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Games Entertainment

Michael Abrash On The Xbox 106

Posted by CmdrTaco from the what's-he-got-to-say dept.
Jacek Fedorynski writes: "There's an interview with Michael Abrash on Daily Radar. Michael is an ex-id Software programmer now at Microsoft working on the Xbox, which is the subject of the interview." Covers a lot of stuff including NVidia, HDTV, Lens Flares, and how the X-Box might run quake.
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Michael Abrash on The Xbox More

Michael Abrash on The Xbox

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  • Michael Abrash now gets to play on the Xbox and people are salivating at what this thing will do. Based on Mr. Abrash's reputation and skill, I would say the Xbox will be great. However, based on how M$ usually manages to suck down the best minds in the business into their black hole of mediocrity and Billy-boy mandates, I wouldn't hold yer breath.

    Amen! I look at the people who work at the MS Research labs - great minds, great thinkers, prime movers in IT - and then I look at the MS products hitting the shelves and I just don't understand where all that mind power which is almost overflowing out of those centres fails to make an impact.

    Still, we should be happy. If MS's products were much better, it would have been far harder to get Linux off the ground because people would have been happier where they were.

    Cheers,

    Toby Haynes

  • Hee hee!

    As if MS is dumb enough to NOT buy up commitments from a zillion hard working programmers. IT"S WHAT THEY DO, for crying out loud!!!

    Way to win your point. (Even if it is a tad anal. Please say you just cut and paste one big list and didn't type all of that just because some bozo crossed your opinion. Hell. I lose arguments all the time because I'm lazy. When you're right, you're right, so who cares what some wrong-guy thinks?)

    --Fantastic Lad, the Rightest Lad of Them All!

    "Let's see what the Tweedlebugs are doing today!" --Ernie.

  • Re:Abrash? Xbox? Uh-uh. (Score:4)

    by The Cookie Monster ( 129545 ) on Saturday September 30, 2000 @07:47PM (#742107)
    I was going to mod you up as interesting, but I thought I'd reply instead :) sorry

    A big difference between an XBox and a PC in a game console style molded plastic shell is the software. When writing a game for the XBox you only have to write for one computer, and more importantly, optimize for one computer. XBox games can count on the XBox having a specific chipset, they can undercut DX8 and talk to it direct if they want (actually I don't know if it's worth/possible to undercut DX8, but it might be). Even if everthing must be done through DX8 on an XBox it'll still smoke a PC game running on the same hardware because DX8 will have 101 features bolted onto it to take advantage of the XBox hardware - features that you just can't count on a bog standard PC having, and hense features you can't make integral to your PC game engine.

    I think that's the difference, developing games on a PC is a nightmare. The X-Box will give all the benifits of the PC platform while releaving some of the nightmare.
  • ...or somthing. About the "Last Hacker" this guy may very well be him, although I know I can't be the only person like myself out there, us hackers have got to be flourishing our there in this era of high bandwidth. By hacker I'm not talking about script kiddies (although I know there are you legit crypto hackers out there, keep kickin ass, and keep stickin it to the man with DeCSS) but us mad hackers who think we can make games, etc, that can compete mainstream, we're all helping keep this movement alive. I'm gonna release my little widget set soon (okay, so it's like gtk, but I've got to contribute something) and it's openGL based and stuff... so you're all gonna laugh at me... it's not a desktop environment, but just some buttons and stuff that contributes to an app that'll let ya make some 3d worlds and stuff...
    oh, and don't judge SGI on their stock price alone, they are still The Best Computer Company on the Planet (TM)

    Mike

    (some barley and hops from the Missouri area contributed to this post)
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Atari and Commodore pulled this kind of stunt years ago with their "game machines/computers" Basically get a company to do a cheap port of old outdated games with retouched graphics. I'm *NOT* impressed.

    Nintendo pulled this kind of stunt as well, launching the SNES with Super Mario World and the N64 with Mario 64. Each was hailed in its time as the greatest video game made to date.

    I'm not following your point here. If you have some evidence that Crash X will be just a "cheap port with retouched graphics" please present it; otherwise, join the rest of the world in realizing that it will instead be an entirely new game which happens to be based around the Crash franchise. Not that that's such an amazing thing in itself--personally, I've found the Crash series to be underwhelming, although admittedly I've only played them a bit. Still, the idea that Konami would take a stellar franchise like Crash and a brand-new console of unprecedented power and ease of programming and produce nothing but a rehash of some old, linear-scrolling PS1 game is pretty absurd.
  • Fantastic Lad ;

    It was definitely a cut and paste. :-)

    You're also right *grin* on the subject of being right. That bozo was just asking for it though ... I had enough Lunix (www.somethingawful.com/jeffk/) FUD for one day on Slashdot :-)

    _Adam Poulos;

  • No anime? How will X Box survive? (Score:3)

    by Fantastic Lad ( 198284 ) on Saturday September 30, 2000 @09:59PM (#742112)
    Unlike their competition, MS has NO EXPERIENCE WHATSOEVER running a giant hardware manufacturing outfit. They only know application and OS software. They're bound to make mistakes.

    And perhaps I'm wrong, but it doesn't sound to me like they have any of that disgustingly cute/popular Anime shit being developed for their system. They're dead. Only older geeks crave Western games, and last time I counted, there were too few X-Geners to warrent a market in anything.

    Despite the fact that I hate the look, feel, and general psychology of their games, the Japanese know how to make them better than anybody on the planet. Their video game production infrastructure is like our Hollywood. It makes ours game industry look small fry; like we make games about rubber monsters trashing Tokyo.

    So from their 150 companies, (all rushing to meet a deadline, and most of them inspired primarily by cash rather than an honest burning desire to develop original game ideas,) d'you think we should be prepared for a landslide of more dull FPS's, ET cartridges and bad knock offs of stuff that was cool two years ago?

    I think so. But that's just me.

    -Fantastic Lad

    Corporate money buys the body, but rots the soul.

  • Not absurd at all. PC ports of NON-PC games has historically been awful.

    Ok. Console ports of previous-generation console games are often fantastic.

    Just take a look at any of the Arcade games that were ported over to the PC. Saying that most of them were awful would be an understatement.

    Very true. However, let's look at the reasons for this:

    1) PC controls are very different from console/arcade controls.

    2) PC gamers belong to a different demographic than console/arcade gamers.

    3) Arcade->PC ports are almost always done by 3rd-tier development houses and are thus of awful quality. The fact that there are no liscensing fees to develop for PC enhances this problem.

    So, then, let's look at the XBox. It will have a console controllers, console-demographic buyers, and a cutoff of reputable 3rd-party developers because it follows the same economic model as other consoles. Crash X is being developed by Konami, one of the most respected development houses in the world, so that takes care of #3.

    What am I missing? Or are you just trolling, repeating the inane non sequiter that because the XBox uses PC-ish hardware and modified PC API's it will inevitably be no different than a PC??
  • Interestingly enough, there WAS a company that released "christian" games. It was for the NES, by a company named Wisdom Tree. Among one of the games was "sunday funday". Another used the DOOM engine for 3D Noah's Ark.

    They never got popular for some reason. heh.
  • Errr....I work for a company listed in the X-Box developers posted earlier. Where do you get your information from?
  • Give me a break.

