Nokia's Linux Based Xbox Competitor 158
Gerhard F writes: "FinancialTimes reports 'Nokia to use Linux system.' 'MediaTerminal will compete against Microsoft's Xbox video game
console and UltimateTV digital TV recorder.'
'We have made the hardware an open design so anyone else can
make a clone or compatible product,' said Mr Nelger. "We would
rather have a small part of a large market than a large part of
a small market if we had used proprietary technologies.'" I'll believe it when the vapor dissipates, but here's hopin'.
nokia's official pages about this device (Score:1)
http://www.nokia.com/multimedia/tech_specs.html
The specifications are preliminary. Celeron 366 or
faster seems to be specified. Probably it is quite
a lot faster once it gets out. IIRC, XBox specs
have been upgraded during its development.
Not the first try for Nokia (Score:1)
Also, Nokia was recruiting/trying to recruit people from game industry a year ago; a friend of mine interviewed there (having been a lead game programmer... ended up joining a 'real' games company instead). So, this has been in making for a while (not that I knew it'd be linux-based).
Finally, perhaps their WAP adventures have taught them something about making networked applications (games)... There is hoping. And since they have strong expertise on UI/appliance design, at least they have something to bring to game consoles, even if they don't really develop games themselves (whereas Microsoft, for example, owns a few decent game producers).
Word from a developer on the project (Score:4)
Re:Original specs (Score:2)
At some point, a 3D scene has to be converted to 2D to display on your monitor. One part of the graphics pipeline that enables this is a Perspective Projection. Basically, a projection is a transformation that moves from a k-dimensional space to a k-1 dimensional space. What can get fucked up when this happens is the texture mapping on objects in the scene. When you do the (interpolated) texture mapping in image space rather than scene/world space, it turns out to look a lot better. I'm not sure what they really mean by "perspective corrected" though.
Mip-Mapping is a different type of texture mapping. If you want more info on this, go to some graphics dev sites that talk about it. It's pretty standard stuff
A method for determining the colors on a polygon by linearly interpolating (weighting) certain pre-specified colors (such as those at the vertices of the polygon). Again, standard stuff
Method for handling transparency by blending together layers of generated images together with specified opacity (alpha) values. More standard stuff
Well, fog. Not sure what they mean by it being able to handle fogging though.
The standard method used by graphics accelerators to draw stuff in the scene. Basically, when you draw stuff, you only want to draw the stuff closest to the camera, because the other stuff behind the closest stuff is blocked.
3D graphics libraries such as OpenGL and Direct3D, but ones for Linux instead of Windows.
I don't see anything very special about the above features... It's pretty standard stuff that you'd want to see in a GeForce 2 or so nowadays. If it's not all hardware-implemented, it's not impressive at all.
I don't see anything really awesome like Vertex and Pixel Shaders, along with the other new features that are implemented by the GeForce 3 / XGPU in hardware...
I'm sure I made a mistake above.. Maybe someone else can correct me.
Re:Finally, someone with half a brain!! (Score:2)
Related article at Yahoo (Score:3)
Re:Nokia + console == perfect sense!!! (Score:1)
How many providers do you have? As of 3 weeks ago Jamaica has 1 GSM service provider and a competitor with Landline and TDMA networks. This whole telecoms competition is a new thing for us and I was just wondering how low the prices can get.
Re:Nokia + console == perfect sense!!! (Score:2)
It's not a gaming platform (Score:2)
The games they're thinking of are the sorts of things you see on websites or interactive TV - silly but fun Shockwave games, Minesweeper, that kind of thing. It's icing on the cake rather than a major feature drive.
-- Yoz
The site itself (Score:2)
It's really nice. TONS of docs about the way the system works. An SDK to download. Some example code. Still some holes (no tutorial up yet) but I'm sure they'll get filled if this thing takes off. The only major omission is the hardware spec.
-- Yoz
More differences than that... (Score:3)
Nokia actually know how to build and market consumer products. They have ins with all the major retailers, especially in Europe. Half of the mobile phones over here are Nokias.
Secondly, don't confuse this thing with a games console. Game apps are going to be much more like Shockwave games than Quake 3 - they're aiming at little bits of fun in between TV shows rather than PS2 competition.
