While DirectX may be a decent API, the fact that it takes somewhere along the lines of 3x as much code to do the same things that OpenGL does makes it bloated.
Besides, DirectX is tied to Windows. Other methods of doing the same things exist, at the same level or maybe even superior levels, for a lot less bloat. Unreal Tournament 2004 looks and runs fantastic on a PowerMac G5, and not a hint of DirectX to be seen; it's all OpenGL.
The reason more and more PC developers use DirectX over OpenGL and others is the simple fact that Microsoft integrated DirectX into Windows, and thus, the developers know that most of the people playing the games have the correct software to run it. Being in a monopoly position tends to do that, ya know.
If it is such a failure, why have developers for PS2, with a much larger market considering the consoles sold and the potential to use broadband, only made 80 online games for the PS2 whearas the Xbox has just as many?
The bigger question is: why does the Xbox, with Xbox Live being so easy, only have as many games online as the PS2; which has no set standard and operating rules for online games?
One big factor, as has recently been seen, is Microsoft's draconian approach to XBL. IE, until recently MICROSOFT controlled ALL the game 'servers' and the game creators/owners did not. And I put servers in the little quotes because even though MS touted dedicated servers as a benefit of Live, there aren't any besides PSO's LOBBIES (the actual game runs P2P after the lobbies are exited). Not a single dedicated server on the entirety of XBL, otherwise.
Yet, there ARE dedicated servers on the PS2's front. SOCOM and SOCOM II use them; as do EverQuest Online Adventures and Final Fantasy XI, for example.
But, it took EA not biting on the Live hook to get MS to finally realize "hey, maybe if we lessened that restriction, more companies will use it." That concession of allowing companies to control their own servers, and conceeding to not release any XSN Sports titles this year, seemed to have finally won EA over.
Maybe now Activision and Neversoft will put the next THPS online on the Xbox, since the last 3 versions for the PS2 have been online there. Yet, none have been on XBL, because Neversoft wanted control of how the matchmaking worked, and Microsoft was being all "our way or the highway" when Neversoft had already worked out matchmaking abilities through GameSpy. Guess which version of the past few THPS games sold more, PS2 or Xbox? Online abilities are why I chose the PS2 version over the Xbox ones since THPS3, and I can assume it was a decision for a few others as well, even though the Xbox versions looked way better.
And only one in ten Xboxes have live? Any stats on PS2?
Actually, it's closer to 1:13-1:15 for XBL, not even 1:10, worldwide. Europe is sitting at around 100k subscribers, Japan less than that, so the rest of the subscribers are in North America, where the ratio will be better than 1:10... but worldwide, if MS has hit the 1 million mark, it is ony 6.66%-7.69% going online depending on how many Xboxes have been sold. If they haven't hit that 1 million subscriber mark, then the percentage is even less.
The PS2 has supposedly sold 3 million network adapters, but even if that were true, and every single one of them was used (which they aren't by Sony's own admission, only around 1 million have been used), when we consider there are potentially over 70 million PS2s in the wild, the ratio for PS2 online players to non online players is staggeringly low at a woeful 4.28% of all PS2's going online (if we assume all 3 million adapters have gone online). That's not even 1:20 PS2's online. The actual percentage is a mere 1.42% going online on the PS2, which isn't even 1:50 (it's still below 2:100).
I'd waste my time responding, but you didn't actually add any new information, and most of what you used to "dispute" me was false. For example, Gamespy does not list a ship date for R: Racing Evolution, nor does Ebgames.com list it for sale, though I can buy both new and used copies for the Xbox and PS2. I could still be wrong, but evidence says I'm right.
Good thing you only check EBGames.com, Mike... Otherwise you might actually have some facts to back up your claim.
Or, are these sites not worthy of your checking to make sure your foot doesn't end up in your mouth the moment you open it? "If it isn't on EBGames.com it doesn't exist!!!!"
[O]ne thing I find rather annoying is the lack of a "new tab" button like NS7 has, on the left of the tabstrip. I use that a lot! In Firefox I have to right click on the tabstrip and select the menu item. Bah!
FireFox hides the tab menu by default when only one tab is in use-- to allow for more screen size on pages. You can always hit CTRL+T on Windows to open a new blank tab automatically in FireFox, Apple(Command)+T on Mac OS X to open a new blank tab in both Safari and FireFox. I dunno about Linux to open new blank tabs, since I don't have my linux box up yet..
You may also be able to keep the tab menu bar visible at all times by going to the preferences... but I never cared it wasn't there, because I use hotkeys to open empty tabs anyway. And I use FireFox exclusively on my Windows machine and Safari on my iBook.
