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XBox (Games) PC Games (Games) Entertainment Games

Xbox Next to Include PC/Console Hybrid Option? 396

Posted by CowboyNeal from the little-from-column-a-and-little-from-column-b dept.
Pluvius writes "According to CNN/Money staffer Chris Morris, Microsoft's next-gen game console, XBox Next, could be PC- and XBox-compatible and retail for $599. This was one of many possibilities for the console which was explored by the B/R/S Group, a marketing firm which recently did focus testing for Microsoft. This theoretical console would also require a PC monitor or HDTV to display images and come with a full version of Windows as well as a CD burner and a keyboard and mouse. However, Morris notes that even if this hybrid becomes a reality, it would probably be an alternative to a standalone XBox Next console, much like the Sony PSX is to the PlayStation 2. Would you be willing to pay $600 for a console with all of the capabilities of a standard OEM PC?"
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Xbox Next to Include PC/Console Hybrid Option? More

Xbox Next to Include PC/Console Hybrid Option?

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  • Emulator (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 27, 2004 @08:26PM (#9273517)
    I would rather use an XBox(next) emulator on my PC!
    • If it's built like a console, then I'd rather buy an XBox (stand-alone) and mod-chip it to run Linux (like you can do with the current XBox machines). Similar capabilities exist for the standard PlayStation 2 as well.

      However, if the CPU and Video card are decent enough, and it is as modifiable as a PC... it may be a better price point than an eMachines.

  • The short, truthful answer? (Score:4, Funny)

    by The-Bus ( 138060 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @08:26PM (#9273518)
    Would you be willing to pay $600 for a console with all of the capabilities of a standard OEM PC?


    No.
    • Many people would. You pay US$600 and get a PC that will have games written to work on it, without any hardware upgrades for the next 2 years...
      • I would. Why?

        Did you forget that it's going to be a G5 processor?

        I will have a fully functional G5 Macintosh! Install OS X on that and I can party :)

        I hate the XBox...but if I could turn it into a Mac, and it had good performance...:) I could have some serious fun. It would have a fast processor and a big graphics card.

        In addition to the XBox Next games, I could play Mac OS X games!

    • Re:The short, truthful answer? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by bigman2003 ( 671309 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @08:34PM (#9273586) Homepage
      I would-

      You get an Xbox 2 (which I'm gonna buy anyway) and I can surf the web on my HDTV. And it does media, etc. etc.

      Good deal for me.
      • I would- You get an Xbox 2 (which I'm gonna buy anyway) and I can surf the web on my HDTV. And it does media, etc. etc.
        The joys of pr0n on your giant HDTV. Does life get any better?

      • Re:The short, truthful answer? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Total_Wimp ( 564548 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @09:39PM (#9273962)
        If it's a full PC, then how are you getting extra value by it being a "console" too?

        Can you play high quality games on a PC? check

        Can you use console-like controllers on a PC? check

        The only value added is on Microsoft's side. They just got you to:

        a. buy a PC from them
        b. buy a copy of Windows from them
        c. buy a "console" from them when their cost was close to zero after you already bought all the PC components.
        d. buy games that give them licensing fees instead of standard PC games that give them no licensing fees

        and you get nothing extra except the "privelage" of being in their special club of games that use PC technology but are not legaly able to be released for PC purchase without MS signing off on it.

        This is insane. I'd offer to sell you the Brooklyn bridge but it seems MS has beat me to it.

        TW

        • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @09:56PM (#9274047)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • Re:The short, truthful answer? (Score:4, Interesting)

            by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Thursday May 27, 2004 @10:16PM (#9274162) Homepage Journal
            The price you will pay for this functionality, of course, is potentially crippling DRM.

            On the other hand, if this sort of thing happens, I think we can expect Xbox games with mouse and keyboard support, which would be absolutely the ONLY thing to get me to play first person shooters on it. If the mouse is optical, you can use it on the couch or a bed or another chair and it will do fine so it seems a reasonable peripheral to me. Xbox doesn't have these controllers now because Microsoft doesn't want people thinking of Xbox as a PC. If the new Xbox doesn't have an intel chip, then maybe that removes their objection.