-- Yoz
Collab.net (Score:5)
Entering a New Market (Score:3)
press release [nokia.com] from Nokia themselves. I really hopes they come out with something good. Think about it if they let anyone play. This might make this the "next big thing" since anyone can use it and make games for it this will allow more games and with more games more people will be likely to buy.
Nice box (Score:1)
Go see yourself: http://www.nokia.com/multimedia/mediaterminal.htm
Whatever it really is meant to be, it solves my problems regarding "What kind of computer could I connect to my home stereo/video systems" although I expect that to be pretty expensive.
Re:But is it because Linux is superior? (Score:1)
Looking at Nokia, they sell hardware. Not software. So, to them it's not a big deal to give the software away, as their product is the hardware, and the software is pretty useless without hardware.
Also, think about it from the employer viewpoint: You need 20 kernel developers. Is it easier (and cheaper) to get 20 Linux hackers or 20 psOS hackers?
In the end it comes down to usability. If it's easy to use, most people won't care if it's Linux or some proprietary rtos. So the software available from Nokia (the "official" software) must be easy to use.
Re:Hypocrites? Not really (Score:2)
The MediaTerminal is, I think, produced by some emerging division currently under Nokia Ventures Organization. This means that if it doesn't sell, they'll just drop the issue and count that venture as one of the failures (and they can drop a project at 100s of MEURs deciding it was RnD that went nowhere). However, the new ventures are more open towards open source community.
Regarding Linux and Nokia.. In one open source seminar someone (forgetting names) from Nokia talked about embedded software and open source. They had actually had Linux running on (forgetting details, I think it was ADSL modem) but in that case it wasn't stable enough and they dropped it in favour of some other OS (don't remember which one).
Oh yes, if I remember correctly, MediaScreen was running Linux on some PPC chip. Had quite a lot of flash and RAM, big screen, embedded GSM modem and DVB-T receiver, was video conferensing ready, and so on. I wonder how much that'd had cost should it have made it to retail.. Just a showpiece, though. Of course I don't know if they considered it as a product or a prototype.
One problem left (was:Two problems) (Score:1)
If anyone is able to make money mass-producing a piece of consumer electronics targetted at the mass market, Nokia would be it
Nokia + console == perfect sense!!! (Score:2)
Remember back when the PS1 came out? I for one was a bit surprised to see Sony release a console, but in 20/20 hindsight it made a lot of sense. They had the experience in producing consumer electronics, and - perhaps more important - marketing it, and getting it out in the stores. A well established brand name certaintly didn't hurt either. Honestly: Did any of you expect Sony to become a major player in the console market, eventually pushing Sega out?
Now consider Nokia. They have a lot of experience designing, producing, marketing and selling consumer electronics in this price range. In fact, they are just about the only major mobile phone manufacturer that has managed to make a profit in the last year, and - let's be honest - it's not because their phones are technologically superior to the phones from - say - Erichson.
The only catch is that the mobile phone market - at least GSM phones - is just about saturated. In Scandinavia, where we have consistently been a few years ahead of the rest of the world in the mobile phone market, almost everyone, including 12 year old school kids, now have a GSM phone.
So far it has seemed like Nokia would gamble on 3G making people switch phones and convergence in PDAs and phones as their future market, but actually a console would make a lot of sense as an alternative revenue stream.
People buy phones for much the same reasons that they buy consoles. Think about it. It's not all about capabillities - it's about design and marketing.
Phoney Baloney (Score:3)
"We would rather have a small part of a large market than a large part of a small market if we had used proprietary technologies."
Honestly.. that must the the most transparent attempt at sucking [in|up to] the open source crowd that I've ever seen.
You could read that as "We're L337! Help the underdog!"
It's not open source that will sell Nokia's game box, it's games. Without a nice library of games in the stores when the console is released, that box will amount to an open source graphics engine.