I never remember Microsoft stating that they intended to make a profit on the first Xbox.
This is correct... However, MS told shareholders that they would lose only around $900 million by the end of the first 5 years. Not even three years into the lifecycle of the console, and the Xbox has been the main cause of the Home and Entertainment Division losing over $2.3 billion since the launch of the Xbox. The Xbox is the reason that that division is now losing over $200 million per quarter, with no end to the losses in sight.
Every price drop, game bundle, or Live bundle they put out accross the world loses them more money per console... and the game sales haven't really been there to make up for the loss on the hardware, like what was expected. In fact, MS hasn't had, to the best of my knowledge, a million plus selling game worldwide since the original Splinter Cell, which was only the 4th title on the machine to break the million unit sales.
I'm willing to pay for it. I don't particularly care who's delivering cheat-free gaming. All that matters is that it only exists on one platform today, that platform has games I want to play, and the price for the service is extremely reasonable.
Which platform has no cheating online? There is cheating on XBL. Check out PSO for XBL. Full of cheaters. Also people can use glitches in the games to cheat without mods: for example, there is a glitch in Crimson Skies where a Gyrocopter can get INSIDE a building in the Chicago level in multiplayer... and snipe and never get hit.
Using glitches is still cheating.
The advantage is, supposedly, that the games can be patched. Too bad the glitch issues tend to not get patched, as even with the newest update to Crimson Skies there is no fix for the glitches.
But MS is the only one who has sacked-up and provided gamers with internet play the way it should be.
You even mention that MS hasn't lived up to the server promises... so how is potentially laggy pure P2P gaming Net gaming the way it should be? Voice is nice, but not worth spending money on, same with invites. Besides, I'm getting sick of these "Live Aware" games where I'm playing offline and keep getting invites for online games... because it auto puts you online... if I'm playing offline, there's a reason: I want to play offline.
Thing is: this is the one promised feature of XBL that MS left up to the individual publishers to follow through on. And none of them have opted to implement it.
Actually, until the concession to EA to allow EA to run their own servers (and other publishers now as well) to get EA on XBL, MS had said that THEY would control ALL XBL servers, not the 3rd party publishers. This is one reason some publishers went online on the PS2 and not the Xbox, such as EA, and some development houses within publishers like Neversoft (owned by Activision) didn't go online on XBL but on the did on the PS2.
But, as you said, MS has consistently failed to deliver on servers, and canned the Unreal Chamionship X-Servers early on as well.
And he read someplace that he shouldn't write passwords down (in case someone finds the post-it under the keyboard.) so he doesn't know his encryption key or passphrase or WAP password.
Then that's his own fault, honestly. My passkeys are 26 hex digits. No way in hell I'm remembering one 26 digit passkey, let alone the four I have on my router.
Your scenerio is one that is feasible, but then the fault lies in the owner who didn't put his passkeys in some readable format somewhere where they wouldn't be easily found by people other than himself.
I have my PC and Xbox hooked up through Ethernet to my 802.11g router, and my iBook wirelessly. I set up the 128 bit encryption as soon as I got the router up and running. For my iBook, I just had to type in the passkey once, save it to my settings, and I was connected through it and am always connected through it when it comes out of sleep mode.
Friday a friend of mine came over with his Compaq AMD 64 WinXP laptop with 802.11g in it, and even after giving him a valid passkey, he couldn't connect to my network until we unhooked the Xbox and plugged him into the network through Ethernet. Wirelessly his laptop kept telling him he had some wierd IP address for the LAN, and wouldn't connect when I told him what IP address to specify for the LAN. And he's more computer savvy than I am, but I've used WiFi for longer.
I've connected to other secure networks with a valid passkey in one attempt with my iBook, but never tried with a PC laptop. After seeing the pain it was for my friend on my network (which broadcasts the network as well, so it would be easier to get into), I assume Apple + AirPort Extreme cards = easier to work with than WinXP + WiFi card when it comes to secure WiFi networks.
Walk around downtown and see how many you find in a small area (like a 2 block area). When I was out in LA for E3, we went walking around with my iBook, and found around 10 completely open networks in just a few blocks of walking.
Hell, our hotel didn't have Internet access besides phone lines, yet myself, and some guys from another site with a PowerBook found a nice unsecure network we could access from the lobby of our hotel. I guess between us and the other sites using the network (it seems once we found out about the network, the other websites in the hotel started using it as well), though, they figured it out; because by Thursday night the wireless network was secured against us entering without effort in cracking the WEP code, which we didn't feel like doing.