            • "potentially crippling DRM"

              What a bunch of FUD.

              What console doesn't have some form of DRM?

              I'm not looking at this as a PC that plays console games- I'm viewing it as a console that can do a lot more.
            • Microsoft doesn't want people thinking of Xbox as a PC.
              Maybe they do want the Xbox to be the next PC. If it comes "with a full version of Windows as well as a CD burner and a keyboard and mouse" then it could easily replace a PC. Technophobes (or people who just want to get their work done without having to fiddle around with system configs) will love this appliance-style approach.

              It would also be a great way for MS to introduce Palladium. If they tried to add DRM to a conventional PC, people would be complaining and resisting. OTOH, DRM is expected on consoles.

              Just a thought...
        • I think Xbox Live is one of the biggest advantages the Xbox has over it's competitors. You wouldn't get that on a regular PC. Internet gaming, yes, but not as polished as Live.
          Also, on a PC it seems to be kind of a lottery if a game will run or not. And you have to install the games, add patches etc. On the Xbox, you KNOW all games are gonna run, and you never have to worry about installing patches. Sure, there ARE patches, but they are usually installed automatically. So, yeah, there are a lot of things th
      • They make money on game sales, not the console price. How many 12 year old kids parents are going to buy them a $600 console + $60 games knowing they will have to do it again in 2 years. Sure there will be a few people but I would't count on nearing the popularity of the PlayStation at that price range.
        • More of them would do so when they realize their kids could do their homework and email on the same machine. Right now, many people are buying consoles every two years AND a PC every two years. This would basically save the cost of the console.
          • Consoles only come out every 5(?) years and not many parents replace their kids' computers every two years. Most kids have to share the PC with everyone else in the family. And there's always the option of buying just the PC for both games and homework.

            It isn't a bad idea but it's too expensive for a restricted PC.
    • Would you be willing to pay $600 for a console with all of the capabilities of a standard OEM PC?

      I might, or I might not.

      But I'm damn sure I'm not giving free market research to Microsoft.

  • $300 is the most ppl will pay for a console these days at launch
  • Would you be willing to pay $600 for a console with all of the capabilities of a standard OEM PC?

    If it has all of the capabilities of a standard OEM PC then isn't it a PC?

  • Would I be willing? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dgrgich ( 179442 ) * <drew&grgich,org> on Thursday May 27, 2004 @08:30PM (#9273545)
    Definitely - and I think that a great deal of the public would as well, especially if MS could market this well. Think of it this way - parents are going to buy their kids consoles as well as computers for school anyway. How can MS lose if they combine the two at a price point that beats the combined price?

    • Re:Would I be willing? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by SuperMo0 ( 730560 ) <supermo0.gmail@com> on Thursday May 27, 2004 @08:34PM (#9273587)
      Not all parents want their kids to have a gaming machine, though. Some of my friends' parents are dead set against them ever owning a video game console, and yet they own state of the art computers. This will be immediately viewed as a console by parents, if anything because of the X-Box name.

      Simply providing an example of someone who wouldn't buy it.

    • Re:Would I be willing? (Score:5, Funny)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @08:43PM (#9273642)
      It's breakthrough thinking! I mean, spreadsheets and video games both take a cpu, and a hard drive, and a monitor, so why not make some sort of computing machine that can do both? It seems so obvious in retrospect, like all great ideas I guess. Props to Microsoft!

    • Re:Would I be willing? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Ralph Wiggam ( 22354 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @08:45PM (#9273654) Homepage
      The display is the kicker. If this console could plug into a standard TV, it might work. Everyone already has a TV. Very few people have HDTVs and the adoption rate is a fraction of what was expected.

      -B

  • insert insightful subject here. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jestrzcap ( 46989 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @08:30PM (#9273551)
    Would you be willing to pay $600 for a console with all of the capabilities of a standard OEM PC?"

    No, but I would be willing to pay $600 dollars for a standard OEM PC with all of the capabilities of a console. Oh wait. I already did that.

