What I'd like to know is the real install base of the three consoles. You know, not every Xbox360 sold is actually going to a new customer due to a so-called RROD phenomenon. Is there any good data to clear that up?
The real install base doesn't matter, what matters is the amount of revenue (and profit) brought in by additional software and service purchases. This is what is known as attach rate, and the Xbox360 has a rather exceptionally high attach rate. And this is from a console which has long been hacked to run pirated/copied discs (the PS3 has not been hacked, which you would've thought might attract more game developers). I've always been shocked at how good the Xbox360 attach rate has been.
If half those Xbox consoles are landfilled due to RROD or other failures, then it just makes the real attach rate that much better and even more surprising. Despite the crap hardware and piracy, the Xbox360 is certainly moving software like mad.
P.S. PS3's suffering is not just high retail price, but apparently also the relatively sub-standard dev system which Sony provides. Essentially, the thing is a giant pain in the ass the work with, so dev houses won't spend the extra man-hours necessary programming for it.
You managed to filter out the legalistic details. TiVo and ReplayTV got into a rather big legal tussle back in the day, and ultimately both decided fighting would kill both. So, they agreed to cross-patent or somesuch.
Tivo then bolstered by success with DirecTV (satellite TV) decided to approach DiSH/Echostar. DiSH demanded some sample hardware, examined it for quite awhile, lead the TiVo folks on... and then suddenly said NO THANKS, while quickly releasing their own DVR with surprisingly similar specs as Tivo's sample unit.
It's not so much that the techniques are different (they're likely not), its that there were already (mostly) resolved patent issues and Charlie Ergen (DiSH) decided to be a rip-off cheating cheap-ass bastard. This is apparently quite the modus operandi for DiSH/Echostar, and the foot-dragging and general insolence may even trigger treble damages in TiVo's favor.
I think the main takeaway from all this nonsense, aside from stupidity on Wall Street for believing anything and everything, is how frighteningly Apple's fortunes are tightly bound to Steve Jobs specifically.
Bill Gates slowly receded from the limelight at Microsoft, and allowed Ballmer and others to grow into their roles the market's mind. Jobs hasn't really done this yet at Apple. Apple has a few shining lights, but the top of the (Apple) tree is still very clearly The Steve.
I heard so much buzz about this game in the months/years leading up to its publication. Can someone more knowledgeable about some of the history help me understand this?
I think most of the "buzz" surrounding Too Human was mostly about how long the game has been in development and Silicon Knights' very public fallout with Epic. After spending a lot of money on Epic's Unreal Engine, SK then claim it was delivered unfinished and un-usable, and that promised enhancements were ignored while Epic used the time and money to finish their own competing game. Ultimately, Silicon Knights sued Epic and then say they rewrote the game and authored their own complete game engine. The whole lawsuit thing is a bit of a spectacle, especially since no other dev houses seem to have anything bad to say about Epic's Unreal Engine.
I'd say this is less hype about Too Human itself and more about watching this train wreck unfold.
eliminates the 'unnecessary inconvenience for both the customer and the cashier' that results when 'Paper or Plastic?' must be asked.
The grocery stores in my area seem to have mostly solved this "unnecessary inconvenience" -- they simply don't provide the paper bags anymore. More specifically, it seems they only restock the paper bags maybe once a month or so, which of course run out in about a week. After that, you get plastic bags (period!) simply because they refuse to get enough of the paper bags everyone prefers.
Plastic bags also seem immensely more wasteful, since they are so small and flimsy it takes approximately a bajillion more bags per cartload to fit everything and requires double bagging all your items so they don't split the sides.
Now the historical annual rate of return of an S&P 500 index fund is 11.3% over the last century...
According to the Wall Street Journal the S&P500 from 2000-2007 only returned 1.6%, and if you include the absolutely dismal 2008 (thru June) economists are already calling this the "lost decade" since returns over the past 10 years are pretty flat. Worse when you factor inflation. With returns like that, solar panels would've certainly been the better investment. At the least, you wouldn't be as subject to local Edison's blackouts and other various fiascoes, which for some reason seem to be getting more and more common and taking longer to fix each time.
Just the thought of being independent from the local power grid woes is pretty appealing.
As an Xbox 360 owner, you will still be faced with the following problems:
) They're noisy...
) The heat!
).. locked down so cool software hacks are tough.