I have my own wireless network secured with WEP at home. It's not much protection, but at 128 bit with an annoyingly long passcode coupled with the fact that I'd notice any wardrivers parked in front of my house (since I live at the end of a dead end with more than 600 feet between my house and the next nearest street), it's fine for me.
My guess is that they will have a fairly exclusive contract with Microsoft.
They've already been doing this, sort of. Games like Panzer Dragoon Orta, JSRF, Toe Jam and Earl III, House of the Dead III, Otogi: Myth of Demons, Shenmue II, and some others have appeared only on the Xbox.
Unfortunately, most of the Xbox exclusive titles haven't seen very good sales... even the stellar Panzer Dragoon Orta languished with sales, and fun games like JSRF also were not selling (and JSRF is now out of print as well).
Sega would do better to keep going with as many multi-platform titles as they can, so thjey can recoup more costs and turn a profit.
The exclusive titles they've done on consoles have been hit or miss with sales. The Super Monkey Ball series did well on the GC, but Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg did not, nor did the stellar Skies of Arcadia Legends. Virtua Fighter 4 didn't do as well as hoped on the PS2. And, as I've said, even though many of their Xbox exclusive games are incredibly good, they don't see many sales.
Barely anyone, including Microsoft themselves, use the caching abilities of the Xbox hard drive, thus leaving many games to have near PS2-ish load times. Ninja Gaiden does seem to use the hard drive, as it has about 5 seconds of loading when it does load, but most other games go on for 15 seconds or more. This is especially true of Microsoft published games, and if ANYONE should be using the hard drive how it is supposed to be, it should be Microsoft. Way for them to set an example.
Oh, and on average the GameCube has the fastest load times out of the three consoles; followed by the Xbox, on average; and then the PS2, on average. This doesn't apply in all games cases, as some games take a long time to load on one while others may load lightning quick; but on average the GameCube beats out both the Xbox and the PS2 for fastest loading times.
speed of saves
Depends on the game. Some games save lightning quick, other slow as molasses. Same thing for loading saved games. This is true on all three consoles, as well.
number of saves
Again, this depends on the game. For example, Ninja Gaiden only allows for 10 save game slots, other games (Halo for example) offer as few as 3 save game slots, while others offer unlimited slots.
amount of user-defined information
Care to elaborate on this one, chumpy? Because the only thing I can think of that comes close is my gamertag and credit card number for my XBL account.
downloaded content
I can give you this, to a degree. Downloadable content has, however, been far and few between for most games that offer it; and in some cases the 'downloadable content' is actually already on the game disk, but you need to download somethng to unlock it.
knowing that everyone has room for the save
How are they supposed to know that gamer X hasn't filled his Xbox hard drive with soundtracks? It isn't imposible, you know. It can be assumed the majority have room on their hard drives for saves, but it cannot be assumed that EVERYONE with an Xbox does.
custom soundtracks
Used in less than 10% of the entire Xbox library, hardly something that can be touted as a must have feature in the console.
That is technology that the Xbox has- that developers can use to create great games.
So why aren't there all the very best games on the Xbox? Hardware does not talent in game developers make. See: Kabuki Warriors, Kakuto Chojin, Tao Feng, Blinx, Azurik, Nightcaster, Obi-Wan, Kung Fu Chaos, Fusion Frenzy, Drake of the 99 Dragons, Bruce Lee, oh hell, just go to GameRankings, put in Xbox and worst games with as many results as you can find, and you will see 132 games for the Xbox have averaged a 65% or under (going by school terms, in my area a 64 is an F).
Again, hardware will not help one lick if the games suck already. As soon as people learn this, the world will be a smarter place.
Most of the people that play down the importance of things like on-line gaming (Live) are the ones that have never used it. For the rest of the people that do use it, it becomes very, very important.
While I enjoy playing my Live games, they aren't the be all and end all of gaming. I don't always need to hear smart mouthed 13 year olds cursing on their mics just because they want to sound 'mature' and other bullshit that happens on Live (can we say quitting before the end of something just because they're losing?).
Also, the numbers don't lie. A year plus to get up to 750k WORLDWIDE subscribers to Live... and around 14 million Xboxes shipped worldwide. That means only 5.3% of the Xboxes shipped have Live accounts on them. Hardly a number which states Live's importance to gaming. Either the 94.7% can't get online with their Xbox, or they just simply don't care about Live.
Not to worry, though, Sony claims to have 2 million online users worldwide, out of 70 million plus PS2s shipped. Or only 2.8% of the PS2's in the wild online.
It seems the masses don't agree with the importance of online gaming.
I think many people who object to apple's prices do so because you may get a lot for your money, but you may not WANT half of it.