  • Why...? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Bilange ( 237074 ) <bilange.hotmail@com> on Thursday May 27, 2004 @08:30PM (#9273553) Journal
    XBox is already already "pc compatible". The only thing different is the boot process.

    http://www.xbox-linux.org/

    http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/

    • XBox 2- Not "PC Compatible" (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @09:03PM (#9273778) Homepage
      Must I point out that the XBox 2 is confirmed to be shipping with IBM's Power PC chip line? That development machines have come on Apple G5's with a special version of Windows loaded?

      You can't just swap out the iron and expect everything to work hunky-dorey. That's got to break a lot of drivers, high-end applications, etc, etc... I'd doubt many programs would run without a re-compile.

      Probability: not bloody likely.

      Next.

      • If they bring the CLR and .NET to Xbox 2, then any application targeting the CLR and .NET (and/or Windows.Forms bindings) will work on Xbox 2. Presumably this is Microsoft's plan for the future, to have everything run on the CLR. This is good for them, because they will have the option to support arbitrary architectures, and it's good for us, because they may decide to support our favorite architecture.

        As more of Windows is rewritten in C# with .NET this will become more and more feasible.

        For an example

        • Re:XBox 2- Not "PC Compatible" (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Guy Harris ( 3803 ) <guy@alum.mit.edu> on Thursday May 27, 2004 @09:37PM (#9273955)
          If they bring the CLR and .NET to Xbox 2, then any application targeting the CLR and .NET (and/or Windows.Forms bindings) will work on Xbox 2.

          That was one thought I had. That doesn't necessarily help with existing games, but perhaps something based on Virtual PC for Mac [microsoft.com] (similar host CPU, different host OS) would be used for that.

          For an example, look at IBM's AS/400 line, I forget what the hell they're called now

          eServer iSeries.

          but they've been running the same bytecode since day one, but the platform underneath has been several different POWER processors and even a PowerPC I believe.

          And a non-POWER-family line of CPUs before that (running an instruction set called IMPI, which has been claimed to be a System/3x0-ish instruction set).

          While they're not very different from one another, the same executables run on any AS/400 system and they actually work.

          Yes, the executables are in machine code for a pseudo-machine, and are translated into native code for the machine on which they're being run; see the book Inside The AS/400 [aleksys.com].

      • confirmed to be shipping with IBM's Power PC chip

        Can you source this? I have only read this once and it sounded like nothing more than a rumor to me.

    • XBox is already already "pc compatible".

      Not unless you hack it.

      Rob
  • The only console I remember ever being higher-priced was an equally niche-market effort, the Net Yaroze [wikipedia.org], a development-equipped PS1 put out by Sony. Not many people bought it, because of price and because most people who play games don't want to develop them. This isn't exactly the same situation, but seems to appeal to about the same number of people and is priced accordingly.

  • Wrong audience. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by aardvarkjoe ( 156801 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @08:32PM (#9273565)
    Would you be willing to pay $600 for a console with all of the capabilities of a standard OEM PC?

    Sort of a silly question to ask this crowd. Virtually all of us already have a relatively decent PC, and upgrade it regularly. An XBox almost certainly wouldn't meet our needs.

    This will probably appeal more to the less technically-literate population. Instead of buying the $600 Dell and the $250 game console for the kids, you buy the $600 XBox instead. If marketed correctly, Microsoft should clean up on this.

    • Instead of buying the $600 Dell and the $250 game console for the kids, you buy the $600 XBox instead.

      Thinking like this is why the GameCube doesn't play DVD Video. Nintendo realized that the PS2 won't let one kid watch a Meg Ryan marathon and another play Soul Calibur II on the same $150 PS2 console at the same time. However, you can watch a Meg Ryan marathon on a sub-$50 Norcent DVD player while your $100 GameCube, connected to a second TV, runs SC2. Likewise, you can do spreadsheets on a PC and play

      • Thinking like this is why the GameCube doesn't play DVD Video.

        If you haven't noticed, the GC wasn't exactly trouncing its competitors. It's certainly not the only reason, but there were quite a few people that bought a PS2 because they could use it as a DVD player instead.