One thing I still wonder about is the disc scratching problem. Early on, even before all the overheating Red Ring of Death issues, I heard horror stories about the XBox360 drives scoring grooves in the game discs. Has the Xbox360 disc scratching issue been sorted out? Because I buy a lot of my games previously-owned (patient cheapskate that I am), I decided not to invest in the Xbox360 because you could never count on the used game discs actually working when you brought them home.
Those other issues which crept out of the woodwork simply sealed my decision to stay away.
USB is clearly the answer for low power devices; but it would be rather nice to have a similarly standard connector for 12VDC devices
Sure, and I'll bet you'll eventually be able to choose from any number of standard connectors just like USB provides: type-B, mini-B, or perhaps even micro-B, not to mention UltraPort or ExtUSB. Let's not even mention those enduring, unchanging connection standards such as SCSI and FireWire/iLink.
Something tells me that even if this GreenPlug manages to gain traction, it will end up with just as many standards as all these other standard connections. Especially if people start buying all the various adapters to try and plug their other non-GreenPlug items into it.
(Personally, I hate all the cords. I'm still holding my breath for those wireless induction mat chargers.)
SSDs don't have latency and no rise/shutdown time for green needs, in fact, they use hardly any power at all
While it's true, on average, they may use marginally less power, I think you'd be surprised at how much juice these SSDs can use up. Typical hard drives use most of their power spinning up the platter, and then momentum helps keep them going at a lower draw. SSDs also have a tendency to get rather warm, along with the CPU and RAM chips inside the machine. Overall, I still think SSDs are preferable, considering I'm currently filling out an RMA for my second dead HDD in a month.
Personally, for me I find the biggest selling feature for SSD to be the beautious lack of noise, the lack of seek whine or odd ticking you often get with HDDs. I'd happily pay a bit of premium just because of that! (MMmmmm - a dead silent Home Theater PC or perhaps an incredibly quiet replacement TiVo drive.)
Opinions are like a**holes: everybody has one. You're certainly welcome to not buy into my opinion, but I won't sit here and rehash all the previous Psystar articles and suspicions just for your benefit.
Sure, maybe Psystar turns out to be the bestest company in the world, evar!!!1! -- but I'm not sending them any of my money to find out. I'm not convinced, I think they're more likely to vanish when the spotlight on them gets brighter; That's my opinion. And I thank slashdot for letting me write down my opinion.
InfoWeek didn't even interview anyone at the company nor any actual users, they just based this entire article on a small website update.
...Psystar appears to be daring Apple to attempt to enforce provisions in the Leopard license agreement that forbid third-party installations and sales.
To me it seems more like daring suckers to send their credit-card information to a fairly shady operation. As in the last slashdot article on Psystar, has anyone besides a few high-profile writers with 'protoypes' actually seen a Psystar -- in the wild, so to speak? InfoWeek cribbed a breif website notice and apparently created a whole 'article piece' based on it
Anway... Instead of becoming a noble defender of user's EULA rights, it seems far more likely they'll take the submitted order money and disappear into the night.
Frankly, I'd be surprised if Seagate was losing much business to SSDs yet. Samsung, on the other hand, appears to be wiping the floor with them.
Probably a drop in the bucket at the moment. But let's face it, spinning magnetic platters are so 20th century -- they create a lot of heat, they're heavy, draw a significant amount of power, and are still slow compared to the monumental improvments in other computer components. Not to mention hard drives have moving parts and are the single most likely component to fail in any PC or device.
Bill Watkins already went on record that Seagate is looking to ignore Solid-State Drives in their quest for more capacity. When Intel (you know, the 800 lb. gorilla in the computer chip world) announced last month that it was going to make consumer level SSDs, I think the Seagate folks dropped a few bricks in their pants. Unsurprisingly, just a few scant weeks after Intel's big announcement now Seagate starts suing the junior SSD companies.
I really think Seagate was caught flat-footed in this run away from spinning platters. Like SCO, apparently they think they now think they can use lawsuits to keep them afloat.
P.S. I think this also marks a new trend away from giant, heavy 15- and 17-inch laptops to smaller, more portable completely-solid-state type devices. Like the Asus Eee for example.
At least it sounds as if the US are going to yank the elastoplast off in one go and just switch in 2009. Here in the UK they're pussyfooting around by turning it off region by region over a 4 year period.
