XBox Released 1062
Gallowglass writes: "Salon has written a review of the Xbox which damns with extremely faint praise." There was a big hoopla in Times Square last night, but apparently no one pied Bill Gates. So, for all you poor souls who lined up to give money to the borg: does it work? Any blue-screens yet? :) Update: 11/15 15:23 GMT by M : Okay, I'm sorry. That's green screen of death, not blue screen.
I withhold judgement until I PLAY it... (Score:4, Informative)
another news article (Score:5, Informative)
For a different perspective... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No GTA3...... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Hehe (Score:4, Informative)
But if you like FUD, let it flow...
Re:Hehe (Score:2, Informative)
Re:XBOX advertisement blitz (Score:5, Informative)
Kindly get your facts straight.
Re:A PS2 with different games (Score:5, Informative)
Play it again... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:your statements don't work (Score:5, Informative)
I share your opinion with PC good for some games, console for others (although, I'll add sports games to the console). Now you mentioned "Gran Turisimo" and I mention "sports" for console. Once you play a game for, say, a month, you understand the AI and what to expect. The only way you get replayability is by playing the unpredictable human opponents. Especially for Racing and Sports games. Ethernet is a messiah for consoles, because I can play my football games over and over again, and still lose, cause there's always a better human opponent out on the net (and the computer isn't a challenge anymore).
Just my opinion.
Re:A PS2 with different games (Score:5, Informative)
Some of the higher quality TVs now will de-interlace incoming NTSC signals, and smooth out the picture by interpolating between the lines.
The result is that the picture looks like it has a higher resolution than it actually posseses.
So having NTSC input isn't as bad as it used to be.
Other reviews (Score:3, Informative)
Zdnet [zdnet.com]
Gamespy [gamespy.com]
Gamespot [gamespot.com]
FiringSquad [gamers.com]
TeamXBox [teamxbox.com]
Yahoo [yahoo.com] 2 [yahoo.com] 3 [yahoo.com]
--
"Can I run a linux cluster of those?"
Re:How does it play DVD's? (Score:4, Informative)
My impressions (Actually bought one) (Score:2, Informative)
For a company who has never been in the game console industry I have to say I`ve been impressed so far with the few hours I`ve had to play on it at home. I bought Halo, as well as Madden 2002. Like someone said above, I`ve also noticed the few little paused in Halo while it loads the new screen, but by no means did it take away the feel of the game which even after playing many FPS's I genuinely liked. I didn`t know what to expect playing a FPS on a game controller but they did a really good job with the conversion and the pinpoint control you have with a mouse is even there. Madden 2002 is taking some getting used to but I really think they made a really good migration compared to the PS2. There are a few things I wasn`t too impressed with price wise but I suppose that's to be expected. Thinking to myself "These are the
Xbox and M.A.M.E (Score:1, Informative)
Re:The true potential for the XBOX (Score:3, Informative)
Re:why so negative towards xbox? (Score:2, Informative)
This is fairly common knowledge, but I'll repeat it here. Sony was once Nintendo's partner when both were working on a CD-ROM Attachment to the Super Nintendo. But Nintendo went on to bluer waters, leaving Sony with a mostly functional CD-ROM/Gaming system. Sony is, of course, put out by this, so instead of deciding to sink the large funds they've put into the system, the add a main processor and archetecture around it, creating the Playstation.
So compared to Microsoft's entering of the arena, Sony's entrance would be considered downright accidental. Who knew it would become the most popular system of the day?
Re:How does it play DVD's? (Score:2, Informative)
XBox in Canada (Score:3, Informative)
Time is like a river (Score:2, Informative)
Ever heard of the MSX [msx.org](or for the matter of experience, MS Flight Sim)? While MS wasn't really involved with the hardware production, neither can they be said to have been very involved with their latest exploit. The MSX was a PC version of Pinoccio, the console that wanted to be a PC. To a large extent it is. Soviets used it quite a bit in education. Microsoft's involvement was MS BASIC as an operating system. MS now denies that the MS in MSX means Microsoft, but the OS was originally called MicroSoft eXtended BASIC. Go figure.
Interestingly, there was more than crap edutainment games made for it. Ever hear of Metal Gear? Both MG 1 and 2 were made for the MSX. Looks way better than the NES version too. Crazyness, I tell you!
And when did this whole MSX thing happen? "back when [you were] 13, playing Zelda or Sonic!"
I think this article is pants. (Score:2, Informative)
Uh, who's the big mascot for the PS2? A snowboarding guy? The fact is that single-character branding only works on Japanese kids nowadays. Even Nintendo has figured that out, and isn't pushing Mario on us anymore.
Bullshit. There's more than a dozen games on that list, each one of them better than anything PS2 had at premiere. Remember the crap that PS2 had on shelves for its launch? If you could even find a game.
This sense is validated by a recent survey of consumers in the market this Christmas for a console; overwhelmingly (as in 62 percent) they preferred the Playstation 2, and primarily on the strength of its brand and wide variety of games.
Again, bullshit. Although the 62% figure is correct, with XBox and Gamecube basically tied, the reasons for choosing PS2 had more to do with "brand leadership" and Sony-ness than games. Games were listed as third in the list of reasons. Even then, it had to do with variety, not quality.
