In the US at least, religion == church == tax except status. One might wonder "why?", I believe it's because of "No taxation without representation". The idea is that a secular country prefers churches not be represented in government, but therefore they cannot be taxed.
Right, lying. Okay, well if you look at the CREDITS file for openarena. You'll see Cube's main developer and project founder right at the top as a map credit. q3dm6ish and dm4ish in OA are from him. Maybe I shouldn't have assumed they were used in Cube as well, because that may not be accurate. Well then.. OpenQuartz, I believe the void maps are from that project. The point was simply that OA does a lot of borrowing from different art styles.
Yes I know, the top of the article mentions that it was written two months ago. The release of the new Sauerbraten was what promoted me to post this before it got too out-of-date.
Also the end of the article contains the following note, "Notes: Since the original writing, Sauerbraten has released a new version that has more RPG elements and seems to make progress in being a more full-fledged game. I actually haven't had time to update the article." Perhaps I should have put that under the Sauerbraten section. I'm very eager to try out the new release though.
Cleaned up the grammar before posting it on the site that got slashdotted, the version in the comments is a horribly written draft that I did at 3am off shorthand notes.
To be honest though, I can't say the final is much better in terms of structure, clarity or cohesiveness. I apologize. I know there is lots of passive, crap comma usage, etc. but I originally was going to do this with a second author to whom I was planning to send my notes. I ended up doing it myself so I quickly turned my notes into an article without much thought, I've learned my lesson, and I'm a bit ashamed of myself.
Tremulous ships with 8 stock maps. That isn't a lie, there are custom maps, as with all the games, but there are only 8 stock maps. Article doesn't say Tremulous ripped off anyone, I'll quote "Tthe concept and style of the game is rather original. If anything, Tremulous can be related to the Half-Life mod Natural Selection, although without the RTS commander mode." Related doesn't mean one took from the other, it just means they are similar.
As an apology, I originally wrote this article with unicode (and published it on a site that uses unicode), so I used the Section sign U+00A7 to represent the 'S' in WarSow. I posted this comment in a jiffy from my saved draft and forgot to replace the unicode with an S. Also I would like to say that the above is a draft copy I had saved, I don't have access to my final copy at the moment.
Yes ET's content is free. In terms of legal licensing (for both code and art), ET is the same as some games on that list. The difference comes in that all of these games were developed for free distribution and continue development with a free software engine.
ET was developed as a proprietary game, released as free later, and while the source code was released, it was also after-the-fact and there isn't active development of ET in the style of a free software project. I guess the article focused more on free software games that continue that style of development and made by development teams that continue the production of both free art and free software code.
Yes Quake 3 is free software, but Quake3 can't be called a packagable 'game' in the sense of 'free'. The game materials are still proprietary and not free. The engine is free software, and in fact, all the games on that list use GPL engine that were built on iD's released Quake1/2/3 engines. However they also can be considered packagable 'games' with free content. The article should have made that distinction though.
and I'm an idiot once again, proper formatting this time!! Here is my draft copy
About two weeks ago, Joe Barr posted a feature on Linux.com titled "New Alien Arena 6.10 blows away its FPS competition" yet gave no real comparisons with other similar games. This was done in the same style as Barr's previous feature, "Tremulous: The best free software game ever?" which described Tremulous but also lacked comparisons and relations to other games. This feature hopes to be a thorough comparison of the major free software shooters.
There have been many free software first-person shooters (FPS) projects over the years, from modded Doom and Quake engines to enhance the existing games (ezQuake, EGL, ZDoom), to free art packs such as OpenQuartz or OpenArena. In 2002, along came Cube, a single and multiplayer FPS based on its own engine, including artwork, maps, models and an ingame map editor. In the freeware (and Linux compatible!) world a little-known game called Legends, a Tribes-inspired game, appeared yet remained closed-source. Filling the FPS gap in the open-source world has usually been left up to commercial companies who release their games with Linux support (i.e. Doom3, Unreal Tournament 2004, Loki Software's work) or freeware games produced by commercial studios(i.e. America's Army, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory) or simply running Windows games run via wine. In the last few years a few built-from-scratch community-based FPS projects, most built on the GPLed Quake engines, have popped up, among them are Tremulous, Alien Arena, Nexuiz, and Warow. Some have kept their art assets under a closed license (Warow), while others have also released their art under an OSS license (Nexuiz), I consider both categories free software since well, software refers to programs, code and procedures, not artwork. For this comparison, we'll take a look at active, robust and community-developed free software shooters. Most released free software shooters are designed for multiplayer, a logical step for a game developed in an online community, however most also feature a bot-based single-player mode. While others have compared such games before, this feature seeks to be a little more thorough and go a step further, ranking the following seven games: Alien Arena, Nexuiz, OpenArena, Sauerbraten, Tremulous, Warow, and World of Padman. In ranking these games, gameplay, design, innovation and presentation (in that order) will be held as primary criteria.