Keep in mind that the FCC was originally trying to get "full HD implementation" by 2002, which obviously never happened. Now it is 'digital broadcast' but not necessarily HiDef. And they've been 'discussing' it since at least 1996 that I can recall. When it became clear that 2002 wasn't going to work, they put in a deadline for OTA-DTV broadcasts of 2006, which was then pushed back at least twice now. The fact that the FCC allowed the TV industry to come up with something on the order of 18(!) ATSC standards instead of picking one (or maybe two: SD and HD) hasn't helped either.
So, the Feb 2009 date is now only 'firm' after hedging around for years and letting the industry whine and meander for a very long time.
Thats almost as stupid as saying you own rights to the AOL client because you magically recieved it in the post.
Under U.S. law, what the recipient "owns" is a plastic disc (pretty much irregardless of what data is encoded on said disc). AOL can't deter someone from selling that particular disc -- not arguing that an AOL disc would be worth anything to begin with. It is actually a good consumer protection law, preventing companies from doing things like sending "free samples" and then attempting to bill you for it.
It is essentially a private property issue. This case with the music promotion discs seems to fall along the same lines. I'm pretty sure that Universal is upset because these promo discs are distributed before the actual album is released to the public. Tough beans for them. In America we have a phrase: Indian giver (one who gives away something then tried to take it back). IMHO, the proper resolution is to hold back the promos until the actual album is released and ignore the underground market for these promo discs.
This will work with any polarized glasses.
I was trying to do some work with my DMM and couldn't figure out why it was off. Couldn't be the battery I just changed it! Took off my sunglasses in frustration and there it was, full brightness.
Hmmm, yes... So what you are saying is that by removing dark sunglasses would make things look, well, not as dark?
(okay, I realize this is about polarization but Mr. anethema really seemed to have stepped into this one all on his own:-)
Even though it isn't really covered in the article, I'd have to pick the original Xbox as the greatest system. Wait! Before you mod me into oblivion let me explain: I claim that a lot of interest in a particular console seems to be how well you can modify it for other purposes. In other words, versatility can be of great importance.
Xbox (original): Once you easily softmod the machine, and possible install a larger internal hardrive, the Xbox is a self-sufficient machine with excellent graphics capabilities and emulation ability. Even by today's console standards, on any 'regular' standard-definition TV, the Xbox games are surprising good looking and perform well. Yeah, a lot of Xbox titles are cross-platform. But even so, usually the Xbox edition of any title was as good or superior to the others. Plus, with UnleashX or other dashboard replacement, you have customizable menus from which to launch programs or games stored on the hard drive. It's also reliable as hell, almost impossible to kill.
Emulation. The Xbox can run those precious SNES games listed in the article. It can also run NES, Genesis, Atari, and even some PSone games. There's even a working Daphne emulator for those old laserdisc titles such as Space Ace and Dragon's Lair. You can also run a number of select N64 titles, although not a complete list.
Multi-Media. Xbox has the famous XBMC, XBoxMediaCenter from which you can play movies, music, photos and the like from local or network storage. XBMC can also be used as a game launcher instead of other dashboards if you prefer. The only caveat is that newer H264 and other Hi-Def high-bandwidth material is a bit too much for the 700MHx intel CPU on the aging beast.
Computing. That's right, the Xbox is a 700MHz intel PC in a console case. You can use it to run Linux as a basic computing platform if you like. This is Slashdot, is it not? Nothing can be taken seriously here until it runs linux.:)
Don't get me wrong... I loved the SNES as well in its day. You could even use pliers to break away the little plastic tabs in the cartridge slot to play those Ranma 1/2 import games. But any other utility was pretty much non-existant. Ans let's face it, there were a ton of crappy platformer clones (maybe not as many as the infamous NES).
P.S.What I find most amusing is how much I *hated* the big and heavy XBox when it first came out, and conversely how much I love it today.
some people may point out that poverty became a priority for Mr. Gates only after he'd earned billions building up Microsoft.
My take is more like: poverty became an issue for BillG only after he got married to Melinda. I'm sure that is the primary reason for calling their charity group the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.
NBC probably don't want to be bullied by Apple over the prices...
It is arguable who 'bullied' whom. My back of the napkin recollection is more like this:
NBC got essentially 'free' money by simply providing the episodes to iTunes and sitting back while Apple does all the work. Apple handles the cataloging, payment collection, file servers and network bandwidth. NBC sat and collected a large portion of each sale.