    Vermifax
  • The Xbox will use a unified memory architecture, giving it much better memory bandwidth. By having system memory and video memory be the same, much less caching and swapping. Another thing, by using a set of standard hardware, many layers of software are taken out. Yes it uses PC hardware, no it is not a PC.
  • ...Microsoft isn't listening to ATI, Matrox, 3Dfx...

    ATI are promoting their Radeon as "fully DX8 compliant", and 3dfx are on record stating, "nVidia and ourselves are probably responsible for about 90% of DX8's featureset" (which admittedly still leaves the possibility of 3dfx only contributing 5% ;-)
  • I guess you're going to be one of the few people who's going to rush out and jump on the bandwagon for this piece of trash who doesn't know that a PC by anyother name is *STILL* a PC, only in this case it a *CRIPPLED* PC...

    First off, I doubt I'll buy the XBox. Don't have the cash, more of a PC gamer myself these days, and my dorm room'll probably go in for a PS2 this winter because it'll make a great cheap DVD player and it's coming when we're juniors, not seniors. In terms of who I want to win in this war, I'd have to go with Sony as well, because MS is MS, and while Sony is perhaps even worse of a corporate bully, they do a better job covering it up. Indeed, I was initially amazingly impressed with the PS2 when announced, and initially ready to write of the XBox as potential vapor.

    What's changed on the PS2 front is that the PS2 has come out with a very disappointing (i.e. barely better than DC) first crop of games, and developers have gone on record in huge numbers decrying its difficulty of programming. It's still a great deal if you're looking for an awesome DVD player that also plays good games, but as a competitor in the video game wars it looks less and less appealing. (And incidentally Sony will lose mucho money if people like me buy it primarily for its DVD-playback.)

    Meanwhile, the XBox has progressed far enough that it is absolutely certain to be a real product, not just a vaporware gambit. (155 developers with SDK's, detailed specs, and orders already in with component suppliers like Intel and nVidia.) And everywhere you go you hear about how MS is actually doing a good job listening to developers and giving them what they want.

    As for the idea that the XBox is "a PC by anyother name" I'm not sure how exactly you get this. You are aware that Intel MPU's are actually capable of running the instructions necessary to play fighting games and platformers just as well as they can war simulations and FPS's, right? You do know that Direct X and OpenGL (both are offered as API options on XBox) are just as capable of rendering every display primative possible just as well as PS2 assembly code or arcade machines, don't you? That in fact several generations of arcade machines have run essentially off PC-ish hardware, like Voodoo-based Obsidian cards, and still managed to not be PC's??

    Eh, I've had enough of this. Congrats on a successful trolling effort if that's what you're after (apparently, by your automatic 0 score); otherwise, please use a little self-reflection and skepticism before passing on nonsensical FUD you've happened to run across.

  • It seems even the most idealogically pure karma whore can't find anything bad to say about _this_ Microsoft product.

    It doesn't exist yet, and the specs will be outmoded by the time it does.

    A friend's father works for a company that was contracted for one of the subsystems. Not all the details were even finalized on that until relatively recently.

    Yes, Virginia, that means the screenshots you've been seeing are somewhat "bogus".

    Most everything so far with the X-Box has been the usual tactic of "spew vapor until we clear out the marketplace".

    Needless to say, I'm not getting one, even if the final design turns out not to suck.

  • You're a dumb hormone boosted horny teen. If the X-Box was from Sony, you'd be all excited but because it's from MS, you're bashing it.

    The X-Box looks very cool.

  • If there are many hot games for it.
    If that box does not suck
    If it's not too costly

    then why won't you buy one ?

  • I would like to point out that NTSC has a total of 640*480*30fps=9,216,000 pixels per second, and Pal has 720*576*25fps=10,368,000 pixels per second. (Please don't knock me over the specifics, I might be slightly wrong about NTSC -being European, I've never actually worked with it- and I know that Pal has a "square pixel" mode where horizontal resolution is 768, right? Just trying to give you nice thousands here.)

    With that in mind, and neglecting overdraw, you don't need more than 12,000,000 polygons/sec anyway. If your rate is steady, that is.

    This is why I think Abrash's words are very revealing:

    MA: It's impossible to tell what performance developers will get until people are actually programming the hardware. It's also hard to evaluate because the chip is so programmable; how do you compare 125 mtris/s with 1 texture to, say, 12.5 mtris/s with a custom lighting model, along with 4 textures doing reflective bump mapping and a combiner program doing custom shading, plus shadows done on a second pass? It's not a matter of raw polygons anymore, but rather of the impact on image quality of the intersection of many factors: polygons, vertex shading, multitexture, texture lookups, pixel combiners, antialiasing, and multipass.

    I am not a graphics überhacker, and don't have the answer on that comparison, but the second option (the way tehe Xbox design team have taken) sure sounds nicer to programmers. And you don't really need any more triangles anyway. Hmm. It will take Playstation II hackers many headaches to do what will come naturally to the programmers of this simpler-yet-more-complex approach.

    On a related note: In a recent interview [slashdot.org], John Carmack revealed that the Doom 2000 engine will have eight texture passes per polygon. (I am adding the emphasis). What, the Xbox only has four? It is clear that id wants us PC gamers to keep our leer on when talking to those lowly conlosers. Hah!

  • >Unlike their competition, MS has NO EXPERIENCE WHATSOEVER running a giant hardware manufacturing outfit.

    It could be a myth, it could be true, but reportedly the Hardware Division at Microsoft is the one that has highest profits per employee.

    What's clear is that Microsoft does sell a lot of mice, keyboards and joysticks with their logo on them, so I wouldn't say they are totally unexperienced in the running of a hardware manufacturing outfit. Can you say "farm out"?

    Don't pan them just because they are Microsoft. Why dont you wait until they actually screw up?

  • Personally, I'm afraid I can't see what's going to be so great about the X-box. I've read the specs, and wow, can it shift a lot of polygons ... but common sense suggests that chip makers other than nVida will have bought out darn powerful cards which I can put in my PC by next year.

    While people are busy drooling over the number of polys this thing can put out, what about the quality of the games themselves ? Personally, I'm not keen on the Quake genre of games (well, maybe Goldeneye ... but that was pure playability, nothing to do with graphical wonders). Could I enjoy such greats as Baldurs Gate and Dialo 2 on an X-Box ?

    It strikes me that the X-Box will just become another platform for First Person Shooters and Beat 'em Ups, and regardless of who it's manufactured by, this leads me to the conclusion : no thanks.
  • What, you mean like this [indrema.com] ?

  • In your DREAMs, CAn the presS ever forgeT those other guys...

  • First, I don't see why you assume that the XBox will become "another platform for First Person Shooters and Beat'em Ups". There are 150+ developers for the system. Do you really think that *all* of those developers are going to be releasing the same genre of game?

    Your comment on Quake (3, I assume) was initially understandable, but disqualified by your comments on Goldeneye 007's superiority because of "playability." Just because a game is recognized for its graphical abilities doesn't give you reason to ignore the other positive aspects.

    Once again, *it's the games* that make the system. XBox has plenty of games in the wings of many different genres ... you can't fake the sheer number of dev kits out there right now.

