work with. I'll have to dig thru some pages to find exact stories, but I can, and most certainly will. Carmack himself slaughters it regulary when people ask him about it.
And Quake is most CERTAINLY not written in Visual Studio. Some of the Windows specific code is, but not the primary codebase. And the IDE is very, VERY nice, but the actual environment is ill suited for game development. I use Visual C++ 6.0 regularly, and I simply LOVE it, but it is not a very good system for game development. As proof, notice the lack of developers swarming to writing games for Sega Drewamcast. It supports CE, whose primary development platform would be, you guessed it, Visual Studio.
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Having said that, the console market is very restricted. I know of one company in the UK that sells (unlicenced) games, and has made itself a fortune. I believe they were taken to court, but the restrictions were (I believe) deemed too restrictive to be legal.
However, if a GPLed console were to be produced, THAT could turn the entire market upside-down. It shouldn't be too hard, either. There are plenty of very powerful GPLed graphics toolkits, and no shortage of affordable high-speed graphics cards. Plug in a real-time Linux kernel, or (better still) an Exokernel, and you'll have something that can blow the socks off anything already out there.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
www.kdevelop.org
It's close enough to visual studio that I think you would be satisfied.
-- Slashdot sucks.
Whoaoooaaaaa, Sharky's missing a bit of history in their report.
3dfx' partnership with SEGA for the Dural (Sega's code name two years ago for the Dreamcast) fell apart some 18 months ago and although both parties seemed to be satisfied with the end result the real reason for the 'split' then came down to capabilities in terms of supply and yield levels.
Oh, my ass both sides were satisfied!
This was nothing short of a minor scandal some time back. Turned out Sega got some pressure from someone, somewhere, and decided to go with a Japanese company(NEC, in a beautiful twist of irony for those who remember the NEC TurboGraphix 16) for the core chipset in their Dreamcast.
This was after signing with 3DFX and extracting detailed technical specifications out of them.
Needless to say, 3DFX went ballistic, and (probably correctly) accused Sega of delivering their prized designs to NEC, who at the time was still theoretically going to release their tile based PowerVR2 monster chip.
I actually don't think that chipset ended being used in the DreamCast(I lost track--so sue me), but I definitely remember a pretty massive settlement for breach of contract etc. against Sega for their 3DFX fiasco.
Lots of drama, somebody go post some links.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
I disagree that this will ever be as 'open' as you say, and certainly no more open then Sony using Linux as it's primary development platform for the PS 2.
You automagically locked in to, more then likely, Visual Studio for development, and Direct X as the primary graphics library, neither of which are noted for being superb for game development.
Those are the standard development tools. If other people want to use other environments, it would take some serious anticompetitive hardware that wouldn't survive a moment of legal/PR scrutiny to literally MANDATE the usage of the Windows OS on otherwise standard PC Hardware.
Microsoft is likely to actually Do The Right Thing for one reason or another here and posit that game developers would rather develop their high end code using the many services embedded in DirectX7 than use whatever the OSS guys are doing.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
No it won't. The idea is that it will be on millions and millions of homes and will run _Windows_.
It'll run an open PC platform. Whatever OS is loaded is whatever OS is loaded.
The anticompetitive hardware that would prevent this would attract farrrrrr too much legal/PR flack that MS doesn't need for any reason.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
I'm confused.
Don't worry about it. Understanding the "enemy" is much more fulfilling than hating a bogeyman. I actually agree with most of your analysis.
You think MS should be credited for competing?
Heh, when did I say this? I said it's cool that they're creating a much more open platform than what we've got now.
What's so noble about that?
Cool Product != Noble Aims. Embrace and Extend is about as ignoble as it gets.
The only reason MS is offering this "open and free" development platform is because they have no choice. Sony and Sega have the market locked down. Microsoft's original plan to make the PC the premier gaming platform hasn't exactly panned out and they're not too happy about that.
Sure, they've got a choice. Kick Sega, Sony, and Nintendo around for their relatively ridiculous developer relation$, or don't.
Look. The X-Box isn't something like...say, removing Knowledge Base entries that help Windows work with Samba. Or removing critical files from their online archives, demanding that you call tech $upport to get the patch to a PPTP bug. Or revoking Compaq's right to sell Windows because they dared to remove the Internet Explorer icon.
Complaining about the X-Box because it's a Windows compatible platform is kinda like complaining about those FreePC deals because, my god, they're free PC's that can run WINDOWS!