Then NBC got even more greedy. To buy a single episode of something, NBC is rumored to have wanted to force bundles. Instead of one episode for $1.99, they would for example 'force' you to buy another unrelated or perhaps two other unrelated programs for more like $4.99. My guess is this was a gambit to try and generate interest in NBC's other titles. In their twisted logic one show you actually want with two attached throwaways (you would be forced into purchasing) is somehow "cheaper" for the end customer. In my book, that simply makes the one show I want $4.99 instead of $1.99.
Apple apparently balked at the idea of these forced bundles, which would ruin iTunes' straight-forward simplicity (among other things), and told NBC to take a hike. I suppose you could say while NBC was busy strangling their golden goose, the goose realized its own long-term interest was to get up and leave.
I've heard of this kind of thing before. On one of the tech sites (either AnandTech or TomsHardware, I think) one of the main reviewers was in a hurry for a personal project -- wireless router or something-- got home and found a bag of sand inside instead of the equipment.
I also hear about people, mostly teenagers it seems, who buy new video cards, install and then repackage the old card in the box and get a refund.
One of the reasons I only buy from reputable mail-order sites anymore.
He was, at best, a regular hacker who met the right person at the right time.
Woz is an exceptionally knowledgeable and clever hardware electronics engineer. His ability to reduce board size with fewer components made him a name to begin with. He also coded the Apple BASIC interpreter for the early Apple designs -- by hand! In fact, his ability allowed Apple to reduce enough components and create a fully ready-to-use machine which made the original Apple I and Apple II machines at low enough cost and wide functionality to create the first truly viable microcomputer company.
Of course despite his great skillz, in true geek fashion he seems to have little business acumen. It is no accident that Jobs partnered up with him, an neither one of them expected to sell more than a few hundred machines to other hobbyists at the time.
I've been working with Dell servers for a year now, and certainly they are no Sun in terms of sexiness, but I haven't had any problems at all yet...
When Dell first entered into the "server" market, and for a couple of years after, their hardware tended to be riddled with stability problems. It took them a while to figure out that putting a desktop motherboard and drives into a bigger chassis didn't really make it a server.
But I've always found Dell to have decent, if boring and not very upgradable, PCs that work well for an office environment. And the business account support is still pretty decent. I can't imagine the consumer help support could be any worse than their competitors, aside from maybe Apple.
(Insert story about how my boss once wanted to install one of those 3D fish screen savers, only to find the built-in graphix sucked too hard. Videocard purchase was authorised, but found that the Dell motherboard had no AGP slot. The board had the mask and pinouts for one, Dell just never soldered in a 25-cent connector. Morale: Watch out if you intend to purchase a 'cheap' Dell and then upgrade.)
It's going to be like there's a HUGE TARGET painted on the one person on the bridge that isn't in TOS. And here is chief security office Ima Goingtodie.
Well, as long as he's wearing the requisite red shirt...
Slashdot Mirror
The real install base doesn't matter, what matters is the amount of revenue (and profit) brought in by additional software and service purchases. This is what is known as attach rate, and the Xbox360 has a rather exceptionally high attach rate. And this is from a console which has long been hacked to run pirated/copied discs (the PS3 has not been hacked, which you would've thought might attract more game developers). I've always been shocked at how good the Xbox360 attach rate has been.
If half those Xbox consoles are landfilled due to RROD or other failures, then it just makes the real attach rate that much better and even more surprising. Despite the crap hardware and piracy, the Xbox360 is certainly moving software like mad.
P.S. PS3's suffering is not just high retail price, but apparently also the relatively sub-standard dev system which Sony provides. Essentially, the thing is a giant pain in the ass the work with, so dev houses won't spend the extra man-hours necessary programming for it.
I'm surprised that nobody has yet mentioned Roujin Z. Written by the same guy from Akira fame, its basically a very advanced hospital bed run amok.
Hint: The internal logic is really a weapons platform!
I, for one, welcome our new robotic geriatric overlords!
You managed to filter out the legalistic details. TiVo and ReplayTV got into a rather big legal tussle back in the day, and ultimately both decided fighting would kill both. So, they agreed to cross-patent or somesuch.