I doubt it will be vapor... (Score:1)
Here are the specs. It sounds almost like my box. (Score:1)
Nokia is no spring chicken (Score:1)
Re:Financially this won't work (Score:1)
Sounds like a great plan to me. Except that using your profits from another industry to fund a below-cost entrance into a new market sounds suspiciously like what people are always getting after Microsoft for doing :)
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Re:Finally, someone with half a brain!! (Score:2)
And your point would be ... ? I don't think you can say that the PC is not a successful game platform, can you?
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
I'm pessimistic as usual... (Score:2)
Nokia is a pretty darned big company doing what it does, but in the US what it doesn't do is a whole lot with computers. It has decent name recognition in cell phones, but its other computer-related offering, monitors, doesn't garner much attention.
Obviously Microsoft is going to spend a bundle on promoting the Xbox. I doubt that even if Nokia came up with a higher performing system they could make any kind of a dent in Microsoft's sales. After all, if performance made a difference, then we'd all be watching Betamax instead of VHS and listening to DAT instead of cassettes.
Marketing is king...name recognition drives marketing and Microsoft has that in spades.
Bummer.
-h-
Re:Think NIC (Score:1)
Is this an example of poor spelling on the web, or a completely different word? It looks kind of middle-eastern as it is.
Nokia wants YOU to write Linux games (Score:4)
From The Register: Nokia calls on Linux coders for set-top box apps [theregister.co.uk]
Nokia has reiterated that it is turning to the Linux community to ensure that its Media Terminal set-top box, due to be launched later this year, has plenty of applications from the word go.
In particular, it wants games developers to get coding for MT, based around what Nokia is now calling its Open Source Terminal platform.
---
Wheel Re-invention (Score:2)
Yes, of course to some extent they'll get good press because they use Linux (and certainly they make a point of mentioning it because of this). But ultimately it seems like they just want to do something that will get them in the market fast and you'd be hard pressed to find a better choice in that regard.
---
Nokia on collision course (Score:2)
The direction is increasingly the media and content business.. in the future, Nokia, Microsoft and Sony will compete for the same customers even more than today. The winner is not determined -- but keep this in mind: Nokia is one of the very few companies that has a realistic chance of competing successfully with Microsoft - and vice versa.
At least we'll know soon (Score:2)
So it sounds like it's in the late stages of development at least...
--
Poliglut [poliglut.com]
This won't succeed (Score:1)
This works because most consumers only look at the up-front price rather than the total cost of ownership. A cheap console with expensive games sells better than an expensive console with cheap games, because the entry is so much easier.
An open platform cannot exploit this advantage, so the up-front hardware cost will necessarily be much greater. For this reason, an open console standard is unlikely to succeed.
Re:Hypocrites? (Score:1)
Next thing you know they'll be buying Starbucks.
Ost (Score:3)
Pretty funny acctually.. A game console called cheese. :)
-henrik
Re:Score 5: Funny????? (Score:1)
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Re:What is their angle? (Score:1)
interesting, but how do they get developers? (Score:1)
the big question is how do they plan to get developers to make games / applications for this device? Nokia has a history of disastrous developer relations. for instance, if you want to develop for a nokia phone, pretty much everything is proprietary or secret or costs tons of money. they would have to change that completely...
Cheesy site... (Score:1)
Linus is finnish. Nokia is finnish. Linus' mother toungue is swedish. Nokia's web site for open development features a swedish pun. What does this really mean?
Not vapourware (Score:1)
Re: Your sig from anon. (Score:1)
Re:Financially this won't work (Score:1)
If they are trying to offset something on the annual report, then I wouldn't bet on this being a successful product at all. It would probably just make it to prototype and then they'll write the whole thing off when the figures don't add up. In that case it is actually bad for Linux as it ends up another high profile failed product/business that is somehow related to Linux or Open Software.
Open Source does not automatically mean no profit, it just means you have to generate profit from something other than the software or SDK. This is currently not how the game industry works and the only other source of revenue would be the sale of the hardware itself, which I doubt could be profitiable in an arena where the average selling price is 60 to 70% of the manufacture cost.
You actually aren't being so theoretical about saving dev costs from "Off the shelf" and Open Source - that's almost the XBox theory (except trade Open Source with 'we already have an OS we can use').