7. Sauerbraten
Sauerbraten is basically Cube 2, the sequel to one of the most influential free software shooters released to date. The engine is completely reworked with brand new graphics rendering features rivaling that of Quake4. Like Cube, Sauerbraten has a built-in map editor that allows player to edit maps from within the game, making this one of the friendliest games for content-creation. The latest version of Sauerbraten, 2007-09-04, is little more than a subversion snapshot packaged and stabilized for wider distribution; the game is still in heavy development. Sauerbraten gameplay drastically differ from anything Cube offered, with simple Quake-style weapons, game effects, and the same Quake3-like FFA action. It is worth noting that Cube (and Sauerbraten) give you a weapon when you pick up the appropriate ammobox; there is no separation between ammo and weapons.While it has some cool features, the game still feels like more of a concept demo than an actual game, and with only 20-30 servers, half running instagib, there isn't much of a community following. Single player is reminiscent of Quake1, with enemy monsters in a variety of maps. The menu is actually one of the coolest I've seen implemented in a game, it spawns as an object ingame and faces you, however the lack of a main menu upon load adds to the tech-demo feel. Despite the tech-demo nature of the game, Sauerbraten has a good soundtrack, lots of maps, good quality models, well-done artwork and textures. The gameplay isn't anything astounding but with pretty decent maps and gameplay reminiscent
While the site seems to be down, here is a draft copy of the article text, I cleaned up the grammer before the actual post but didn't save that version because I was stupid. Original had pictures to keep you distracted.
About two weeks ago, Joe Barr posted a feature on Linux.com titled "New Alien Arena 6.10 blows away its FPS competition" yet gave no real comparisons with other similar games. This was done in the same style as Barr's previous feature, "Tremulous: The best free software game ever?" which described Tremulous but also lacked comparisons and relations to other games. This feature hopes to be a thorough comparison of the major free software shooters.
There have been many free software first-person shooters (FPS) projects over the years, from modded Doom and Quake engines to enhance the existing games (ezQuake, EGL, ZDoom), to free art packs such as OpenQuartz or OpenArena. In 2002, along came Cube, a single and multiplayer FPS based on its own engine, including artwork, maps, models and an ingame map editor. In the freeware (and Linux compatible!) world a little-known game called Legends, a Tribes-inspired game, appeared yet remained closed-source. Filling the FPS gap in the open-source world has usually been left up to commercial companies who release their games with Linux support (i.e. Doom3, Unreal Tournament 2004, Loki Software's work) or freeware games produced by commercial studios(i.e. America's Army, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory) or simply running Windows games run via wine. In the last few years a few built-from-scratch community-based FPS projects, most built on the GPLed Quake engines, have popped up, among them are Tremulous, Alien Arena, Nexuiz, and Warow. Some have kept their art assets under a closed license (Warow), while others have also released their art under an OSS license (Nexuiz), I consider both categories free software since well, software refers to programs, code and procedures, not artwork. For this comparison, we'll take a look at active, robust and community-developed free software shooters. Most released free software shooters are designed for multiplayer, a logical step for a game developed in an online community, however most also feature a bot-based single-player mode. While others have compared such games before, this feature seeks to be a little more thorough and go a step further, ranking the following seven games: Alien Arena, Nexuiz, OpenArena, Sauerbraten, Tremulous, Warow, and World of Padman. In ranking these games, gameplay, design, innovation and presentation (in that order) will be held as primary criteria.
