XBox Adding HD Tuners Next Year

iloveCarla writes "Microsoft is partnering with Toshiba to turn the Xbox into a full fledged HTPC. With built-in HD DVD, a larger hard drive, revamped "MCE" interface, and possibly HDTV tuners, the Xbox would be in a better position to compete against the PS3 in the race to serve as the defacto entertainment hub for couch potatoes. According to the article "The new device is expected to be released late in 2008 or at the 2009 CES show in Las Vegas."

Who cares?

Even if I had a screen big enough to enjoy the real benefit of HD, why the fuck would I want a locked down platform that goes out of its way to restrict my usage?

Re:Who cares?

And you sound like someone who isn't successful enough to own a Z8 and is bitter. lol. :D

Not the enhancement people really want

The real question is: Will they start making the 360s reliable enough to reduce the failure rate down to something reasonable? I don't really care about HD tuners and stuff like that, what I really care about is will it keep running long enough for me to finish a game before having to send it back to the shop?

Re:Not the enhancement people really want

Microsoft has already done this. They have identified the problem that caused the general hardware failure (insufficient heat dissipation and weak solder) and retooled their assembly line to fix it. Any hardware failures you hear about are older xboxes. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_technical_problems [wikipedia.org] for more info.

Adding New Features to Consoles

Adding new features to consoles just makes people who bought 360 early upset. If the HD-DVD had been included since the beginning, I would be buying HD-DVD movies, and I really enjoy my high-def 360 playing when I'm home from school. Well, since my Xbox is off at the repair center for red-ringing, back to my Wii.

Re:Adding New Features to Consoles

If the HD-DVD had been included since the beginning it would have cost twice as much and most of us probably wouldn't own one.

Re:Adding New Features to Consoles

I'd have to argue this though, the first DVD player most gamers had was the PS2. Back then VHS was still ok and no one had a need to go out and buy an expensive stand alone DVD player.

Yeah, but back then everybody had TVs who bought the PS2. Not everybody has a HD-TV. That would make the expense unjustified to some who did buy the 360 already.

Well then...

.. they'd better also do something about the terrible noise the 360 is producing. There is no way I would use my 360 as an HTPC as long as it produces so much noise. I can live with it when playing games, but when watching a movie I want the silent scenes to be just that: silent.

Better position to compete?

Unbelievable - "better position to compete"? Are they so incredibly afraid of Sony, then, despite their enormous lead? Or are things not quite as rosy for the XBox as various sources would have us believe?

Re:Better position to compete?

Microsoft wants to own not only the console space, but also the STB space. In front, Microsoft wants to own the entire "computing" and "consumer electronics" markets.

Imagine this Microsoft Dream World: You use Windows at work, hear about a cool new show, and schedule the recording via your Windows Mobile smartphone, and come home to your XBox, which has recorded all of your TV shows to your Windows Home Server in the closet. You can fire up your Windows Media Center computer, and watch them from there or from the XBox, or sync them to your Zune to watch on the go.

Microsoft wants to compete with basically every technology company out there. Not necessarily unlike Apple. The goal that both companies have is domination of your computing lifestyle.

Re:Better position to compete?

Imagine this Microsoft Real World: You use Windows at work, hear about a cool new show, but can't look up anything about it, because your browser been locked down by the domain administrator to stop you visiting personal websites in office hours. You try to schedule the recording via your Windows Mobile smartphone, but there's no cell signal and the battery dies shortly after from the power drain of trying to use it with your work encryption on the wireless.

You come home to your XBox, which has tried to record all of your previous TV shows, but silently stopped working because it couldn't update the guide data, same as MCE. You spend some time trying to force it to download the guide data from your perfectly good home internet connection, but only a reboot fixes it, for no good reason. Except there's now no list of the failed to record shows so no information to try to manually reschedule a repeat broadcast with. You finally manually schedule that cool new show you wanted, and then you find out the broadcaster has flagged it with the do-not-record marker, and your xbox won't even allow you to record it. You decide to try and watch one of your previously recorded shows, only to find the last 5 minutes has been lost because it screwed up the clock. Again.

You finally decide to download that cool new show via bittorrent, made harder by the artificial TCP connections limit imposed by microsoft on windows and your ISPs packet throttling. You'd save it to your Windows Home Server in the closet, but the mofo died from overheating in your poorly ventilated closet, and when you try to reinstall you've hit your activation limit. You'd fire up your Windows Media Center computer and watch it from there, but MCE sucks at sharing media with other MCE boxes, and besides, you don't have the codec installed. You try watching it off the Xbox, but it just red-ringed of death from overheating because you left it running all day.