        You're still thinking like a slashdotter. We think it's important that everybody have access to a computer gizmo at all times. Many people of the "average Joe" variety don't think like that -- they're perfectly content to share in ord

  • Don't fool yourself (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dracol1ch ( 628484 ) * on Thursday May 27, 2004 @08:32PM (#9273566)
    Yeah, standard OEM PC. Sure. After the encryption, DRM, automatic 'upgrades' by Xbox live. This is Microsoft we're talking about here, this thing will be so crippled it'll be next to useless except for playing games. Get out yer tinfoil hat kids.

    • Re:Don't fool yourself (Score:5, Insightful)

      by PetoskeyGuy ( 648788 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @08:58PM (#9273756)
      Ah but consider this.

      A typical user user who only chats and does email gets this box. It's $600 + $20 / month. It only runs digitally signed and encrypted software, but the users don't care becase there are no spyware, viruses or other scary things on it, it even dials home every night to make sure that nothing new and scary had been found lately.

      Toss a Full copy of Office or something on it to make it useful, but users can't change the running software. No need to bother with tech support, it just works.

      Then add something like Lindows (er whatever now) OneClick shopping to add new digitally signed and encryped software to your computer. Nothing to do but click and type your credit card number. It installs and configures itself while you keep browsing with maybe a little animation playing.

      I don't know what the market for this would be, but I know some people that would love a machine they would see as guarenteed safe instead of making them feel stupid when the next virus hits and wipes out their stuff.

      The non-tinfoil-hat crowd could see this as a feature, just like they don't care to open up and change their VCR or DVD player by themselves.

      Freedom isn't for everybody. Some people just aren't ready for it.

      • Re:Don't fool yourself (Score:4, Interesting)

        by bigman2003 ( 671309 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @11:32PM (#9274522) Homepage
        I've been in the computer industry for 20 years. And I would LOVE to use what you just described.

        That is what the holy grail of consumer computing has always been. Make it easy, and make sure it doesn't break.

        We've made inroads on the 'easy' part, and then it breaks. We keep adding features, but then it isn't easy. Windows can support a gazillion hardware combinations, but then it isn't easy, and it breaks.

        I really don't need to upgrade constantly, I'd be thrilled to just have the thing work every time I turn it on.

        I'm just tired of dicking with computers- I want them to finally make my life easier..not harder.
  • how many hours it will take for someone to figure out how to hack it to run Linux. It should be mostly the same as Xbox-Linux [xbox-linux.org]

    But, I still would never pay 600 bucks for it when I can still get the Linare PC [zoovy.com] for 200 bucks and is comporable, if not better.
    • "Comparable" my ass. The XBox Next has a G5 (several if you believe the rumors). Linare's $199 box has a 1.3Ghz Duron. The current XBox has Dolby Digital surround sound, presumably XBox Next will too. Linare's got one AC97 stereo line-out jack. XBox Next will probably have a GFX card on the level of the Geforce 6800 or Radeon X800, complete with HDTV out. The Linare comes complete with an "8x AGP slot for graphics card".

      Forgive me for not being impressed.

  • At least for me, the answer is no. My gaming console is in the living room, and my workstation is in my den. It's not just two sets of functions, it's two distinct kinds of ergonomic setups. I like one setup for gaming another for typing, and I'm not going to clutter up my living room with more furniture just so I can use the TV as a PC.

    I wonder who their target audience is. Maybe people who have so little money they can't afford two screens? (it's a hard market, with decent CRT monitors going for

  • This could be very interesting (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 27, 2004 @08:35PM (#9273593)
    Last I heard, Microsoft will be using a IBM processor for the X-Box2 (presumably Power5 architecture). If the console runs a version of Windows, this would mean that Microsoft will yet again be writing a version of Windows to run on Power5 architecture. Therefore, desktop PCs could presumably be based on Power5 CPUs in the near future. This could get interesting :)
  • Would you be willing to pay $600 for a console with all of the capabilities of a standard OEM PC? That thing would have to cook me some dammned good curly fries.
  • But it does Rhyme Does this remind you oldsters of the Coleco Adam?

  • Yes, under a few conditions... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SilentChris ( 452960 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @08:43PM (#9273641) Homepage
    "Would you be willing to pay $600 for a console with all of the capabilities of a standard OEM PC?"

    Caveat: I'm a current Xbox owner. It's a great system overall.

