New Xbox 360 Dev Kits Shipped Out

GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that Microsoft has sent out new versions of the beta development kit for the Xbox 360, replacing the Apple platforms used up to this point. From the article: "Prior to E3, developers reported that a very small number of these more advanced kits had been manufactured, but it's only in recent weeks that they have begun shipping to Microsoft's development partners on a wide scale."

Re:FIST SPORT!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am!!

First off, How can you call any project that has averaged losses in the BILLIONS every year a success? The only reason the XBox has survived so long is that Microsoft believes that they can buy their way to market dominance. Face the facts, all XBox fans were saying that the Power Difference and Microsoft's ability to buy exclusive games was going to 'win the console war'; all Microsoft can say that they did was to virtually tie a company that has a fraction of the financial assets (Nintendo) while b

Re:FIST SPORT!

[Anonymous Coward]

all Microsoft can say that they did was to virtually tie a company that has a fraction of the financial assets (Nintendo) while bleeding out money.

Yes, because a $2 billion loss (for a $8 billion profit [yahoo.com] on $36 billion revenue) last year is "bleeding out the company". Nevermind that the $2 billion loss of their Xbox division would have made a nice tax writeoff.

And let's pretend that Sony didn't only make $0.8 billion profit [yahoo.com] last year on $71 billion revenue! What are they doing wrong over at Sony?

I would

# of units shipped vs. # of units sold

[dolphin558]

Since the launch of the original Playstation Sony's financial statements have curiously avoided stating # of consoles/games that were actually sold. Rather, they would speak of the # of units shipped that quarter. Be mindful of this language usage as it can be very deceiving. The number of units shipped has little to do with the number sold.

Re:# of units shipped vs. # of units sold

[gabebear]

The number of units shipped has little to do with the number sold.

It's likely Sony doesn't know exactly how many consoles/games were sold in each quarter. The PS2/PSP and even PS1 are still currently selling well: until demand decreases significantly the number of units shipped roughly equals number sold.

Re:FIST SPORT!

[MBraynard]

That's not a tax writeoff, the only way this is going to save M$ on taxes is that you only have to pay taxes on your net income.

You big dummy, the loss reduces the net income ergo reduces the taxes.

Re:FIST SPORT!

[SpartanVII]

And this is wrong because...?

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/30/ 1346221&tid=212&tid=98&tid=187&tid=233 [slashdot.org]

Sony isn't an angel either.

Re:FIST SPORT!

[RemovableBait]

Lets get facts straight here:

The Xbox is now making a profit for Microsoft, meaning that the entertainment division will break even quickly. What you casually forget, is that while the console sales were averaging a loss, the games were making a considerable profit. Microsoft is not stupid, it knows that the Windows and Office business streams can make enough money to subsidise the entire company (Microsoft is making an overall profit). The best scenario for Microsoft is to sell Xboxes at a loss, in large

Re:FIST SPORT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because they make a profit now, does not guarantee profit in the future, let alone breaking even. I could be wrong, but in the last quarter, the X-Box division make something like $175 million. Comparing that with the $2 billion loss they've incurred so far, that means they would have to maintain their current profitability for nearly 3 years to break even. They can't do this, especially with losing money on a new console.

20 games is a NOT a conservative estimate. Most people I know do NOT buy 20

Re:FIST SPORT!

[RemovableBait]

The people I know do not have $1000 of disposable income just lying around

Remember, this is not $1000 in one go, this is over a 4-5 year period. I would not be too surprised if people bought 4-5 games per year. Also, if these people are gamers this is not wasted money -- you may very well spend £50/month ($100) on a full digital TV package, amounting to $1200pa, all in the name of entertainment. Certainly, I don't know what it is like in the US (I'm a UK man myself), but games go for £40 here

Re:FIST SPORT!

[Fry a Lad Up]

If one person buys 20 games (a conservative estimate) at $50, thats $1000 dollars.

"And if you fill a 3000 seat hall at $800 a ticket, you gross $2,400,000. And this is what I'm shooting for.
-- Steve Martin

Re:FIST SPORT!

[Troed]

Nintendo is no longer a true competitor to these two

True. Nintendo _makes_ money. Microsoft and Sony lose money.

Re:FIST SPORT!

[RemovableBait]

Nintendo _makes_ money.

True again. But, is Nintendo's profit largely due to GameCube sales (hardware and software) or handheld (hardware and software) sales? I'd be inclined to say handheld sales.

Re:FIST SPORT!

[Anonymous Coward]

"This is exactly what Microsoft should be planning to do with the early 360 launch... sell as many units as possible and tie those people into buying games at $50 a pop for the next 4 years. If one person buys 20 games (a conservative estimate) at $50, thats $1000 dollars. Thats where the real money is... not in the $400 hardware."