I could go on, but you get the point. That article was crap. Not a review, more of an editorial. The author was so afraid of adding publicity to the XBox machine that he hardly mentioned the console at all, instead focusing on why he thought PS2 and G^3 were so much better.
Re:No more BSOD (Score:3, Informative)
Mod the man up. I just pointed out the mistake to Michael (the poster of the story) now.
That's an XDK tossing up an error several months ago. And it's not a crash: it's looking for the media.
Xbox runs Linux (Score:2, Informative)
LEGAL - DMCA
There have been a few comments here that seem to seriously misconstrue what the DMCA is capable of, so let's review that then take a look at reverse-engineering case history.
"Ella the Cat" fished for ideas on what the Microsoft team might have done to keep unauthorized software off their box, then worried about DMCA implications. "Chakat" suggested that circumventing MS's only-signed-discs-may-apply code could be a DMCA violation.
I won't quote it all, but here's chapter 12 of the US Code. [cornell.edu] 1201(b) is what Dmitry's been charged under. It only prohibits devices that circumvent methods that "effectively protects a right of a copyright owner."
In this case, Microsoft can claim copyright on the BIOS in the Xbox. Suppose that we remove the MS-BIOS and replace it with one that'll boot anything (L-BIOS). We've circumvented a measure that prevented running unauthorized games, but that authorization or lack of has no legal weight behind it. Microsoft must enforce it themselves by creating strong measures.
We have to be careful that L-BIOS doesn't allow booting copies of games or we will run afoul of the DMCA.
LEGAL - Reverse Engineering
The Emulation FAQ AppendixB [eidolons-inn.de] Appendix C [eidolons-inn.de] provides a good background. Also see CASE SUMMARIES OF COMPUTER COPYRIGHT CASES [slwk.com] and Overreaching Provisions in Software License Agreements by Michael Liberman. [richmond.edu]
The two cases that I think are most apropos are Sega v. Accolade [eff.org] and Sony v. Connectix [cornell.edu]. Accolade tried to create Genesis-compatible games. Connectix tried to emulate the Playstation. Both cases were about copyrights on games that were disassembled in order to figure out how the game machine worked. The odd thing to me is that disassembling the code and creating a work that used the ideas contained therin was no problem. What Sony & Sega attacked on was making a copy of the ROM into a computer's memory to do the disassembling. The courts found (post-DMCA in the Sony case) that the copying was fair use to gain access to the ideas. Copyright only applies to the expression of those ideas in the object code of the ROM.
Disassembling MS-BIOS to figure out how to talk to the memory, USB and hard disk controllers and create L-BIOS is perfectly legal. It's important to avoid copying MS-BIOS code directly and a clean room would be a good idea (the disassemblers send specs to the L-BIOS authors who never see the actual code), but it seems that Connectix did not employ clean room techniques and got away with it.
TECHNICAL
The Xbox System Software Overview [xbox365.com] says in part:
The ROM [...] will provide the following [...] services: FAT32 file system, UDFS file system, Copy-protection support, Certificate/signature validation
Supported media are CD, DVD, CD-RW, or DVD-R. There is no CD-R support.
Power Up- When the user turns on the console, the system software is decompressed out of read-only memory (ROM) into random access memory (RAM). Once in RAM, the system software initializes the hardware[....]
Media Detection- Upon power up [...] If it determines that the media [in the DVD drive] is a game, it loads the game into RAM, checks the signature of the game to verify that it is an authentic copy, then starts playing the game.
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So it appears that MS-BIOS will only boot signed (presumably using strong encryption) DVDs. There are, of course, two answers to this:
1) Replace the MS-BIOS with a more pleasant L-BIOS that'll boot anything and perhaps boot off the hard drive instead of the DVD. Loading "real" games sounds pretty hairy and I'd rather not figure out how to do that, so you won't be able to play them anymore. I'm envisioning replacing the Flash ROM (I have access to a nice Nikon binocular microscope and a Metcal soldering iron for working on surface mount parts), but there are a couple of alternatives: a) piggy-back on a 2nd ROM containing L-BIOS except for chip-select which is hooked to a switch or b) use the JTAG port to reprogram the part in-circuit (only possible with some mfg.'s parts).
2) Figure out how to sign our own discs. This is a good excuse for me to get a DVD recorder. I'm concerned that this method is fewer steps away from a "mod chip" that plays duplicated games.
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Well, that's what I've found out. I'm interested because it sounds like it'll be sort of hard. If we need to hook up a logic analyzer & watch MS's code do its thing I can handle that. I think getting Linux up & running, talking to keyboards & mice over USB & doing TCP/IP over the ethernet port shouldn't be too bad. Getting basic graphics (VGA emulation) up shouldn't be bad, but I make no promises that we'll be able to use the nVidia 3d. I'm thinking a server is a lot more likely than a nuevo-Indrema/TuxBox.
Worst case scenario is that the chipset itself has encryption hardware built-in and it must be unlocked by the CPU before it will enable access to RAM or peripherals. I doubt they had enough time to do something that clever.
By the way, you can reach me at morganw@yahoo.com (posting preferences not workin' for me)
Well, I guess IIS 5.0 is FINALLY tested, and FAILS (Score:1, Informative)
Well, at least at 6:12PM EST