Soet of like Windows, right? It comes with a ton of 'features', most of which I don't want.
Granted, my iBook came with some software I could live without (for exapmple: Garage Band, I'm not a mucisian); but most of the other porgrams do me just fine, and a lot better than the crap Microsoft integrates into Windows to expand their monopoly. iChat AV, Safari, Mail, iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie, etc. are all things I like, even if I barely ever touch iMovie. And I still downloaded Firefox to this iBook as well.
Now, as for the hardware, well, I got a lot for my money with the Airport Extreme card (antenna built into the iBook, no need for a card with an antenna sticking out) and 512 MB extra RAM added in. The hardware runs smoothly and efficiently. Remmeber the Mac saying: "It just works."
Scroll down about halfway through the document to see the results for each division of Microsoft. The Xbox and its games are part of the Home and Entertainment Division, and accounts for most of that division's revenues, and for most of that division's losses.
For the quarter ending Dec 31, the H&E Division brought in $1.2+ billion in revenue, but still lost $241 million dollars. Most of that money comes from the Xbox and its games, and most of that loss comes from losses on the Xbox hardware.
Since the launch of the Xbox, the Home and Entertainment division has lost over $2 billion, most of that coming directly from losses on the Xbox hardware cost to produce vs. MSRP.
This worked, for the most part. But, sometimes it would be apparent that Metroid Prime was loading the room, when the door didn't open immediately. Granted, it would only be a second or two before it would open, but you knew it was loading.
The only other times the game is obviously loading is when you are on the elevators. The cut scene of going up/down the elevators is there to hide the "Now Loading" screen.
Overall, though, Metroid Prime is a fine example of how one can mask load times on disk based media, much like how the original Soul Reaver on the PSOne and DC did by making you walk through tunnels in order to stream the new levels in front or behind you. For all intents and purposes, both games had no load times, in the perspective of not having a "Now Loading" screen come up.
That means those numbers have remained virtually unchanged over the past year? (+50K maybe?) I wonder if that includes the free 2-month Xbox Live trial period included with units sold over the past couple of months.
Pretty much.
From late April until end of year sales came in, MS kept saying ~500k worldwide. Now that end of year sales came in, they say ~750k, worldwide.
Considering that Europe has only 100k subscribers, and launched in March with around 80k signing up, that says sales of XBL in Europe are dead.
Japan's sales were mainly for Phantasy Star Online Episodes I&II, which came with XBL in Japan.
The only place XBL seems to sell, and even then only at a trickle, is North America... but it still took Microsoft to give it away to get sales moving. Sales had flat lined in North America for months on end as well, before the free two months with every Xbox purchase deal.
meanwhile, GI.Biz notes that Xbox Live "has been celebrating having 750,000 Xbox Live users [in the States], with a target of a million by June."
Actually, the 750K users is worldiwde, not just in the US. Europe has around 100K subscribers, and so does Japan, with the remaining ~550K in the US and Canada.
The 1 million subscribers by June also reflects worldwide subscribers, not just the US.
The actual quote from GI.Biz: In other words, this is Sony's distinctly unconcerned response to recent announcements from Nintendo (which stated this week that the GameCube has sold out in many retailers in the USA, with emergency supplies being shipped in from overseas) and Microsoft (which has been celebrating having 750,000 Xbox Live users, with a target of a million by June).
I'll give you XBL for certain titles (Crimson Skies, Links 2004)... but the majority of the XSN Sports titles lick a donkey's arse; and I'll be goddamned if I'm going to get a Microsoft Passport (look at step 3) just to be able to play a XSN Sports online game tournament (you can still play single games (not tournaments with stat tracking and such) over Live without one, for now.... but how long until that changes?). I like Links 2004 a lot, but not enough to get a Microsoft Passport.
If memory serves, though, games in the UK are closer to the equivalent of around $70 US brand new.
And, if you have all three systems, gaming can get quite expensive around the holidays, even at only $50 a pop in the US, if you go for the brand new titles.
It makes me wish more companies would release their bigger games earlier in the year, rather than later. I like the fact that Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes comes out this month, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles came out last month, and Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life comes out soon as well.
Plus, when games come out earlier in the year, there's less frustration going to stores as you don't have to deal with the holiday rush.
Of course, publishers know the most sales happen during the holidays, so they try to delay their games till then if they think it will be a big hit. First and second week sales are quite important to publishers, as they often make the largest part of the money they wver will on a game in those first few weeks (especially in Japan, where games seem to fall off the sales charts overnight).
The thing is, the primary purpose of the HDD in the XBox isn't saving games; it's caching of data from the DVD.