Tivo then bolstered by success with DirecTV (satellite TV) decided to approach DiSH/Echostar. DiSH demanded some sample hardware, examined it for quite awhile, lead the TiVo folks on... and then suddenly said NO THANKS, while quickly releasing their own DVR with surprisingly similar specs as Tivo's sample unit.
It's not so much that the techniques are different (they're likely not), its that there were already (mostly) resolved patent issues and Charlie Ergen (DiSH) decided to be a rip-off cheating cheap-ass bastard. This is apparently quite the modus operandi for DiSH/Echostar, and the foot-dragging and general insolence may even trigger treble damages in TiVo's favor.
I think the main takeaway from all this nonsense, aside from stupidity on Wall Street for believing anything and everything, is how frighteningly Apple's fortunes are tightly bound to Steve Jobs specifically.
Bill Gates slowly receded from the limelight at Microsoft, and allowed Ballmer and others to grow into their roles the market's mind. Jobs hasn't really done this yet at Apple. Apple has a few shining lights, but the top of the (Apple) tree is still very clearly The Steve.
I think most of the "buzz" surrounding Too Human was mostly about how long the game has been in development and Silicon Knights' very public fallout with Epic. After spending a lot of money on Epic's Unreal Engine, SK then claim it was delivered unfinished and un-usable, and that promised enhancements were ignored while Epic used the time and money to finish their own competing game. Ultimately, Silicon Knights sued Epic and then say they rewrote the game and authored their own complete game engine. The whole lawsuit thing is a bit of a spectacle, especially since no other dev houses seem to have anything bad to say about Epic's Unreal Engine.
I'd say this is less hype about Too Human itself and more about watching this train wreck unfold.
The grocery stores in my area seem to have mostly solved this "unnecessary inconvenience" -- they simply don't provide the paper bags anymore. More specifically, it seems they only restock the paper bags maybe once a month or so, which of course run out in about a week. After that, you get plastic bags (period!) simply because they refuse to get enough of the paper bags everyone prefers.
Plastic bags also seem immensely more wasteful, since they are so small and flimsy it takes approximately a bajillion more bags per cartload to fit everything and requires double bagging all your items so they don't split the sides.
According to the Wall Street Journal the S&P500 from 2000-2007 only returned 1.6%, and if you include the absolutely dismal 2008 (thru June) economists are already calling this the "lost decade" since returns over the past 10 years are pretty flat. Worse when you factor inflation. With returns like that, solar panels would've certainly been the better investment. At the least, you wouldn't be as subject to local Edison's blackouts and other various fiascoes, which for some reason seem to be getting more and more common and taking longer to fix each time.
Just the thought of being independent from the local power grid woes is pretty appealing.
One thing I still wonder about is the disc scratching problem. Early on, even before all the overheating Red Ring of Death issues, I heard horror stories about the XBox360 drives scoring grooves in the game discs. Has the Xbox360 disc scratching issue been sorted out? Because I buy a lot of my games previously-owned (patient cheapskate that I am), I decided not to invest in the Xbox360 because you could never count on the used game discs actually working when you brought them home.
Those other issues which crept out of the woodwork simply sealed my decision to stay away.
Sure, and I'll bet you'll eventually be able to choose from any number of standard connectors just like USB provides: type-B, mini-B, or perhaps even micro-B, not to mention UltraPort or ExtUSB. Let's not even mention those enduring, unchanging connection standards such as SCSI and FireWire/iLink.
Something tells me that even if this GreenPlug manages to gain traction, it will end up with just as many standards as all these other standard connections. Especially if people start buying all the various adapters to try and plug their other non-GreenPlug items into it.
(Personally, I hate all the cords. I'm still holding my breath for those wireless induction mat chargers.)
While it's true, on average, they may use marginally less power, I think you'd be surprised at how much juice these SSDs can use up. Typical hard drives use most of their power spinning up the platter, and then momentum helps keep them going at a lower draw. SSDs also have a tendency to get rather warm, along with the CPU and RAM chips inside the machine. Overall, I still think SSDs are preferable, considering I'm currently filling out an RMA for my second dead HDD in a month.
Personally, for me I find the biggest selling feature for SSD to be the beautious lack of noise, the lack of seek whine or odd ticking you often get with HDDs. I'd happily pay a bit of premium just because of that! (MMmmmm - a dead silent Home Theater PC or perhaps an incredibly quiet replacement TiVo drive.)