Ahhh.... it isn't a game console at all!! (Score:1)
I seriously doubt it will in any way be a competitor to the XBox or PS2 from the way the specs are reading - the main problem being the lack of a firm hardware specification. It's fine for the applications to have a nice solid API foundation, but console games really require direct access to a well defined set of hardware to work well.
If this is billed as a game console, it will fail. It seems much more like a digital TV box than anything else I can imagine. In that market, it might well work but the end user will probably notice it is running Linux about as much as you notice the OS that the fuel injection system on your car is running. In fact, the only time you would see the OS is either in a splash screen or a kernel panic.
BAD Games machine (Score:1)
My guess would be that it is using a TNT2m64 on board (they are very cheap), a very cheap RAMDAC (230MHz according to spec) and a CPU that Intel don't even make any more (slowest Celeron for sale is 667MHz @ $69). Probably going to sell in the $100 price range as it will have to seriously undercut the PS2 and XBox to make any sales at all.
I guess you'd get ok frame rates from Quake 2 or earlier, but don't expect any of the latest games to EVER come out on this box - it will be strictly limited to GameBoy style things.
Financially this won't work (Score:4)
In order to produce a product at a competitive price you have to LOSE money on the sale of the hardware to make it up again on either the license fees from software sold or from the SDK. It has been estimated that it will cost Microsoft about $425 for each XBox but they have to sell them at $300 or less for it to sell against the PS2.
Now if Nokia has an open design then no one will clone it because they would have to lose money from the sale of their hardware with no way to get the money back from any sort of licensing, and by using a GPL operating system, Nokia has no practical way of recovering their loss on the sale of the systems. The best they could do is have a binary-only kernel module which they charge software developers to use, which breaks the whole idea of using a GPL system in the first place.
So, by producing an open hardware console with an open hardware system, Nokia (by my reckoning at least - feel free to correct me) are going to be heading down the long road to a failed project. There is simply no way for them to make money, even if they capture the entire market they are only guaranteed to lose money!!
Sounds great, but will it make it to the shelves (Score:2)
Just for the sake that it's true, going open source for the OS and having open architecture is a very nice touch that is sure to attract attention and hackers everywhere. Marketshare will have to depend on who they attract to write games for this system (part of the Indreama's problem).
All in all this sounds great but I will wait to see this thing in cold hard plastic and in a store near me before I start reaching for my wallet.
Even still, I find this to be an odd move for Nokia to try and break into this market suddenly.
Gaming is not the primary purpose. (Score:1)
http://www.nokia.com/multimedia/mediaterminal.h
I'll quote from the page:
"Imagine the creative potential and flexibility of a product that can swap seamlessly in and out of Internet sites and television channels, while at the same time, recording your favourite television program or playing the latest digital music hits. As a sofa surfer, you can also enjoy interactive gaming, personal emailing and chatting, and via the internal hard drive, the ability to store digital music, movie and photo files. The Nokia Media Terminal offers these exciting choices and much, much more!
The Nokia Media Terminal Offers
Full Internet Access
The Nokia Media Terminal offers sofa surfers full Internet functions such as web browsing, secure on-line shopping or home banking, chat, email, and personal address book storage from the convenience of your TV.
Interactive Digital TV and Multimedia Services
The combination of high-quality digital TV and state-of-the-art Internet technologies enables a wide variety of multimedia services and applications, including: web and interactive games, on-line support portal/web site, electronic program guide and navigation browser.
Personal Video Recorder (PVR) and Multimedia File Storage
Users of the Nokia Media Terminal enjoy the benefits of a personal video recorder, including pause-and-play live TV broadcast, digital video recording, and video-on-demand through streaming video. The Nokia Media Terminal internal hard drive can hold up to approximately 15 hours of recording time or more depending on the streaming video format. Via the internal hard drive, the Nokia Media Terminal can also store digital music, movie and photo files. For additional storage space or file backup capabilities, the Nokia Media Terminal offers local connectivity to an external hard drive."
This isn't meant to be an X-Box killer. This is Tivo meets WebTV. This machine is not even remotely an Indrema and the usual arguments about console gaming economics will not apply. That is not to say there aren't a million reasons why this will turn out to be be vapor but a `lack of games' will not be one of them. Think Trivia as opposed to Quake.