    There's a reason that you can expect better-looking games on the XBox vs. a similarly-equipped PC ... The PC game developers *have* to consider the fact that most customers will be playing with the minimum hardware requirements. On the XBox, every game can be designed to take full advantage of the hardware.

    For more *real* information on the XBox, not the mindless Slashdot "XBOX WILL BSOD!" drivel, check out http://www.msxbox.com

    _Adam Poulos;
  • Competition only makes it cheaper for us. I say good luck to MS and the Xbox, if it's a good game system, I'll buy it. It's all about the game, not the system it plays on.
  • ...just by knowing that Michael Abrash is working on it. I trust his opinion a lot more than anyone elses at Microsoft and he certainly isn't acting like the specs are a bunch of vapor ware (although who knows when the X-Box will street). Hopefully the system will be good, because ultimately better systems mean better games which means the consumer wins. Even if it is Microsoft :)

    Mordred
  • I *might* agree with this idea, except for the fact that x-box isn't solely a Microsoft thing - NVidia and a whole slew of game developers (John Carmack comes to mind) have been giving a whole lot of positive lip service to this gizmo. Have you ever heard of NVidia promoting anything that ended up being vaporware? Sure, they may exaggerate the performance of their upcoming cards from time to time, but they don't spew straight up bs. And why should a game developer post a press release about the fact that they're working on games for a new console? Interviews and .plan updates and such are a much better forum for this. Press releases are generally used to announce new products or services - not as updates to what an individual/ company is currently working on.
    Why should we be expecting to see prototypes already anyway? XBox isn't due out until sometime in 2001 (don't recall which quarter), and I saw my first official ps2 pics towards the beginning of 2000, or late 1999 at earliest... Just because it isn't finalized a year before its due out, doesn't mean it won't come to exist.

    Sorry if this sounds like a pro-MS rant (I find myself amazed that I'm defending them to any degree over anything), but what theBSOD posted is just as much FUD as the best MS press and marketing goons spew out on a regular basis. XBox isn't a "new innovative OS" or anything like that, its *HARDWARE*, and you have to admit that MS is pretty good about hardware (mice anyone?)... add to this the generally respected names associated with it outside of the redmond campus, and this stops bearing any resemblance to vaporware.

  • Re:Vaporware (Score:3)

    by ToLu the Happy Furby ( 63586 ) on Saturday September 30, 2000 @08:03PM (#742132)
    Microsoft claims to have all of these game makers drooling over the XBox to make games, but have ANY of them posted a press release yet confirming what MS is saying? If so, I haven't seen one. If Microsoft is seriously making a gaming console, they should have a working prototype somewhere! Any idiot in a marketing department with one drop of common sense would have had big Bill up on stage with that prototype even if it could only run test patterns with various polygons and texture shading just to show off the sheer speed of the system compared to whatever else is available. They need to get consumers drooling over this thing so much that they're willing to put off buying any other console just to be the first person on their street with an XBox. Right now they're just blowing smoke with numbers and a few pictures that could have easily been drawn in Photoshop for all I know. There is still absolutely NO SOLID PROOF that this thing exists.

    This is absolutely ridiculous. Yes, most of the top video game companies are on the record committing to XBox games, and many of their top programmers have made extremely favorable comments about the XBox, especially as regards its power and ease of programmability (in sharp contrast to the PS2). Obviously they all have development kits and have for months. Furthermore, Bill did indeed show off a prototype, on stage, with several extremely impressive real-time demos, several months ago. You may have read about it at Slashdot.

    Of course, this prototype and the XDK's don't represent the true power of the XBox, because the most important component, the nVidia's new custom graphics chip, isn't finished yet. But that's a strength of the XBox, not a liability; because the graphics chip will be just a variant of nVidia's two-generations-from-now NV25 core, you can bet that it will not only be done on time (nVidia has never missed a release date) and damned fast.

    And in any case, this is some of the most ridiculous, uninformed FUD I've ever heard of; how this managed to get moderated up is beyond me.
  • But then again, Americans are sometimes known for inventiveness. . . I bet there's a ton of eager young programmers out there who have been aching to make their dream game, but just never had the backing capital to do it.

    Who knows. Maybe this will be the best thing to happen to gaming since Pac Man & Donkey Kong. . .

    (Hmm. Who made those?)

    Nah. I was right the first time. It'll all suck.

    -Fantastic Lad - The Most Indecisive Lad of Them All!

    Creative Geniuses are rare as hell. I may not be one, but I know crap when I see it!

  • I believe you're thinking of Gravis with the game pads. And dammit, my mouse is MouseSystems compatible. The only reason you don't see MouseSystems mice everywhere is M$ doesn't include drivers for them by default. MouseSystems practically invented the mouse as it exists now, and for a while every three button mouse sold that wasn't made by Logitech had a switch to convert between MS and 2-button. (Hint, the MS didn't stand for Microsoft). I don't know what they did to piss off Microsoft that Logitech didn't do, but it is a great shame that the simple lack of default drivers has killed their market share. I've had my MouseSystems mouse for well over four years now, with no problems, even playing Quake with it. I've never seen a Logitech or M$ mouse hold up like that.
    --

  • I'll probably get blasted by a couple of people because of this, but, I've gotta say this looks like a relatively genuine interview.

    Normally, when looking at an MS product, who ever is talking has a very "We can do no wrong" and every feature is a "Must Have". In this case, however, Michael doesn't seem to being doing that. Take a look at a couple of the statements being made:

    About statements that nVidia's chips are 3 generations ahead:

    MA: I hadn't seen that quote. No, I personally wouldn't say three generations; more like either 1.5 or 2, depending on how you count. Not that it matters; the bottom line is that this is the most powerful chip I could imagine anyone getting into a console in 2001.

    And concerning the importance of HDTV:

    MA: I think it's exciting but too early. First off, there aren't that many HDTVs. Second, supporting HDTV is a major change: it requires larger video buffers and more rendering time, requires artwork targeted at higher resolution and sharper pixels, and changes gameplay because of the wider field of view. I have a hard time seeing anyone abandoning NTSC for HDTV in the near future, and if you don't abandon NTSC, it's a lot of work to support HDTV as well.

    There are more examples in there if you read the article (instead of just making the obligitory and completely overused arguments that MS can't make it, XBox will suck, etc. It's all been said before - contribute something new to the discussion please. Too many people reply, and don't bother to read the article ;-) Yes, he pimps the X-Box. Of course, he works for the company producing it, so he's gonna pimp it! ;-) But all in all, it seems more like a genuine enthusiasim rather than marketingdroid 'tote the company line' type work being done here. To me, it was a good read.

    As for the X-Box it's self: Well, I'll be interested in seeing it from a game developer's standpoint. I make only be shipping small POS games at the moment, but, I'm watching the X-Box closely. Not having to worry about an end-user's hardware and software configuration will be a nice change ('specially for anything that tries to really push 3D to the limit.) However, that same thing can be provided by the GAMECUBE, PS2, DreamCast, and even the upcomming Linux based console. Here you get the advantages of easy porting (but MS is actually discuraging that for most content - they want original stuff for the X-Box, instead of just porting over a PC title. Makes sense, but does limit the number of games available at release.)