Unfortunately, most games don't use this feature of the hard drive. Most games only use the hard drive for saving games.
The fact that there are many games, even those from Microsoft Game Studios, with fairly hefty load times shows that the hard drive's primary function was never about caching; it was always about saving games and downloadable content/patches for online games.
From your link: "BMX XXX is scheduled to ship on November 15 for the PS2 and sometime in mid-November for the Xbox and Xbox . For more details, check out our Xbox of the PS2 game."
And all the words "Xbox" are links to the Xbox version of the game.
Someone needs to do a little work editing news, it seems.
Slashdot Mirror
*cough* Atari 5200 *cough*, *cough* Atari 7800 *cough* *cough* both played the previous gen's games, and 7800 also played 2600 games *cough*
Sorry, something caught in my throat there.
Besides, DirectX is tied to Windows. Other methods of doing the same things exist, at the same level or maybe even superior levels, for a lot less bloat. Unreal Tournament 2004 looks and runs fantastic on a PowerMac G5, and not a hint of DirectX to be seen; it's all OpenGL.
The reason more and more PC developers use DirectX over OpenGL and others is the simple fact that Microsoft integrated DirectX into Windows, and thus, the developers know that most of the people playing the games have the correct software to run it. Being in a monopoly position tends to do that, ya know.
The bigger question is: why does the Xbox, with Xbox Live being so easy, only have as many games online as the PS2; which has no set standard and operating rules for online games?
One big factor, as has recently been seen, is Microsoft's draconian approach to XBL. IE, until recently MICROSOFT controlled ALL the game 'servers' and the game creators/owners did not. And I put servers in the little quotes because even though MS touted dedicated servers as a benefit of Live, there aren't any besides PSO's LOBBIES (the actual game runs P2P after the lobbies are exited). Not a single dedicated server on the entirety of XBL, otherwise.
Yet, there ARE dedicated servers on the PS2's front. SOCOM and SOCOM II use them; as do EverQuest Online Adventures and Final Fantasy XI, for example.
But, it took EA not biting on the Live hook to get MS to finally realize "hey, maybe if we lessened that restriction, more companies will use it." That concession of allowing companies to control their own servers, and conceeding to not release any XSN Sports titles this year, seemed to have finally won EA over.
Maybe now Activision and Neversoft will put the next THPS online on the Xbox, since the last 3 versions for the PS2 have been online there. Yet, none have been on XBL, because Neversoft wanted control of how the matchmaking worked, and Microsoft was being all "our way or the highway" when Neversoft had already worked out matchmaking abilities through GameSpy. Guess which version of the past few THPS games sold more, PS2 or Xbox? Online abilities are why I chose the PS2 version over the Xbox ones since THPS3, and I can assume it was a decision for a few others as well, even though the Xbox versions looked way better.
And only one in ten Xboxes have live? Any stats on PS2?
Actually, it's closer to 1:13-1:15 for XBL, not even 1:10, worldwide. Europe is sitting at around 100k subscribers, Japan less than that, so the rest of the subscribers are in North America, where the ratio will be better than 1:10... but worldwide, if MS has hit the 1 million mark, it is ony 6.66%-7.69% going online depending on how many Xboxes have been sold. If they haven't hit that 1 million subscriber mark, then the percentage is even less.
The PS2 has supposedly sold 3 million network adapters, but even if that were true, and every single one of them was used (which they aren't by Sony's own admission, only around 1 million have been used), when we consider there are potentially over 70 million PS2s in the wild, the ratio for PS2 online players to non online players is staggeringly low at a woeful 4.28% of all PS2's going online (if we assume all 3 million adapters have gone online). That's not even 1:20 PS2's online. The actual percentage is a mere 1.42% going online on the PS2, which isn't even 1:50 (it's still below 2:100).
Thanks. I like it disappearing when only one tab is open, myself, but now he has more options for FireFox that he didn't know he had.
Holy shit! An unreleased game (according to Mike) on GameRankings?
Good thing it isn't on Amazon, either, Mike. Or on GameStop.com, Mike. Or Toys R Us' website.
Good thing you only check EBGames.com, Mike... Otherwise you might actually have some facts to back up your claim.
Or, are these sites not worthy of your checking to make sure your foot doesn't end up in your mouth the moment you open it? "If it isn't on EBGames.com it doesn't exist!!!!"
FireFox hides the tab menu by default when only one tab is in use-- to allow for more screen size on pages. You can always hit CTRL+T on Windows to open a new blank tab automatically in FireFox, Apple(Command)+T on Mac OS X to open a new blank tab in both Safari and FireFox. I dunno about Linux to open new blank tabs, since I don't have my linux box up yet..