    I'd get this new system under some conditions:

    1.) They stick with the current 2K kernel. Outside of a few games here and there, the current Xbox kernel has been rock solid. No more or less than the GameCube/PS2. If they switch to a full-fledged version of Windows, I'm bailing.
    2.) They get a large contingent of companies supporting it. I'm not talking PS2-size, but current Xbox-size.
    3.) They don't offer "upgrades" for the system. Doing so would defeat the purpose.
    4.) They go with a more common architecture than their current "shared memory frankensystem". It works for games, but I can't even use the DVD drive in another computer without an adapter.
    5.) They stick with the Xbox's strengths: great (perhaps the best) online games, solid use of the technology (they had games using pixel shaders before they even became popular on the PC), and good specs for the money.

    Do that and I'll be all over it.

  • MS would control an industry!??! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mcrbids ( 148650 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @08:45PM (#9273657) Journal
    MS has, over the years, used their monopoly in Operating Systems to dominate software - they now either control or have a substantial offering in virtually every major software category.

    Now, having put major competitors all out of business, would we really want a world where MS had a monopoly on the software AND the hardware for the entire computing industry?

    Bye-bye Dell, Compaq, HP, IBM, etc...!?!?

    Sorry, no. This is too much. I can't bear it any more. If Microsoft does this, they are turning on their best friends, the OEMs.
    • No no no... The problem with the current model is microsoft is stuck making the boxes.

      Microsoft, can do better... That is let your OEM's MAKE the boxes. This allows the market to come up with packages to sell into the living room. They will be able to decide whether or not to include media edition, xbox, and other things.

      There are many ways to include the xbox, likely for content control it would be a daughter card in the box.

      And I for one would want one. I want a PC on my HDTV, and there are n

  • XBOX Next Power vs Price (Score:4, Insightful)

    by adisakp ( 705706 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @08:45PM (#9273659) Journal

    Slashdotters get excited over the $500 video cards coming out from NVidia (FX6800) and ATI (R420). According to all the rumors, the XBOX Next video hardware is going to blow both of these away.... the question is would you pay $600 for a system that had the equivalent of 3 HyperThreaded P4's and a video card that blew away an FX6800?

    I think most people here would answer yes to that!

    • Is the new Xbox coming out tomorrow? No.

      Are the video capabilities of the console interchangeable with a stand alone PC? No.

      By the time this system comes out a video card that can out perform the next gen cards from Nvidia or ATI will be less than the price of the Xbox, I can assure you.
  • you think security might be an issue with these puppies

  • from those that modded their's to run Windows/*nix.

    If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Or at least turn it to your advantage.

  • They should swap out the CD burner for a DVD burner and you can have an all-in-one XBox game backup center! ;-)
  • Come on folks, this is a console. The whole point is to have fairly raw access to the hardware, to keep things lean and fast and mean. That's how consoles--and most performance-oriented embedded systems--work. And you want to put a relatively bloated operating system like Linux or BSD on there? Why? Okay, the article is talking about putting Windows on there for some things, but not for games, and probably not a full-blown Windows system anyway, but something simple and cut-back, like DirectX on the or
    • Who said they were wanted *BSD for game-playing? For the "PC"-like activities that would normally require 'Windows Simple and Cut-back', there could instead be a 'Linux, Simple and Cut-back' which would serve its role much better - the open source community can also tone down their 'jumbo jet' as Microsoft can... who needs RAID or firewire support on a console? If you want 'raw access to hardware' and to keep things 'lean and fast and mean', you will want BSD any day over Windows.
  • Didn't Coleco prove very well nearly two decades ago that consumers do not want a video game console that can be upgraded to a home computer?

    • Re:The Coleco "Adam" (Score:5, Insightful)

      by doogles ( 103478 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @09:13PM (#9273835)
      Didn't Coleco prove very well nearly two decades ago that consumers do not want a video game console that can be upgraded to a home computer?

      It's likely worth considering that precedant set 20 years ago in the realm of the average consumer's acceptance of technology has probably changed significantly.

      -jd
  • We've come full circle...
    The C64 and the Atari 400/800 were marketed as combo/home computer advanced game machines..