Opinions are like a**holes: everybody has one. You're certainly welcome to not buy into my opinion, but I won't sit here and rehash all the previous Psystar articles and suspicions just for your benefit.
Sure, maybe Psystar turns out to be the bestest company in the world, evar!!!1! -- but I'm not sending them any of my money to find out. I'm not convinced, I think they're more likely to vanish when the spotlight on them gets brighter; That's my opinion. And I thank slashdot for letting me write down my opinion.
InfoWeek didn't even interview anyone at the company nor any actual users, they just based this entire article on a small website update.
From TFA:
To me it seems more like daring suckers to send their credit-card information to a fairly shady operation. As in the last slashdot article on Psystar, has anyone besides a few high-profile writers with 'protoypes' actually seen a Psystar -- in the wild, so to speak? InfoWeek cribbed a breif website notice and apparently created a whole 'article piece' based on it
Anway... Instead of becoming a noble defender of user's EULA rights, it seems far more likely they'll take the submitted order money and disappear into the night.
Probably a drop in the bucket at the moment. But let's face it, spinning magnetic platters are so 20th century -- they create a lot of heat, they're heavy, draw a significant amount of power, and are still slow compared to the monumental improvments in other computer components. Not to mention hard drives have moving parts and are the single most likely component to fail in any PC or device.
Bill Watkins already went on record that Seagate is looking to ignore Solid-State Drives in their quest for more capacity. When Intel (you know, the 800 lb. gorilla in the computer chip world) announced last month that it was going to make consumer level SSDs, I think the Seagate folks dropped a few bricks in their pants. Unsurprisingly, just a few scant weeks after Intel's big announcement now Seagate starts suing the junior SSD companies.
I really think Seagate was caught flat-footed in this run away from spinning platters. Like SCO, apparently they think they now think they can use lawsuits to keep them afloat.
P.S. I think this also marks a new trend away from giant, heavy 15- and 17-inch laptops to smaller, more portable completely-solid-state type devices. Like the Asus Eee for example.
Keep in mind that the FCC was originally trying to get "full HD implementation" by 2002, which obviously never happened. Now it is 'digital broadcast' but not necessarily HiDef. And they've been 'discussing' it since at least 1996 that I can recall. When it became clear that 2002 wasn't going to work, they put in a deadline for OTA-DTV broadcasts of 2006, which was then pushed back at least twice now. The fact that the FCC allowed the TV industry to come up with something on the order of 18(!) ATSC standards instead of picking one (or maybe two: SD and HD) hasn't helped either.
So, the Feb 2009 date is now only 'firm' after hedging around for years and letting the industry whine and meander for a very long time.
Under U.S. law, what the recipient "owns" is a plastic disc (pretty much irregardless of what data is encoded on said disc). AOL can't deter someone from selling that particular disc -- not arguing that an AOL disc would be worth anything to begin with. It is actually a good consumer protection law, preventing companies from doing things like sending "free samples" and then attempting to bill you for it.
It is essentially a private property issue. This case with the music promotion discs seems to fall along the same lines. I'm pretty sure that Universal is upset because these promo discs are distributed before the actual album is released to the public. Tough beans for them. In America we have a phrase: Indian giver (one who gives away something then tried to take it back). IMHO, the proper resolution is to hold back the promos until the actual album is released and ignore the underground market for these promo discs.
Hmmm, yes... So what you are saying is that by removing dark sunglasses would make things look, well, not as dark?
(okay, I realize this is about polarization but Mr. anethema really seemed to have stepped into this one all on his own:-)
Even though it isn't really covered in the article, I'd have to pick the original Xbox as the greatest system. Wait! Before you mod me into oblivion let me explain: I claim that a lot of interest in a particular console seems to be how well you can modify it for other purposes. In other words, versatility can be of great importance.
Xbox (original): Once you easily softmod the machine, and possible install a larger internal hardrive, the Xbox is a self-sufficient machine with excellent graphics capabilities and emulation ability. Even by today's console standards, on any 'regular' standard-definition TV, the Xbox games are surprising good looking and perform well. Yeah, a lot of Xbox titles are cross-platform. But even so, usually the Xbox edition of any title was as good or superior to the others. Plus, with UnleashX or other dashboard replacement, you have customizable menus from which to launch programs or games stored on the hard drive. It's also reliable as hell, almost impossible to kill.