MS is in this to make sure that developers work on MS platforms, using MS development products. They only care about openess and freedom when it's the only way to enter a market.
MS keeps you as open and free as possible as long as you're using their tools. Openness and Freedom is historically their major selling point, and they'll be as closed and violent as they can get away with to prevent others from intruding on their domain in this regard.
[WARNING: THE FOLLOWING ANALOGY IS OFFENSIVE BEYOND BELIEF.] Microsoft is really no more complicated than your average hooker--she's got the goods, it's $49.95, and she'll claw the eyes out of anyone else who tries to do the same on her corner.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Most of Microsoft Games (the good ones anyway, not the "Return of the Arcade" serieses) are licenced by Microsoft or published through them. I wonder why such a large company can't get its shit together when it comes to actually making a good game.
According to John Carmack, size is actually a detractor in making really good games. He's been quoted as saying that "Three programmers, three artists, and three level designers can make the greatest games in the world."
Too many designers spoil the vision.
(Although they do make a good flight game, MS Flight Simulator being this one exception, though my coworker who works on the project says there are so many people working on it, it's any wonder things get done. It would be cheaper for them to outsource it as well.)
Flight Sim is a legacy game--it's part of the definition of what Microsoft is. It may be an albatross of a division, but most of the people in there probably grew up playing it. It's part of their corporate identity, I'm sure.
I don't know in fact, but it's likely the hardware is made by a seperate entity.
It's definitely separately managed; they don't do everything perfect but their quality is noticably higher than the software divisions'.
Anyway, the hardware is decent, but definitely not ergonomic, it just looks that way.
No, the iMac mouse is definitely not ergonomic. What complaints do you levy against MS hardware?
The scrollwheel is just brilliantly implemented, down to the steppage to provide the stop.
The Windows key is tragically named but is an amazing concession to a design concept I wish Linux subscribed more to--everything should be doable via keyboard. I use the Windows key all the time in 98(is there a KDE patch yet?), and respect the Right Mouse Key for what it is.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
No, it'd simply take Microsoft to add a few hardware specific catches in there, and not publish them.
Hardware specific catches break compatibility, lead to lots of headaches down the road, and don't even stand up to a decent amount of reverse engineering on a (wide) open platform like Windows, where every call is just a SoftICE away.
Offer an SDK, and do the same thing 3dfx does with Glide.. FORCE them to use it. If another company truies to write something compatible, sue their pants off.
Not their style. They're using standard hardware for a reason.
This isn't the first time MS has entered a market with overly restrictive incumbents. They're counting on the fact that they'll be much more open than their competitors to make them money.
And this has NOTHING TO DO with OSS. Personally, I see more promise in OpenGL then DirectX. I see better hardware support for OpenGL, and I see better performance out of OpenGL.
I don't know about this. OpenGL seems to be all about having the driver authors do more work, presuming they're much more knowledgable about how their product wants to draw a primitive.
Direct3D, as far as I can tell, is just much, much easier to write drivers for--more stuff is left to the game developer to implement. Are there any experts out there who can verify?
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
John Carmack hates Direct3D. While his original rant seems to have disappeared from ID's page there is a news article here. John's arguments basicly centered around that A) Direct3D requires you to write more lines of code and B) The lines of code are significantly harder to read.
.plan remains one of my favorite flamages of all time.
The article is from 1997. Things change.
Give MS some credit. Carmack ripped DirectX a new orifice back in the days of DirectX1. By DirectX3, they ditched their horrific Talisman-defined Execute Buffer architecture(which even Carmack had problems figuring out) for a rather standard interface game designers could just throw tri's at.
Yes, that specific
It should also be noted that MS is trying to "fix" this by either funding or actually working on getting OpenGL to work on top of Direct3D with some sort of abstraction layer. I haven't been tracking this, so I could be wrong (or the effort may have been abandoned).
Ah yes, Fareinheit(I'm too lazy to spell this right at the moment). Standard MS Vapor, best I can tell. Too bad, it'd be *very* nice to have standard things like Interface Enumeration for OpenGL games.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
I've been saying this for a while: Most actions of Microsoft can be analyzed under a "Chains For Freedom" Philosophy: Microsoft wants to make the general public as free as possible, as long as they're the ones to deliver the freedom.
That in mind, consider the values of the X-Box. Whereas most console makers tightly restrict development on their machines, game developers will likely be free to release whatever they like for the X-Box.
Expect, of course, an extremely quickloading and game-customized version of Windows to have a per unit cost on each Game DVD. Also expect this to be significantly cheaper than Sony or Sega mandates per unit.