    Although oddly enough I remember the C64 only being $200.. of course it didn't have a CD-Rom drive which I guess is the extra $399...
  • MS has said it WILL NOT [com.com] equip its next Xbox with a hard drive. They have hired on M-Systems an Israeli flash mem maker to replace the HD. Supposedly with something like this [m-systems.com], but this flies in the face of most of the things this system is supposed to be capable of. Can they afford to give it a large enough solid state HD to work as a DVR/Tivo? Or to install and run PC games? I think not. So I guess we shall wait and see.

  • XBOX+PC for the HDTV+Sofa = YES! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'd buy it in a heartbeat. This could be an amazing product if done half right.

    I think people who say this sucks cause it won't run Linux or doesn't let you install your own OS have way too much time on their hands. Keep bashing Microsoft all you want - but at least they are doing something. IBM, Apple, Oracle, Sun, etc....they all could have entered the console market. They all have the money and the brand to stand up there. They didn't. They all could have battled for the OS for the living room -

  • PSX vs PS2 (Score:2, Informative)

    by darkain ( 749283 )
    much like the Sony PSX is to the PlayStation 2

    WHAT !?!? the PS2 is the successor to the PSX... neither is a stripped down version of the other. the PS2 came out several years *after* the PSX.

    • Re:PSX vs PS2 (Score:5, Informative)

      by nukem1999 ( 142700 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @09:24PM (#9273896)
      While the original PlayStation was commonly known as the "PSX", the PSX in this case is here [cnet.com]

    • Re:PSX vs PS2 (Score:2, Informative)

      by mog007 ( 677810 )
      You're not using Sony's offical terminology. You assume that "PSX" means Playstation, but it actully means Sony's new console, almost identical to the new Xbox that this article is talking about. It's a Playstation2 with a built in Tivo and MP3 playback, etc. Esstially a media center that acts like a Playstation 2.

  • Dual Video Output (Score:2, Insightful)

    by jeoin ( 668566 )
    I believe this would be an excellent feature. I know it would be great to have games running off of one console displaying on two tvs.
    It would make dual player games so much fun, and more realistic.
    It would also make single player RPGs easier to navigate and modify.

  • Yes! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rjoseph ( 159458 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @09:25PM (#9273899) Homepage
    My actual, vocalized reply upon reading the last line of the post: "yes, absof**kinglutley!"

    As someone who uses a Mac as my desktop machine and only has Linux installed on my other hardware (all of which are incapable of running the games I actually want to play), I would be infinitely more stoked to pay 600 bucks for a console on which I could play games from two platforms, rather than paying $400 for the next XBox and then another couple thou to buy myself a decent gaming machine.

    And yes, I understand that this console wouldn't actually be anywhere near equivalent to a $2000 PC, but that's exactly the point: the only time I ever use Windows or ever need a powerful machine is to play games, so craming both consoles into one sounds like a great idea to me.

    This all coming from someone who has always had an extreme aversion to dropping 400 clams on a console because I thought they never did enough "stuff." I certainly hope this fantasy comes true, even if it is from Microsoft!
  • If the PowerPC rumours are true (which they appear to be) then that means that Windows will be made for PowerPC. Most likely a 64-bit version as well.

    I wonder what the first native PowerPC software for "Windows Next" will be? Microsoft software? Yes!

    So ... people get an XBox Next, get Windows Next, and Office Next and IE Next and Outlook Next ... and it is a year before competitors even have a port ready and Microsoft have a monopoly on a whole new area, and then slowly phase out x86 PC support over the n
  • So MS is going to push the Xbox2 as a platform for gaming and computing. However, it's going to be running on PowerPC chip. Most software would require some work to be ported to WindowsPPC, which would severely limit the amount of applications available for the Xbox2.

    I guess this explains why they bought [macworld.com] Virtual PC [microsoft.com].
  • If MS sold this they would then be in the same market as Dell, Compaq/HP, Gateway etc with a low cost PC that also plays next gen XBOX games.

    That would drive the established PC manufacturers hard to Linux and turn MS into an Apple, not a good strategy for them.

    I don't see MS screwing themselves like that.