You give up on TV, and go to check your email, only to find out you've just had your account cancelled by the only ISP in your area for going over your 1GB a day limit on your unlimited super-amazing mega-expensive account, and you've just been sued by viacom for copyright infringement for downloading a show you could have watched on TV if you didn't have to work 14 hours a day to pay for your bandwidth bill and windows licences.

Welcome to the modern world of digital media.

Retarded

They need to make an Xbox 360 that sells for no more than $300, and includes at least a 40GB hard drive. Then they need to get more and better games. They also need to make Xbox Live! Gold memberships free for the first year. That's what people actually WANT.

This HTPC crap is a waste of time. Both MS and Sony keep trying to turn their console into a "media center", which while a nice idea, isn't something that the mass-market really cares about.

I swear both MS and Sony have lost their minds.

Still no SMB shares though

The one feature that would make the 360 into a descent media centre would be support for SMB (aka Window's) shares, so you can easily access all the media from your PC or NAS. It's the thing that makes XBOX Media Centre rock. No-one wants to be forced to use Media Player 11's crappy media streaming when they could just as easily browse their network shares.

The Evil Empire Grows

Yet another Xbox model? Might as well get a PC that isn't locked down and 100% controlled by Microsoft.

MCE?

revamped "MCE" Oh great, just what I needed more machine check exceptions. I just replaced the CPU in mom's computer!

Better than a tuner how about

beefing up the hardware so it lasts more than six months without getting the 3 rings of death!

Gee...

I sure am glad I rushed out and stood in line to buy the original $460 version, spent another $179 to add an HD-DVD player, and now I get to buy one all over again if I want the extra sexy-ness in a single box version?

This generation...

I actually really dislike the way this new console generation has gone, and am glad I have held off buying so far. There is way too much SKU shifting, with new better versions constantly being released to one up the other guy and keep the console "relevant". Its all well and good if you don't care and are sitting on the fence, but as a person actually interested in a next generation console instead of dropping a grand on a gaming PC it is really aggravating. Kudos to the Wii for avoiding this, but its not really what I'm looking for.

Examples of this abound. The one that pisses me off the most is Dual Shock 3. Some of the upgrades have been less than necessary, such as the Elite Xbox SKU, but rumble is a novel game input that you're completely missing out on for no reason if you bought or will buy a PS3 in the next six months. Some weren't even able to make the choice to wait because Sony lied about it.

Now with the HD tuner incorporated HD DVD Player MP3 jack extravaganda, why buy now? You know there will be a new SKU and it will make your box look like a chump. And this isn't like Apple releasing something new and you're paying opportunity cost (forgetting about the iPhone for a second), because most of these upgrades already exist and are minor. The only difference is if you buy them now you're paying probably twice as much for something that's half as well integrated with the box.

Maybe I should just buy a Dreamcast...now there's a stable SKU!

This means in the UK..

...to own one of these new 360's you'll need to buy a tv license as if you own any equipment capable of receiving TV signals you need to own a license. That's an extra £130/year (unless of course you have a license anyway).

Flibberdy

You wouldn't hear the TV though

OK, no trolling, I am a happy XBOX owner and play on live.

BUT: first they should take care of the noise the 360 produces. For me TV/Video watching is completely ruined when you have such a loud fan noise.

It is an incredible gaming machine, but I better use my 5+ year old DVD player than the 360 because the noise concerns.

And before you tell me to crank up the volume: every movie has silent/low volume scenes, and usually the ones when there is important conversation or other dramatic parts..... now that is when I do not want to hear a changing pitch of fan noise.

Other question a HDTV tuner ... OK ... if I have HDTV I have a tuner already. If it is for recording: I doubt MS is going to give questionable cool features like ad skip with it, so better a TIVO.

Dunno, maybe this game machine as an entertainment center idea does not get to me. I would better shove a minimac/mini pc into the hifi stand and than I have all the freedom to burn, record, show pix, etc ....

Toshiba Wishes

The rumor comes from Toshiba and I don't buy it. Why would Microsoft do this? They make money off movie downloads to the Xbox. Unless Toshiba is going to give MS a huge stake in the HD-DVD platform, I don't really see an upside for Redmond. I can see Toshiba making a media center extender, but I don't see MS letting them put an Xbox into it.

Open interoperability

The one thing they could do to interest me is offer the ability to interoperate with third party software.

- Define a set of acceptable video formats that the unit will play, starting with ATSC HDTV formats.

- Create a simple networking protocol to interact with PCs/Servers. Maybe UPnP is good enough, maybe not. It needs to stream the video and allow for flexible playback (FF/REW, Jump n seconds, jump to this point in time, pause, etc.)

An HD-DVD player, which could also play games, and can interact with my MythTV backend and Mac OS X iLife Apps (view photos, play movies, play unencrypted music) would be a no-brainer.