    MS has a chance to be a contender in a new arena now - if they don't screw it up. They rarely manage to get a product right the first time they ship it (some would debate they NEVER get it right! ;-), but I do think this will be a first for them - a product that hits the market stable on the first shot. If they don't, they will have lost alot of cash!

  • Two things I noticed:

    HDTV support:
    Basically he says this will not really happen on the X-box. Even though it has good hardware support for HDTV, the problem is that so many people for some time to come will have NTSC sets, that game makers will optimize for NTSC - and that HDTV support beyond that requires artwork enhancements and coding adjustments that most games will not go to the trouble to complete.

    Ease of programming:
    Many people have said we'll see great games because the X-box will be so easy to program for, using a standard Direct-X article.

    Yet most of the article was going on about the programmability of the GPU and graphics hardware, at every stage in the pipeline. DirectX support was not exciting him - the possiblity of having reflective bumpmapping is.

    That means that the X-box really does face the same problems that all other consoles face - the libraries MS provides will make a lot of difference in the qualities of initial games, and it will take some time for developers to really ramp up to producing interesting stuff running directly on the hardware, just like on the PS2 and Dreamcast and Gamecube.

    I'm not saying that any of that really hurts the X-box that much, just that it makes the playing field more level than it might seem at first.
  • Uh.. so basically what you're trying to say without sounding silly is: "How 'bout a Beowulf cluster of *these*?!"

  • PC (Score:1)

    by nigelb0 ( 234670 )
    As everybody knows, and Microsoft has tried to discourage, the Xbox is just a PC clone; and as the interview states, the best thing about console is that the hardware is static. The main thing I can see different about the Xbox is the marketing style.

  • "Spot the homosexual"

    Vociferous Troll

    I've found him Bob! Can I have my prize now?

    --Shoeboy

  • Love that headline. Sounds like there's a picture of him sitting on a console...

    ---

  • I miss Wolfenstein.
  • SomEthing is missinG from this Article... "Microsoft has a tough job ahead of it. If it wants to unseat Sony in the #1 position, and fend off a charging Nintendo, then the Xbox had better do something that the other consoles can't." :)

  • Excellent News (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 30, 2000 @04:34PM (#742143)
    I for one am glad to hear that Microsoft has taken my advice in only releasing wholesome Christian games for the "x" box. I will be buying an x box for Bob IV this Christmas, along with the hit games "Bible Blaster" "The Road to Jericho" "Spot the Homosexual" and "Chapter and Verse". Finally there is an electronic game console that we can be proud to accept into our family. Thank you, Microsoft.

    Sincerely,
    Bob Jones III [goatse.cx]
  • It bounces to goatse.cx.
  • I don't know how widely spread it is, but here in PA we have a cable program called The Box, which is basically a call-in MTVesque Video Jukebox, ie, you call in, pay a few bucks, and they air the video you want to see.

    Kinda makes me wonder whether the X box is ACTUALLY the name of a new cable show, and what you will call in to request there :)
  • As the PS2 nears release M$ is turnign up the het on the X-Box.

    What this, ofcourse, really all about is that the PS2 has the guts to be a serious home computer that DOESN'T run Winfroze. By sneaking in as a game machine it has the best chance anyone has had in a LONG time of breaking the M$ lock on home computing. In addition, it has a BETTER chance of grabbing the potetnially lucrative smart set-top space then anything else that has come along.

    X-Box is clearly a defensive move.
  • Well, I am bisexual, so you're at least partly right. All of this detracts from discussion of the real question: What are we going to do about Little Lichtenstein?

    God Bless,

    --

  • Michael's been pimping the X-Box for a while now, as described in this slashdot article from July. [slashdot.org]

    Of course, Michael's a pretty famous programmer, who wrote Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book [amazon.com] and Zen of Code Optimization [amazon.com], as well as A great series of articles for Dr. Dobb's [bluesnews.com]. But I hope that slashdot doesn't just post EVERY little thing he says something about the Xbox, since that's apparently his job now.

  • What if...? The xbox turns out to be a lemon? In the Daily Radar article Michael says that there will only be one xbox. Does this mean that it will be non-upgradable? I use Windows and other Microsoft software and these things are, let's face it, buggy. So what is going to happen if the xbox is buggy? I have resolved to wait for a year, checking out the reviews, and friends comments before I buy into this one.
  • I was planing on buying an HDTV when the X-Box came out (since it seemed like a good excuse to switch over) but this dude's saying no games will support it? Bummer :)

    Also, wouldn't the way higher reses' (combined with the better textures and the other stuff he said) take a lot more horsepower than the normal (NTSC) version would? How are developers ever supposed to push the limits of performance at normal res's and expect things to run smothly on an HDTV? Will we have to chose between quality/speed on the NTSC side and detail on the HDTV?

  • Anything that make the Xbox stand out from the other consoles. I think with Nintendo coming out with its the Ncube and the PS2 coming that the Xbox will not pass them in sales. I do think it will have some great games and have a strong following. But now where close to Nintendo or PS@.
  • I keep hearing stuff like 'MS is not gonna make it 'cause they don't have any experience working in the console business.' What kind of BS is this?! A few years ago some entertainment company released a 32-bit cd-based console, which took the two BIG console-kings completely by surprise, and is now the most popular console (right after GameBoy). Sound familiar? I'm not saying that the X-Box _will_ have the same impact, all I'm saying is that it _might_ have the same impact. Everybody, think back. Nintendo and Sega rule the console-gaming world, and Sega's the first one to release a mighty 32-bit console, the Saturn. It has all the good stuff: innovative design, VERY good sprite/2D handling, multiple processors (now where have I heard that before?), etc. In the meantime Sony is working on the PSX (old times, old name). No one expected the PSX to completely blow away Nintendo's & Sega's machines, but it happened. It could happen again.. Just for the record: I go where Namco and Square are going. Trust the true gaming pros...
  • Nintendo is actually releasing the Game Cube, so of course Micro$oft must use FUD and vaporware. So it multiplies presse releases, rumours, interviews... To try to make consumers refrain from buying non-vapor competitive products.

  • Re:Excellent News (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Hey, not all atheists are Linux lovers. Some of us love FreeBSD.
  • A version of Crash Bandicoot. Obviously it won't be Crash 1 or 2 or 3, but a new game. At least, I certainly hope that was already blindingly obvious to you. The point is that the XBox not only has some impressive games coming out for it, but some which were previously considered "Sony-only", i.e. Crash and MGS.
  • Umm sorry to burst your bubble but Metal Gear Solid X (the one being developed for the X-Box) is just a port of the original Metal Gear Solid with some enhancements. You won't be seeing "Sons of Liberty" on anything other than the PS2 (I doubt the X-Box could even handle it).

    Wrong. [ign.com] "Konami has just confirmed that this title will be based on Metal Gear Solid 2, still coming to PS2, not the original Metal Gear Solid for PlayStation."

    As for your misinformed comment on the power of the XBox, such a statement is laughable. On a purely technical level, the XBox is superior to the PS2 by a factor of 2 or 3 in every relevant category: GPU power, CPU power, graphics memory, main memory, and memory bus speed. As such, its theoretical performance is 2 to 3 times better as well, whether in terms of pure theoretical base polys pushed or polys pushed with effects. Of course, this is to be expected, as it will launch over a year after the PS2, not include the extra components needed to double as a rack-quality DVD player, and take advantage of the well-known benefits of using off-the-shelf hardware.