You may also be able to keep the tab menu bar visible at all times by going to the preferences... but I never cared it wasn't there, because I use hotkeys to open empty tabs anyway. And I use FireFox exclusively on my Windows machine and Safari on my iBook.
This is correct... However, MS told shareholders that they would lose only around $900 million by the end of the first 5 years. Not even three years into the lifecycle of the console, and the Xbox has been the main cause of the Home and Entertainment Division losing over $2.3 billion since the launch of the Xbox. The Xbox is the reason that that division is now losing over $200 million per quarter, with no end to the losses in sight.
Every price drop, game bundle, or Live bundle they put out accross the world loses them more money per console... and the game sales haven't really been there to make up for the loss on the hardware, like what was expected. In fact, MS hasn't had, to the best of my knowledge, a million plus selling game worldwide since the original Splinter Cell, which was only the 4th title on the machine to break the million unit sales.
Which platform has no cheating online? There is cheating on XBL. Check out PSO for XBL. Full of cheaters. Also people can use glitches in the games to cheat without mods: for example, there is a glitch in Crimson Skies where a Gyrocopter can get INSIDE a building in the Chicago level in multiplayer... and snipe and never get hit.
Using glitches is still cheating.
The advantage is, supposedly, that the games can be patched. Too bad the glitch issues tend to not get patched, as even with the newest update to Crimson Skies there is no fix for the glitches.
But MS is the only one who has sacked-up and provided gamers with internet play the way it should be.
You even mention that MS hasn't lived up to the server promises... so how is potentially laggy pure P2P gaming Net gaming the way it should be? Voice is nice, but not worth spending money on, same with invites. Besides, I'm getting sick of these "Live Aware" games where I'm playing offline and keep getting invites for online games... because it auto puts you online... if I'm playing offline, there's a reason: I want to play offline.
Thing is: this is the one promised feature of XBL that MS left up to the individual publishers to follow through on. And none of them have opted to implement it.
Actually, until the concession to EA to allow EA to run their own servers (and other publishers now as well) to get EA on XBL, MS had said that THEY would control ALL XBL servers, not the 3rd party publishers. This is one reason some publishers went online on the PS2 and not the Xbox, such as EA, and some development houses within publishers like Neversoft (owned by Activision) didn't go online on XBL but on the did on the PS2.
But, as you said, MS has consistently failed to deliver on servers, and canned the Unreal Chamionship X-Servers early on as well.
Then that's his own fault, honestly. My passkeys are 26 hex digits. No way in hell I'm remembering one 26 digit passkey, let alone the four I have on my router.
Your scenerio is one that is feasible, but then the fault lies in the owner who didn't put his passkeys in some readable format somewhere where they wouldn't be easily found by people other than himself.
WiFi with security is a configuration nightmare.
On a PC, yes. On Apple, it just works both ways.
I have my PC and Xbox hooked up through Ethernet to my 802.11g router, and my iBook wirelessly. I set up the 128 bit encryption as soon as I got the router up and running. For my iBook, I just had to type in the passkey once, save it to my settings, and I was connected through it and am always connected through it when it comes out of sleep mode.
Friday a friend of mine came over with his Compaq AMD 64 WinXP laptop with 802.11g in it, and even after giving him a valid passkey, he couldn't connect to my network until we unhooked the Xbox and plugged him into the network through Ethernet. Wirelessly his laptop kept telling him he had some wierd IP address for the LAN, and wouldn't connect when I told him what IP address to specify for the LAN. And he's more computer savvy than I am, but I've used WiFi for longer.
I've connected to other secure networks with a valid passkey in one attempt with my iBook, but never tried with a PC laptop. After seeing the pain it was for my friend on my network (which broadcasts the network as well, so it would be easier to get into), I assume Apple + AirPort Extreme cards = easier to work with than WinXP + WiFi card when it comes to secure WiFi networks.
Hell, our hotel didn't have Internet access besides phone lines, yet myself, and some guys from another site with a PowerBook found a nice unsecure network we could access from the lobby of our hotel. I guess between us and the other sites using the network (it seems once we found out about the network, the other websites in the hotel started using it as well), though, they figured it out; because by Thursday night the wireless network was secured against us entering without effort in cracking the WEP code, which we didn't feel like doing.
I have my own wireless network secured with WEP at home. It's not much protection, but at 128 bit with an annoyingly long passcode coupled with the fact that I'd notice any wardrivers parked in front of my house (since I live at the end of a dead end with more than 600 feet between my house and the next nearest street), it's fine for me.