Don't expect non-standard media. Microsoft, for all the embracing and extending it's accused of(justifiably), has an excellent hardware department. I've never, ever been more embarassed of Slashdotters as when I watched them rip apart the touch-mouse--this was an impressive technology that would have been worshipped had it come from Logitech and shipped with Linux drivers. Anyway, expect their department to build in an industry standard DVD-ROM, likely one that can play DVD-RAM disks so as to facilitate ease of use for system developers.
Developers become "free" from propietary startup hardware costs, and "shackled" by having to code to Microsoft standards. It's pretty interesting to watch.
Linux is the wildcard. While Sony is releasing Linux development code for PS2, Linux should actually *run* on this K6(!!!) based system. This, above all else, should excite the heck out of us. Here we have a cheap system that will very likely be in millions and millions of homes, have 10/100 Ethernet built in(oops, Sega!), significant processing power($20 says they put the SB Live audio chipset in it, btw), and will run Linux.
Beyond the fact that we will see developers using Linux as their game OS rather than the one-off Windows from MS, here's a console that one can actually pawn computational work on. It's a console free of almost any legal demands and enforcements of its creator.
It's an open platform, from Microsoft.
Recognizing that this is a cool thing gives us more credibility when we accuse MS of the kind of junk described in the Halloween papers.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
The console manufacturers have had it coming for a while now. Unless they open up development for their machines, they're going to be crushed by someone that does allow free (as in unencumbered) development. The disappointing thing is that it looks like Micros~1 will be the one to do it.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
No, not really. Since the dreamcast OS is supplied on each disc, rather than in the console itself, game developers can choose whether to use WinCE or Sega's own OS. So far, it looks like most developers are avoiding CE.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
MicroSoft is supposedly planning to release a gaming system:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/991026 -000014.html
Didn't they learn from their DreamCast fiasco? Anyway, I'm predicting that this project will be killed anyway and if it does make the light of day it will be lackluster. It's way too late for MicroSoft to get into the game.
Sony is the clear winner in this space and the fact that they already have a base for connectivity with their consumer appliances makes them tough to beat. Sony is very serious about becoming not only the defacto standard for gaming but the defacto standard for home entertainment. They've been putting FireWire (a method of connecting media devices) into their digital cameras, PCs, Laptops, televisions, stereo components, etc.. The (MIPS-based) video chip in PlayStation has nothing that comes close to it. This could also be used to make a settop box out of the PlayStation II as well.
Let's also not forget that PlayStation I has about 80% market share. I believe the new PlayStation II will blow away the records set by DreamCast.
That said Sony is forecasting lower than expected earnings due to PlayStation's costs and competition:
http://dailynews.yaho o.com/h/nm/19991026/tc/japan_sony_1.html
I was hoping something like this would drive the stock down but I'm having no luck there. I guess no one's buying it. I'm not either.
You can read about Sony's plans in this month's Wired (which I still haven't read myself ).
"The lie, Mr. Mulder, is most convincingly hidden between two truths."
--
And Justice for None
Hey kid, here's a nickel. Go get yourself a Slashdot login id.
(Poor paraphrase of my favorite Dilbert Cartoon!)
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
I think if you want to look at what consoles systems will sell, you have to look at little bit of history, and why the current systems are where they are. In cronological order......
1) Saturn - failed, why? Sega of America. Every good Japanese game that came out for Saturn never made it to the US. The old CEO of SOA is no longer there, and the Dreamcast will get it's Japapnese games that caused the Saturn to fail in the US(by the way, it's still somewhat stong in Japan)
2) the PSX - success, why? Timing Timing Timing. and don't forget Marketing Marketing Marketing. Sautrn is still waivering there, but people want something better. Sony comes along with a brilliant marketing campaign and gets all the people that wanted a "next-gen" system, but didn't like the Saturn. And don't forget that cd-r prices are comming down and copying doesn't seem so impracitcal. So Sony already has a decent market now thanks to Sega and our next company, Nintendo.
Ninendo 64 - surviving, why? Nintendo. Nintendo is always late with systems, and this time they were too late. Sony picked up loyal Nintendo fans because the 64 was so late. And lack of games didn't help sell may 64's either. With the goof-up of Nintendo, someone has to pick up the customers, and they went to the system with the games. Sony. And lets not forget the goof-up of using carts over cds so they could try and make more $$ in cart production.
