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Television Media Entertainment Games

Scientific-Atlanta Mulling Video Game Set-Top Box 69

Posted by simoniker from the tv-fun-and-games dept.
NickNiel writes "According to Yahoo, Scientific-Atlanta (a digital cable set-top box manufacturer) is 'planning to develop television set-top boxes with high-performance video game capabilities, which could compete with game consoles such as Nintendo's GameCube and Sony's PlayStation 2.' My favorite quote, from CEO James McDonald: 'I can give (game players) the same performance you get out of those game boxes," he added. 'There is no question that games is one... market we will be in.'"
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Scientific-Atlanta Mulling Video Game Set-Top Box More

Scientific-Atlanta Mulling Video Game Set-Top Box

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  • pooh, thats nothing (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 04, 2004 @01:27PM (#8465058)
    i will only consider it if and when it performs better than the phantom.
    • Retrack those comments hence a lawsuit on you from those Phantom peeps! :)
    • hehe..if u wanna see whether it performs better than phantom, you've gotta wait for BOTH to come out!! Then compare the two. ;) Leaving that adide,the concept is very original.It'll be interesting how things turn up. I just hope its not another vapourware product though it 'sounds' very much like one (ie, very ambitious concept and not proven in the market before). Its a high risk,high return project. Lets see what happens.
    • They appear to be a real company, that's a good start.
    • You state that you will only consider it if and when it performs better than the Phantom. The innuendo is that the Phantom does not exist, performs poorly and is generally a laughable piece of vaporware. You can expect a C&D statement shortly.

      -The Infinium Labs Lawyers

  • Whatever they pay him, it's too much (Score:5, Funny)

    by NSash ( 711724 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @01:27PM (#8465068) Journal
    "I can give (game players) the same performance you get out of those game boxes," he added.

    Now here's a man who sounds like he knows what he's doing!

    • Re:Whatever they pay him, it's too much (Score:4, Funny)

      by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @02:07PM (#8465587) Homepage
      Bob from accounting: "My kids really love their Xbox thingie, and we already use Windows in our boxes. Why not make a hybrid box?"

      James the CEO: "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"

      Bob from accounting: "That doesn't make any sense."

      James the CEO: "Then they'll never see it coming."

    • "I can give (game players) the same performance you get out of those game boxes," he added.

      Right, because we all know that, historically, superior hardware performance is what sells game consoles.

      I mean just look at how well Xbox is doing against the PS2! Or look at how well the NGage is selling compared to the Gameboy Advance. When the 3D0 Atari Jaguar came out, look what happened to the Super Nintendo's market share. And remember when Sega introduced the GameGear, a portable with a color screen
      • Ahem.

        I hate to be the one to break this to you, but Scientific-Atlanta just promised to give you comparable performance to existing gaming platforms.

        Becase we all know that, historically, inferior hardware performance is what sells game consoles.

      • I agree, to a point. The gamegear is not as portable as a game boy of that era.

        Better system? undoubtabl.

        better for taking to class? Not on your life. I had a gameboy, and a game gear way back in high school. What did i carry around? The gameboy. Its much smaller now than then, and back lit. Gamegear? If i aws on a 10 hour car trip i took that. Better games for the game boy? not really at the time in my opinion.

        My point? Its not always the best hard ware, or the best software for a nic

  • I call vaporware! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MonkeyCookie ( 657433 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @01:29PM (#8465082)

    I can give (game players) the same performance you get out of those game boxes

    Details? It takes quite a bit of effort and expense to produce a good, fast, modern gaming console that is as good as currently existing ones. I'm rather skeptical that a cable box company will follow through on such a plan.

    I can see them making a gaming box that plays simpler less resource-intense games, like solitaire and tetris, but a console to match the current top consoles? I doubt they'll get that far. With the lack of details, I'm pretty sure they haven't even reached the phase where they begin the actual engineering of the box. It's just an idea in the head of some executives right now

    I predict vaporware

    • They've already got boxes playing tetris, solitaire and the like. I don't see why they shouldn't try and do something to compete with the other big players, after all they may be able to make a more expensive box and get the money back with the cable subscription fees, in much the same way that mobile phone handset manufacturers do at the moment.