Important endorsement for Linux (Score:1)
Open Standards Terminal (Score:1)
http://www.ostdev.net [ostdev.net]
This is the main site for Nokia's new machine. Very interesting indeed!
- mod this up please -
Re:Xbox Competition? How? (Score:1)
Yes it is. But this box isn't meant to compete with full featured game consoles. Many are just happy to be able to play simple games which will run fine on that iron. Nokia has probably noticed this with cell phone games. They are miserable (as for computer game), but because they exist, people play them. Same goes here, if you are going to have some kind of setup box and it happens to have games, people are going to play with them. I mean, people wath shopping channels too! Tetris is whole more entertaining! Especially if games are free of charge..
Not just game console (Score:2)
If I understood Nokia's press release correctly, idea is to do open platform for home inforteinment (spelling intentional) box. This includes games but applications are much wider. This is like having an option to write programs to your TV, Stereo, Digi-TV setup-box etc. You name it! All these things are combined under same platform (OST).
Xbox's hype machine seems to be working... (Score:1)
Ultimate TV (Score:1)
If this thing gets out of the Vaporware stages, I'll enthusiastically support it. I mean, we all have an old computer sitting around that you could put a TV capture card into, so why not make a TiVo clone? It would RULE!
------
That's just the way it is
Good business plan, guys. (Score:1)
By the time they get it out the door in 2002, the XBox and Nintendo will long since have been out there; the dust will have settled and the vast majority of gamers will already have made their choice: PS2, XBox or GameCube? Will anyone wait around for a cell phone makers' belated, ill-supported entry into the gaming market just because it's open source?
Granted it's short on details, but no plans for an infrastructure to back their TiVo/Ultimate TV clone other than the ability to do it?
Where's the revenue source, anyhow? Consoles and the like traditionally sell equipment as loss leaders... do they plan to be able to squeeze licensing and development costs out of Joe Programmer?
To put it another way... (Score:1)
Consoles: loss leaders. It's a computer, and unless it's being sold as a loss leader, why would anyone buy it? It's open, so no devkit/royalties to rely on.
If they feel like bleeding money out of both ends, they could at least give me enough to retire before they do so.
Working Link (Score:1)
BizWire Story Link [yahoo.com]
Re:Finally, someone with half a brain!! (Score:1)
But of course, one can definitely argue over what "open" means in this context...
Re:Phoney Baloney (Score:1)
Still, those phones are more or less given away by service providers, which may be the key point here too.
I think you shouldn't focus on the game features, but on the whole picture:
It is, or rather will be, a DVD player, a TiVo-like device, a Set-Top box, an internet appliance, AND a game box to boost.
One of Nokias important markets will probably be TV cable companies. Couple that with the gigantic potential in marketing and distribution Nokia already has and with all the features of the box, and this could just work nicely. Quite nicely even...
Re:One problem left (was:Two problems) (Score:1)
If anyone is able to make money mass-producing a piece of consumer electronics targetted at the mass market, Nokia would be it :)
I have no doubt about Nokia's technical competence, but I still think if they go head-to-head with Sony and Microsoft, they're going to get their head handed to them on a platter, because traditionally game systems have sold at a loss. On the other hand, if they market it as a "MP3 digital music player, internet web browser, digital TV recorder and digital TV set-top box," that also plays video games, they just might be able to sell it at a profit and carve-out a niche market. Tricky though.
A small matter of marketing. (Score:1)
On the other hand, my impression from the F-T article is that Nokia is going to market it as a digital set-top box that, by the way, also plays video games. In that case, video gaming is merely an extra and the spec's are more than adequate. Just don't expect a PS2 or Xbox killer system.
Two problems (Score:2)
Second, this year is a very bad year for releasing a console system from a company new to the console market. Sony Playstation 2 is huge, Microsoft Xbox looks very strong, even Nintendo has a strong following (though Gamecube looks rather weak). And Nokia plans to release a game system this year against that competition? Good luck.
Re:But is it because Linux is superior? (Score:1)
How about existing games? (Score:2)
But then, set-top-boxes and game consoles are intended for the masses, not for hackers. Why use a console (and develop for it) when you can play the Linux games on your PC? However, the hardware (digital TV card) and special applications (DVD player, etc.) might create some temptating possibilities.