Dreamcast - success - Due to Sony FUD, every videogame mag and site said it was doomed from the start. And so-so sales in Japan of the DC, and the failure of the Saturn didn't do much to change their minds. Before realease people had one thing on their minds..PSX2. The Dreamcast is breaking sales records beause it's delivering what the other promise "next-year" now. And at $200, it's not out of anyone's price range. And not to mention the US is getting the Japanese releases the Saturn ddn't get.
X-box - will fail, why? Because people want a console, not a computer. The people that don't have a computer they could upgrade to X-Box power for $300 or less, and want to play PC games is small. Too small. And that Microsoft can't make a good game to save it's life, and it you can't push out good titles for your own system, it will fail. And PC games don't really go well with consoles. Play Quake2 on the psx or 64? that anything close to what the PC is? Starcraft or C&C 2? And for those couple games that will be decent, people will just get thier PC port.
PSX2 - survive, but won't be another psx-like success. Sony is getting away from the "console" now. They want an "all-in-one" unit that plays games, dvds, cds, surfs the web, washes your dog, and clears your house. These kinda of things never really sell, and at the $400 price too far out in price, when the DC will be in full swing and probably at $99. Their saving grace maybe Squaresoft(FF7 sold ALOT of PSX units), but there are rumors that they be going DC(they dev for whatever sytem is big)
"Project Dolphin" - ??? - it's Nintendo, it will do at least as well as the N64 did now. There are always a huge group of people that will buy anything Nintendo. And Nintendo can bring out it's own good games to try and sell the system based on that and do well. Microsoft can't do the same. And at what's rumored to be a $99 pricetag, people will hold off on getting the $400 psx2 and see what turns out.
So my call is the DC will be here for years to come, the X-Box is doomed to fail(not only because of MS) PSX2 will probably do about what the N64 is now. and what Nintendo does is all up to them.
If Microsoft was successful because they competed in the market and won, then there'd be no problems. I mean, consider AOL. They were successful. They competed in the market, against all odds, and won. But they didn't win by preventing Prodigy and Compuserve from competing, or use their market dominance to prevent competition.
Microsoft's idea of competition, really is to buy or bury all competitors. IOW, Microsoft has convinced themselves and other that anti-competitive practices is really competition. You notice that both Compuserve and Prodigy no longer exist. This is the goal that they, of course, wanted, yet they didn't have to do things like prevent Prodigy bundling their software with OEM's, or other things like that.
Also, note that AOL has competition that is vying to replace AOL's market dominance. Yet even with that we see nothing from AOL indicating that they are using their market domenince to keep others out. AOL could do things like prevent OEM's to bunding other online services software, or prevent it from being bundled with magazines and other marketable areas. But they don't.
You see, it's not success that's a problem. If Microsoft were just successful like AOL is, I'd probably still be using some of their products that are better then the competition. But when they do things like prevent Compaq from bundling Netscape, charge IBM 4 times the amount to license Windows 95 as they would have if IBM didn't sell OS/2, developed Windows to be "incompatible" with competing DOS's, and force ISV's to ship unnecessary Microsoft products with their software, then I think that's going beyond what a successful, competing company would do.
-Brent--
I didn't do to well piecing sentences together there. I didn't meant that Compuserve and Prodigy crumbled because Microsoft had anything to do with it. I meant that they didn't crumble because AOL was dominant and used that anti-competitively. AOL was better, but they did nothing to prevent CIS and Prodigy from being better. That they were failures, is purely their fault.
Unlike several of Microsoft's customers, who did fail, not solely of their own mistakes, but due to Microsoft preventing them from competing.
Note that Bill Gates wanted to buy or bury AOL too, but AOL trounced MSN easily. Notice the surprising failure of Windows CE. I predict that Microsoft's console box will be a failure too. So Microsoft doesn't have the power to destroy every market, but they do all they can in the market they do have power in to prevent competition. Even then, Linux, Mozilla, Samba, KDE/Gnome, have the ability to compete, against all odds and beat Microsoft. But simply because Microsoft can be beaten doesn't mean that they didn't do anything wrong. And it doesn't negate wrongs they've done in the past.
Then how come I can't use my MSN Messenger to talk to my AOL IM buddies?This has been bashed out in the past. That's like asking how come Dominoes won't delivery Pizza Hut pizza's for free. After all, who's to deny Pizza Hut to right to have delivery service. AIM is AOL's Service. Like a delivery service, they provide value, and like a delievery service they can work with however they want, but on their terms.