      Current console manufacturers do a similar thing, but have to make money off software licensing, which is a much less reliable source of income.

    • Re:I call vaporware! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by MBCook ( 132727 )
      Well, that statement shows that he doesn't know what he's talking about (at least thats what I get out of it). It's all well and good to have a powerfull system, but that doesn't mean anything as the 3DO and other systems have shown us.

      It takes GAMES. The power isn't all that important. The GBA is far and away the best selling system out there right now, as the GameBoy was before it. Both are ludicrously underpowered compared to everything else on the market, but one of the major reasons they are successfu

    • Re:I call vaporware! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Overdrive_SS ( 243510 ) <Overdrive_SSNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Thursday March 04, 2004 @02:08PM (#8465607)
      I don't know. I remember being in a hotel and having the original super mario bros and a few other games available to play on demand. I assume the cable box was responsible for the emulation, but I can't be certain. If it was and this company was responsible for that box or even has a similar offering (obviously wild speculation on my part), then I assume they have a few engineers working there with an idea of what it would take. Of course, emulating a nintendo is a far cry from creating a next generation console, especially if the emulation was all done by Nintendo, which I assume is also very likely.

      So, I agree that most likely this will be vaporware or at best on par with a playstation or nintendo64, but I will at least give them the benefit of the doubt for now. More than I can say for the phantom anyways.
    • Actually the original exporer was pitched to cable companies as a game delivery device along with all the other feature sets. The companies were more interested in video on demand and services like that (94-95). So no effort was made to continue to develop that feature. I believe they did have some demo games at the time. I don't recall if they actually worked though. SA also had one of the first cable modems on the market (along with Motorala and GI). They did some trials with US west with the cable modem
      • *Warning*
        This is a bit off-topic.

        I'm impressed by the ability of the cable companies to generate revenue.

        What kind of services might the typical consumer by paying for?

        Digital Television $80/month (+$4/PPV movie)
        Broadband Internet $40/month
        VOIP Telephone $30/month
        Game Box Rental $10/month (+$8/game rental)

        So when it's all said and done they're collecting something like $200/month from the consumer. Nice. For our sakes I hope they have some real competition.

    • Re:I call vaporware! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by nelsonal ( 549144 )
      I'm curious couldn't a company make an X-Box that downloaded games rather than sticking in a DVD? Would anything major have to change? You could either just ship the games to the console overnight as they were released or download the next level as they were playing the current one. It doesn't seem like much of a leap to me. Can anyone fill me in on the technical difficulties here?
      The nice thing about a cable company console, is that the cable companies will pay a much higher price, and charge their us
    • Details? It takes quite a bit of effort and expense to produce a good, fast, modern gaming console

      Details? Why do you need details? They're Scientific Atlanta! They're squarely in the public eye for producing set top boxes and, um, microscopes? Don't they make microscopes or oscilliscopes or something like that? Something electronic?

      At any rate, it's well known that to produce a video game console all you need to do is nail the hardware. The software takes care of itself because you have other pe

  • So he can give the similar performance as Nintendo and Sony. The games are what make a system and/or company. Anyone can make a box that spits out pretty interactive pictures.

  • If they really mean it... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by clausiam ( 609879 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @01:38PM (#8465216)
    it would be time to dump those Scientific-Atlanta shares (if I had any).

    There's just no room for a new player in this area right now. Starting up from scratch with no game support, no previous industry experience and no real synergy from other product ranges (the cable set top box is a bit peripheral), not to mention probably not with the cash reserves to carpet-bomb the consumers with marketing and ads. This is either vaporware or the downfall of SciAtl.