    This is indisputible fact. Moreover, everything I've heard points to the conclusion that whereas most developers (console *and* PC) are finding the PS2 very difficult to program for, most (PC *and* console) find the XBox very easy on this measure. This adds extra weight behind the report (confirmed by Konami in any case) that MGS: Sons of Liberty will debut on the XBox concurrently or even prior to its release for PS2.

    You may have been confused by the fact that the original MGS is indeed being ported to the PC (due out much earlier than MGS 2's Q4 2001, though). Or you may just be spreading FUD. Or perhaps just unable to consider the fact that as oafish, dimwitted, and ponderous as MS seems compared to the PC software industry, when compared to tyrannical giants like Sony and Nintendo (and to idiots like Sega) they are not at much disadvantage at all.

  • Just by comparing the PSX vs DC vs PS2

    Oh dear. I am -very- familiar with the PowerVR and am both impressed by what it promises and by what it delivers in practice. I've got access to Japanese and European DCs and a Japanese PS2 at work; many people have compared them and most are pleasantly surprised by the DC and underwhelmed by the PS2.

    I don't wish to be rude, but you are presumably still reading the marketing figures.

    Why mention Voodoo3? IIRC Sega got into a nice legal tangle with 3Dfx sometime in 1997, because they rejected 3Dfx in favour of the PowerVR.

  • There do many types of games that consoles absolutely suck at - basically all kinds of strategy games where you seriously don't want to stare at a 60Hz interleaved display for 8 hrs non-stop.

    And comparing the XBox to the other consoles, unless they have something better than Gran Turismo and Tekken (any idea if Soul Blade II will be released on PSII? I know it's out on Dreamcast) in the respective genres, I'll stick to buying a PSII.
  • I was basing my asumptions on what I've seen from recent consoles. Maybe it's been limited, but I've played N64, Playstation and Dreamcast games recently, and none of the games (with the notable exception of Gran Turismo) managed to keep me playing for very long. For example, I had 'Echo the Dolphin' on my Mega Drive all those years back, so when I got the oportunity to play the Dreamcast version a couple of days ago, I was quite interested to see what they'd done with the game on a far more powerful platform. Well, it sucked. I'm not going to say that the original was fantastic, but I did spend quite a few hours playing it. The DC version kept me interested for about 1/2 an hour. The graphics were doubtless a lot nicer, but (and it's kinda hard to explain) nothing had been added to the game ... it seemed like it had been converted into 3D and re-released just for the sake of it. I'd have been just as happy playing it on my antiquated MD ... while the technology had progressed, the gameplay hadn't.

    The same strikes me with games such as Soul Calibre, the sequel (?) of Soul Blade on the PS. I know there's a very limited amount of things you can do with a Beat 'em Up, but it seemed to be another case of "we'll chuck a few new characters in and ponce up the graphics. *kerchiiing*".

    What I'm trying to get across is the point that are games actually benefiting from more powerful consoles, other than in the graphics department ? Obviously, there's more that can be done with CPU time than polygons.

    As for my comment about Goldeneye, I wasn't actually trying to suggest that it was superiour to Q/QII/Q3/Q3A/(insert name here), I was, albiet badly, trying to state that the graphics gave me no incentive to play the game, but that I thought it had good gameplay. (Add to this hours of fun playing in 'Big Head' mode, etc ;) I don't hate FPS, but I generally only play them for a short amount of time, and I'm coming back to the 'why shell out for the latest and greatest console if what we've got will do' point.

    As for the games in the wing for the X-Box, my knowledge of this area is poor (I'll take a look at the URL once I've finished this), so I'll take your word for it.

    Your point about not having to program to a minimum spec is the one I most apreciated, and yeah, I can see this being a good thing. Just so long as MS don't start churning out X-Box SE or X-Box ME =)

    Anyway, I'm off to dig out my BBC B for a game of DogFight ;-)

  • Re:Something is missing... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    At one of those game developer conferences MS XBox presenters were saying how they removed this and that and made this work better and that *there would be no more Blue Screens Of Deaths*...

    A listener promptly raised his hand and called out, "What color are they gunna be?"
  • Are there any plans by MS to make xbox development kits available to the public?
  • One of the reasons the XBox will be different from current consoles is that, in theory, less time can be spent "fighting the console dev kits" and more time can be spent working on gameplay/net/AI issues. There's a lot to be said for the familiar dev environment (X86 and DirectX8) as opposed to learning the intricacies of a new console.

    For example, to fully take advantage of the PlayStation2, one has to utilize two extra processors (this was also a downside/mixed blessing of the 32-bit Sega Saturn). Incorporating that into a game takes time ... Time that could be spent on more important issues.

    The Dreamcast is a neat little system, IMHO, however its downfall is that it simply isn't "the next level." XBox, PS2 and GameCube are all targetting photorealistic games, which is quite a significant step.

    You're certainly correct about Goldeneye having a wide range of gameplay/cheats to increase replay value.

    _Adam Poulos;
  • If I can plug a keyboard into one of MS's little boxes and use it like I do my regular PC. . . If I can use all my old software on the thing. . . If I can get all my equipment, printers, scanners, graphics tab, etc, to work with it. . . And of course, a good monitor. . .

    Hell, if it costs the same as a regular stupid game consol, it might just be worth picking up.

    If you like cheep, usable computing power, that is. . .

    The only games I like exist exclusively on PC. The rest is just a lot of annoying Italian plumbers from Japan, the land of sickly-cute and retarded, low-res strategy games.

    If I have to watch my girlfriend play another insipid Final Fantasy, walk three steps between "My Kung-Fu-Magic is Stronger" fights, I'll puke a damn kidney.

    --Fantastic Lad

    "Let's see what the Tweedlebugs are doing today!" --Ernie.

  • Actually, I've seen one of the big silver X's demo-ed when we had them visit our campus and one of the things they emphasized was that they'd have more realistic bodys/skin/movements for fighting games. They showed us an interactive demo where you could control a "fighter chick" and robot and the body had about 20 times the polys and body joints/flexible skin textures than any Tekken type game out there. The render quality was simply AMAZING for real time. I'd expect it to blow the games you mentioned out of the water. When the next round of console boxes finally come out, I expect to see the Xbox on top in all catagorys.
  • Reference:
    http://www.xbox.com/xbox/flash/story.asp?story=S 2.htm

    Yes, there are just a couple more developers than MS and Bungie ... Satisfied?