There are many IM services that I could use that I'm able to communicate with AIM users with. I'm not talking about the open source clients. I'm talking about, for instance, Real's IM service? You heard of it before? If you have the G2 player, you can see the icon for the service in the player window. See it there? Yep, that's right, it's the standard AIM service, licensed from AOL. AOL has licensed their IM service to many commercial companies.
It's not AOL who's preventing Microsoft from interopolating with AIM users. It's your bright shining company, Microsoft themselves that prevents this from happening. Microsoft needs to do what the others have done, go to AOL with the dollars, and set up a licensing deal. Of course, that doesn't mean that AOL *has* to accept it. Seeing Microsoft's so-called "licensing" agreements in the past (Spyglass anyone?), I'd make sure that there was a lot of good stuff for me, before accepting anything from Microsoft.
And no, you can't use the excuse that because AOL freely allowed Open Source clients to use their service that they *must* allow anyone to freely use their service. The local pizza shop may give free pizzas to the local childrens foundation, but I've still got to pony up the cash.
I'm not saying that MS is a paragon of virtue -- but holding AOL up as a respectable model is just ludicrous. I was going to add additionalI looked through the list and didn't see anything that had anything to do with the subject at hand. You show me one thing that AOL did that was solely anti-competitive, and served nothing but preventing better online services from competing in the market.
-Brent--
The other companies that bundle AIM compatible clients, worked out deals with AOL. (ie. licensed, paid, partnered, worked with) Microsoft, on the other hand didn't talk to AOL at all. They just barged their way in and did what they wanted.
Also, just because AOL chooses to let some clients freely connect, does not demand that every client must be allowed to freely connect. Think of it this way. Microsoft gives software to educational facilities, and other "charitable" causes. Yet if Dell were to insist that that means that Microsoft *must* license Windows to them for free also, we'd all be having a good laugh. We should have the same response when Microsoft implies that AOL must "license" access to the AIM service for free.
Now, if when Microsoft would talk with AOL about licensing the AIM service, AOL would demand that Microsoft shut down MSN to license it, then I think we'd all agree that that is going beyong natural competitive practices. Yet it is actions like that that Microsoft has taken that they are now being sued for.
-Brent--
I profess to know none of the details of Microsofts rumored gaming system, but here goes...
We've seen great progress in the gaming market due to the battle of equals in Nintendo and Sega... Sony hopped into the fray as well, and though they dwarf the other two in size, they play by the rules (my idea, anyways) of releasing better hardware rather than simply lowering prices.
If Microsoft indeed enters the market, I wouldn't be suprised if they delivered an inferior solution which they sold at cost or at a loss in order to gain market share. They'ed somehow make their systems require WinCE disks... It'd be trully embarrasing for them if Linux somehow runs on it. Plus, their revenue stream from such a device would be solely from WinCE royalties from game developers. So, don't expect Linux disks for this machine.
So far as hoping for a Microsoft machine to support both DVD and DVD RAM, dream on. Their entire revenue base is from OEM deals. If they let their machine read DVD RAM devices, then that can shoot themselves in the foot so far as capturing revenue from developers.
Though the system will be built from "commodity" parts, I highly doubt one will ever be able to call it "open". It's just not in Microsoft's interest to have a trully open platform.
That seems like a very large assumption, especially considering the lack of information that is out there. I doubt they're going to stick an Abit BH-6, or any other standard motherboard in a console. They'll likely use a proprietary motherboard and chipset, since they are not aiming toward PC compatibility. Without knowing the details, it just strikes me as a very low possibility that you'll be able to run any existing desktop OS (Linux/Win/BSD/Be) on any console.
So, I'll conclude by saying it's all just speculation, and it's not quite as simple as "It should work just dandy with Linux," in my humble opinion.
Next you'll be buying the telephone companies and cable companies.
hate to break it to you but... You remember a guy called Paul Allen? Do a quick search on the name and see how much cable he has bought in the last two years. It's a big part of his company portfolio now.
+&x
The best example is the web browser market. Did he compete there? Yes. Did he destroy the market? Yes. Netscape started giving away their product to match the Microsoft price ($0.00). The market was destroyed. But it isn't all bad. Microsoft innovated, right?
This is exactly why Open Source beats Microsoft at their own game. Better product. Better price. What would be killer is an open-source hardware and software game console. Multiple hardware vendors, and easy entry for programmers. Could be delicious, folks!
The history is a little bit longer.
Remember the AMD chips that proudly displayed "Windows 95 Compatible?" That was around the DX4/100 era.