The workstation will come about after that.
They've already been doing this, sort of. Games like Panzer Dragoon Orta, JSRF, Toe Jam and Earl III, House of the Dead III, Otogi: Myth of Demons, Shenmue II, and some others have appeared only on the Xbox.
Unfortunately, most of the Xbox exclusive titles haven't seen very good sales... even the stellar Panzer Dragoon Orta languished with sales, and fun games like JSRF also were not selling (and JSRF is now out of print as well).
Sega would do better to keep going with as many multi-platform titles as they can, so thjey can recoup more costs and turn a profit.
The exclusive titles they've done on consoles have been hit or miss with sales. The Super Monkey Ball series did well on the GC, but Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg did not, nor did the stellar Skies of Arcadia Legends. Virtua Fighter 4 didn't do as well as hoped on the PS2. And, as I've said, even though many of their Xbox exclusive games are incredibly good, they don't see many sales.
speed of loading
Barely anyone, including Microsoft themselves, use the caching abilities of the Xbox hard drive, thus leaving many games to have near PS2-ish load times. Ninja Gaiden does seem to use the hard drive, as it has about 5 seconds of loading when it does load, but most other games go on for 15 seconds or more. This is especially true of Microsoft published games, and if ANYONE should be using the hard drive how it is supposed to be, it should be Microsoft. Way for them to set an example.
Oh, and on average the GameCube has the fastest load times out of the three consoles; followed by the Xbox, on average; and then the PS2, on average. This doesn't apply in all games cases, as some games take a long time to load on one while others may load lightning quick; but on average the GameCube beats out both the Xbox and the PS2 for fastest loading times.
speed of saves
Depends on the game. Some games save lightning quick, other slow as molasses. Same thing for loading saved games. This is true on all three consoles, as well.
number of saves
Again, this depends on the game. For example, Ninja Gaiden only allows for 10 save game slots, other games (Halo for example) offer as few as 3 save game slots, while others offer unlimited slots.
amount of user-defined information
Care to elaborate on this one, chumpy? Because the only thing I can think of that comes close is my gamertag and credit card number for my XBL account.
downloaded content
I can give you this, to a degree. Downloadable content has, however, been far and few between for most games that offer it; and in some cases the 'downloadable content' is actually already on the game disk, but you need to download somethng to unlock it.
knowing that everyone has room for the save
How are they supposed to know that gamer X hasn't filled his Xbox hard drive with soundtracks? It isn't imposible, you know. It can be assumed the majority have room on their hard drives for saves, but it cannot be assumed that EVERYONE with an Xbox does.
custom soundtracks
Used in less than 10% of the entire Xbox library, hardly something that can be touted as a must have feature in the console.
That is technology that the Xbox has- that developers can use to create great games.
So why aren't there all the very best games on the Xbox? Hardware does not talent in game developers make. See: Kabuki Warriors, Kakuto Chojin, Tao Feng, Blinx, Azurik, Nightcaster, Obi-Wan, Kung Fu Chaos, Fusion Frenzy, Drake of the 99 Dragons, Bruce Lee, oh hell, just go to GameRankings, put in Xbox and worst games with as many results as you can find, and you will see 132 games for the Xbox have averaged a 65% or under (going by school terms, in my area a 64 is an F).
Again, hardware will not help one lick if the games suck already. As soon as people learn this, the world will be a smarter place.
Most of the people that play down the importance of things like on-line gaming (Live) are the ones that have never used it. For the rest of the people that do use it, it becomes very, very important.
While I enjoy playing my Live games, they aren't the be all and end all of gaming. I don't always need to hear smart mouthed 13 year olds cursing on their mics just because they want to sound 'mature' and other bullshit that happens on Live (can we say quitting before the end of something just because they're losing?).
Also, the numbers don't lie. A year plus to get up to 750k WORLDWIDE subscribers to Live... and around 14 million Xboxes shipped worldwide. That means only 5.3% of the Xboxes shipped have Live accounts on them. Hardly a number which states Live's importance to gaming. Either the 94.7% can't get online with their Xbox, or they just simply don't care about Live.
Not to worry, though, Sony claims to have 2 million online users worldwide, out of 70 million plus PS2s shipped. Or only 2.8% of the PS2's in the wild online.
It seems the masses don't agree with the importance of online gaming.
Soet of like Windows, right? It comes with a ton of 'features', most of which I don't want.
Granted, my iBook came with some software I could live without (for exapmple: Garage Band, I'm not a mucisian); but most of the other porgrams do me just fine, and a lot better than the crap Microsoft integrates into Windows to expand their monopoly. iChat AV, Safari, Mail, iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie, etc. are all things I like, even if I barely ever touch iMovie. And I still downloaded Firefox to this iBook as well.