    /Claus

    • Actually there is a TON os synergy. I'd bet they plan on capitalizing on game delivery rather than creation. As a set-top box this may not even come with DVD/cartridge. All games would be on demand and be charged as a service.

      Its really moving the gaming model to be more like a cable TV model.
    • I'm afraid you don't know what you're talking about. SFA is poised perfectly to capitalize of game delivery, and it's the perfect way to distinguish themselves. Cable providers are consistently looking for more ways to increase revenues, and this is absolutely perfect. I'm a buy-side analyst covering the industry (the guy sitting next to me right now actually covers the company), and I can tell you that the valuation is very low right now (though I haven't checked market reaction to this announcement yet).
      • I'm a buy side analyst too. Who do you work for? Nice to see a few other financial types here.
        • I'm an undergraduate (senior) on a student team (four undergrads, twelve graduates) that manages a chunk of the Babson College endowment. I agree that there frequently aren't enough people with finance knowledge on Slashdot -- whenever a company does something, people cry about or hype up its stock without a good understanding of the financial impact.

          Yourself?
    • There's just no room for a new player in this area right now.

      Yeah, the plans they've got are the same kind that led to the videogame crash in the 80s.

      Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft are too popular for something like that to happen again IMO (especially with the greater quality of games on modern consoles versus e.g. the Atari 2600), but I am sure that systems on the periphery (e.g. N-Gage, Phantom, this one) are going to be as forgotten in a few years as the Bally Astrocade and Fairchild Channel F.
    • Particularly insightful, considering that they couldn't even get their cable boxes to change channels in a reasonable amount of time. Slowest channel-surfing EVAR.

  • Endless possibilities, but I doubt the success (Score:3, Insightful)

    by almaon ( 252555 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @01:39PM (#8465233)
    I could forsee this company being able to make a competitive (but not superior) game platform modeled into a cable box.

    Take the xbox for example, when it comes down to it, it's nothing more than a glorified PC with some proprietary bits thrown here and there with the dashboard frontend. I could see these guys at least being able to come up with some nvidia/x86 based guts to put in their cablebox.

    You could get even more ghetto, go mini-itx, linux frontend and the rest of the digital cable crap in there for good measure. I think it could be easily done...

    What I don't believe is that they'll be successful in launching this fabled platform and get games developed for it. Which is kinda a bummer, I believe that digital content delivery over broadband is gonna happen, but I just don't think these guys are gonna be the ones to pull this off.

    Sega had a testmarket for SegaTV out of Chattanooga, TN, a little different, but similar in some ways. Had a gizmo that hooked up to a Sega Genesis and you could download games off of the cable straight into the box. At the time, it wasn't that cool cause you were limited by the number of titles and the cost. A good model is gonna have to be in place to pull games-on-demand off, but before then you'll need the games. Titles people are going to want to play, that's the biggest hangup I see.

    Software can be such a risk, a lot of time, money and capital invested in the hopeful success, taking a risk on a flakey positioned product like a game/cable box to me, sounds dangerous. Especially with matured platforms from Sony/Nintendo/MS have proven theirselves to be safe markets.

    Who knows, that's the fun thing about the future. You can sit back and arm-chair analyze it to death, but you won't know till it's done and over with. God bless 20:20 hindsight.
    • Like you, I don't see it as an inheritly bad idea either. It has potential, especially if they keep rates low.

      For example, imagine that you had a setup console box and subscribed to your cable company's gaming network. For a flat monthly fee, you could play any game you wanted on the network. Like changing channels with a remote, you could change games. High-speed multiplayer would obviously follow.

      Which is not to say that Scientific-Atlanta will make good on the idea. I'm just saying that it has p

    • Take the xbox for example, when it comes down to it, it's nothing more than a glorified PC with some proprietary bits thrown here and there with the dashboard frontend.

      True the Xbox is really nothing more than a glorifed closed off PC in a box (unless you mod it of course). But what the Xbox has that makes it so unique is the fact that Microsoft is getting developers to work on games ONLY for that system (Bungie).