Re:Original specs (Score:2)
I am guessing that if they had any of the following important features, they would have said so:
Without these, this console is not going to be able to compete as a game console.
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Re:What is their angle? (Score:2)
Now, this may be quite different than a lot of slashdot readers, but it's not too different than a lot of other people. I know my mom hates the computer, but she does send email. I know a number of people like that.
What might be better is a bare bones system that can send email and surf, with a basic small OS that gives net connectivety and email use - you know, something any brain dead person could use, with two buttons: email or web. Can't really go wrong, there. But then give the ability to upgrade to make it more useful. Add a word processor and printer.
I know, I know, I just described a general purpose computer, which would be fine if given the utmost in simplicity. Most people that ask me for advice on buying a computer these days, when asked what they'll use it for, say "you know...email, surf the net..." Well what do you need a 1.5Ghz PC for? (well, the salesman at Best Buy might convince newbie that newbie needs it to connect to the internet faster...)
Re:Financially this won't work (Score:3)
Nokia wants to be Indrema... (Score:2)
You don't pay full price for cellulars either (Score:4)
Remember that Nokia got really big in the cellphone business. They don't sell many phones directly to the consumers, instead they sell them to phonecompanies, which then sell them to the enduser for a fraction of the price. The enduser has to sign a contract to use their services for a minimum time, like 6 months or a year.
They can do the same with the OST, maybe with cabletv and internet providers instead of phonecompanies, but in these days they are basically the same corporations.
Re:Ultimate TV (Score:3)
All the hardware is in place, both the Hauppauge and ATI TV cards work fine under Linux using the bttv kernel module. There are several decent programs for capturing from the card, goto freshmeat and do a search. I prefer RealProducer Basic because I don't have to worry about Video and Audio sync, which I found was a problem with some others and fairly small file sizes. Setting up a cron job to do the recording at the proper time is easy as well. What this is missing is the TiVo's ability to download current TV listing and adjust recording times when neccessary. This could probably be done with a perl script which downloads the schedule from TVGuide.com, then searches for the programs you specify and/or present you with a menu of options, then update the cron job accordingly. Depending on the information TVGuide.com has you may even be able to look for a paticular actor or director.
Jesus died for sombodies sins, but not mine.
Re:What is their angle? (Score:2)
I don't think this will be the case down the road, why would "Grandma" want to buy a full-fleged PC (with all the added hassels and costs) when all she does is send e-mail? It may seem cheaper to some people to buy a dedicated gaming device and a dedicated e-mail device and a dedicated (insert your favorite digital system here). Sure you and I would rather have the real thing, but it isn't necessarly right for everyone.
Lets say for example the kids want to play some games, and you want to write an e-mail, it is hard to share the same system (unless you happen to have an X terminal handy).
And with all these devices lying around with some CPU time to spare can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of all of them? (Not trying to troll here, I'm being serious) You could share the resources across all the devices, your e-mail device needs a little more power to decode a video attachment? No problem, ship off some of some of the work to the gaming console, or even the toaster! This is assuming that everything will be networked together, but I feel that every new device should support networking right out of the box, it just seems natural to the progression of the networked world.
Re:One problem left (was:Two problems) (Score:2)
Games are an afterthought (Score:2)
And then they're told it can play games too, many of which are free.
This is the sort of sales pitch that even I would take out my credit card for.
Ports? (Score:3)
It'd be great if we could port current linux-based games to this unit. If this system can boost popularity of games written specifically for linux systems, will that also mean a huge increase in linux games for regular desktops?
--
Re:Ultimate TV (Score:2)
/Brian
Re:Ultimate TV (Score:2)
/Brian
But how exactly will they market it again? (Score:3)
Nokia does, I think, have the clout to pull off what Indrema couldn't. They've got money and an immensely popular product (and one could say they're already in the electronic games industry -- how many expert Snake players we got here?). Here's what Nokia *could* deliver:
-A decidedly bad-ass game system with included crackability. I'd be amazed if the technology involved was radically different from the Xbox.