7. Sauerbraten
Sauerbraten is basically Cube 2, the sequel to one of the most influential free software shooters released to date. The engine is completely reworked with brand new graphics rendering features rivaling that of Quake4. Like Cube, Sauerbraten has a built-in map editor that allows player to edit maps from within the game, making this one of the friendliest games for content-creation. The latest version of Sauerbraten, 2007-09-04, is little more than a subversion snapshot packaged and stabilized for wider distribution; the game is still in heavy development. Sauerbraten gameplay drastically differ from anything Cube offered, with simple Quake-style weapons, game effects, and the same Quake3-like FFA action. It is worth noting that Cube (and Sauerbraten) give you a weapon when you pick up the appropriate ammobox; there is no separation between ammo and weapons.While it has some cool features, the game still feels like more of a concept demo than an actual game, and with only 20-30 servers, half running instagib, there isn't much of a community following. Single player is reminiscent of Quake1, with enemy monsters in a variety of maps. The menu is actually one of the coolest I've seen implemented in a game, it spawns as an object ingame and faces you, however the lack of a main menu upon load adds to the tech-demo feel. Despite the tech-demo nature of the game, Sauerbraten has a good soundtrack, lots of maps, good quality models, well-done artwork
It's not the processors they are phasing out. It's the chipsets. They will still make low-end processors, cheap p4s, celerons, they didn't say anything about that. It's the motherboard chipsets they won't make anymore. Considering the distance that the cheap ones like Via and SiS have gone, its a logical move.
It's a well known problem with HL2, I played it through the first time with just a bit in Ravenholm, and after that I was fine. I tried playing it again a week ago and I got motion sickness.
Slashdot had an article on this:
http://games.slashdot.org/games/04/11/23/1631228.s html?tid=204
I finally have a good analogy:
It's the equivelent of buying the rights to music, and then uploading it on your website say www.myrecordlabel.com/music, and leaving it and expecting no one to download it.
If you manage to stumble upon it, and download it, your getting content that the owner paid for and the owner has no idea you are doing it, and you don't know if its okay or not.
Since there is no real damage, or intent to harm, if the user is doing it purposefully, they should just get a misdemeanor or infraction charge, but a felony?!? no way
accidental uses are nearly impossible to catch unless you monitor your own network, and I doubt people who don't use WEP would constantly check their DHCP.
Like everyone's already said: Linux/PPC would have been a good thing to add in.
Like someone else mentioned, Apache 2.x and a PostgreSQL database would have been good tests along with the MySQL+Apache 1.3 ones.
I haven't seen anyone mention the gcc compiler version.(they used 3.3)
3.4 is more wholesomely made.
4.0 is the latest, woulda been interesting to see if that made any significant changes(and doesn't panther use that defaultly?)
The test lacks the ability to show whether the issues in server based MacOSX are CPU based or OS based. Linux/PPC would have been helpful.
Nintendo is the only company of the major 3 console makers that is completely a video game company. They reported profits of over 800 million USD this year. Thats far from turning away from consoles, Not only are they making money, they are making a lot of it.
Whereas Microsoft has recorded over 1.6 billion in loses from the Xbox. I believe Sony also reported some sort of lose on the PS2 hardware.(I can't confirm that so does anyone know),
Nintendo makes a point, they may sell less consoles then the others, but they aren't losing money on it.
Not true. I recently went from a 19inch CRT, where I ran a 1600x1200 res, right over to a 17inch LCD which max out at 1280x1024. It detected and changed the config file by itself on boot. ATi Radeon 9800 Pro Samsung 730B DVI. Ubuntu 4.10
Ubuntu finally solves the problems with installing the god-forsaken ATi Drivers. They actually work! first distro for that to happen. Still though, I use that computer mostly for games, the linux partition is purely to play around on. It's not usable for games, or high quality entertaiment purposes. But for my school-box where I type, program, and actually work, I prefer Linux.
Opps, Got the numbers wrong..
Sony PlayStation 2 has an install base of 30.8 million units in North America, compared to 12.1 million units for the Xbox.(IDC)
Worldwide? Tell me if you find it. The point remains, Xbox has 1/3 the market of the PS2, and is about equal to Nintendo's Gamecube. Microsoft wants to expand.
People have posted about how many users don't care about backwards compatibility, well guess what? microsoft does and its target base do.
1)Microsoft always has been losing money on the Xbox hardware itself, but the software, not only from their own games(Halo2) but also from royalties that they get from the developer, they make money from the games. If they make it backwards compatible, they can kill the production of hardware, and yet still keep getting money from game sales.
2)Microsoft wants to reach into the game market and grab more market share. They have sold only 20 million Xbox compared to over 60 million PS2s. They want to recapture their old market, and add on, so they want to appeal to people who don't have an Xbox, but will get an Xbox360.
Slashdot Mirror
Except you're wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gook
I stand corrected, mod parent up!
In the US at least, religion == church == tax except status. One might wonder "why?", I believe it's because of "No taxation without representation". The idea is that a secular country prefers churches not be represented in government, but therefore they cannot be taxed.