You don't really understand the economics of Console based videogames do you?

No one, not even retailers, makes money off of Hardware; the entire market makes money off of softwa

Re:FIST SPORT!

[RemovableBait]

You don't really understand the economics of Console based videogames do you?

Quite correct, thats why I kept my statement general and vague. The point is the same though -- the real money is in software. Now, I don't understand these fully: if the profit margins are so low, and the reliance on third-party games is so high for Sony and Microsoft... how does Sony make a profit? Is it sheer force of numbers or simply that they don't make a profit?

I'd consider myself fairly balanced in this... currently I ow

Re:I do this for a living

[ZephyrXero]

You may test, but apparently you've never developed for a console. Sending alpha and beta development kits is pretty standard and people have been doing it for years without much problem.

Now, some developers may not fully take advantage of the final hardware because of the lack of time spent with it before launch, but it's pretty common for the first gen titles to suck anyway :P

Re:Rant Time

[Anonymous Coward]

Because if there was no game section we'd never know what games girls like to play, why girls don't play games, what it will take to make girls play games, what girls think about games, how many girls it takes to play a game, why there aren't more girls making games, what we can do to get more girls intereted in making games, and why the games we do have don't cause girls to bury their faces in my massive crotch-sausage.

Re:Rant Time

[wheany]

Don't forget to mention the Rez vibrator in each story.

Athlon? Nope...

[Better Than Bacon]

Heh, after all the hubbub lately caused by Anandtech's article [arstechnica.com] I thought for a sec that these new devkits might drop the IBM processor ... sigh.

...An article that was complete bullshit.

[Corngood]

Seriously, it was nonsense.

PS: I should actually make a point.

[Corngood]

Sort of off topic...

I haven't yet worked on any next-gen titles, but I have experience on current-gen Xbox, PS2, and PC games. Our game logic has a lot of branchy code, really branchy, spaghetti code, with lots of indirect branches, etc. This code represents the majority of the actual volume of our source, but in practice only takes something like 3-10% of CPU time. Everything else in the game is suited to parallelisation.

So we have this 10/90 split (at worst) of time spent excecuting the wacky

Re:PS: I should actually make a point.

[KDR_11k]

Is it impossible to have one that's better at both? I.e. would it have killed Sony to use a more advanced general purpose core in the Cell? Especially when they position the Cell as a processor for all kinds of systems, including desktop computers?

Re:PS: I should actually make a point.

[Corngood]

Of course it's not impossible to do both, but given the limited resources available, compromises have to be made.

This branchy code that everyone is talking about, it only represents a tiny fraction of what a game does, time wise, to the point where you have things like the Unreal Engine. Most of the controller logic in Unreal is executed by an interpreted script language. UnrealScript is 10-100x slower than native code (it even says so in the docs), but it's still used, because this stuff DOESN'T TAK

Re:PS: I should actually make a point.

[KDR_11k]

Yes but Sony is emphasizing how the PS3 will run an OS and function as a desktop computer, in that case they better make sure it can handle everything well, not just games.

Re:PS: I should actually make a point.

[wgaryhas]

Maybe there are times when the 90% is done and it has to wait on that 10% to finish before moving on to the next thing.

Re:PS: I should actually make a point.

[Corngood]

That could be true, and if you've got to the point where the 10% stuff approaches 50%, it's time to start building hardware for it. I just don't see that happening really, because a lot of that branchy code will end up being replaced by more abstract systems which are better suited to running in parallel.

I wonder?

[Dewrf]

Does anyone know what happens to the old dev kits from the old consoles?

I mean the snes and megadrive kits and others from time past.

I mean I know you needed certin hardware to run your games on when you made them but can they not be emulated?

Any information on what happens to the old kits would be appreciated.

-Jason

Re:I wonder?

[Zangief]

I do not know, but since a couple of old dev kits have surfaced on ebay, I guess not all of them are returned to Nintendo/Sony/Sega/Whatever.

Delays, delays, delays???

[shoptroll]

Not knowing too much about this, but wouldn't this have the potential for pushing back some of the software development for this system?

MS has 6 months to roll out the hardware and their launch titles in time for the holiday season. If they're looking to knock people's socks off with the 360 launch, you'd think they'd give developers more time with the real dev kits.

So what are the system specs?

[popo]

How fast *is* the thing in PC terms?

(how much would an equivalent PC cost?)

images of new xdk surface

[JonnyDrama]

the guys over at Xbox365 [xbox365.com] have got an image or two showing the new, fugly xbox 360 debug kit...