    Acclaim Entertainment, Inc.
    Activision, Inc.
    Aki Corp.
    Alfa System Co., Ltd.
    ALTAR interactive
    Anchor Inc.
    Angel Studios, Inc.
    ARC SYSTEM WORKS CO., LTD.
    Argonaut Games plc
    ARIKA CO., LTD.
    ARTDINK CORPORATION
    ARTOON CO., LTD.
    Ask Co., Ltd.
    ATLUS CO., LTD.
    Attention to Detail Ltd.
    Awesome Developments Ltd.
    bam! entertainment
    BANDAI CO., LTD.
    Barking Dog Studios, Ltd.
    Bethesda Softworks Inc.
    BioWare Corp.
    Blue Byte Software, Inc.
    Blue Shift, Inc.
    BUNKASHA PUBLISHING CO., LTD.
    CAPCOM CO., LTD.
    Charybdis Limited
    CLIMAX Ltd. Co.
    Conspiracy Entertainment Corporation
    Core Design Ltd.
    Crave Entertainment, Inc.
    Criterion Software Ltd.
    Cryo
    Crystal Dynamics Inc.
    DATAM POLYSTAR CO., LTD.
    Deep Red Games Ltd.
    DigitalWare Inc.
    DMA Design Ltd.
    DreamCatcher
    DreamForge Intertainment, Inc.
    DWANGO Co., Ltd.
    Dynamix
    Edge of Reality, Inc.
    Eidos interactive Ltd
    Empire Interactive
    EON Digital Entertainment
    Epic Games
    Escape Factory, Ltd.
    Fox Interactive
    From Software , Inc.
    Funcom
    Gameplay
    Gathering of Developers
    GENKI Co., Ltd.
    Global A Entertainment, Inc.
    h.a.n.d. inc.
    H.I.C. Co., Ltd.
    Hasbro Interactive
    Havas Interactive
    HEADLOCK INC.
    Heavy Iron Studios
    Housemarque
    HUDSON SOFT CO., LTD.
    Humongous Entertainment, Inc.
    id Software, Inc.
    I-Imagine Interactive
    image corporation
    Imagineer Co., Ltd.
    Incredible Technologies, Inc.
    Infogrames
    Interplay Entertainment Corp.
    JALECO LTD.
    Kaboom Studios Limited
    Kalisto Entertainment
    KEMCO / Kotobuki System Co., Ltd.
    Kodiak Interactive Software Studios
    KOEI Co., Ltd.
    KONAMI CORPORATION
    KOOL KIZZ AMUSEMENT WORKS
    Kuju Entertainment
    Legend Entertainment Company
    LightWeight Co., Ltd.
    Lost Boys Interactive
    Majesco, Inc.
    Mass Media, Inc.
    MAX-INTERNATIONAL INC.
    MGM Interactive, a unit of
    Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.
    Microids
    Midas Interactive Entertainment
    Midway Home Entertainment Inc.
    Monolith Productions, Inc.
    Monster Games, Inc.
    Mythos Games Ltd.
    NAGI CORPORATION
    NAMCO LIMITED
    Nest Corporation
    Neversoft Entertainment
    Nihilistic Software, Inc.
    NIHON CREATE INC.
    NovaLogic, Inc.
    OVER WORK'S Inc.
    Pacific Coast Power & Light Co.
    PANTHER SOFTWARE, INC.
    Papyrus
    Paradigm Studios
    Pipe Dream Interactive
    Qube
    R A C
    Radical Entertainment
    Rage
    Raven Software
    Red Storm Entertainment, Inc.
    Reflections Interactive
    Ripcord Games, LLC
    Riverhillsoft Inc.
    Rockstar Games
    Saffire Corporation
    SCi Entertainment Group PLC
    SHOEISHA Co., Ltd.
    Sierra
    Silicon Dreams Studio Ltd.
    Simon & Schuster Interactive
    SKY.Co., Ltd.
    SouthPeak Interactive
    Spike Co., Ltd.
    Starbreeze Studios
    T&E SOFT, Inc.
    TAITO CORPORATION
    TAKARA CO., LTD.
    Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.
    TAKUYO KOUGYO CO., Ltd.
    TDK mediactive, Inc.
    TECMO, LTD.
    TELENET JAPAN CO., LTD.
    Terminal Reality
    The Codemasters Software Company Ltd.
    The Collective, Inc.
    The LEGO Compay A/S
    The Pitbull Syndicate
    The Whole Experience, Inc.
    THQ
    Titus
    TopWare Interactive AG
    Treasure, Inc.
    Ubi Soft Entertainment
    Valve, LLC
    Victor Interactive Software Inc.
    VIDEO SYSTEM Co., Ltd.
    Virgin Interactive
    VIS entertainment plc
    Volition, Inc.
    Warthog PLC
    XeNN inc.
    YAGER Development
    Yuki Enterprise Inc.
    Zono, Inc.
  • The XBox does not yet exist.
    • Ah yes, Michael Abrash is at Microsoft now. I forgot about that.

    Actually, Abrash worked at Microsoft before he joined Id Software. He went back to Microsoft again later after Quake was completed. There's no evidence that Microsoft "bought" him.

  • Going slightly offtopic, but at ECTS most games on the-console-that-the-press-wants-to-bury were looking as good as, if not better than, their PS2 equivelants.
  • Since all console companies act as monopolies anyway, I think Microsoft can be forgiven for being another monopolistic company getting into that market.

    The reality is that the X-Box is interesting to developers because it is PC based and supports DX8. This will make porting games from the PC very easy -- and this is what gives it a huge advantage over anything else.
  • PS2: 3 extra processors. You forgot the IOP -- unless you don't want any CD or controller access!

  • I plugged the USB mouse freebie into the USB-PS2 adapter, plugged that into a handy PS2-Serial adapter, removed my trusty Mouse Systems compatible no-name mouse (no more holding the button down) and plugged the serial adapter into my Linux homebox vintage 1996. It didn't work because the power drain was too high.

    The red light of the optical mouse now lights up the office when we turn off lights and non-essential power at night (very green) leaving only the computers running. A reminder to me of how so I nearly crossed to the dark side.

  • ilk are the only games which can keep my attention . (Well, Grim Fandango rocked, too.)

    But how many teeny-boppers hook into the more cerebral software of that sort, versus Pokemon and retarded 'My Kung-Fu-Magic is stronger' fight games?

    Americans do come up with some amazingly cool ideas, but not enough of it and not very often, and certainly not to the tastes of the game station playing public that I've seen. (Game Station. What kind of dumb-ass name is that, anyway?) And who the heck wants to play a Starcraft style game on a low-res TV?

    And did they really port Starcraft to a game consol? They must have if it got popular in the East. I seem to have heard that almost nobody owns a PC in Asia. Something about keyboard stupidity.

    Anyway, I'll be interested to see just how well the X-Box sells in the Orient. Cultural/business xenophobes that they are, an American game platform sure won't be playing on a level field. . .

    Hmm. How many people own HDTV's in Asia?

  • totally OT, but...

    the domain is there, it most likely hasn't propagated to your specific nameserver yet, so I wouldn't be too quick to jump to call someone a moron, there.

    Not that you'd WANT to see the thing, its just a predictable DNS redirect to goatse.cx. I am sure glad I set that to 127.0.0.1 in my /etc/hosts file :)
  • I think that's the difference, developing games on a PC is a nightmare. The X-Box will give all the benifits of the PC platform while releaving some of the nightmare.

    Not quite. While I agree with you about it relieving some of the nightmare of developing on a PC, mainly the fact that it's a fixed target, that very thing is also it's inherent weakness when compared to a PC. A fixed target cannot compete with a constantly evolving platform like the PC, in terms of cutting edge performance.

    paulb

  • That's 300 million Grossed, dude, not Netted.

    And most narcotics manufacturers work in the third world for AK-47 wielding managerial staff.