Emulation. The Xbox can run those precious SNES games listed in the article. It can also run NES, Genesis, Atari, and even some PSone games. There's even a working Daphne emulator for those old laserdisc titles such as Space Ace and Dragon's Lair. You can also run a number of select N64 titles, although not a complete list.
Multi-Media. Xbox has the famous XBMC, XBoxMediaCenter from which you can play movies, music, photos and the like from local or network storage. XBMC can also be used as a game launcher instead of other dashboards if you prefer. The only caveat is that newer H264 and other Hi-Def high-bandwidth material is a bit too much for the 700MHx intel CPU on the aging beast.
Computing. That's right, the Xbox is a 700MHz intel PC in a console case. You can use it to run Linux as a basic computing platform if you like. This is Slashdot, is it not? Nothing can be taken seriously here until it runs linux. :)
Don't get me wrong... I loved the SNES as well in its day. You could even use pliers to break away the little plastic tabs in the cartridge slot to play those Ranma 1/2 import games. But any other utility was pretty much non-existant. Ans let's face it, there were a ton of crappy platformer clones (maybe not as many as the infamous NES).
P.S.What I find most amusing is how much I *hated* the big and heavy XBox when it first came out, and conversely how much I love it today.
My take is more like: poverty became an issue for BillG only after he got married to Melinda. I'm sure that is the primary reason for calling their charity group the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.
It is arguable who 'bullied' whom. My back of the napkin recollection is more like this:
NBC got essentially 'free' money by simply providing the episodes to iTunes and sitting back while Apple does all the work. Apple handles the cataloging, payment collection, file servers and network bandwidth. NBC sat and collected a large portion of each sale.
Then NBC got even more greedy. To buy a single episode of something, NBC is rumored to have wanted to force bundles. Instead of one episode for $1.99, they would for example 'force' you to buy another unrelated or perhaps two other unrelated programs for more like $4.99. My guess is this was a gambit to try and generate interest in NBC's other titles. In their twisted logic one show you actually want with two attached throwaways (you would be forced into purchasing) is somehow "cheaper" for the end customer. In my book, that simply makes the one show I want $4.99 instead of $1.99.
Apple apparently balked at the idea of these forced bundles, which would ruin iTunes' straight-forward simplicity (among other things), and told NBC to take a hike. I suppose you could say while NBC was busy strangling their golden goose, the goose realized its own long-term interest was to get up and leave.
I've heard of this kind of thing before. On one of the tech sites (either AnandTech or TomsHardware, I think) one of the main reviewers was in a hurry for a personal project -- wireless router or something-- got home and found a bag of sand inside instead of the equipment.
I also hear about people, mostly teenagers it seems, who buy new video cards, install and then repackage the old card in the box and get a refund.
One of the reasons I only buy from reputable mail-order sites anymore.
Whoa harsh words from Anonymous Coward!
Woz is an exceptionally knowledgeable and clever hardware electronics engineer. His ability to reduce board size with fewer components made him a name to begin with. He also coded the Apple BASIC interpreter for the early Apple designs -- by hand! In fact, his ability allowed Apple to reduce enough components and create a fully ready-to-use machine which made the original Apple I and Apple II machines at low enough cost and wide functionality to create the first truly viable microcomputer company.
Of course despite his great skillz, in true geek fashion he seems to have little business acumen. It is no accident that Jobs partnered up with him, an neither one of them expected to sell more than a few hundred machines to other hobbyists at the time.
When Dell first entered into the "server" market, and for a couple of years after, their hardware tended to be riddled with stability problems. It took them a while to figure out that putting a desktop motherboard and drives into a bigger chassis didn't really make it a server.
But I've always found Dell to have decent, if boring and not very upgradable, PCs that work well for an office environment. And the business account support is still pretty decent. I can't imagine the consumer help support could be any worse than their competitors, aside from maybe Apple.
(Insert story about how my boss once wanted to install one of those 3D fish screen savers, only to find the built-in graphix sucked too hard. Videocard purchase was authorised, but found that the Dell motherboard had no AGP slot. The board had the mask and pinouts for one, Dell just never soldered in a 25-cent connector. Morale: Watch out if you intend to purchase a 'cheap' Dell and then upgrade.)
Well, as long as he's wearing the requisite red shirt...
OK, I managed to lookup some numbers at VGChartz. Indeed, Resistance has sold about 870,000 in North America.