A game unit which also connects to Windows Media Center is not interesting.. Doesn't it already do that?? I'm not interested in a Windows-based media server, with all the related costs and limitations.

Haha, I knew it was coming.

Well so much for this generation of consoles being the end all be all "it just works, I don't have to upgrade every year" devices that were supposedly hamering the last nails into the coffin of PC gaming.

Looks to me like we'll be seeing XBOX and PC gaming being synonymous in the next year or two. They've already got the hardware rating system in Vista as well as USB adapters for their wireless 360 controlers. It's just a matter of adding direct game support for XBOX titles on the PC.

Considering how fast PC hardware advances in comparison to consoles there is no reason not too. The only thing they'll have to watch out for is letting the software developers get too far head of the average customer's hardware, the very reason many gamers have abandoned PC gaming in the first place.

Personally I would love to see this since I have already distilled my living room entertainment package down to a PC and a 40" LCD HD TV, and don't care spoil that with the noisy, anemic, unreliable, one trick pony, 360, just to be able to play the few console titles I'm interested in.

HDTV Tuners?

Cable cards? Last time I checked, besides over the air or unencrypted HD, the only way devices that can record HD content from your cable or satellite provider is with a cable card. If there is anything that's had more hardware problems than the xbox, without any of the popularity, its cable cards. Until that whole situation gets figured out I don't see anyone providing a good HD DVR.

And the Banshee wail?

Like, yeah, I'd use one of these as my living room hub of choice, if it didn't blow or suck quite as much. ;-) The noise these things put out is phenomenal, and then there's the noise from the DVD drive. I have multi-core boxes running serious number cruching apps that are quieter.

Nah, living room entertainment centre? Don't think so somehow.

What? Microsoft bought the cable industry?

Hmm, well you have a few choices here on how this device will interface with cable:
1) Classic Analog
2) Unencrypted QAM
3) Encrypted QAM*
4) Cablecard device
5) IPTV

As far as I know, HD content is not offered over classic Analog, and cannot be relied upon to be supplied
over unencrypted QAM. So now you are into connection options that require an authentication scheme
and some sort of trusted / authenticated relationship between the device and the cable company.

So far the closest analog (ignoring TVs with cablecard slots) is the HD-TIVO. One only has to scan the
threads on avsforum to see the good and bad experiences people have had trying to activate what cable
companies essentially consider a third party device on their network.

For your average slashdot reader the integration issues are likely something we would spend time working
through and could in fact navigate to a successful conclusion. But for the average consumer this could
prove a frustrating and potentially hopeless experience unless Microsoft's 360/MCE is an "officially"
supported device. And I don't see that happening without an investment from MS of some kind.

* I intentionally separated encrypted QAM from cablecard as cablecard's replacement is ostensible
on the horizon.

This is smart

The problem with upgrading consoles is that you suddenly have two hardware platforms. Do game designers design for the old platform, and limit their features, or do they design for the new platform and limit their audience? They will almost invariably choose the first. Therefore uptake on the new console is low, and consumers feel ripped off -- both the consumers who buy a useless new console, and the consumers who spent their money on the inferior old console.

With the Xbox 360, however, it's a different deal. None of the upgrades are going to effect the gaming capabilities of the Xbox. Even the hard-drive limitation won't stop you from playing any games. What you get with an upgraded Xbox is a more capable box for movies and general home entertainment.

On the other hand, despite this being a good technical idea, Microsoft is most likely going to flub it like they did with 6 editions of Vista. If Microsoft does flub it, people will worry about which edition of the Xbox they should buy, and hold off purchasing altogether.

Feature sell machines. More features, more sales.

Microsoft is adding more and more features to have poeple use their (noisy) console for things it was never designed for. With this, they hope to sell the machine to more people that were still in doubt about buying a console. Maybe they will even make a few sales to people that simply want a TV tuner with a decent programme listing, like the way people bought PlayStation2's as a DVD player.

I'm perfectly happy with my Playstation as a Game Console and BD-ROM player.
It's quiet and has all the outputs I need to make that perfect connection to my Home Cinema equipment.
Yes, I have Linux on there so I can use it to watch 'downloaded' media content, but it's not the reason I bought it.
(An XboX can't even do that without a PC with Windows Media Player 11 on a networking doing all the hard work.)
With Linux, a PS3 can already use any linux-supported (HD)TV receiver, or any other (Linux supported) USB device.

Because of HDTV and ever-more-powerful processors, one machine will someday sit in the living room, recording your TV shows, string your music, doubling as Internet Appliance for browsing an e-mail.
At the very least.
If people will still have hard-wired phones, the machine will answer the phone for you.
Home Automation will also be interesting (toggling lights when you're on vacation, climate control, remote alarm check-up/signaling, providing access to the networked webcam in the baby room).
The possible privacy issues are just as endless.