-A ready-to-network cheap processing node a la that PS2-ish thing that Sony's marketing as a cheap supercomputer (I'd love to see a... Oh, wait, it already is...)
-A system with easy wireless connectivity -- just patch it into your cell phone. No worries about Bluetooth or 802.11...
But they need to have a killer app for it, and a cell-phone base station won't be it. Since the system will be open-source, it's a safe bet they won't be making their money off of runtime licensing. They can't market it like an ordinary game console because they won't be able to loss-leader it. Ever. I think it can be done, but I'm not quite sure how.
But I'd buy one.
/Brian
Re:You don't pay full price for cellulars either (Score:4)
My impression is that after paying for the connection for a year, the consumer has effectively paid the price of the phone. In Finland the bondage between buying a cellphone and buying a connection for that is forbidden by law, so people pay the real price of phones but on the other hand the calls and monthly charges are cheaper.
Finland has the highest number of mobile phones per capita (about 60 per 100) in the world, so you cannot explain the success of Nokia (Finland based :-)
simply with the contract schemes. Personally I can't stand those systems,
with SIM locking and all that. People like being able to _own_ a phone and
use it for anything, such as changing the provider every month for the
cheapest deal :-) .. and hacking it, of course.
--
There already are lots of games.... (Score:2)
They should ship this thing with Quake 3 or similar that would get some attention.
One thing that concerns me from the developer page
is that you cant gaurantee what hardware they may have.
and i quote "Oh yes. The OST platform is well suited for various applications. However, as it supports a number of input devices (keyboard, remote control, etc) you can't be sure that all game players do have a gamepad or joystick."
now this is going to be a major downside if a user has to buy a new input device for every game were as the PSX or PS2 all have the same game pad or compatible for every game.
It may seem a small amount for the controller but it can often turn people away if they have to buy extras to run things (just like a PC)
the idea of a console is to run EVERY game that is made for it out of the box and with no hassle.
we will just have to hope and see.
Devilish
www.sci-fact.com - From Fiction to fact -
The difference between this and andrema?? (Score:4)
But on the other hand... Nokia has a board of directors that can pull the plug at any given moment.
Its hard for a small-time company to break into the console industry, but Sony proved that a big corporation with a nice financial situation can do it (on the other hand, Sega proved that even a vet can loose in the industry).
Good luck to nokia, and grab as many developers to make games as possible!
Re:What is their angle? (Score:2)
Aditionally, there's the idiot factor. Almost anybody can understand the "put media in, hit power switch" idea, installing, uninstalling software, and maintaining the stability of the OS do require some form of skill/knowledge. (I have, in the past recieved money to 'fix' somebody's computer because they were 'out of RAM', only to find out that their HDD was full, and needed to have garbage deleted so that windows could make swap space...)
As times change (Score:2)
This article [theregister.co.uk] in The Register [theregister.co.uk] provides some interesting reading, quote :
Symbian, for those that don't know, is a joint company by Motorolla, Ericsson, Nokia and others that creates an OS for the next generation smart phones based on EPOC
Re:Original specs (Score:2)
CPU seems a little underspecced, but that depends on the amount of off-chip processing available. For comparison purposes, the X-BOX will ship with a 700MHz processor, which won't touch the graphics pipeline at all.
Reasonable amount of memory. Be interesting to see if they adopt a unified memory architecture (again, cf. X-BOX [xbox.com]).
Integrated video chip is definately the norm for consoles - no expansion required, therefore reduce costs and optimise data paths by putting everything on the same board. The feature list was bog-standard a couple of years ago around the time of the TNT(2). It's only a little up on the original PlayStation. I speculate that they may not be pushing this console as a direct contender to X-BOX etc. unless they have some pretty significant improvements to make graphically, since that is where, to an extent, the war is being fought at the moment. Current hardware [nvidia.com] is touting 'fully' programmable pipelines, along with a whole lot of cool features (cube environement mapping, per-pixel lighting, shadow generation in hardware, bump-mapping etc).
This would be a capable 3d machine a year or two ago. Now it could be considered a little dated.
Henry
I'm confused (Score:2)
Maybe the Financial Times needs to start attending technology trade shows.