Intel never had a MS logo on their processors.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Game makers can port console-like PC games to this system much easier than they could to, say, the PSXII (unless they had that in mind from the start) because none of the low-level routines need to be re-optimized for a different architechture and the graphics calls are exactly the same.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
DirectX is a great graphics library with a crapload of support from the industry. The only problem with it is that it's tied to Windows. But if this console runs it... Well that's fine by me.
And VisualStudio?? Hello, have you ever used VS?? It's possibly the nicest damned IDE out there. I would give a kidney to have a VS port for Linux that would work with EGCS. You're crazy to think that it's no good. And to say that it's poor for game development -- what do you think Carmack writes Quake in?
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Look, I'm all for diversity on the desktop, but consoles aren't the same thing. What if it only ran programs that used OpenGL? Would that be okay with you? I think -- no, I know -- that this is just about hating Microsoft. Grow up, they're a big company with a lot of clout and, moreover, whining about how evil and unfair they are isn't going to change that. If you don't want to use this system, fine - don't use it, no one is twisting your arm. But spare us all your rantings because, believe me, they're nothing new around here and frankly it's getting kind of -1: Redundant.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
...this is stupid. :P).
It will run on a standard PC cpu, using a standard PC graphics card...which means the software could just as easily be made to run on a PC (given the proper, err, incentive
Realize that most console people that I know are also VERY loyal to their system (more so than Amiga people even...and thats a loyal userbase...)
I know people that have no Playstation or Dreamcast, regardless of the games, simply because it's not Nintendo.
And don't worry, I'm sure Microsoft will hinder development without a hefty liscence.
There are two ways this box could go... it could be a stanard Microsoft pre-announce that doesn't show for several years OR it could be a good box.
Either way I'm not sure if this is an area that MS want to get into - for a start its locked up tight by Sega and Sony, and for once MS will be up against companies that play the same sort of hardball they do, in a market that Sega and Sony understand intimately, and Microsoft are VERY late comeing into this - they could have still done something two or three years ago.
It's a near impossible market to break into. There aren't even any good killer features that I can think of that MS can use to get leverage into the market, they have already all been used in Sony and Sega machines. Sony have the PSX II acting as games machine/home entertainment box, and Sony have the dreamcast doing wonderful net things.
MS can't sell it as a PC games machine - most people that would want this already have a PC that can play games.
They can't sell it as a pure games machine unless the graphics and speed exceed the dedicated hardware of the Playstation II and the Dreamcast. A PC based box won't do this - lets face it - if you had the ability to do this on a PC you would.
I think this project will be steamrolled into market, but I can't see a good reason for it selling.
All MS will be able to do is to copy features (and oddly - they are very good at this) but in the games market gamers are very loyal to thier platform. The Japanese market which is the big one to get, hasn't been very good to MS, and I can't see the trend changing.
MS need to provide a killer game and a few killer features on thier box. The killer game is easy to do, the features are harder to achieve.
In all I don't think this will succeed, and may not even make it onto shelves.
I do know the retail markup on Dreamcasts are pennies which most likely means Sega told retailers, "You wanna sell my games, sell my console for nothing." The real money is in the software, which debuts at $40-60 bucks a pop. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if Sega does subsidize its consoles by its software prices. In the quest for more 3D/FPS we might be looking at a future where expensive tech will be sold at a loss just to keep up the rep as being the biggest and fastest.
Am I the only one that keeps reading this title as the MS SEX-Bot?
Whatta load of horseshit. I mean, someone may leak out that MS (think of them as a big, hungry plant. Don't worry, I'll explain later) is thinking of developing a... let's see... Toaster. Yeah, it's a toaster that... well, they haven't decided yet. And it's capable of... well, since it doesn't exist, the possibilities are endless.
/. post stories on it, thereby qualfying it as "news."
So, the press immediately labels it "X-Toaster," giving it identity. Then MSNBC, Wired and
Then speculation happens. It'll run with a new Motorola chip that actually turns out toast the color you set it for. It may come in blue, it may come in green, it may come is orange, but be called "Tangerine." (every tirade should have a pleasant rhyme scheme in at least one sentence.)
Now, every news site has to have at least one story on it per week. Yup. Someone posts a story (Sharky? Tom's Hardware Guide?) speculating on it with info from "Sources That We've Trusted Before."
Now MS has got press on all of the major news sites, constantly, and before the freaking thing is even a viable idea in the parent company, it's got identity, mindshare and loads of free press.
Feed me, Seymour, feed me.