Any machine successful enough gets the attention of 'the power that be' and will be used for things people will not like. Just as phone companies log your calls, ISP's keep track of all your sent and received e-mail and cars with LoJack are already monitored (Did I mention Cell Phone tracing?), every bit of information will be monitored, logged and, if you're unlucky, scanned and reported.

Everything automated can also be controlled.
Just like TiVO's deleting shows at the broadcaster's command and digital music becoming suddenly unplayable , someone will always be annoyed at the endless possibilities and will want to keep the possibilities within limits.

What will -really- make the device sell is something I don't know yet.
It's 'killer feature' maybe has not even been invented yet.

the Halo Gaming Platform

Is the x-box not expensive enough already? I can have the option of buying an xbox or a new computer. This is getting stupid. I always tell people there are no good games for the xbox -I am baiting them for the obvious answer: "no, halo is a good game!" Yes, Halo is a good game. And Halo 2. And Halo 3. Microsoft admits they are keeping afloat on the Halo franchise. Which is why they should stop calling the system the xbox and call it what it is -the Halo Gaming Platform, or alternately, the H-Box. The H-box is the system of choice for suckers for advertising, and those people who can't identify a quality product.

PS3 TV

The PS3 needs help developing native X drivers that work on the Cell's SPEs [google.com]. Linux currently runs on the PS3 Cell's PPC core, but that doesn't even have the accelerated graphics that cheap PCs have on their videocards (the PS3 RSX is locked out to Linux). The SPEs are so much more powerful, and designed for exactly the pixel pushing that X needs. Once they're running instead of sitting there, the PS3 will be by far the best $600 HD terminal out there. Especially with home theater/automation systems on it like LinuxMCE [linuxmce.com]. But it needs help across that basic milestone.

history

As anyone with a passing knowledge of consoles should know - this will flop.

Just ask sega about how well console "upgrades" sell - eg MegaCD, 32X, etc.

Too loud, too hot

I keep my 360 in a cabinet under the TV to dull the noise of its massive fans. And since it raises the temperature in there high enough to bake a small cake, I can't imagine having it sitting out so I can actually use the IR remote. Anybody actually have a good experience keeping these things in the living room? Much less trying to watch a movie/show with dialog?

Implications for Intel

With their crapulent MCE OS offerrings MS has just about convinced Intel there is no market for HTPC. Now we find that MS wants the whole market with its non-Intel XBox.

Will Intel respond with some non-Microsoft developments, or will they surrender another market to the Beast of Redmond?

Ultimately Microsoft has to take ownership of the entire PC hardware market if they are to sustain growth. They are already an OEM of desktop PCs in India. If they take the consumer electronics space also there's nothing left but servers. How long before they're drooling over that high margin business?

xbmc anyone?

Agree with most comments so far. One basic requirement for me in a media center is that it has to play all formats and encoding schemes. The 360 is way too picky about the video it can stream. If the 360 and PS3 intend to be a contenders in this space then they have to at least match the functionality in XBMC. The original Xbox with XBMC trumps both these so-called "next-gen" consoles at the moment in media centre functionality.

Toshiba produces the CELL!

Did anybody keep in mind that Toshiba is one of the backers of the CELL Processor? They just renewed and extended their Joint-Venture with Sony [reghardware.co.uk]. They also developed a "reduced" CELL Processor called SpursEngine [reghardware.co.uk].

They should be working on a PS3 version, not a XBOX360 Version...

neat idea but too late

This is a neat idea. Too bad I already own an Xbox though. If you got me with HDDVD and all that from th ebeginning then maybe my 360 would be more than a games and DVD player. But that's what it is, and I've got better things to spend money on than more xbox 360 consoles. I'm not buying another one.

Glad I never bought one

I almost bought a 360 elite, but if they keep putting out better versions I may as well wait a few years for the 100th different version, it will surely be the best ever.

We're sorry...

We're sorry, gaming has been disabled because XBOX is currently recording "Everybody loves Raymond". Press "X" to watch live now. Or, press "A" to dim screen and read a book instead.

Gaming will be enabled when recording completes, in: 28 minutes

MS's way of making money

<sarcasm>
Lets quickly put out a system. It doesn't need to be real fancy, just have lots of games. In a year we will have a new system with some new hardware and all those suckers that bought one will sell it and buy another one. Then a year from then put out another system with some more small upgrades to start the cycle over again. This is better then putting out one great system to start that is ahead of its time.
</sarcasm>

Re:What are they doing?

You make me lol.