    Plus I seriously doubt there's truly only 300 employees making hardware for MS. What about all the people working the factory floors assembling their optical mice?

    Anyway, that's not what I'm talking about. The fact of the matter is that MS is having to learn the production, process and marketing of a whole new type of product which has nothing to do with providing toys and market support for Windows. Sony and Nintendo know the biz. MS is a fucking entrepreneur with daddy's wallet.

  • Mircsoft using their computer industry monolopy to launch the a gaming console called the Xbox. or is that Microsoft Monolopy for the Xbox... hmm...
  • Ahh, I see...

    I for one wouldn't find it all that moronic, if it were an at least midly entertaining parody, or at least something clever, but a re-hash of the same old tired trolls lacks creativity.

    Now, once, I saw a troll get a post containing several goatse.cx links moderated up to +5... THAT was impressive :)

  • Something's faddishness, though usually closely correlated to its being stupid, is not necessarily always so. :-)

    Particularily when it's a fad I happen to be part of. ;-)

  • Conflict! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Wow! How do Slashdot zombies reconcile hatred of Microsoft with worship of a genuine game-god like Abrash and lust for the X-box? How many will buy the X-box only to furtively cover the Miscoroft logo?

    It seems even the most idealogically pure karma whore can't find anything bad to say about _this_ Microsoft product.
  • Screw Microsoft and their X-Box, 'cause all the anti-microsoft macdaddy's know that Apple's coming out with the Mac OS X-Box. It'll be shinier, and won't have a worthless disk drive. In fact, it won't have any drives at all, 'cause then it wouldn't look as nice. All your games'll be under a convenient "dock" and will pop out like a genie when you want 'em. And all this power - in an 8 inch cube!
  • Micro$oft is EVIL! Bill Gates is going to go to jail after the courts break up his company. Linux is AWESOME!! X-BOX sucks because it is made by Micro$oft!! I am waiting for the LINUX game console because it'll only run a few old games but IT'LL RUN LINUX and that's all I need in a game console!! Linus IS COOL! Katz sucks! I hate capitalism because they don't care about Linux users! I hate BSD for no apparent reason! I THINK open source is k3wl and I NEVER get a lockup in Netscape because I read the source and fixed ALL the bugs!

    That about cover it?

    GenChalupa
  • Microsoft claims to have all of these game makers drooling over the XBox to make games, but have ANY of them posted a press release yet confirming what MS is saying? If so, I haven't seen one. If Microsoft is seriously making a gaming console, they should have a working prototype somewhere! Any idiot in a marketing department with one drop of common sense would have had big Bill up on stage with that prototype even if it could only run test patterns with various polygons and texture shading just to show off the sheer speed of the system compared to whatever else is available. They need to get consumers drooling over this thing so much that they're willing to put off buying any other console just to be the first person on their street with an XBox. Right now they're just blowing smoke with numbers and a few pictures that could have easily been drawn in Photoshop for all I know. There is still absolutely NO SOLID PROOF that this thing exists.
  • Don't get me wrong. Abrash rocks. But somehow, he sounds like a pre-programmed Microdrone in that interview. The whole tone of the interview preached the "wonders" of the XBox, a machine who's components will be available on CompUSA store shelves simultaneous to its release. It's JUST a PC in a game console style molded plastic shell!

    He also made a few trumped up statements that make me feel he was reading a PR script. Yes, writing games on an old 4.74MHz PC requires knowledge down to the silicon. Writing games on a console platform requires knowledge down to the silicon. But this, this is just a Pentium. It's all been done before. Not to mention that it's Microsoft's silly DX8 that will be delivering the poly's and nVidia's drivers will be connecting it to the video chipset.

    Abrash is a figure head. A Microsoft publicity stunt. Sorry Bill, you're not going to win the geeks to your side with the purchase of one of the most respected.

  • With all that massive programming talent in-house, why is it so many M$ products come out all lame and bloated?

    Because M$ is essentially only competing with itself; that's the essence of monopoly.

    And the massive programming talent (the largest computer science department of any institution in the world, right now) is hired to make sure it stays that way: that brainpower doesn't need to make anything for M$, as long as it is tied up not making anything for anybody else.

    --Seen

  • Not that I am a Microsoft fan, but at some things they have done it right, for example some of their games or at hardware. Really, their gamepads are next to the standard, and remeber, your mouse is microsoft compatible, not mouse system compatible (and you don't have to hold the right button while you boot now).

    Fh

  • Umm....the X-box is going for the console games market not the PC games market. However, many console games are also ported to the PC. Think Wipeout, XG2, Pod Racer.
  • Unlike their competition, MS has NO EXPERIENCE WHATSOEVER running a giant hardware manufacturing outfit. They only know application and OS software. They're bound to make mistakes.

    I'm not sure this is as much a problem as you believe. I don't doubt that Microsoft has retained the services of some of the more competent consulting firms that specialise in consumer goods and manufacturing, and I also don't doubt that they are making very generous offers to vice presidents of the current competitive leaders. It's certainly not unheard of for large organizations to simply buy experience they lack when entering a new market.

    d'you think we should be prepared for a landslide of more dull FPS's, ET cartridges and bad knock offs of stuff that was cool two years ago?

    I expect that XBox games will be very closely aligned with whatever the current trends are.

  • Well, I don't know about the original poster, but I'll give you some examples of how Microsoft is using its desktop OS/Applications monopoly to help with the X-Box.

    1) DirectX is a direct result of Microsoft's monopoly power, and it is held as one of the key features for the X-Box. Without its monopoly, it would not be able to leverage it the way it's being leveraged now.
    2) Through its monopoly, Microsoft has managed to bring many companies to their knees. There's no way to know what might have happened had some of those companies been around to compete. So, even though we can't be sure, I'll say that Microsoft wouldn't have been as successful with those other companies around. It probably wouldn't have been successful enough to throw billions of dollars into a project to which they have almost no experience(ie: hardware manufacturing).
    3) DirectX8 will most definetly be X-Box-centric. You can bet it'll support everything the X-Box graphics chipset does. There has already been industry rumbling about how(as opposed to in the past) Microsoft isn't listening to ATI, Matrox, 3Dfx about features they'd like included in the next version of DirectX. If ATI, Matrox, and 3Dfx start going down(not that a few of those arn't already close), you know people will be buying the X-Box for games, 'cause the PC ain't good enough no more(no competition in the graphics card market is a bad thing; look at where 3Dfx is now).

    Just a few thoughts.

    Dave
    'Round the firewall,
    Out the modem,
    Through the router,
    Down the wire,
  • Needless to say, I'm not getting one, even if the final design turns out not to suck.

    That's your whole argument right there. No matter what MS do, you'll never buy their products. So why on earth should they even attempt to appeal to you? To them, you're not an opponent, not a critic, not a rival: you don't even factor into their calculations.

  • The Dreamcast is a neat little system, IMHO, however its downfall is that it simply isn't "the next level"

    Oh great. Everyone wrote it off, and now they patronise the Dreamcast. Sigh. It simply isn't the next level because it came out 18 months before.

    XBox, PS2 and GameCube are all targetting photorealistic games

    Targetting is right. They won't hit the photorealistic bullseye though. Which isn't the objective anyway.