Nokia's Hot Game Properties (Score:2)
Xbox Competition? How? (Score:2)
I'm reading through a couple of articles that talk about this "MediaTerminal", and I fail to see how FT.com [ft.com] got the impression that it was a competitor vs. the Xbox.
According to Nokia's MediaTerminal [nokia.com] website, it's basically a PVR with Internet Access. There is a link to the Game Development section, and the FAQ states that it will play "a wide variety of games". But, looking at the tech specs [nokia.com], this piece of machinery doesn't stand a chance against the Xbox. Celeron 366? 4MB Video RAM? Seems a little too underpowered to me.
Hypocrites? (Score:5)
This is just wrong.
-Justin
Finally, someone with half a brain!! (Score:5)
Problem with open hardware... (Score:2)
Thankfully the PC has aged long enough to the point where this is a minor issue, and tied mostly to bargin PC's and hardware. Will new comers remember history or throw it out the window only to learn if all over again? Time will tell.
Perhaps nokia will do something similar to TiVo. You can get the hardware from Sony or Phillips, but it is pretty much the same hardware.
Nokia? (Score:4)
Ripping off the young and gullable (Score:2)
But, HOW they plan to make money DOES NOT MATTER. Nokia would not be doing this if they didn't have a way to make money off of it.
To make the obvious conclusion. If Nokia is going to make money off of this then everyone who codes for them deserves a share of that money. I don't see anywhere on ostdev.net where it shows how we get our share of the money.
Looks like they are just ripping off those of us who don't know any better.
Stonewolf
What they should call it (Score:2)
Re:Finally, someone with half a brain!! (Score:2)
Re:The difference between this and andrema?? (Score:2)
At least now when these consoles fail you can at least throw Apache on them and get some use from them rather than using them as an over priced doorstop. :)
It is interesting that a company like Nokia would get into this market. I'm almost afraid they are entering this market just a little too late.
Think NIC (Score:2)
ThinkNic (www.thinknic.com) turns a profit on a $200.00 box that contains about 80% of the hardware that is needed for a game console.
Throw a 700 megahertz Cyrix III (.13 mm manufacturing which doesn't require a heat sink and fan), a GeForce 2 MX, a smallish hard drive, and a couple game controllers, into a ThinkNIC box and walla, you have yourself a piece of technology that can do 90% of what the XBox does. And you didn't spend the billion that MS did on R&D.
Re:Finally, someone with half a brain!! (Score:2)
To profit off the boxes all of the consumer electronics companies made from 3D0's specs they had to charge like $700 for the system, at the time. It was a dismal failure.
This will go nowhere... (Score:2)
Sorry guys - this one isn't the mythical Linux/Games ticket yet, either.
I mean - who's going to publish games for it? Open Source coders... well... look at the quality of homegrown games on the PC. I'm not saying they're not capable - I just wouldn't buy a system based on the promise of, well... what I see.
Nokia probably won't stay with this for long. Every console manufacturer looses money on every unit sold - they make it back on license fees per game sold. If its an open platform, they want to turn a profit on the console? How will they compete with the Big Three?
Project site (Score:2)
Homepage for this project is http://www.ostdev.net/ [ostdev.net]
Original specs (Score:4)
Can an enlighten 3D guru comment on these?
btw. specs here [nokia.com] (pdf format).
Re:Wheel Re-invention (Score:2)
So, yeah, there's custom hardware, for the sound and video, but I don't think there's any custom software, other than hooks into the harware.
-----------------
But is it because Linux is superior? (Score:2)
Sorry guys. I'm not buying it. Have there been any consumer device running Linux that have sold well to non-Linux users? Both the TiVo and i-Opener seem to appeal to the slashdot crowd, which in the latter case, seems to be a bad sign for retailers. I just don't think that Slashdot readers can make up enough of a market to justify all this hype. Maybe if the Yoppy has a successful launch things will change. I know it would change my impressions.
What is their angle? (Score:2)
In the end, everyone will have a PC, so why not just devote resources to that, and the cheaper home computer?
Re:Finally, someone with half a brain!! (Score:4)
Oh, wait....