Earth-Sun takes 8minutes 20seconds. Not 8 seconds.
No, I'm retarded and there is no way you missed the point I was making.
Right, lying. Okay, well if you look at the CREDITS file for openarena. You'll see Cube's main developer and project founder right at the top as a map credit. q3dm6ish and dm4ish in OA are from him. Maybe I shouldn't have assumed they were used in Cube as well, because that may not be accurate. Well then.. OpenQuartz, I believe the void maps are from that project. The point was simply that OA does a lot of borrowing from different art styles.
yeah I misspoke, sauerbraten is zlib licenses which is still an approved-FSF license, fitting the definition of "free software".
Yes I know, the top of the article mentions that it was written two months ago. The release of the new Sauerbraten was what promoted me to post this before it got too out-of-date.
Also the end of the article contains the following note, "Notes: Since the original writing, Sauerbraten has released a new version that has more RPG elements and seems to make progress in being a more full-fledged game. I actually haven't had time to update the article." Perhaps I should have put that under the Sauerbraten section. I'm very eager to try out the new release though.
Cleaned up the grammar before posting it on the site that got slashdotted, the version in the comments is a horribly written draft that I did at 3am off shorthand notes.
To be honest though, I can't say the final is much better in terms of structure, clarity or cohesiveness. I apologize. I know there is lots of passive, crap comma usage, etc. but I originally was going to do this with a second author to whom I was planning to send my notes. I ended up doing it myself so I quickly turned my notes into an article without much thought, I've learned my lesson, and I'm a bit ashamed of myself.
you gets what I mean?
Tremulous ships with 8 stock maps. That isn't a lie, there are custom maps, as with all the games, but there are only 8 stock maps. Article doesn't say Tremulous ripped off anyone, I'll quote "Tthe concept and style of the game is rather original. If anything, Tremulous can be related to the Half-Life mod Natural Selection, although without the RTS commander mode." Related doesn't mean one took from the other, it just means they are similar.
As an apology, I originally wrote this article with unicode (and published it on a site that uses unicode), so I used the Section sign U+00A7 to represent the 'S' in WarSow. I posted this comment in a jiffy from my saved draft and forgot to replace the unicode with an S. Also I would like to say that the above is a draft copy I had saved, I don't have access to my final copy at the moment.
Yes ET's content is free. In terms of legal licensing (for both code and art), ET is the same as some games on that list. The difference comes in that all of these games were developed for free distribution and continue development with a free software engine.
ET was developed as a proprietary game, released as free later, and while the source code was released, it was also after-the-fact and there isn't active development of ET in the style of a free software project. I guess the article focused more on free software games that continue that style of development and made by development teams that continue the production of both free art and free software code.
Yes Quake 3 is free software, but Quake3 can't be called a packagable 'game' in the sense of 'free'. The game materials are still proprietary and not free. The engine is free software, and in fact, all the games on that list use GPL engine that were built on iD's released Quake1/2/3 engines. However they also can be considered packagable 'games' with free content. The article should have made that distinction though.
Yeah I know, oh my bad!! I just.. need to think a little bit, use preview button. Get some sleep :)
and I'm an idiot once again, proper formatting this time!! Here is my draft copy
About two weeks ago, Joe Barr posted a feature on Linux.com titled "New Alien Arena 6.10 blows away its FPS competition" yet gave no real comparisons with other similar games. This was done in the same style as Barr's previous feature, "Tremulous: The best free software game ever?" which described Tremulous but also lacked comparisons and relations to other games. This feature hopes to be a thorough comparison of the major free software shooters.
There have been many free software first-person shooters (FPS) projects over the years, from modded Doom and Quake engines to enhance the existing games (ezQuake, EGL, ZDoom), to free art packs such as OpenQuartz or OpenArena. In 2002, along came Cube, a single and multiplayer FPS based on its own engine, including artwork, maps, models and an ingame map editor. In the freeware (and Linux compatible!) world a little-known game called Legends, a Tribes-inspired game, appeared yet remained closed-source. Filling the FPS gap in the open-source world has usually been left up to commercial companies who release their games with Linux support (i.e. Doom3, Unreal Tournament 2004, Loki Software's work) or freeware games produced by commercial studios(i.e. America's Army, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory) or simply running Windows games run via wine. In the last few years a few built-from-scratch community-based FPS projects, most built on the GPLed Quake engines, have popped up, among them are Tremulous, Alien Arena, Nexuiz, and Warow. Some have kept their art assets under a closed license (Warow), while others have also released their art under an OSS license (Nexuiz), I consider both categories free software since well, software refers to programs, code and procedures, not artwork. For this comparison, we'll take a look at active, robust and community-developed free software shooters. Most released free software shooters are designed for multiplayer, a logical step for a game developed in an online community, however most also feature a bot-based single-player mode. While others have compared such games before, this feature seeks to be a little more thorough and go a step further, ranking the following seven games: Alien Arena, Nexuiz, OpenArena, Sauerbraten, Tremulous, Warow, and World of Padman. In ranking these games, gameplay, design, innovation and presentation (in that order) will be held as primary criteria.