  • Basically all the xbox is is a stock pentium3-733 with an overclocked nVidia graphics chipset (that will probably be released either right before or right after xbox is) running a Win2K microkernel in ROM (with other portions left for developers to link in and distributed on their games). Yes, DX8 will only be a thin layer of obfuscation between the metal and the programmer. So what.

    We recently had an xbox presentation at CWRU. The point made over and over was, "It's only a console. It's only a console" implying that Microsoft has no intention of making it do anything else (even though it will come with an Ethernet port). Why not? Probably becuase they don't like the idea of selling a cheap set-top computer for only a few hundred bucks. I'm predicting someone will have it running Linux in a matter of a week (all you'll have to do is reburn the boot ROM and off you go. Hell, I've done that exact same project already in one of my undergraduate classes).

    We'll wait and see, but in Fall 2001, when this thing is slated to release, Microsoft will yet again drop the ball big time.
  • You probably will be able to replace or reburn the boot ROM, but opening the case and actually doing so is going to violate your EULA, and telling people how is going to get you sued. I wouldn't be surprised if you were surprised by some sort of dongle-type security, too, such that the hardware mysteriously doesn't work unless the Win2000 ROM is present to provide some important encryption key. Add whatever else Microsoft marketing comes up with.

    So sure, it might eventually be made to run Linux, but I doubt that Microsoft plans to make it week-project easy. Of course, this is all fnord speculation...

    Also, does Linux need this as a platform, aside from the technical challenge and the perverse glee generated by running a renegade Linux on a pure-Microsoft platform? There are many ways to make a cheap Linux box that don't involve giving Microsoft $n00 and signing a contract that says you won't make a cheap Linux box.

  • He has a good point. Slashdot comments are predictable.
    Even this one is a typical slashdot post... "bitch about the bitchers bitching about the bitchers bitching about the...."

  • ...why won't you buy one?

    Have you ever heard the expression "voting with your feet" (or money)? I really don't feel like financially supporting Microsoft.

    It's one thing when a company does some crappy things and some nice things -- as long as it's not too bad, you just patronize them where they do good.

    However, for a company that creates daily pain for me at work whether or not I buy their game cosnole -- obscene licensing agreements, insane APIs, unstable implementations and a penchant for thwarting all my attempts at constructing interoperability solutions (except occasionally on their terms) -- there's just not enough incentive there for me.

  • Oh great. Everyone wrote it off, and now they patronise the Dreamcast. Sigh. It simply isn't the next level because it came out 18 months before.

    You're absolutely right. I am very impressed by the Dreamcast (dying to get an English version of Shenmue), however it just isn't something I can logically see around in a year or two.

    Re. Photorealism... I'd like to think that Metal Gear Solid 2 comes fairly close to that mark ...

    _Adam Poulos;

  • What good is xbox to someone like me? I stopped playing N64 when I turned 17. That was over 2 years ago. If I play a game now its on my linuxbox. I don't like M$ and the fact they try to monopolise everything.

    So someone PLEASE tell me what use a peice of junk like the xbox would do for me?
  • You're probebly right - the X-Box wouldn't do anything for you. Probebly because you don't like playing games, and that's what the X-Box is for - games. Don't whine that it doesn't have a command line box, don't whine that it doesn't word-proccess, don't whine that it doesn't have a hard-drive, don't whine that it doesn't have a web browser, don't whine that it's made by m$, and please don't whine that it doesn't have a little Tux stamped on it. That's what makes a PC, not a GAME CONSOLE, because that's what it is. Some people actually enjoy playing games and consider it entertainment. Some don't fiddle toying with program code all day, and "bragging" about being better because they use an OS that has to be tinkered with and toyed with to function well, and that somehow possessing this ability makes you better than everyone. Can someone tell you why you don't need an X-Box? Can someone mabey tell you why you think your better because you don't play games. Can someone tell you why you think yourself to be "above" the gaming industry? Mabey that's a question that you need to ask to yourself.

  • DX8 will have 101 features bolted onto it to take advantage of the XBox hardware

    Grasshopper, DX8 will have 101 features bolted onto it to take advantage of the PC hardware.

  • On the one hand, interesting game designs seem to have stalled for the next generation hardware. The PS2 launch titles in Japan were unexciting, generally being fancier fighters and fancier racers. It's not at all clear that more power or more polygons is going to help this.

    On the other hand, there have been some pretty creative games coming out for existing systems, like Seaman, Jet Grind Radio, and Crazy Taxi (I don't own a Dreamcast, so don't label me as a Sega fanatic). As such, the tech talk from Microsoft is out of place. Fill rate and polys per second are cold measurements. I'm interested in good game design.
  • That headline and your sig together remind me of a line from the SimEarth manual:

    "When you're sitting on top of the world, be careful not to damage your monitor."
  • XBox is *not* simply a PC in a little box. One of the biggest differences is the unified memory. There's a whole world of tricks you can do if you can muck about with textures on the fly, something which normally involves a big hit on PCs.

    The other point to remember is that PC game creators cannot tailor their games to a single platform in the way you can with a console. This *does* make a huge difference. I write games for a PC, and I'm still trying to ensure that it'll run on a P233 with a ATI Rage Pro, as well as the 800Mhz machine with a GeForce 2. Sure, you can try and make it as scalable as you can, but you'll never be able to go for the same quality as you can on a fixed platform.

    As for your labelling as DX8 as 'silly' - where have you been? DirectX has been getting steadily better for ages.
  • "Microsoft has a tough job ahead of it. If it wants to unseat Sony in the #1 position, and fend off a charging Nintendo, then the Xbox had better do something that the other consoles can't." :)

    Of course it'll do something the other consoles can't: BSOD.

    =================================
  • This reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Maude Flanders dies and Bart is playing the "Bible Blaster" (or whatever) video game with Todd and Rod. The goal was to shoot atheists and other nonbelievers with Bible rays (or whatever) and turn them into Christians.

    BART: Did I get him?

    TODD: No, you only winged him and turned him into a Unitarian!

    --

  • Huh? It's not a product- may very well never ship [pbs.org], and its positioning is a huge void. One interesting note was just how much waffling Abrash really did- surely some people noticed how little he actually said? Almost every question elicited a 'Nobody really knows yet' kind of response. And the 'degenerate triangles'! 'degenerate' is a big red flag and Abrash clearly knows it- 'degenerate triangles' means 'X billion triangles provided they are all at the same coordinates with no texturing', that sort of thing. This is not a picture of production coding...

    I think you're Astroturf :) in any case, why say anything bad about a 'product' that's not likely to ever exist? Every X-Box sale made could be seen as a Windows sale lost. Particularly if MS has success in its antitrust battles, it will abandon X-Box (you're not going to claim they _can't_ _afford_ to scrap all that research? MS 'can't afford'?) which will have served its purpose- keeping PC game development from spreading out to consoles too much.

    Of course, it's a good question whether decent PC game development is even feasible anymore [macledge.com], so why say bad things? woo xbox 'yay'. Bit of a moot point isn't it? Let it preside over a decaying empire- if it even ships- hell, let it be a puppet symbol of the strength of the industry, whatEVER.

    Interesting stuff and genuine innovation will just have to go on, rough-edged and ill-funded, outside of the commercial sector. What else is new?

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