      If, say IBM, was to build a closed off PC in a box; the market would never accept it without

    • Sega had a testmarket for SegaTV out of Chattanooga, TN, a little different, but similar in some ways. Had a gizmo that hooked up to a Sega Genesis and you could download games off of the cable straight into the box. At the time, it wasn't that cool cause you were limited by the number of titles and the cost.

      What you speak of was eventually marketed nationwide as the sega channel. While the test market may have shown it to be "not so cool", it actually had a reasonably succesful run, and I have some fon

  • Not such a bad idea - if they keep it simple (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lightspawn ( 155347 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @01:43PM (#8465291) Homepage
    I'm sure many non-console-owning cable customers would just love being able to play solitaire and bejeweled on their television - and remember these kinds of software take a very short time to develop. How many people would actually pay $5 a month for 20 games or so? I'm not talking specifically about you or the people you know, but the normal cable customer base.

    So the simple puzzle games may not be such a bad idea, and if you can port a Sega Genesis (say) emulator or even add actual on-board hardware to run Genesis software you have a library of hundreds of real titles. Pay $5, play Sonic for up to 30 days. Not a bad deal for some people. Again, not for you, but for some people.

    Now, as far as modern games are concerned, there are two ways to go about it. Convergence (combo cable box + xbox + DVR) which may or may not make sense to some people (but not to us) and developing a new competing next-gen platform which is probably not such a good plan.

  • What ever happened to...standardization? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by b0r0din ( 304712 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @01:48PM (#8465360)
    'There is no question that games is one... market we will be in.'"

    The "..." stands for overloaded.

    I think it's a good idea, but right now, you've got three pretty massive players in Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. If you ask me, that's already one too many. I didn't mind it when pretty much only Sega and Nintendo were there, but when these companies start making excellent games ONLY for one system, you aren't serving your clientele, you're forcing them to choose your product or another. This is sort of like the VHS. Remember the Betamax issue? In the end, there was only one format. This is not the case in video games. Instead of one standard, we're forced to use all these proprietary game systems if we want to play all the best games. If you think about it, most hardware manufacturers have standards. Everyone agreed on CD and DVD standards, and for the most part PC standards. (well, until it came time for DVD-R and DVD+R, but I won't even go into that.)

    Yet none of this seems to faze the video game world. So now we're going to have yet another competitor, not even counting the Infinium Labs Phantom system, in the market. And Nokia with its N-Gage, and now Sony in the handheld market too? Wow, can you think of a worse time to try and enter a market? And this just pushes the whole ownership issue, with cable able to control the content it provides.
    • Personally I doubt we'll ever hear of this thing again, but this guy has one major edge over the competition: his product is free.

      Most people don't buy their cable boxes. They rent them from the cable company as part of their bill. If the cable company adds video games to the cable box and still charges you the same ammount per month for the box, most people won't say no. That means he get in for free. If you make the games a sensible price (and GOOD, which is the most important part) he could make some mo

  • If it's anything like their DVR... (Score:3, Informative)

    by martone66 ( 643104 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @01:55PM (#8465422) Journal
    ...then it will be a major failure. I have the Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000 DVR ($10/month through Comcast) and the thing is a major POS. The interface is terrible. Occasionally I have to wait 10-20 seconds for the channel to change while the recorder catches up. Sometimes the box dies, and has to reboot itself. Oh, and from time to time it forgets about its recording schedule.

    Its only advantages over Tivo are the fact that it can record 2 channels at the same time, and doesn't require a landline connection (don't have one).

    It seems like a product that was rushed to market. Given their track record with this, I can't help but think that a game system produced by them would be a major flop.
    • The DirecTV models of TiVo can record two channels at once. Also, you can connect any TiVo to your broadband connection.

    • Re:If it's anything like their DVR... (Score:5, Informative)

      by CanSpice ( 300894 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @04:00PM (#8467206) Homepage
      Jesus yes. I was going to say that if it's anything like their Explorer 8000 then this game console is going to be a pile of shit.