7. Sauerbraten
Sauerbraten is basically Cube 2, the sequel to one of the most influential free software shooters released to date. The engine is completely reworked with brand new graphics rendering features rivaling that of Quake4. Like Cube, Sauerbraten has a built-in map editor that allows player to edit maps from within the game, making this one of the friendliest games for content-creation. The latest version of Sauerbraten, 2007-09-04, is little more than a subversion snapshot packaged and stabilized for wider distribution; the game is still in heavy development. Sauerbraten gameplay drastically differ from anything Cube offered, with simple Quake-style weapons, game effects, and the same Quake3-like FFA action. It is worth noting that Cube (and Sauerbraten) give you a weapon when you pick up the appropriate ammobox; there is no separation between ammo and weapons.While it has some cool features, the game still feels like more of a concept demo than an actual game, and with only 20-30 servers, half running instagib, there isn't much of a community following. Single player is reminiscent of Quake1, with enemy monsters in a variety of maps. The menu is actually one of the coolest I've seen implemented in a game, it spawns as an object ingame and faces you, however the lack of a main menu upon load adds to the tech-demo feel. Despite the tech-demo nature of the game, Sauerbraten has a good soundtrack, lots of maps, good quality models, well-done artwork and textures. The gameplay isn't anything astounding but with pretty decent maps and gameplay reminiscent
While the site seems to be down, here is a draft copy of the article text, I cleaned up the grammer before the actual post but didn't save that version because I was stupid. Original had pictures to keep you distracted. About two weeks ago, Joe Barr posted a feature on Linux.com titled "New Alien Arena 6.10 blows away its FPS competition" yet gave no real comparisons with other similar games. This was done in the same style as Barr's previous feature, "Tremulous: The best free software game ever?" which described Tremulous but also lacked comparisons and relations to other games. This feature hopes to be a thorough comparison of the major free software shooters. There have been many free software first-person shooters (FPS) projects over the years, from modded Doom and Quake engines to enhance the existing games (ezQuake, EGL, ZDoom), to free art packs such as OpenQuartz or OpenArena. In 2002, along came Cube, a single and multiplayer FPS based on its own engine, including artwork, maps, models and an ingame map editor. In the freeware (and Linux compatible!) world a little-known game called Legends, a Tribes-inspired game, appeared yet remained closed-source. Filling the FPS gap in the open-source world has usually been left up to commercial companies who release their games with Linux support (i.e. Doom3, Unreal Tournament 2004, Loki Software's work) or freeware games produced by commercial studios(i.e. America's Army, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory) or simply running Windows games run via wine. In the last few years a few built-from-scratch community-based FPS projects, most built on the GPLed Quake engines, have popped up, among them are Tremulous, Alien Arena, Nexuiz, and Warow. Some have kept their art assets under a closed license (Warow), while others have also released their art under an OSS license (Nexuiz), I consider both categories free software since well, software refers to programs, code and procedures, not artwork. For this comparison, we'll take a look at active, robust and community-developed free software shooters. Most released free software shooters are designed for multiplayer, a logical step for a game developed in an online community, however most also feature a bot-based single-player mode. While others have compared such games before, this feature seeks to be a little more thorough and go a step further, ranking the following seven games: Alien Arena, Nexuiz, OpenArena, Sauerbraten, Tremulous, Warow, and World of Padman. In ranking these games, gameplay, design, innovation and presentation (in that order) will be held as primary criteria. 7. Sauerbraten Sauerbraten is basically Cube 2, the sequel to one of the most influential free software shooters released to date. The engine is completely reworked with brand new graphics rendering features rivaling that of Quake4. Like Cube, Sauerbraten has a built-in map editor that allows player to edit maps from within the game, making this one of the friendliest games for content-creation. The latest version of Sauerbraten, 2007-09-04, is little more than a subversion snapshot packaged and stabilized for wider distribution; the game is still in heavy development. Sauerbraten gameplay drastically differ from anything Cube offered, with simple Quake-style weapons, game effects, and the same Quake3-like FFA action. It is worth noting that Cube (and Sauerbraten) give you a weapon when you pick up the appropriate ammobox; there is no separation between ammo and weapons.While it has some cool features, the game still feels like more of a concept demo than an actual game, and with only 20-30 servers, half running instagib, there isn't much of a community following. Single player is reminiscent of Quake1, with enemy monsters in a variety of maps. The menu is actually one of the coolest I've seen implemented in a game, it spawns as an object ingame and faces you, however the lack of a main menu upon load adds to the tech-demo feel. Despite the tech-demo nature of the game, Sauerbraten has a good soundtrack, lots of maps, good quality models, well-done artwork
It's not the processors they are phasing out. It's the chipsets. They will still make low-end processors, cheap p4s, celerons, they didn't say anything about that. It's the motherboard chipsets they won't make anymore. Considering the distance that the cheap ones like Via and SiS have gone, its a logical move.