    Cheers,

    Billy

  • ADAM (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dmaxwell ( 43234 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @10:14PM (#9274153)
    I wonder why I'm getting Coleco deja vu....

    Back when dinosaurs walked the earth, all of the console manufacturers at least prototyped addons for their consoles that would turn them into general purpose machines. The ADAM was availiable both as an addon for the ColecoVision and as a Colecovision compatible computer. One of the reasons it bombed (apart from some engineering gaffs and QC problems) was that there wasn't as much overlap between console and computer users as you might think. Then as now computers had a keyboard that consoles didn't as well as styles of games consoles didn't. You just didn't lay in the floor playing Temple of Aphsai. Something like Astroblast was more fun on the family room TV.

    Faced with the '84 crash, everybody else canned their console/computer hybrids. I suspect that once again the console/computer will be a solution looking for a problem.

  • Alright, it's settled, they've lost their market (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Stevyn ( 691306 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @11:20PM (#9274458)
    Jesus christ! Their market was kids who want to spend a few hundred bucks on a console system to play video games with their friends. No one is going to spend $600. Why? Because kids usually aren't the ones who buy these! These come as christmas or birthday presents. Parents aren't going to shell out $600 for a hybrid computer when they've already shelled out money for the computer. College kids who buy these don't have that kind of cash to burn. They need to make these systems impulse buys. Their price now at $150 makes them an impulse buy for kids with cash to burn. At $600 it's a major purchase.

    I hate to join the anti-microsoft bandwagon, but if sony or nintendo were doing this, I'd feel the same way.

    This just shows how they've completely lost sight of their market.

  • Xbox is actually good for the PC games market (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Peter Cooper ( 660482 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:09AM (#9274692) Homepage Journal
    This is probably going to attract a bit of heat, but I think the Xbox is actually going to do a lot of good for the PC games industry. Let's face it, the PS2 was totally soaring ahead a couple of years ago with almost no competition. It's still big, but there's a second choice now.

    The PC games market has been eroding somewhat, due to the high cost of entry, and the fact that most modern games simply won't run properly on even current OEM boxes (i.e. ones with onboard video). You need to spend $200 on a video card to get a game above console quality, unless you're playing titles like Half-Life or Quake 3! Farcry? Forget it, you need to be spending even more.

    The Xbox is keeping developers interested in developing games on a PC-like architecture, and this means that they will either develop for the PC first, and tweak over to the Xbox, or vice versa. Simply, it means the PC won't die as a gaming platform, as long as the Xbox is popular, and as long as Microsoft doesn't get too heavy with 'Xbox exclusive' titles.. and considering Halo is out on the PC, this doesn't appear to be the case.

  • The bigger question is... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Hello Spaceman ( 739648 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @12:37AM (#9274791)

    So are we gonna have Windows running on the PowerPC, or will the Xbox 2 be running Mac OS X?

    XBox 2 SDK released on PowerMac G5s [theinquirer.net]

    XBox 2 to sport 3 64-bit IBM Chips [theregister.co.uk]

    Microsoft leaks details about XBox Next [mercurynews.com]

    XBox 2 innards laid bare on web [theregister.co.uk]

    Just think of the implications of Microsoft producing a PowerPC based PC...

  • trust building (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mr_mischief ( 456295 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @09:54AM (#9277195) Journal
    Why in the world would the U.S. government allow a company with 90% market share in PC operating systems start selling pre-built PCs?

    This has strongarm market-opening written all over it. Bet on the PC portion having the XBox's style of boot hardware -- you can't put a new OS on it without replacing a chip, and the chip also has DRM on it (with which Windows is signed), so it's illegal to replace the chip as you'd be disabling copyright protections.

    Imagine General Electric (the parent company of the U.S. media giant NBC) selling televisions which only display the NBC, CNBC, MSNBC etc. stations in its stable. Imagine Turner Cable dropping all stations which compete too closely with Turner Broadcasting's stations. If you can't condone these practices, how could you condone MS putting out a Windows-only PC (with Windows sold internally to itself at little or no cost to subsidize hardware costs)?

    Hopefully Dell, HP, IBM, eMachines, Alienware, Sony, Winbook, and the attorneys general for several states will raise all kinds of hell about this.

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