      "Features" of the Explorer 8000:

      - if you're watching a show that's being recorded at the same time, when the show stops recording you get dumped to live TV rather than continue to watch off the recording.
      - live pausing only appears to hold for an hour and a half.
      - no easy way to find out how much space you've got left without going through an arcane developer's menu.
      - if you have a recording conflict and choose to not record a show that you've set a "season pass" for, it won't record any of that show ever again, even if future episodes don't conflict.
      - no way to remove repeat episodes from "season pass" recordings. Especially annoying for things you know are going to repeat, like Adult Swim that repeats three hours after initial showing.

      I've had playback quality issues a couple of times where the playback freezes for a second or so. Fast-forwarding sometimes freezes too, although I'm not completely sure if only the video output freezes, because when it unfroze it looked like it was a few seconds past where it froze.

      And there are a bundle of UI problems, like the practically useless favourite channel list (oh boy, you get to scroll up through them, heaven forbid you should want to filter your guide to only show you your favourite channels!).

      The only good thing (besides two tuners) about it is that it costs $5 a month over regular digital service. If it cost any more I'd be cancelling my service.
    • I just got a SA 8000. We were looking into a Tivo but the price was too high. For $5/month I could get a SA8000 that has greater capabilities than a regular Tivo.

      I've never had a Tivo so I can't compare the two. I do know that the 8000 has worked great so far.

      UI: It integrates smoothly with the channel guide UI that we had before. In fact, I can barely tell the difference.

      Ease of Use: My wife learned to use on her own!

      Stability: It did crash while I was watching a recorded program, but it kept right on
      • Do work for them? Jesus.

        Here are some more annoyances with the 8000.

        1. You can't pause a PIP window, even though both are being recorded (you can swap windows, then rewind, but why would I want to do that?)

        2. The Search interface SUCKS. Why can't they include a string match search. Heck, they could use a string match search just for finding the right Genre!

        That being said, I'll never go back to a non-PVR system (and in Canada, we don't have a lot of choices), but it would be nice if these "Software
      • I've used an SA8000 at a friend's house a fair amount. I was not impressed. The delay in changing channels is significant. This is a pet peeve for me in general -- I won't be getting direcTV anytime soon for the same reason.

        I haven't used a tivo so I can't compare, but at home I've got a mythtv [mythtv.org] box, and I think it does a considerably better job than the SA.

      • It works fine ~90% of the time, and now I can't imagine going back to watching TV without a DVR. The other 10% is what pisses me off. I pay an extra $10 a month (through Comcast) and I expect it to just work.

        I don't consider it acceptable when I press rewind when watching live TV and the box displays a black screen for ~30 seconds, then promptly shuts itself off, reboots, and then takes 60 seconds to load the guide. It happened during the Super Bowl. Twice.

        Overall it really has changed the way I watch

  • Any idiot can... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by BW_Nuprin ( 633386 )
    Hell, -I- can give you the performance of a PS2 or Gamecube... I'll just build a tiny PC in one of those tiny Shuttle cases. The question that should be asked is will Mr. McDonald be able to woo Konami? How about Capcom? Hell, Activision? Any chump (Infineon) can make a PC in a case and call it a video game system, but its not about hardware, its about non-whack games. Of course, CEOs only see numbers, and its much easier to measure MHz than "fun".

  • Comcast (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hambonewilkins ( 739531 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @02:01PM (#8465506)
    There's an ad in these parts (Maryland) which shows a guy tossing out all his home theater components (VCR, DVD, Receiver, etc) because he just got the new Comcast DVR system that allows you to "pause TV" now that TV is "at your command."

    It's a moronic ad (obviously), but I'm curious Scientific-Atlanta sees a similar (completely wrong) future, where people toss out their Xboxes, Gamecubes, and PS2s because they now have this all-in-one unit.