It's a well known problem with HL2, I played it through the first time with just a bit in Ravenholm, and after that I was fine. I tried playing it again a week ago and I got motion sickness. Slashdot had an article on this: http://games.slashdot.org/games/04/11/23/1631228.s html?tid=204
I finally have a good analogy: It's the equivelent of buying the rights to music, and then uploading it on your website say www.myrecordlabel.com/music, and leaving it and expecting no one to download it. If you manage to stumble upon it, and download it, your getting content that the owner paid for and the owner has no idea you are doing it, and you don't know if its okay or not. Since there is no real damage, or intent to harm, if the user is doing it purposefully, they should just get a misdemeanor or infraction charge, but a felony?!? no way accidental uses are nearly impossible to catch unless you monitor your own network, and I doubt people who don't use WEP would constantly check their DHCP.
Like everyone's already said: Linux/PPC would have been a good thing to add in. Like someone else mentioned, Apache 2.x and a PostgreSQL database would have been good tests along with the MySQL+Apache 1.3 ones. I haven't seen anyone mention the gcc compiler version.(they used 3.3) 3.4 is more wholesomely made. 4.0 is the latest, woulda been interesting to see if that made any significant changes(and doesn't panther use that defaultly?) The test lacks the ability to show whether the issues in server based MacOSX are CPU based or OS based. Linux/PPC would have been helpful.
Nintendo is the only company of the major 3 console makers that is completely a video game company. They reported profits of over 800 million USD this year. Thats far from turning away from consoles, Not only are they making money, they are making a lot of it. Whereas Microsoft has recorded over 1.6 billion in loses from the Xbox. I believe Sony also reported some sort of lose on the PS2 hardware.(I can't confirm that so does anyone know), Nintendo makes a point, they may sell less consoles then the others, but they aren't losing money on it.
Not true.
I recently went from a 19inch CRT, where I ran a 1600x1200 res, right over to a 17inch LCD which max out at 1280x1024. It detected and changed the config file by itself on boot.
ATi Radeon 9800 Pro
Samsung 730B DVI.
Ubuntu 4.10
Ubuntu finally solves the problems with installing the god-forsaken ATi Drivers. They actually work! first distro for that to happen.
Still though, I use that computer mostly for games, the linux partition is purely to play around on. It's not usable for games, or high quality entertaiment purposes. But for my school-box where I type, program, and actually work, I prefer Linux.
Opps, Got the numbers wrong.. Sony PlayStation 2 has an install base of 30.8 million units in North America, compared to 12.1 million units for the Xbox.(IDC) Worldwide? Tell me if you find it. The point remains, Xbox has 1/3 the market of the PS2, and is about equal to Nintendo's Gamecube. Microsoft wants to expand.
People have posted about how many users don't care about backwards compatibility, well guess what? microsoft does and its target base do. 1)Microsoft always has been losing money on the Xbox hardware itself, but the software, not only from their own games(Halo2) but also from royalties that they get from the developer, they make money from the games. If they make it backwards compatible, they can kill the production of hardware, and yet still keep getting money from game sales. 2)Microsoft wants to reach into the game market and grab more market share. They have sold only 20 million Xbox compared to over 60 million PS2s. They want to recapture their old market, and add on, so they want to appeal to people who don't have an Xbox, but will get an Xbox360.