Now, as for the hardware, well, I got a lot for my money with the Airport Extreme card (antenna built into the iBook, no need for a card with an antenna sticking out) and 512 MB extra RAM added in. The hardware runs smoothly and efficiently. Remmeber the Mac saying: "It just works."
Scroll down about halfway through the document to see the results for each division of Microsoft. The Xbox and its games are part of the Home and Entertainment Division, and accounts for most of that division's revenues, and for most of that division's losses.
For the quarter ending Dec 31, the H&E Division brought in $1.2+ billion in revenue, but still lost $241 million dollars. Most of that money comes from the Xbox and its games, and most of that loss comes from losses on the Xbox hardware.
Since the launch of the Xbox, the Home and Entertainment division has lost over $2 billion, most of that coming directly from losses on the Xbox hardware cost to produce vs. MSRP.
The only other times the game is obviously loading is when you are on the elevators. The cut scene of going up/down the elevators is there to hide the "Now Loading" screen.
Overall, though, Metroid Prime is a fine example of how one can mask load times on disk based media, much like how the original Soul Reaver on the PSOne and DC did by making you walk through tunnels in order to stream the new levels in front or behind you. For all intents and purposes, both games had no load times, in the perspective of not having a "Now Loading" screen come up.
24 MB 1T-SRAM, 16 MB DRAM, plus 2 MB on die buffer on the Flipper GPU.
That looks like they did put more than 24 MB on the Cube.
Pretty much.
From late April until end of year sales came in, MS kept saying ~500k worldwide. Now that end of year sales came in, they say ~750k, worldwide.
Considering that Europe has only 100k subscribers, and launched in March with around 80k signing up, that says sales of XBL in Europe are dead.
Japan's sales were mainly for Phantasy Star Online Episodes I&II, which came with XBL in Japan.
The only place XBL seems to sell, and even then only at a trickle, is North America... but it still took Microsoft to give it away to get sales moving. Sales had flat lined in North America for months on end as well, before the free two months with every Xbox purchase deal.
Actually, the 750K users is worldiwde, not just in the US. Europe has around 100K subscribers, and so does Japan, with the remaining ~550K in the US and Canada.
The 1 million subscribers by June also reflects worldwide subscribers, not just the US.
The actual quote from GI.Biz: In other words, this is Sony's distinctly unconcerned response to recent announcements from Nintendo (which stated this week that the GameCube has sold out in many retailers in the USA, with emergency supplies being shipped in from overseas) and Microsoft (which has been celebrating having 750,000 Xbox Live users, with a target of a million by June).
According to Big Blue Box it "may be ready by Summer 2004, it may not." Don't hold your breath.
Halo 2 (maybe soon?)
According to Bungie: "Fall 2004". My prediction: November 15 2004 at the earliest. Again, holding your breath for this one may not be a good idea.
I'll give you XBL for certain titles (Crimson Skies, Links 2004)... but the majority of the XSN Sports titles lick a donkey's arse; and I'll be goddamned if I'm going to get a Microsoft Passport (look at step 3) just to be able to play a XSN Sports online game tournament (you can still play single games (not tournaments with stat tracking and such) over Live without one, for now.... but how long until that changes?). I like Links 2004 a lot, but not enough to get a Microsoft Passport.
And, if you have all three systems, gaming can get quite expensive around the holidays, even at only $50 a pop in the US, if you go for the brand new titles.
It makes me wish more companies would release their bigger games earlier in the year, rather than later. I like the fact that Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes comes out this month, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles came out last month, and Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life comes out soon as well.
Plus, when games come out earlier in the year, there's less frustration going to stores as you don't have to deal with the holiday rush.
Of course, publishers know the most sales happen during the holidays, so they try to delay their games till then if they think it will be a big hit. First and second week sales are quite important to publishers, as they often make the largest part of the money they wver will on a game in those first few weeks (especially in Japan, where games seem to fall off the sales charts overnight).
Unfortunately, most games don't use this feature of the hard drive. Most games only use the hard drive for saving games.
The fact that there are many games, even those from Microsoft Game Studios, with fairly hefty load times shows that the hard drive's primary function was never about caching; it was always about saving games and downloadable content/patches for online games.
From your link: "BMX XXX is scheduled to ship on November 15 for the PS2 and sometime in mid-November for the Xbox and Xbox . For more details, check out our Xbox of the PS2 game."
And all the words "Xbox" are links to the Xbox version of the game.
Someone needs to do a little work editing news, it seems.