    It shows a complete misunderstanding of games and gamers. Unless you're in Japan, people I know don't have much interest in replacing two or three devices with one all-in-one, jack-of-all trades device (which is usually very expensive).

    People like buying things modularly because it seems cheaper and also you can get the best of each modular component.

    CEO James McDonald's comment: I can give (game players) the same performance you get out of those game boxes exemplifies his misunderstanding... performance is perhaps 10% of what is important in games (I'm talking frames per second, load times, etc). What this guy should be giving is the same games or experience.

    Put this right up there with the Phantom for game decks we will never see.

    • CEO James McDonald's comment: I can give (game players) the same performance you get out of those game boxes exemplifies his misunderstanding... performance is perhaps 10% of what is important in games (I'm talking frames per second, load times, etc). What this guy should be giving is the same games or experience.

      Actually McDonald is more intelligent than you are giving him credit for. Scientific Atlanta has huge pull in the cable marketplace and if they can deliver a box with gaming capabilities, it wil
    • People like buying things modularly because it seems cheaper and also you can get the best of each modular component this is of course why we have prefab computers [dell Macintosh ect.]? be careful when you apply your veiw to everyone.
  • sounds like he's angling to get MS to throw in with him. Did he mention xbox as a compeitor? (no, I didn't rtfa)

    bc
  • If you just think about the box, it could rock. If they don't screw the ppoch and charge too much, they could have some awesome features. Built-in Cable Modem Static IP address for hosting games Built-in Multiplayer options Not that it's going to happen, who ever above me said "I predict Vaporware" is probably right, but it could be hella cool. But it could suck outrageously also...
  • Until I see it in the market, I won't believe the rumors. The phantom has been in magazine publications since mid 90s. Hype Hype Hype.
  • He claims they can put out a box with the same capability as existing systems such as the PS2 and GameCube....big deal! Those systems are years old now...basically he's saying they're going to start development of a console on par with old technology...it doesn't stand a chance...first of all it should be comparable with the PS3 and Xbox2...second of all they're going to have a hell of a time competing with the amout of available games for other consoles unless they are like M$ and just have money to litera

  • In related news . . . (Score:3, Funny)

    by superultra ( 670002 ) on Thursday March 04, 2004 @03:50PM (#8467053) Homepage
    McDonalds also announced today that as of September 20th 2004, children will open the bags of purchased Happy Meals and find within McDonald's own McXPlayCube, which will, according to PR Vice-President H. Burgalar "continue to establish McDonalds as a major player not only in beef preparation, but also the increasingly popular video gaming market."

    In response, Billy Gray, the 12 year old kid down the street, has stated that he plans to counter McDonalds's advance into console market with a "Whoop-ass beast of a machine that's motto will be 'All GTA All The Time.'" In what will no doubt be a welcomed change to the console market, this will not be a "box" like Scientific-Atlanta's console, but a "cool little ball of circuits in liquid that can also double as a hackey-sac."

  • HAH! (Score:2)

    by Asprin ( 545477 )

    'I can give (game players) the same performance you get out of those game boxes'

    HAH! Not if it's anything like my SA DVR/Digital Cable Box! That thing is packed with features and it's well priced from the cable company (Time-Warner), but MAN, sometimes the menus react and move so slow it's like the batteries are nearly dead!

    It should have come with a screen saver of paint drying -- you know, for the excitement.
  • I'll believe it when I see a cable box that takes less time OR EVEN EQUALS the time to update the screen that an Atari 800 used to take. I mean, in Southern California, the sluggishness of the Adelphia boxes have to be seen to be believed.

  • James McDonald: "I can give (game players) the same performance you get out of those game boxes"

    Yeah, but as with the Nokia N-Gage, just because you can match the specs doesn't mean squat. Technical skill and ability get you only half way there - even Microsoft had a hard lesson to learn about usability (of the controllers) and content (C'mon, did anyone buy the X-box for a reason other than playing Halo?). And is he really dumb enough to think that trying to do a cable box that also plays video games

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